Notes Week Ending 9/28
The weekly compilation approach makes my incorrect assumptions (e.g., Arraez has the batting title wrapped up) and predictions (e.g., the National League wild card teams are clear, while the American League sorting out will be compelling) painfully clear.
9/22 N1: This is a tough thing to do a search on, but if Marcell Ozuna can pull out the batting title (and he’s within 7 points of Luis Arraez), I believe his strikeout total will race past any that a batting champion has ever had before. He has 162. The same would go for Aaron Judge and his 165 strikeouts, but he is 13 points off the lead, and will have to pass Guerrero in addition to Witt. Judge, as you probably know, came close to having this record in his 62-HR season, when he struck out 175 times, and fell just 5 points short of Arraez for the title.
Because Judge’s home run rate is so prodigious, I would have guessed Ozuna had easily the better BAbip this year. But that isn’t the case. He leads Judge by just 1 point. For their careers, Judge is both the better average hitter (.288 to .273) and BAbip hitter (.344 to .313), so it does seem that Ozuna is defying the odds somewhat.
Christian Yelich struck out 135 times when he won the 2018 title.
Strikeouts have basically doubled in frequency since Mickey Mantle’s early career, so you could say that the 99 strikeouts Mantle recorded in 1956 while winning the batting title and the Triple Crown made for the more notable contrast. That 99 strikeouts then was like 200 strikeouts now. (They did place Mantle 3rd in the AL).
But I don’t think that logic is quite right, because strikeouts have a quantifiable cost in terms of batting average. 99 strikeouts, in any environment, just do not throw away at-bats in the same number that 170 strikeouts do. But it is true that if you’re competing with lots of guys who have 25, 35, 50 strikeouts for the batting title, as Mantle was, that makes for tougher competition than the current landscape. There aren’t many Arraez out there, but the difference between Mantle and his toughest batting title competition was not as great as the typical slugger faces today. So incorporating era to measure the toll of strikeouts on batting title prospects is complex, and would take a while to assess.
9/22 N2: Was I alone in forgetting Magglio Ordonez’s .363 and batting title in 2007? (And don’t tell me I’ve forgotten more than you know.) I don’t remember this was done to any great acclaim, but I see he also finished 2nd in the MVP. The Tigers didn’t win the division or anything. ARod ran away with the award; that was his best Yankees’ offensive season, when he hit 54 home runs.
We know this was a long time ago. First, Vladimir Guerrero Sr. was 3rd in MVP. Second, the MVP vote, 1-2-3, was in order of the league RBI count.
Since I just wrote about the batting title, I will note that the AL had 20 .300 hitters that year. With his .314 average, ARod was no threat for the Triple Crown, not finishing in the top 10 in batting average.
9/22 N3: Alejandro Kirk, who was dead last in Baseball Savant’s base advancement measure, hit a triple yesterday. It was his career first, 1500+ PA in. The Rays outfielder dived/lunged for the ball coming in to try to catch it, and came up empty. The ball went to the wall. Kirk did slide to make it in, although the outcome wasn’t really in doubt. The Blue Jays' bench saluted him.
9/22 N4: The NL wildcard race is sort of interesting, although we have a good idea of the three teams that are going to make it in. The Braves will probably need to sweep the Mets this week to earn a spot. But that the AL race is exciting really is an upset, with where it was weeks and month ago. That we could have the Tigers and Mariners instead of the Royals and Twins is a shocker.
My unconsidered opinion is that the Royals are definitely in the top two, capability wise, of that group, and the Tigers are definitely not. Which is really the better team between the Twins and Mariners, I’m not sure.
With the Tigers, I feel it’s fun that they’re going for it and could post an upset, but I think it will be less fun if they actually get in. With the postseason as random as it is, they could advance, but I’ll still be left wondering what they’re doing there.
9/23 N1: Paul Skenes currently carrying a magic 1.99 E.R.A. A big-time achievement in 2024 (213 ERA+). Numbers across the board blow me away. Since baseball has lost the general public, it should keep in mind the 5, 10, 15 players who are truly exciting and whom lapsed fans can start with before hopefully truly immersing themselves again in the sport. Skenes is one of them.
I also cannot with a straight face see how we are talking about anyone else for NL Rookie of the Year. And are we partly not considering him for Cy Young out of some sort of thought that he must pay his dues first? That he has embarrassed everyone else, and made this look too easy? He has 6.0 bWar in 22 starts. That’s 2nd in the NL to Sale’s 6.4 from 29 starts. Galling to think the Pirates cost him the award by keeping him in the minors.
9/23 N2: Some of the early “highlights” of Oneil Cruz in center field were really rocky, but somehow, I see he’s already +2 there in OAA.
9/23 N3: Kerry Carpenter! Current slug, .601.
9/23 N4: Tampa Bay’s Sunday lineup featured five consecutive hitters whose first name began with J: Junior Caminero, Jonathan Aranda, Jonny DeLuca, Josh Lowe, and Jose Caballero. This appears to stem from thr frequency of ‘J’ baseball first names in general: frm a sample of 500 2024 players, I found about 19% start with ‘J’ (I won’t go into the details and limitations of my method, and the latter explaining why I use ‘about.’ But, anyway, five consecutive occurrences, when a lineup provides five openings for such streaks, on something that occurs 19% of the time, does not seem quite extraordinary. Another reference point is that then the average lineup should have 1.7 names starting with ‘J’.)
