I noticed that Royals relievers Kelvin Herrera (1.43), Wade Davis (1.00), and Greg Holland (1.44) all have ERAs below 1.50. I used the Play Index and discovered that they're the second team in history with three pitchers, 60+ innings pitched, ERA below 1.50. The other team: the 1907 Cubs, who used a total of eight pitchers that year and had a TEAM ERA of 1.73. Of course, the Cubs' three pitchers were all starters.The typical modern team carries 12 or 13 pitchers and, over the course of a season, uses 25 or so, including trades, call-ups, etc. Of the Cubs' eight pitchers, one was a 20-year-old who appeared in five games. So they had seven pitchers who pitched 1356.2 innings, or about 193.2 per pitcher.
Baseball. Analysis. Analysis of baseball. Baseball of analysis. No, wait, that makes no sense.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Before the Royals Get Eliminated
This is something I noticed last weekend, posted it to a Facebook group, and was mentioned this morning on the Effectively Wild podcast:
Your On The Field Of Play Postseason Primer
Postseason play starts today. I'm going to throw out some opinions and predictions. I don't pretend that they'll be right or anything like that. I'll update them as we get deeper into October. For a clever, funny take on the postseason, check out Hardball Talk's Craig Calcaterra on whom to support in the American League and the National League.
American League Wild Card Game. Predicting the outcome of one game in baseball is sheer folly, and I'm not going to do it. This isn't the NFL, where bad teams almost never beat good teams. This year the Los Angeles Angels had the best record in the American League (and, for that matter, all of baseball). The Texas Rangers had the worst. The Angels, as you might expect, beat up on the Rangers, winning the season series 14-5. That means the Rangers won 26% of their games with LA. That's dominance over 19 games, but for any one game between the clubs, the Rangers had a better than one-in-four chance of winning. So predicting the winner of one game between two good clubs? It's just silly.
Anyway, tonight's AL wild card game is Oakland at Kansas City. (Throughout this post, the links will be to my most recent 30-day flyovers of the teams. Keep in mind that the data and commentaries in the links are relevant as of the day of the post.) Whatever happens, this game will break my heart, because these are possibly the two most compelling teams in the entire postseason as far as I'm concerned. Consider:
National League Wild Card Game. Again, predicting the outcome of one game in baseball is sheer folly, and I'm not going to do it. A few interesting points about San Francisco at Pittsburgh: The Giants travel to PNC Park, where the Pirates tied for the league lead for the best record at home (51-30). The Giants' road record of 43-38 was the third best in the league, however. The Giants' starting pitcher, Madison Bumgarner, will get Cy Young Award votes this year: He was fourth in wins (18), innings pitched (217.1), strikeouts (219), and strikeouts/walks (5.1), and seventh in WHIP (1.09). He also led all pitchers in home runs (4), RBI (15), and, among those with over 40 plate appearances, batting average (.258), on base percentage (.286), and slugging percentage (.470). The Pirates' starter, Edinson Volquez, had a career-best 3.04 ERA, aided by a career-low walk rate of 8.8% of plate appearances. On the other hand, he batted only .038--he's no Madison Bumgarner--and in his one postseason appearance, for the Reds in the 2010 Divisional Series against the Phillies, he didn't make it out of the second inning: four hits, two walks, and no strikeouts in an inning and two-thirds, good for a 21.60 ERA. If the Pirates lose, we'll be down to just one small-market low-payroll team in the postseason.
American League Divisional Series: Detroit-Baltimore. Let's go over the negatives first: The O's have been lucky (32-23 record in one run games--that's luck, not skill), they don't get on base enough (.311 on base percentage, fifth worst in the league), and they're without three of their best players (catcher Matt Wieters, third baseman Manny Machado, first baseman Chris Davis). The Tigers' supposedly invincible rotation of Max Scherzer, David Price, Justin Verlander, Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello had the sixth-worst ERA (3.95) in the league since the All-Star Break; and defending two-time MVP Miguel Cabrera has been only really good (seventh in batting average at .313, tenth in on-base percentage at .371, seventh in slugging percentage at .524) instead of sensational. Overall, there's part of me that thinks that the Orioles have been doing it with mirrors: Starting rotation led by Chris Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen, Bud Norris, and Miguel Gonzalez, 54-29 with a 3.44 ERA after a combined 109-104, 4.16 ERA in their prior seasons? Home run champion Nelson Cruz with 40 bombs at age 33 after never hitting more than 33 in a season? Outfielder Steve Pearce with a .556 slugging percentage after slugging .377 in seven prior seasons? Still, I think there are legitimate questions about the Tigers pitching, and I have a mild aversion to first-year managers (the Tigers' Brad Ausmus) in the postseason, particularly when the other guys have Buck Showalter. I favor the Orioles.
American League Divisional Series: Wild Card-Los Angeles. The Angels had the best record in baseball at 98-66; a three-game losing streak at the end of the year prevented them from getting 100 victories. And they will play, with home field advantage, a wild card team with serious flaws, as the A's can't win (at least since the All-Star Break) and the Royals can't hit. Still, I could see a potential upset here. The Angels' best starting pitcher, Garrett Richards (13-4, 2.61 ERA), is out for the year with a knee injury. Their second-best starter, Matt Shoemaker (16-4, 3.04 ERA) hasn't pitched since September 15 due to a strained oblique. Jered Weaver (18-9, 3.59) has had a good season, but after that, they are probably going to tax their pretty-good-but-not-great bullpen. They're the best hitting team in the league (4.8 runs per game, 0.1 better than the Tigers) and they have the league's MVP, Mike Trout, so I'm not going to pick against them. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were to lose.