9/23 N5: There have been only two .400+ BA months for a player this year (80 AB minimum)….Can that possibly be right? I mean, Steven Kwan was hitting .397 overall as late as June 19. But Kwan’s big hot streak didn’t coincide with a month: he went 26/51 from May 31 through June 19. He hit .374 for June overall.
The incredible thing, as I detailed, is Bobby Witt not only hit .400 in July, he darn near had a .500 month. He hit .489. The other .400 was Aaron Judge’s June, when he hit .409.
My point of reference for this, having taken up baseball in 1985 and then read Keith Hernandez’s chronicle of that year the next year in a ghost-written book, was that Hernandez was Player of the Month in July of ‘85, and I knew he’d hit about .400. It turns out it was .392, and he came back and hit .395 in Sept/Oct, in 124 at-bats. He hit only .309 on the year.
9/23 N6: Josh Hader’s 4 R over a third of an inning blown save on Sunday aside, he’s been outstanding this year, with one big “but” — home runs allowed. He’s given up 1.57 per 9 innings. Looking at his career as a whole, I can see this year isn’t without precedent: he allowed 1.44 HR per 9 in 2022, for instance, and allowed more home runs in 2019 (15) than he has this year (12).
Hader is amazing at not giving up hits, but when he does, they are often impactful. This year, 29.3% of the hits against him have been big flies; the MLB average is 13.8%.
Hader came up in 2017, and has 198 saves since then. To get some context, I looked at the combined 2017-2024 statistics of everyone with 75+ saves. This produced 30 pitchers. Hader has allowed a .227 home run/hit ratio, easily the highest of the group. Also at 17%+: Craig Kimbrel (19.5%); Will Smith (17.9%); Kirby Yates (17.8%); Paul Sewald (17.7%); Wade Davis (17.2%).
Would it be accurate to say that a home run issue has prevented Hader from being a top closer, no matter how much money the Astros gave him? Everyone basically has a weakness; maybe it isn’t fair to expect any better?
Looking at overall performance, I think it’s fair to say Emmanual Clase is in a higher class. I think of him as a baby, but Clase actually has now pitched 75% as many games in his career as Hader, and isn’t that far behind him in saves, either, 157 to 198. Clase’s E.R.A. is 1.69; Hader’s is 2.68.
Outside of Clase, though, I don’t know that there has been a better closer. Edwin Diaz’s E.R.A. is 2.98 for his career.
The other guy with a really stellar E.R.A. (2.02) over the timeframe was Felipe Rivero/Felipe Vazquez. Vazquez has only had legal troubles since 2019, and we don’t know if he could have sustained the success he had over just 199 games.
Raisel Iglesias goes about it differently and doesn’t strike people as dominant. but on the criteria I’m using, is very similar to Hader. His 2017-2024 E.R.A. is 2.66, and he has 216 saves. He has pitched in 52 more games than Hader.
Kirby Yates has a 2.54 E.R.A. since 2017, in about the same number of games as Clase.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence, by the way, that Clase has the very best HR/H rate of the group, 5.9%. So of course home runs matter. And while the “hit” denominator does in a way punish a pitcher for being good in another area, Clase shows that analyzing along these lines does not preclude a dominant pitcher from getting an excellent rating.
The other closers with a rate under 10%, from lowest to highest: Mark Melancon, Felipe Vazquez (again), Camilo Doval, Roberto Osuna.
Acknowledging the flaw in this angle, how does Hader stack up in just plain home run percentage?
He’s pitched most of his career in the National League. Since the DH wasn’t permanently adopted until 2022, I looked at just the National League rate from 2017-2023 for a reference. For his career, Hader has given up 20.6 home runs per 575 AB; the comparison rate was 20.4 home runs per 575 AB. So Hader, in fact, doesn’t qualify as poor in the home run metric; he’s been almost exactly average.
But we should expect better than average from a closer, it seems. For among the 30 pitchers, Hader’s 1.12 HR/9 allowed place him just 25th.
9/23 N7: 5 steals for the Phillies in 2 innings against Edwin Diaz in a 1-run game where they should have ostensibly mattered, but nothing doing. An expression is that you can’t steal first. You can steal home, but the Phillies didn’t.
9/24 N1: I happened to have MLB players sorted by at-bats this season, and noted that Bryan Reynolds stood out for his low runs scored total, which is 70. Reynolds should have scored runs just from playing in 150 games, and, as typical with him, he’s had a solid overall batting line: he has a .343 OBP with 29 doubles and 22 home runs. Checking Baseball Reference’s Runs Scored/Time on Base statistic, Reynolds ranks 124th of 131 MLB qualifiers, confirming my initial impression.