National League Divisional Series: St. Louis-Los Angeles. For whatever it's worth, I'll bet you there are more people rooting against these two teams than the other eight in the postseason combined. Of course, the biggest reason for that is that the Yankees and Red Sox aren't playing. But the Cardinals have become a postseason constant (they've missed it only four times since 2000) and their claim to the "best fans in baseball" annoys everyone who doesn't follow the team. As for the Dodgers, they've supplanted the Yankees as the big-payroll behemoth ($213 million payroll vs. $208 million for the Yankees) and they have one of the most polarizing players in baseball, Yasiel Puig. (I like him, but his antics irk a lot of people). As for the teams, they have their weaknesses--the Cardinals' offense (tenth in the league in scoring 3.8 runs per game), and the Dodgers' bullpen (eighth in the league in runs allowed per nine innings at 3.8). They have the likely 1-2 Cy Young Award finishers: The Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw (21-3, 1.77 ERA) is a mortal lock, and the Redbirds' Adam Wainwright (20-9, 2.38 ERA) is almost certainly the runner-up. The Cardinals, though, have been kind of lucky, as their run differential (619 scored, 603 allowed) is the lowest among the playoff teams, aided by a second-in-the-league 32-23 record in one-run games. That's enough for me to think the Dodgers will avenge last year's NLCS loss.
National League Divisional Series: Wild Card-Washington. As I said in my Nationals 30-day flyover:
American League Wild Card Game. Predicting the outcome of one game in baseball is sheer folly, and I'm not going to do it. This isn't the NFL, where bad teams almost never beat good teams. This year the Los Angeles Angels had the best record in the American League (and, for that matter, all of baseball). The Texas Rangers had the worst. The Angels, as you might expect, beat up on the Rangers, winning the season series 14-5. That means the Rangers won 26% of their games with LA. That's dominance over 19 games, but for any one game between the clubs, the Rangers had a better than one-in-four chance of winning. So predicting the winner of one game between two good clubs? It's just silly.
Anyway, tonight's AL wild card game is Oakland at Kansas City. (Throughout this post, the links will be to my most recent 30-day flyovers of the teams. Keep in mind that the data and commentaries in the links are relevant as of the day of the post.) Whatever happens, this game will break my heart, because these are possibly the two most compelling teams in the entire postseason as far as I'm concerned. Consider:
- The Royals are making their first postseason appearance since they won the World Series in 1985. By contrast, the A's have been to the postseason seven times since the current format (Divisional Series-Championship Series-World Series) was instituted in 1995, and they've lost seven Divisional Series excruciatingly, three games to two. In the other year, 2006, they were swept in the ALCS by the Tigers. So both teams are due.
- I am a sucker for small-market, low-payroll teams. This year, only three teams made the postseason with payrolls below the major league median of $95.8 million: The Royals ($89.3 million), the A's ($74.9 million), and the Pirates ($71.5 million). Those three teams were 17th, 26th, and 27th in total payroll. The other seven playoff teams were 1st, 4th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 15th. The A's-Royals game will eliminate one of the three low-payroll teams.
- The A's were tied for the second-worst record in baseball (5-8) over the last two weeks of the season. They had the worst record (10-18) over the last 30 days. They tied for the fourth-worst record (29-38) since the All-Star break. Yet they finished with the best run differential (729 scored, 572 allowed) in the majors. Kansas City, by contrast, scored only 27 more runs than they allowed, the second-lowest differential (St. Louis' was 16).
- The Oakland Moneyball teams were famous for drawing walks and hitting home runs. (This year's version was only eighth in homers but lead the league in walks.) The Royals were last in the league in both.
- The starting pitcher for the Royals, James Shields, was acquired by the team in a big trade last year (that many criticized because of the hitter that they gave up, Wil Myers) specifically for his ability to win big games like tonight's. The starting pitcher for the A's, Jon Lester, was acquired by the team in a big trade this year (that many criticized because of the hitter they gave up, Yoenis Cespedes) specifically for his ability to win big games like tonight's.
National League Wild Card Game. Again, predicting the outcome of one game in baseball is sheer folly, and I'm not going to do it. A few interesting points about San Francisco at Pittsburgh: The Giants travel to PNC Park, where the Pirates tied for the league lead for the best record at home (51-30). The Giants' road record of 43-38 was the third best in the league, however. The Giants' starting pitcher, Madison Bumgarner, will get Cy Young Award votes this year: He was fourth in wins (18), innings pitched (217.1), strikeouts (219), and strikeouts/walks (5.1), and seventh in WHIP (1.09). He also led all pitchers in home runs (4), RBI (15), and, among those with over 40 plate appearances, batting average (.258), on base percentage (.286), and slugging percentage (.470). The Pirates' starter, Edinson Volquez, had a career-best 3.04 ERA, aided by a career-low walk rate of 8.8% of plate appearances. On the other hand, he batted only .038--he's no Madison Bumgarner--and in his one postseason appearance, for the Reds in the 2010 Divisional Series against the Phillies, he didn't make it out of the second inning: four hits, two walks, and no strikeouts in an inning and two-thirds, good for a 21.60 ERA. If the Pirates lose, we'll be down to just one small-market low-payroll team in the postseason.