While the Pirates don’t have a good offensive club, first, they aren’t terrible like you might think: they are 23rd in MLB in runs scored. Then Oneil Cruz edges Reynolds for the team lead in runs scored with 71, and he’s been on base just 199 times to Reynolds’ 229 (totaling H, BB, and HBP). While he has had the advantage of playing about half the games in the leadoff spot, Andrew McCutchen has scored 66 runs and only been on base 168 times.
For an explanation of Reynolds’ low runs scored total, we could look to the Pirates’ overall RISP and men-on-base performance, but the idea of this as a a limiting factor seems answered by the team’s runs scored total and the totals for Cruz and McCutchen. However, I thought it might make sense to look at the runners-on-base hitting of specific Pirates who have been hitting behind Bryan.
He hits 2nd — has in every game he’s played this year. We won’t be able to get very far looking at specific Pirate clean-up hitters, because there’s not one to be found. Reynolds shows that Derek Shelton isn’t a lineup tinkerer, per se, but apparently he tinkers when he isn’t satisfied, as no one has started more than 27 games at cleanup (Rowdy Tellez), while eight players in all have had more than 10 turns there.
The third spot shows a little bit more definition. 67 starts there for Cruz, 33 starts for Connor Joe, 32 for Ke’Bryan Hayes.
What do their clutch stats show?
Cruz’s clutch stats leave something to be desired, but I can’t build a strong theory that he has been guilty of not driving in Reynolds as often he should have. His .316 slugging average is ugly, but RISP BA is probably more important than SA, and Cruz’s .244 isn’t an eyesore, if below his overall .268 average. Then, in his other at-bats with men on base, when there’s been a runner on first only, Cruz has posted a .500 slugging average.
Since they only combine for 65 games in the 3 spot, I’m a little uncomfortable flagging Joe and Hayes, but we get farther with them. Their performance has at least probably had some impact on Reynolds’ runs scored even when they haven’t been hitting 3rd. Neither has really hit at all with men in scoring position, Joe sitting at .198 and Hayes at .192. Joe has a .465 SA with runners at 1st only, but Hayes’ overall SA with men on base is an abysmal .245 (half the problem here is just Hayes in any situation; he has a .573 OPS this year).
What about an assessment of baserunning specifically? We know that Reynolds, despite good overall speed, rates as a terrible outfielder generally. Maybe he is also a bad baserunner. Maybe he is, curiously, a good athlete and a good hitter, but lacking in the instincts department.
The data do not seem to bear out that he is a bad baserunner. Baseball Savant has him in positive territory, at +1 run. Included in this, he has advanced 33% of the time, while he could have been expected to advance 32% of the time. They also don’t have him making an out when he tried to advance.
Baseball Reference obviously totals up out on the bases a little differently. They have Reynolds making a couple, but a couple is a low total. He is 6th in the National League with 667 PA. The other 12 guys in the league with between 650 and 703 PA have averaged 6 Out on Base. Two other guys in this interval, who have presumably taken completely different approaches to risk, tie Reynolds with just 2 OOB: Marcel Ozuna, and Corbin Carroll.
Reynolds has added a reasonable 10 steals, and only been caught stealing twice. He’s been picked off once. The team has grounded into a below-average number of double plays, with no one accounting for more than 12.
Another possibility for Reynolds’ low run total, I thought, was his performance corresponding with number of outs. It stands to reason that the fewer outs there are in an inning, the more likely a time on base is to lead to a run.
Reynolds’ OBP by out: .342, ,312, and .391. So his .342 leadoff OBP is very close to his .343 OBP, which would seem to be the crucial thing, and not explain why his runs scored total is low. In the out breakdown, however, we can see that when he has gotten on with no one out, he’s had an unusually hard time scoring. His runs scored by plate appearance ratio then is 8.7%, while it’s over 10% in his plate appearances with 1 and 2 outs. It should obviously be higher in his no out PAs, all other things being equal. He’s scored at a higer rate when he’s hit with 1 out than nobody out, even though he’s gotten on base 3% more in his 0-out plate appearances. This certainly is weird, but it seems more a restatement of the fact that he hasn’t scored a lot of runs, than the kind of clarification that a low OBP with nobody out would provide.
I would need to look at Reynolds history very closely to say for sure that his runs scored total this year has just been an aberration for him, but from my first analysis, I lean that way. First, it’s his lowest run total since he came up (excluding 2020, of course). Part of his big 2021 was a 15.3% share of the Pirates’ runs. (He scored 93 for a team that scored 609; this year’s Pirates have already scored 642 runs.) Reynolds also scored over 12% of the Pirates’ runs in 2022 and 2023 (he’s at 10.9% this year). In light of the 206 times he reached base as a rookie in 2019, and the 758 runs the team scored, one might say that his 83 runs scored that year look a little low.
Not for the first time, I’m sure that is more than you wanted to know from me, but I think there are two or three interesting things in there, at least.
Postscript. I now see that, while of course hitting statistics on Baseball Reference represent the number of outs listed, the way they conceive of runs scored, they are looking at in terms of the number of outs on the board when the player crossed the plate. So, instead of runs scored being highest stemming from PA with no out, the no outs category is likely just about always the lowest, as it is for Reynolds this season. In the majors as a whole, Baseball Reference has a neat 24/38/38 split among runs by out this season.
By the way, there is absolutely no use for this breakdown on the individual player level, that I can see. I at least found a time when the other would be relevant. A breakdown of the number of outs when you were thrown out on the bases might have some use. They do have that for caught stealing, as I showed for Ely De La Cruz.
9/24 N2: I’m not sure why, but since history loomed or even seemed a remote possibility, I have been rooting for the White Sox to win games, and to leave the ‘62 Mets on the books. However, in noting that the White Sox might not make it to 500 runs this season (a continuation of their average of 3.07 a game with 6 games to go will bring them to just 497), I was geeked and thought that might be a neat thing to see, less than 500 runs in a season. A symbol of their ineptitude.
Obviously, however, to win all of their remaining games and stay tied with the Mets, they will need to score more than 21 runs. So my wishes are incompatible.
The last team to score fewer than 500 runs in a 160+ game schedule was the expansion 1969 San Diego Padres. That was some offensive club; with 38 home runs from Nate Colbert in ‘70, and a big year from Cito Gaston (a .907 OPS in 146 g, versus his .695 for his career), they scored 681 runs in 1970, but reverted to 486 in 1971, and 488 runs in 1972 (153 games).
Of all the bad 1968 hitting teams, fittingly, the White Sox were the very worst. They only made it to 463 runs that year. While their .228 team batting average has a very 2024 sound to it (ChiSox are at .220 this year), that was actually only 4th worst of the 10 AL team, and well ahead of where the Yankees were at .214. But except for Pete Ward (76 walks), no one on the team walked at all, and they were last in the league in homers, with just 71. Tommy Davis tied Ward for the most RBI on the team with 50. Luis Aparicio led in runs scored (55) and runs created (61).
Some past glory there in T. Davis and Aparicio. Even though the team lost 95 games, the 34-year-old Aparicio was placed on some MVP ballots.
9/24 N3: Researching Tommy Davis to see where he was in his career when he was with the ‘68 White Sox, I noted his Mets-to-White Sox path and realized he must have been traded for Tommie Agee. Going to “transactions” to confirm, I saw that the Mets also gave up Jack Fisher in that deal. What I knew about Fisher was that he’d given up Williams’ final home run. I didn’t know that he’d taken one for the team again and again for those early Mets, leading the NL twice in losses from ‘64-’67, and three times in earned runs allowed (he isn’t blacktyped for it, but he also led in just plain runs allowed once; for some reason, BRef doesn’t make black plain old runs allowed).
Those expecting a good foil to Williams, ala the pitcher who yielded Roy Hobbes’ pennant-winning blast in The Natural, might be disappointed in Fisher. He was just 21 when Williams got him, and I’m sure he did throw a fastball by Teddy Ballgame right before Williams’ drive, as Williams used to say. But even probably having what would be the best season of his career, Fisher in ‘60 struck out just 1 man per every 2 innings, while the AL average was 4.9 per 9 that season.
In googling him, I am now firm as well about Fisher’s having given up Maris’s 60th home run. I can see why to some, that is more significant than giving up Williams’ final home run. It isn’t to me, but I’m a Williams guy.
Back to the Davis/Agee trade….Beyond the principals, the Mets clearly gave up more, and it’s interesting to me that Agee was clearly valued more than Davis at that time. I gather there were injury questions around Davis, and a feeling that he would never again approach his flashy 230 hit, 153 RBI 1962, but both guys played over 150 games in ‘67, and Davis topped Agee in OPS+, 125 to 104. Davis was 3 ½ years older than Agee, but just turning 29 before Opeing Day of ‘68, would not have been considered old in that day. I know Agee had hit better in ‘66, when he won Rookie of the Year, than he did in ‘67, but the trade suggests to me how highly regarded Agee’s defense was (he won the Gold Glove as well as ROY in ‘66, and Rfield approves of his defense). There is also the point, of course, that Agee was a center fielder and Davis a left fielder.
In a surprising turn, while the Mets won the Agee trade from any perspective (and Davis was off to the Seattle Pilots in 1969, continuing his interesting trajectory), Davis actually outlasted Agee, retiring some three years after the latter. Davis wouldn’t have seemed an Earl Weaver type of player, and didn’t even up his performance much against lefties, but was a DH for almost 400 games for the ‘73-’75 Orioles.
9/24 N4: The Orioles have only grounded into 70 double plays this year, which is 10 less than any other team. Although these are not happy times in Oriole land, statistically, they remain a good offensive team, and I was surprised that a team with a healthy number of baserunners would have the fewest GIDP.
The first place that my mind went was that maybe they don’t hit it a lot of ground balls. Maybe those Anthony Santanders (0.56 GB/FB ratio) add up. But Baseball Reference lists the number of plate appearances each team has that resulted in a ground ball. And by this metric, the Orioles are just middle of the pack: they’ve hit the 15th most ground balls. It’s a ratio not a total, and also not accounting for the strikeout share of the pie, but I do note that Fangraphs has the Orioles with the 4th-lowest GB/FB ratio.
The Orioles are not a team that steals bases. Mullins, the shelved Jorge Mateo, and Henderson aside, they still don’t have 100 on the season, while the average team has 117.