American League Divisional Series: Detroit-Baltimore. Let's go over the negatives first: The O's have been lucky (32-23 record in one run games--that's luck, not skill), they don't get on base enough (.311 on base percentage, fifth worst in the league), and they're without three of their best players (catcher Matt Wieters, third baseman Manny Machado, first baseman Chris Davis). The Tigers' supposedly invincible rotation of Max Scherzer, David Price, Justin Verlander, Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello had the sixth-worst ERA (3.95) in the league since the All-Star Break; and defending two-time MVP Miguel Cabrera has been only really good (seventh in batting average at .313, tenth in on-base percentage at .371, seventh in slugging percentage at .524) instead of sensational. Overall, there's part of me that thinks that the Orioles have been doing it with mirrors: Starting rotation led by Chris Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen, Bud Norris, and Miguel Gonzalez, 54-29 with a 3.44 ERA after a combined 109-104, 4.16 ERA in their prior seasons? Home run champion Nelson Cruz with 40 bombs at age 33 after never hitting more than 33 in a season? Outfielder Steve Pearce with a .556 slugging percentage after slugging .377 in seven prior seasons? Still, I think there are legitimate questions about the Tigers pitching, and I have a mild aversion to first-year managers (the Tigers' Brad Ausmus) in the postseason, particularly when the other guys have Buck Showalter. I favor the Orioles.
American League Divisional Series: Wild Card-Los Angeles. The Angels had the best record in baseball at 98-66; a three-game losing streak at the end of the year prevented them from getting 100 victories. And they will play, with home field advantage, a wild card team with serious flaws, as the A's can't win (at least since the All-Star Break) and the Royals can't hit. Still, I could see a potential upset here. The Angels' best starting pitcher, Garrett Richards (13-4, 2.61 ERA), is out for the year with a knee injury. Their second-best starter, Matt Shoemaker (16-4, 3.04 ERA) hasn't pitched since September 15 due to a strained oblique. Jered Weaver (18-9, 3.59) has had a good season, but after that, they are probably going to tax their pretty-good-but-not-great bullpen. They're the best hitting team in the league (4.8 runs per game, 0.1 better than the Tigers) and they have the league's MVP, Mike Trout, so I'm not going to pick against them. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were to lose.
National League Divisional Series: St. Louis-Los Angeles. For whatever it's worth, I'll bet you there are more people rooting against these two teams than the other eight in the postseason combined. Of course, the biggest reason for that is that the Yankees and Red Sox aren't playing. But the Cardinals have become a postseason constant (they've missed it only four times since 2000) and their claim to the "best fans in baseball" annoys everyone who doesn't follow the team. As for the Dodgers, they've supplanted the Yankees as the big-payroll behemoth ($213 million payroll vs. $208 million for the Yankees) and they have one of the most polarizing players in baseball, Yasiel Puig. (I like him, but his antics irk a lot of people). As for the teams, they have their weaknesses--the Cardinals' offense (tenth in the league in scoring 3.8 runs per game), and the Dodgers' bullpen (eighth in the league in runs allowed per nine innings at 3.8). They have the likely 1-2 Cy Young Award finishers: The Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw (21-3, 1.77 ERA) is a mortal lock, and the Redbirds' Adam Wainwright (20-9, 2.38 ERA) is almost certainly the runner-up. The Cardinals, though, have been kind of lucky, as their run differential (619 scored, 603 allowed) is the lowest among the playoff teams, aided by a second-in-the-league 32-23 record in one-run games. That's enough for me to think the Dodgers will avenge last year's NLCS loss.
National League Divisional Series: Wild Card-Washington. As I said in my Nationals 30-day flyover:
The Nationals don't seem to me to have any noticeable holes. The bullpen's not great, but with that starting rotation, they aren't overly reliant on their relievers. They'll get the winner of the Giants-Pirates wild card game for a five-game series starting Friday. They will be favored to win, with good reason.(I also added, "which probably means they'll get swept or something." As FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron said in a chat last week, referring to success in the postseason, "There's no secret formula that works better than others. It's basically random.") This isn't a knock on the two wild card teams. I think the Pirates and Giants are both better teams than the American League entries. It's just that the Nationals have the league's best starting rotation, no glaring weaknesses in the lineup, and a bullpen that's not sensational but good enough. They're my pick to go all the way.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Flyover: Washington Nationals
Well, the season's over--dramatically, in the case of the Washington Nationals--and so is this series. At this point, the relevant teams are the ten that could still win the World Series. Nine of them are the Orioles, Tigers, Royals, A's, Angels, Cardinals, Pirates, Dodgers, and Giants. Washington's the tenth. As a reminder, for each team, I'm looking at how they've done over the past 30 days.
How Are They Doing Lately? The Nationals have the best record in the majors over the past 30 days, 20-9. They scored 4.0 runs per game, seventh in the league, and gave up 3.1, the third fewest. (The league averages were 3.9 per game). At 96-66, they tied the Orioles for the second-best record in baseball.
What's Going Right? They're seventh in batting average (.254), fifth in on base percentage (.325), and fifth in slugging percentage (.397) over the past 30 days. The league average slash line, by contrast, is .249/.310/.379. They've walked in 8.5% of plate appearances, second most in the league, indicative of their good plate discipline (swinging at 30% of pitches outside the strike zone, fourth fewest in the league). They're fourth in the league in homers with 30, as is their percentage of fly balls that go over the fence, 12%. The latter, well above the league average of 9%, suggests they may have been a little homer-lucky, as their full season average is 10.6%. Complementing their power, the Nationals led the league in stolen bases over the past 30 days with 22, and they've been more successful at their stolen base attempts (73%) than average (68%). All told, the offense has been good and balanced.
The pitchers' 2.59 ERA over the past 30 days is second in the league. The starters' 2.32 is easily first (the Pirates are second at 2.56) and the bullpen's 3.23 is seventh compared to the league average of 3.73. The pitchers have also epitomized the On The Field Of Play mantra, it's good to throw strikes, it's better to get strikes, as they've been the best in the league at throwing strikes over the past 30 days (51.3% of pitches in the strike zone) and the best at getting strikes (opposing batters swinging at 33.6% of pitches outside the strike zone).
What's Going Wrong? The starting pitchers have probably been a little lucky. Three of their indicators of luck--batting average on balls in play, home runs as a percentage of fly balls, and baserunners stranded--are so far below the league averages over the past 30 days that they are likely to revert toward the mean. The starters have allowed just a .262 batting average on (non-homer) balls in play compared to a league average of .307, they've allowed homers on only 5.6% of fly balls compared to a league average of 8.5%, and they've stranded 76% of baserunners compared to a league average of 72%. I'm not suggesting they'll revert to the mean--this is a talented rotation--but their seasonlong averages of .292, 8.5%, and 75% seem more realistic. Not to worry, though: Washington's 3.04 ERA for the full year is the best in the majors.
Who's Hot? The Nats' outfield, that's who. Bryce Harper in left, Denard Span in center, and Jayson Werth in right have combined to bat .308 with a .398 on base percentage and a .488 slugging percentage over the past 30 days. Again, the league average slash line is just .249/.310/.379. Werth, who's drawn 20 walks, second most in the league, has a league-high on base percentage at .470. Third baseman Anthony Rendon has also been hot too, batting .319 with a .406 on base percentage and .484 slugging percentage.
As for the starting pitchers, the big question going into the postseason is which one goes to the bullpen. The starting five is Jordan Zimmermann (4-0, 1.32 ERA), Stephen Strasburg (4-1, 1.13 ERA), Doug Fister (4-1, 1.87 ERA), Gio Gonzalez (4-1, 2.48 ERA), and Tanner Roark (3-2, 3.09 ERA). Drew Storen took over as the team's closer and didn't allow an earned run during the month, compiling ten saves.
Who's Not? The only hitters with a cold bat over the past 30 days are second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera, acquired from the Indians at the trade deadline (.211/.287/.344 slash line) and catcher Wilson Ramos (.185/.202/.272). The bullpen, despite Storen's September, is probably the team's weak spot. Storen got his job because Rafael Soriano blew up, compiling a 6.48 ERA in the second half of the season after a 0.97 ERA up to the All-Star break. Over the past 30 days, no Nationals reliever with over seven innings pitched has an ERA below 3.50 except Storen.
What's the Outlook? The Nationals don't seem to me to have any noticeable holes. The bullpen's not great, but with that starting rotation, they aren't overly reliant on their relievers. They'll get the winner of the Giants-Pirates wild card game for a five-game series starting Friday. They will be favored to win, with good reason. Which probably means they'll get swept or something.
How Are They Doing Lately? The Nationals have the best record in the majors over the past 30 days, 20-9. They scored 4.0 runs per game, seventh in the league, and gave up 3.1, the third fewest. (The league averages were 3.9 per game). At 96-66, they tied the Orioles for the second-best record in baseball.
What's Going Right? They're seventh in batting average (.254), fifth in on base percentage (.325), and fifth in slugging percentage (.397) over the past 30 days. The league average slash line, by contrast, is .249/.310/.379. They've walked in 8.5% of plate appearances, second most in the league, indicative of their good plate discipline (swinging at 30% of pitches outside the strike zone, fourth fewest in the league). They're fourth in the league in homers with 30, as is their percentage of fly balls that go over the fence, 12%. The latter, well above the league average of 9%, suggests they may have been a little homer-lucky, as their full season average is 10.6%. Complementing their power, the Nationals led the league in stolen bases over the past 30 days with 22, and they've been more successful at their stolen base attempts (73%) than average (68%). All told, the offense has been good and balanced.
The pitchers' 2.59 ERA over the past 30 days is second in the league. The starters' 2.32 is easily first (the Pirates are second at 2.56) and the bullpen's 3.23 is seventh compared to the league average of 3.73. The pitchers have also epitomized the On The Field Of Play mantra, it's good to throw strikes, it's better to get strikes, as they've been the best in the league at throwing strikes over the past 30 days (51.3% of pitches in the strike zone) and the best at getting strikes (opposing batters swinging at 33.6% of pitches outside the strike zone).
What's Going Wrong? The starting pitchers have probably been a little lucky. Three of their indicators of luck--batting average on balls in play, home runs as a percentage of fly balls, and baserunners stranded--are so far below the league averages over the past 30 days that they are likely to revert toward the mean. The starters have allowed just a .262 batting average on (non-homer) balls in play compared to a league average of .307, they've allowed homers on only 5.6% of fly balls compared to a league average of 8.5%, and they've stranded 76% of baserunners compared to a league average of 72%. I'm not suggesting they'll revert to the mean--this is a talented rotation--but their seasonlong averages of .292, 8.5%, and 75% seem more realistic. Not to worry, though: Washington's 3.04 ERA for the full year is the best in the majors.