9/24 N5: Boston beat Toronto 4-1 yesterday. Risking 26 outs by contact, the upside was just 96 pitches expended. To my surprise, not only was this not the lowest number of pitches a team has thrown this year in a 9-inning game, though, it doesn’t even rank among the 10 lowest totals a team has managed. Twenty-four games have been pitched with fewer than 100 pitches. The lowest is the 87 Arizona threw against Washington on June 20, Ryne Nelson backed up by Ryan Thompson and Paul Sewald.
I noticed that, despite the low pitch count, Boston threw just 65.6% strikes, not a particularly high percentage. So, combining the two things, the low pitches, and a strike percentage that didn’t quite keep up, where did this game rank in terms of total strikes thrown? Moved up to tied for 5th lowest this year.
That Arizona game still takes the cake ,with the Diamondbacks’ pitchers throwing just 59 strikes in it. They threw 67.8% in the game.
Joe Buck had a line last night that the Commanders/Bengals game he called would only have been disappointing if you liked punts, turnovers, and penalties. Well, if you need walks to feel at peace, Chris Bassitt did provide them for the other side. He issued 7 over four and a third. That was a career high.
He is now tied with Tyler Anderson for the most walks allowed in the AL with 70, AND has given up the most hits in the league too, AND the most hit-by-pitch. Yet, somehow, his E.R.A. is a reasonable 4.16, and his FIP 4.08.
Since Toronto is a good defensive team, Bassitt’s .335 BAbip is surprising. And it’s also surprising from his personal past performance: you have to go back to 2016 to find the last time he gave up a BAbip of .300 or better, or even one of .290 or better.
9/25 N1: The Quick Pitch show continued to convey that the White Sox losing more games than any team since 1899 would not be a story. Their win against the Angels last night was the second-to-the-last game presented, sort of in the “other news” portion of the show. The highlights got 30 seconds, while a typical game gets five times that. The basis seemed to be just that the White Sox and Angels are bad, and that only local fans and crazies like me would care. The attitude is as if the White Sox are sitting at 101 losses, not 120.
If forced to choose, I would not say this is a cover-up. If it is, it’s sort of a mild, thoughtless one at most. I wouldn’t say the network is going to great lengths to hide the story. That isn’t really necessary when it comes to divvying up highlights, anyway. It’s not as if the show takes callers, and then drops the calls when they mention the White Sox. The 30 seconds MLB Network did show included an announcer mentioning that that the team had avoided making history. If it was a concerted cover-up, that wouldn’t have been let in.
What bothers me is less the motive, than in just missing the story. It’s the idiocy of it that bothers me, and the reinforcement of the idea that MLB Network is not taking itself seriously as a news organization, is not coming to the news shows from the perspective of trying to both inform and engage fans. The haphazard presentation suggests to me that the network doesn’t care as much as I do.
9/25 N2: Back to that 500-run benchmark the White Sox haven’t reached, 500 runs proved difficult for the Mets four times between 1963 and 1968, By season, they scored 501, 569, 495, 587, 498, and 473 runs.
They “broke through” with 632 in 1969, but that was only 15 more than they managed in their terrible 1962. I guess that says a lot about the the different impact of scoring the same number of runs in different years.
9/25 N3: Mason Montgomery’s Tuesday relief outing, in which he pitched two innings and struck out the side in both, was the only such relief appearance this year (surprising!). This 24-year-old made his debut for the Rays on September 5. In his other 5.2 innings, he has struck out 9 and allowed just 1 run.
He was a 6th-round pick in 2021 and ranked the Rays 15th-best prospect before this year. His AAA season seems to have gone poorly. In 14 starts and 17 relief outings at Durham in the International League, he posted statistics of a 6.26 E.R.A., 2.0 HR/9, and 3.7 BB/9.
He’s left-handed and has an average velocity of 97.3, according to Statcast. He’s been all fastball/slider at the major league level, with 74% of his pitches the first, an approach of course that we only see with relievers. With this in mind, it’s possible that his bad AAA statistics this year only reflect struggling as a starter. We all know what effect a few blow-up games can have, and he surely would have pitched more innings as a starter than as a reliever, leading those to be the main determinant of his E.R.A.
Finally, what is it with these Mason M’s and power relief pitching? We had a comparable case last year when Bryce Miller and Bobby Miller were both exciting rookie starting pitchers. I have to admit that I not only sometimes confused them, but threw Mason Miller himself in the mix as well. Mason Miller started 6 games for the A’s last year and only pitched 4 games out of the bullpen.
9/25 N4: Seiya Suzuki continues to excel in BAbip. Currently, he, Judge and Ozuna are all tied at .368 to lead MLB. I had noted his high BAbip earlier in the year, and he’s taken it up a notch, producing a .406 BAbip since the all-star break.
9/25 N5: It’s time to put Randy Arozarena in the group of players who draw a good number of walks. You will remember he was a bit like the child who repeats a grade in terms of his rookie year, but 2021 was the year he did a full tour. Over 2021 and 2022, with 1249 plate appearances, he drew 102 walks. That’s not a bad number, but it placed 74th in MLB over that time span. But over the last two years, with 1289 PA, Arozarena has drawn 152 walks, and that places him 10th in MLB.