Who's Hot? The Nats' outfield, that's who. Bryce Harper in left, Denard Span in center, and Jayson Werth in right have combined to bat .308 with a .398 on base percentage and a .488 slugging percentage over the past 30 days. Again, the league average slash line is just .249/.310/.379. Werth, who's drawn 20 walks, second most in the league, has a league-high on base percentage at .470. Third baseman Anthony Rendon has also been hot too, batting .319 with a .406 on base percentage and .484 slugging percentage.
As for the starting pitchers, the big question going into the postseason is which one goes to the bullpen. The starting five is Jordan Zimmermann (4-0, 1.32 ERA), Stephen Strasburg (4-1, 1.13 ERA), Doug Fister (4-1, 1.87 ERA), Gio Gonzalez (4-1, 2.48 ERA), and Tanner Roark (3-2, 3.09 ERA). Drew Storen took over as the team's closer and didn't allow an earned run during the month, compiling ten saves.
Who's Not? The only hitters with a cold bat over the past 30 days are second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera, acquired from the Indians at the trade deadline (.211/.287/.344 slash line) and catcher Wilson Ramos (.185/.202/.272). The bullpen, despite Storen's September, is probably the team's weak spot. Storen got his job because Rafael Soriano blew up, compiling a 6.48 ERA in the second half of the season after a 0.97 ERA up to the All-Star break. Over the past 30 days, no Nationals reliever with over seven innings pitched has an ERA below 3.50 except Storen.
What's the Outlook? The Nationals don't seem to me to have any noticeable holes. The bullpen's not great, but with that starting rotation, they aren't overly reliant on their relievers. They'll get the winner of the Giants-Pirates wild card game for a five-game series starting Friday. They will be favored to win, with good reason. Which probably means they'll get swept or something.
Trailing 30 - September 29
Here are the top (and bottom) performers over the past 30 days, made possible through the magic of FanGraphs and its fabulous Leaders application. Comment for the week: Obviously, this is it for the year. Looks to me as if the AL and NL Players of the Month are Detroit's Victor Martinez and Los Angeles' Matt Kemp, respectively--feel stronger about Kemp than Martinez. The AL Pitcher of the Month should probably be Corey Kluber but I'll bet a playoff team's starter gets the nod: Bud Norris of the Orioles or Yordano Ventura of the Royals. In the National League, I imagine Washington's Jordan Zimmermann's season-ending no-hitter and 4-0 record give him the nod.
American League National League
Team W-L Team W-L
1. Baltimore 19-10 1. Washington 20-9
2. Los Angeles 17-11 2. Los Angeles 18-9
3. Detroit 17-12 3. St. Louis 19-10
4. Toronto 16-12 4. Pittsburgh 18-10
5. Cleveland 16-13 5. New York 16-11
Worst Team W-L Worst Team W-L
1. Oakland 10-18 1. Arizona 8-20
2. Minnesota 11-17 2. Atlanta 8-19
3. Boston 12-16 3. Milwaukee 9-19
4. Tampa Bay 12-15 4. Cincinnati 11-16
5. Chicago 13-15 5. Miami 12-17
5. Chicago 13-15 5. Miami 12-17
Batting Average Batting Average
1. Brantley, Cle .405 1. Uribe, LA .378
2. Altuve, Hou .387 2. Posey, SF .375
3. Aoki, KC .375 3. Crawford, SF .358
4. Kendrick, LA .372 4. Morneau, Col .355
5. V Martinez, Det .370 5. Marte, Pit .347
Lowest Batting Average Lowest Batting Average
1. Fuld, Oak .169 1. Baez, Chi .149
2. Teixeira, NY .173 2. Alcantara, Chi .165
3. Morales, Sea .190 3. J Upton, Atl .176
4. Gordon, KC .200 4. Pence, SF .200
4. Gordon, KC .200 4. Pence, SF .200
Valencia, Tor .200 5. Utley, Phi .209
On Base Percentage On Base Percentage
1. V Martinez, Det .471 1. Werth, Was .470
2. Brantley, Cle .455 2. McCutchen, Pit .451
3. Bautista, Tor .426 3. Gomez, Mil .420
4. Aoki, KC .423 4. Posey, SF .418
5. Beltre, Tex .420 5. Morneau, Col .414
Slugging Percentage Slugging Percentage
1. Cabrera, Det .673 1. Kemp, LA .704
2. V Martinez, Det .620 2. Gonzalez, LA .600
3. Cruz, Bal .605 3. Holliday, SL .586
4. Bautista, Tor .585 4. Posey, SF .580
5. Trout, LA .576 5. McCutchen, Pit .574
Home Runs Home Runs
1. Bautista, Tor 8 1. Gonzalez, LA 9
Cabrera, Det 8 Kemp, LA 9
Cabrera, Det 8 Kemp, LA 9
McCann, NY 8 3. Frazier, Cin 7
4. Encarnacion, Tor 7 Holliday, SL 7
5. 6 with 6 LaRoche, Was 7
Runs Runs
5. 6 with 6 LaRoche, Was 7
Runs Runs
1. Bautista, Tor 24 1. Kemp, LA 22
Trout, LA 24 2. Puig, LA 21
3. Betts, Bos 23 3. Gonzalez, LA 20
4. Calhoun, LA 22 McCutchen, Pit 20
Santana, Min 22 5. Gordon, LA 19
RBI RBI
4. Calhoun, LA 22 McCutchen, Pit 20
Santana, Min 22 5. Gordon, LA 19