He makes sense as a leadoff hitter to me. I personally can live without any power in the leadoff spot, with my only reservation that that sometimes doesn’t make a guy a very good hitter, and you do want your leadoff hitter to be representative. With 20, 20, 23, and 20 home runs over the last four years, and an average of 31 doubles, that’s exactly what Arozarena has, representative power. He also gives his walks a big boost by often getting hit by pitches, a category in which he leads the American League this year, with 22.
He used to be considered an outstanding fastball hitter. Let’s work with that, although I heard there was a concern earlier this year, before his trade to Seattle, that that no longer applied. I think a lot of manangers love a fastball hitter in the leadoff spot, although I know about the thought that fastball hitters are also set up well when they hit behind a player who will be attempting a lot of stolen bases.
For whatever reason, Arozarena doesn’t bat leadoff these days. He led off 50 times in 2021, and has started fewer and fewer games there each season. Ironic, given the increase in his walks.
His .222 cumulative batting average this year has weakened his leadoff profile, but that has every look of a fluke to me, without going into deeply into exit velocity, and stuff like that. Arozarena’s numbers other than batting average show consistency, and his strikeouts have not soared.
9/25 N6: Gravitating toward the infinitesimal as I do is generally a liability and not an asset, but it does usually shield me from the danger of repeating myself. When it comes to Juan Soto and his walks, I fear I nonetheless falter, and I ask your forbearance.
In generating those walk lists with which I rated Arozarena, Soto provided the ultimate outlier. For a split second, I probably thought I was looking upon a mistake. For Soto walked 280 times over 2021-2022. Aaron Judge was 2nd, with 186. In the days before computers, people would have thought this a typo. Ten players were lodged between 150 and 186, and then there was Soto at 280.
Soto has also had a handy victory using the last two years. He’s walked 257 times. Judge has fallen from 2nd to 3rd, but this is very misleading, as he’s actually walked a higher rate in both 2023 and 2024 than Soto (and has more total walks this year, by 5). Judge was just limited to 106 games in 2023, which explains his deficit in total walks. I do believe the fear factor plays more of a role in the walks of Judge, plus Judge is protecting Soto. Kyle Schwarber is 2nd in 2023-2024 walks, with 228.
I suppose I can be accused here, not just of repetitiveness, but of bluster. For what of Barry Bonds, and his 375 walks over 2001 and 2002, and his 380 over 2003 and 2004? Those totals change the potential typo in Soto’s case to a question of whether they are an understatement.
Actually, however, the degree of outlier is only slightly different, at least using Soto’s 2021-2022. Over both couple of years, Bonds was most closely chased by someone with 238 walks (for 2001-2002, by Jason Giambi, for 2003-2004, by Todd Helton). There were more walks in Bonds’ era, I think, or you can at least see that among the star players. In 2001-2002, ten guys reached 200 walks. The 2021-2022, 2023-2024 periods have featured just four cases combined of 200+ walks.
Second, if we charted unintentional walks, not total walks, I believe loses Bonds losest the claim to biggest edge on the second-place finisher. He drew 103 intentional walks over 2001-2002, and 181 over 2003-2004, while Giambi and Helton drew 28 and 40, respectively.
I do think the point stands, however, although it seems a contradiction in terms, that the offensive walk is a category prone to outliers. That’s a funny concept. We know that relative standard deviation (standard deviation over the mean) varies statistic by statistic, but it’s funny that some statistics generally have a given distribution that governs the statistics players post, but once in a while, the distribution doesn’t apply. Most categories, I think, are not susceptible to this departure, but I think offensive walks are.
9/25 N7: Biggest drop-off for Heliot Ramos in the second half has perhaps been in his OBP. Was .365 in the first half, is .277 in the second.
9/26: Since Fernando Tatis’s return on September 2, he has 21 strikeouts and just 1 walk in the 19 games he has played. But the 7 doubles, 7 home runs, and .654 slugging average have more than made up for that.
Actually, the 21 strikeouts aren’t alarming, only translating to a 26.3% k rate, which is commonplace these days. It is really the 1 walk in 80 plate appearances that leads to the ugly ratio.
I figured Tatis’s Swing % and O-Swing% (Swing% outside the strike zone) during this time. Using 60 PA as a requirement, his Swing % is 10th highest among the 198 qualifiers, his O-swing% 27th highest.
These numbers as well reflect that Tatis has been less patient since his return. As he got hurt in the Padres 80th game, I used 250 PA for qualification for the pre-injury portion of his season. Tatis’s Swing % at that time was 42nd highest of the 126 qualifiers, so exactly at the edge of the first third. His O-Swing% actually rated in the top half — 51st best.
9/27 N1: Since he started Thursday night, we can close the books on Mitch Keller’s 2024, and I have to say, I find him an interesting study. He always comes to the same place of an average starting pitcher or slightly better. He has an ERA+ of 99 this year, and was at 106 and 104 the previous two years.
Both this year and last year have featured a collapse in the second half, however, at least on the surface. He was 10-5 with a 3.46 E.R.A. at the all-star break this year, but finished 1-7 with a 5.65 E.R.A. In 2023, the pattern was 9-4, 3.31, then 4-5, 5.59.