RBI RBI
1. Bautista, Tor 23 1. Gonzalez, LA 26
Pujols, LA 23 Kemp, LA 26
3. Encarnacion, Tor 22 3. Trumbo, Ari 23
4. 3 with 21 4. LaRoche, Was 22
5. Holliday, SL 21
5. Holliday, SL 21
Stolen Bases Stolen Bases
1. Martin, Tex 9 1. Revere, Phi 10
2. Santana, Min 8 2. Lagares, NY 8
3. 6 with 7 3. Bonifacio, Atl 7
Desmond, Was 7
Inciarte, Ari 7
Inciarte, Ari 7
Saves Saves
1. Rodney, Sea 10 1. Storen, Was 10
2. Britton, Bal 8 2. Chapman, Cin 8
3. Nathan, Det 7 Cishek, Mia 8
Street, LA 7 Mejia, NY 8
Street, LA 7 Mejia, NY 8
5. 4 with 6 Melancon, Pit 8
ERA ERA
1. Feldman, Hou 1.45 1. Arrieta, Chi 0.95
2. House, Cle 1.45 2. Volquez, Pit 1.08
3. Holland, Tex 1.46 3. Strasburg, Was 1.13
4. McHugh, Hou 1.59 4. Peavy, SF 1.15
5. Carrasco, Cle 1.62 5. Zimmermann, Was 1.32
Worst ERA Worst ERA
1. Iwakuma, Sea 6.98 1. Santana, Atl 6.51
2. Kazmir, Oak 5.85 2. Bergman, Col 6.11
3. Porcello, Det 5.46 Leake, Cin 6.11
4. Gibson, Min 5.09 4. Burnett, Phi 6.06
5. Noesi, Chi 4.78 5. Vogelsong, SF 5.53
WHIP WHIP
1. McHugh, Hou 0.56 1. Arrieta, Chi 0.71
2. Pineda, NY 0.79 2. Haren, LA 0.73
3. Samardzija, Oak 0.80 3. Zimmermann, Was 0.74
3. Samardzija, Oak 0.80 3. Zimmermann, Was 0.74
4. Hammel, Oak 0.80 4. Strasburg, Was 0.76
5. Shields, KC 0.86 5. Collmenter, Ari 0.79
5. Shields, KC 0.86 5. Collmenter, Ari 0.79
Strikeouts Strikeouts
1. Kluber, Cle 56 1. Kershaw, LA 45
2. Carrasco, Cle 54 Cole, Pit 45
3. Hutchison, Tor 50 3. Cueto, Cin 43
4. Price, Det 47 4. 4 with 40
5. Samardzija, Oak 46
Sweet Play of the Day: September 28
I stopped doing these a while ago--I figured you can look up plays on the mlb.com video page as well as I--but I thought this was remarkable. Last day of the season, Washington's Jordan Zimmermann has a no-hitter through eight and two-thirds innings. In the top of the ninth, manager Matt Williams replaced left fielder Ryan Zimmerman with September rookie callup Steven Souza. So Zimmermann's one out away from a no-hitter:
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Flyover: Kansas City Royals
With the season winding down, and the postseason pretty much set, I figured I'd wrap this up by covering the remaining contenders, starting with the Kansas City Royals. Here are my links to the Orioles, Tigers, A's, Angels, Cardinals, Pirates, Dodgers, and Giants. As a reminder, for each team, I'm looking at how they've done over the past 30 days.
How Are They Doing Lately? They've kind of slouched into the postseason. A month ago, the Royals were 2.5 games up on Detroit in the AL Central. Were they to fall out of the top slot, they were four games behind the Athletics and two ahead of the Mariners for the wild card. Since then, the Tigers have taken control of the division, going 18-11, while Kansas City's played .500 ball, 14-14. However, they've pulled away from the A's (9-19, worst in the league) and the Mariners (13-15). If the season were to end today, they'd host Oakland for the wild card play-in game. They'e scored 3.46 runs per game, just tenth in the league, while giving up 3.75, the seventh fewest, over the past 30 days.
What's Going Right? The Royals haven't scored a lot due to a lack of power, as I'll explain below, but they're OK at getting on base: fifth in batting average over the past 30 days at .259, sixth in on base percentage at .317. Not great, but OK. They could help themselves by walking more (7% of plate appearances, fifth fewest in the league), but that's not been a Royals team strength--they're last in the league, walking in just 6% of plate appearances, for the full year. Once on base, they've been the league's most prolific basestealers (36 over the past 30 days, no other team's even at 30) and competent as well (success on 80% of attempts compared to a league average of 76%).
The team ERA of 3.25 is fifth in the league over the past 30 days: 3.26 for the starters (sixth), 3.23 for the relievers (fifth). They've been extremely stingy with the long ball, allowing the fewest homers (ten) and the lowest percentage of fly balls becoming home runs (4.3%). Those numbers are particularly impressive when you consider that the Royals pitchers don't get to pitch to the Royals hitters. They've followed the On The Field Of Play mantra, it's good to throw strikes, but better to get strikes. They've been a little below average at throwing strikes, with 48.4% of pitches in the strike zone, fifth fewest in the league over the last 30 days, but well above average at getting strikes, inducing batters to swing at a fifth-highest 32.0% of pitches outside the strike zone.