But I don’t think we should read much into the deterioration in the general statistics this year. His SO/BB ratio in the second half has been above average, 3.05, and not far off the 3.50 ratio he had in the first half. He struck out William Contreras on a fastball that exceeded 96 MPH Thursday. His second-half E.R.A. is bloated because he’s had games where he’s allowed 8, 8, and 7 earned runs, but his median game score in the second half has been 51, on a measure designed so 50 would be average.
Keller has faced left-handers and right-handers with about equal frequency this year, and allowed a .492 SA to left-handers, a .395 to right-handers. I think his worse performance against lefties has mostly been a matter of luck. He has had a better GB/FB rate against righties (1.23) than against leftoes (0.92). But he’s actually struck out lefties at a much better clip (24.0%) than he has righties (18.8%). Those are the two key statistics for predicting platoon splits going forward. (There may be others, but the measures of actual performance are less telling.)
9/27 N2: My friend Taylor Walls seems to be in the lineup most of the time for the Rays. In terms of a lack of power, we know he has no peer, and the idea that he is a superior defender isn’t supported by the Statcast methodology at all: average OAA of -6.7 over the last three years, including -3 this year.
FanGraphs has him at -0.1 WAR. Time to call him into the principal’s office. We give the Rays the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t get this one.
9/27 N3: Tigers’ magic underscored by the fact that they have a .299 team OBP. They are one of three teams under .300.
9/27 N4: Right now, Emmanuel Clase, Hunter Gaddis, Cade Smith and Tim Herrin have all pitched 70 games, and all have E.R.A.s under 2.00, although Smith and Herrin are “pushing against” enough that I rather hope they sit out to preserve the feat. It is, of course, a first.
The 2003 Dodgers, featuring Eric Gagne, Paul Quantrill, and Guillermo Mota, are the only team who had 3 pitchers pitch 70 games and finish with E.R.A.s under 2.00. A pitcher record in 2003 (was a record before Clevleand, anyway) — that seemed inconceivable to me. But the NL E.R.A. in 2003 (4.28) actually wasn’t that much higher than the MLB E.R.A. this year (4.08).
9/27 N5: Tyler Holton — he’s been critical to the Tigers’ success, but you Tigers’ fans will have to explain him to me. A .204 BAbip this year in 93.1 innings, a .213 BAbip in 85.1 innings last year. He’s not a big ground ball guy (1.28 GB/FB ratio each of the last two years, when 1.1 is about average). He doesn’t throw sidearm or anything. Has a gift for getting ‘em to hit ‘em where they are, I guess.
9/27 N6: It looks like the Marlins have a piece in Otto Lopez. Both the Baseball Savant approach (+11 Run Value) and Defensive Runs Saved approach (+10) love his defense, and he’s only had 115 games in the field to build those numbers. Offensively, at least based on 2024 MLB performance, he’s a classic middle infielder, providing some average and steals, while not bringing much to the table in the walks and power departments, if not quite killing you there. Most second baseman in 2024 can’t hit, so I’ll take what Lopez does.
9/27 N7: I was going to say that I love seeing Ohtani and Judge going into the postseason hot, even by their standards. But then I remembered there is no such thing as hot, and I should not succumb to such imbecility. Now I wish they would save it for the postseason (as if such an idea were any more meaningful).
9/27 N8: I noticed that Cecil Fielder had only 2 stolen bases in his career. If I figured it correctly, his first steal came when he was 32 in his 1097th MLB game. The clip is on Youtube. There’s no real catch to it, except that the infielder did drop the ball. But it was more legitimate than I expected. The game wasn’t in Detroit, but the Minnesota fans knew what was going on, and applauded. (Good for them!)
Mark McGwire beat Fielder in steals, 12 to 2, but lost to him in triples, 7 to 6.
Fielder also didn’t steal in his 1.031 OPS season in Japan, but in the minors, in 518 games, he stole 7 bases.
9/27 N9: Struck that Mark McGwire only had 1626 hits. With all of his injuries and time spent in the military, I don’t think of Ted Williams as having had a lot of plate appearances, but he had over 2000 more than McGwire.
Or I guess we could look at it that Sosa had 2408 hits, or almost 50% more than McGwire. Add in walks, where McGwire has a 388 edge, however, and half of that differences (49.6%, to be precise) goes away.
9/27 N10: Wo. O.k., this is pure trivia, given that it was just a 60-game season, but I hadn’t picked up that Mr. Slow Triples Hitter of 2024, Mike Yastrzemski (he has 9 of them), tied for a share of the NL lead in triples in 2020, if with only 4. Registered 27.5 ft/sec that season, which sounds in line with his 27.1 this season, but a difference that put him in the 68th percentile for sprint speed instead of the 44th.
His speed data, season by season, actually makes perfect sense. It says he’s gotten just a touch slower. His “to first “ times are also consistent with his sprint speed times. His data do not jump around.
9/27 N11: Things would have been buzzy today if a 25-year-old Matt Kemp had put up a -37 Rfield, as he did in 2010. Of course, I don’t know how accurate that was. I don’t know if maybe that reflects partly a limitation of Total Zone Rating, if that’s how it was computed. But Kemp’s overall Rfields, including a stretch where he was -16 to -23 every year from 2014-2017 (if as an older corner outfield) perhaps give more credence to the 2010 number.
I was trying to decide how similar Kemp and Raul Mondesi were, but didn’t really care, not enough to go into it. Offensively, I think Mondesi certainly approached Kemp’s general offensive level, if you throw out Kemp’s 172 OPS+ in 2011. That was a surprise to me; I had had a higher opinion of Kemp. Both precocious star Dodger center fielders, and both not worth much in their 30s after leaving the Dodgers.
9/27 N12: This Bob Watson could hit a little bit, couldn’t he? I’m embarrassed I knew so little about him. I guess, growing up when I did, Jose Cruz was the Astro I knew who distinguished himself despite the ballpark. Watson was a batting average qualifier every year from 1972-1980, and had an OPS+ of 124 or better every year. In a six-year span, from 1972-1977, he was at 137 or better in five of the six seasons. He never had a killer season, never was higher than 149 or rated higher than 4th in the league, but his consistency was part of what makes his record soadmirable.
Over his career, he hit 67 home runs at home, 117 on the road.
Frankly, before stumbling onto his record, the only two things I knew about him were his Yankees front office work, and scoring the millionth run.
9/27 N13: I was very surprised to see that the 1972 Astros had four players hit over 20 home runs, and one of them was not Watson, although he hit 16. Because of a labor issue, it was only a 153-game schedule, too. The 20+ bombers were Lee May (29), Jimmy Wynn (29), Cesar Cedeno (22) and Doug Radar (22).
The team hit 134 home runs, finishing 3rd in the NL. They were topped by the Giants (150 HR, led by Dave Kingman and Bobby Bonds) and by the Braves (144 HR, led by Henry Aaron and 23-year-old catcher, Earl Williams).
The Astros home/road home run split of 58/76 didn’t strike me as that notable. In fact, it suggested to me that maybe the ballpark wasn’t playing as it normally did. But ranking by road home runs rather dispels this thought. The Astros’ 76 road home runs led MLB, and no other team had more than 66 (the Reds).
The Reds won the NL West, by the way, going 95-59. The Astros went 84-69.
9/27 N14: Jimmy Wynn and Bob Watson died in 2020, less than two months apart. Wikipedia says Watson died of kidney disease, and for Wynn, does not have a cause for death. (I am particularly diligent in looking up cause for 2020 deaths, first, because I know I am more likely to notice them on account on the beginning of COVID, and also because I know I am insinuating COVID night have been the cause without mentioning otherwise.)
Watson’s first few major league years were just a few at-bats here and there, but the two were basically teammates from ‘68-’73.
9/27 N15: Must have been a biggie trade at the time. Off-season after 1972, Earl Watson and Taylor Duncan went to the Braves to the Orioles for Pat Dobson, Roric Harrison, Davey Johnson and Johnny Oates. Not only did Williams hit 28 home runs in 1972 with 116 of his games at catcher, but he had bettered that in 1971 and was Rookie of the Year. He’d hit 33 home runs. But since no team ever really committed to him as a catcher and his Rfield numbers are oh la la, it’s clear there wasn’t really the sex appeal here that one would assume with a very young catcher with rare power production.
Anyhow, I’d like to look into this trade and these careers more.
9/28 N1: When I was looking at highest batting averages for one month this year, one that came up (it might have even been top 5) was Jonathan India’s .380 June. Yet he’s hitting just .249 as we come into the final twp days of the season. That .380 came in 27 starts as well, so had a full month’s impact on his season average. My point isn’t just that he’s really had his struggles in the other parts of the year, but also to appreciate the unlikelihood of someone who doesn’t hit for a good batting average (he’s also just .253 career) having such a good month.
9/28 N2: Among those with 1000 career plate appearances, the most impressive GDP/PA ratios among active players belong to TJ Friedl (0.34%, 1183 PA), Cavan Biggio (0.49%, 1854 PA), LaMonte Wade (0.54%, 1659 PA), and Jake Bauers (0.58%, 1738 PA).
With the possible exception of Friedl, none of these come to mind as a prominent speedster. The average GB/FB ratio in the game is about 1.1-1. They are all certainly on the fly ball side, although I don’t have the time this morning to nail down exactly how far. Their GB/FB ratios are 0.79 (Friedl), 0.81 (Biggio), 0.86 (Wade), and 0.90 (Bauers).
Jazz Chisholm’s data are impressive. He has a career 1.33 GB/FB ratio, yet has a 0.72% GDP percent in 1810 PA. Chisholm does have a high 27.5% strikeout rate, which does also ward off double plays. Bauers also gets a boost from his strikeout rate; 29.2% for his career.
Concerning his speed and baserunning (apparently my ever-present concern), Mike Yastrzemski is also one of only 34 active players with a GDP ratio of under 1%. There are 2576 PA going into that rate, too. He registers as more of fly ball hitter than any of the others on this list: a 0.76 GB/FB ratio.