Part of the success of the pitchers is attributable to the team's defense. Virtually every fielding metric ranks the Orioles and Royals as the best-fielding teams in the league by a fair margin.
What's Going Wrong? The Royals have had a power outage all year, slugging .376, fourth lowest in the league compared to a league average of .390, and the last 30 days fit the pattern. They've hit ten homers, fewest in the league. Their isolated slugging--slugging percentage less batting average--is .098, second lowest. Some of that is probably bad luck, as their percentage of fly balls that go over the fence has been just 4.1% over the past 30 days, second lowest in the league and less than half the league average of 8.7%, but they're last over the full year (6.5% vs. the league's 9.5%) as well, so it's not like this is something new.
As for their inability to draw walks, last year their GM, Dayton Moore, fairly improbably blamed their home field, Kauffman Stadium, for their lack of walks, claiming the ballpark suppresses free passes. If that were true, the Royals would draw more walks in road games than at home. In actuality, they've walked more frequently at home (6.4% of plate appearances) than on the road (6.1%) this year. Good try, though, Dayton.
Who's Hot? Right fielder Nori Aoki is batting .361 over the past 30 days, fifth in the league, and has an on base percentage of .415, sixth. Center fielder Lornezo Cain's batting .327 and is tied for third in the league with seven stolen bases. Shortstop Alcides Escobar is batting .321 (though with a barely higher .336 on base percentage, as he's drawn only two walks) and is tied for eighth with six steals. The best power source has been first baseman Eric Hosmer, batting .310 with a .368 on base percentage and .529 slugging percentage (eleventh in the league).
The top of the Royals rotation looks set for the postseason. The top four starters are James Shields, who's 2-1 with a 2.14 ERA over the past 30 days, Jeremy Guthrie (3-1, 3.25) and rookie Yordano Ventura (4-1, 1.62). Lefty starter Danny Duffy, sidelined much of September with shoulder pain, put up good numbers in his first start over two weeks on Monday, holding Cleveland to six hits, two walks, and no runs while striking out five in six innings, though not everyone was impressed.
If the Royals starter goes six innings, the Royals hand the ball over to Kelvin Herrera in the seventh, Wade Davis in the eighth, and Greg Holland in the ninth. Over the past 30 days, those three have combined for 40 appearances covering 38.2 innings, during which they've allowed 25 hits and eight walks while striking out 49 with a 1.16 ERA. The thing is, that's not a big outlier for this trio: they all have ERAs below 1.50 for the full season, the main reason the Royals are 64-4 in games they've led after six innnings. If the three maintain their sub-1.50 ERAs, the Royals will join the 1907 Chicago Cubs as the only teams in history with three pitchers with over 60 innings pitched with ERAs that low. (Fun facts: Those Cubs won the World Series, had a team ERA of 1.73, used only eight pitchers all year, and the three with sub-1.50 ERAs were all starters: Mordecai Brown had a 1.39 ERA over 233 innings, Carl Lundgren was 1.17 over 207 innings, and Jack Pfeister was 1.15 over 195 innings.)
Who's Not? Left fielder Alex Gordon is a lock for a Gold Glove award, but he's batting only .188 over the past 30 days, striking out in 27% of his plate appearances. Third baseman Mike Moustakis has a .211/.273/.244 slash line (the league average is .249/.309/.380) and DH Billy Butler has barely been better at .219/.286/.281.
If Duffy's not right, the No. 4 postseason starter will be Jason Vargas, who's been bad (6.46 ERA) over the past 30 days. But we may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves talking about a No. 4 starter in the postseason anyway.
What's the Outlook? The Royals are one of the nice stories of this season, as they'll play in the postseason for the first time since they won the World Series in 1985. As of now, they'll host Oakland for a one-game play-in on Tuesday. However, they could win the division (they enter play today a game behind Detroit), their wild card opponent could be Seattle (which is two games behind Oakland), and they could lose the home field advantage in the play-in (if they lose their last two games and Oakland wins theirs).
Assuming the Royals are a wild-card team, a victory would take them to a best-of-five Divisional Series against the Angels, who have the best record in the American League and against whom the Royals split six games this year. They're not a good hitting team. They'll be the only American League postseason team to score a below-average number of runs (unless Seattle sneaks past Oakland). But with their solid starters and lockdown bullpen, they're well-positioned for the postseason, where good pitching beats good hitting, right? Except, as I showed yesterday, that's not the case. The Royals' long postseason drought has ended, but maybe not for long.
How Are They Doing Lately? They've kind of slouched into the postseason. A month ago, the Royals were 2.5 games up on Detroit in the AL Central. Were they to fall out of the top slot, they were four games behind the Athletics and two ahead of the Mariners for the wild card. Since then, the Tigers have taken control of the division, going 18-11, while Kansas City's played .500 ball, 14-14. However, they've pulled away from the A's (9-19, worst in the league) and the Mariners (13-15). If the season were to end today, they'd host Oakland for the wild card play-in game. They'e scored 3.46 runs per game, just tenth in the league, while giving up 3.75, the seventh fewest, over the past 30 days.
What's Going Right? The Royals haven't scored a lot due to a lack of power, as I'll explain below, but they're OK at getting on base: fifth in batting average over the past 30 days at .259, sixth in on base percentage at .317. Not great, but OK. They could help themselves by walking more (7% of plate appearances, fifth fewest in the league), but that's not been a Royals team strength--they're last in the league, walking in just 6% of plate appearances, for the full year. Once on base, they've been the league's most prolific basestealers (36 over the past 30 days, no other team's even at 30) and competent as well (success on 80% of attempts compared to a league average of 76%).
The team ERA of 3.25 is fifth in the league over the past 30 days: 3.26 for the starters (sixth), 3.23 for the relievers (fifth). They've been extremely stingy with the long ball, allowing the fewest homers (ten) and the lowest percentage of fly balls becoming home runs (4.3%). Those numbers are particularly impressive when you consider that the Royals pitchers don't get to pitch to the Royals hitters. They've followed the On The Field Of Play mantra, it's good to throw strikes, but better to get strikes. They've been a little below average at throwing strikes, with 48.4% of pitches in the strike zone, fifth fewest in the league over the last 30 days, but well above average at getting strikes, inducing batters to swing at a fifth-highest 32.0% of pitches outside the strike zone.
Part of the success of the pitchers is attributable to the team's defense. Virtually every fielding metric ranks the Orioles and Royals as the best-fielding teams in the league by a fair margin.
What's Going Wrong? The Royals have had a power outage all year, slugging .376, fourth lowest in the league compared to a league average of .390, and the last 30 days fit the pattern. They've hit ten homers, fewest in the league. Their isolated slugging--slugging percentage less batting average--is .098, second lowest. Some of that is probably bad luck, as their percentage of fly balls that go over the fence has been just 4.1% over the past 30 days, second lowest in the league and less than half the league average of 8.7%, but they're last over the full year (6.5% vs. the league's 9.5%) as well, so it's not like this is something new.
As for their inability to draw walks, last year their GM, Dayton Moore, fairly improbably blamed their home field, Kauffman Stadium, for their lack of walks, claiming the ballpark suppresses free passes. If that were true, the Royals would draw more walks in road games than at home. In actuality, they've walked more frequently at home (6.4% of plate appearances) than on the road (6.1%) this year. Good try, though, Dayton.
Who's Hot? Right fielder Nori Aoki is batting .361 over the past 30 days, fifth in the league, and has an on base percentage of .415, sixth. Center fielder Lornezo Cain's batting .327 and is tied for third in the league with seven stolen bases. Shortstop Alcides Escobar is batting .321 (though with a barely higher .336 on base percentage, as he's drawn only two walks) and is tied for eighth with six steals. The best power source has been first baseman Eric Hosmer, batting .310 with a .368 on base percentage and .529 slugging percentage (eleventh in the league).
The top of the Royals rotation looks set for the postseason. The top four starters are James Shields, who's 2-1 with a 2.14 ERA over the past 30 days, Jeremy Guthrie (3-1, 3.25) and rookie Yordano Ventura (4-1, 1.62). Lefty starter Danny Duffy, sidelined much of September with shoulder pain, put up good numbers in his first start over two weeks on Monday, holding Cleveland to six hits, two walks, and no runs while striking out five in six innings, though not everyone was impressed.
If the Royals starter goes six innings, the Royals hand the ball over to Kelvin Herrera in the seventh, Wade Davis in the eighth, and Greg Holland in the ninth. Over the past 30 days, those three have combined for 40 appearances covering 38.2 innings, during which they've allowed 25 hits and eight walks while striking out 49 with a 1.16 ERA. The thing is, that's not a big outlier for this trio: they all have ERAs below 1.50 for the full season, the main reason the Royals are 64-4 in games they've led after six innnings. If the three maintain their sub-1.50 ERAs, the Royals will join the 1907 Chicago Cubs as the only teams in history with three pitchers with over 60 innings pitched with ERAs that low. (Fun facts: Those Cubs won the World Series, had a team ERA of 1.73, used only eight pitchers all year, and the three with sub-1.50 ERAs were all starters: Mordecai Brown had a 1.39 ERA over 233 innings, Carl Lundgren was 1.17 over 207 innings, and Jack Pfeister was 1.15 over 195 innings.)
Who's Not? Left fielder Alex Gordon is a lock for a Gold Glove award, but he's batting only .188 over the past 30 days, striking out in 27% of his plate appearances. Third baseman Mike Moustakis has a .211/.273/.244 slash line (the league average is .249/.309/.380) and DH Billy Butler has barely been better at .219/.286/.281.
If Duffy's not right, the No. 4 postseason starter will be Jason Vargas, who's been bad (6.46 ERA) over the past 30 days. But we may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves talking about a No. 4 starter in the postseason anyway.
What's the Outlook? The Royals are one of the nice stories of this season, as they'll play in the postseason for the first time since they won the World Series in 1985. As of now, they'll host Oakland for a one-game play-in on Tuesday. However, they could win the division (they enter play today a game behind Detroit), their wild card opponent could be Seattle (which is two games behind Oakland), and they could lose the home field advantage in the play-in (if they lose their last two games and Oakland wins theirs).
Assuming the Royals are a wild-card team, a victory would take them to a best-of-five Divisional Series against the Angels, who have the best record in the American League and against whom the Royals split six games this year. They're not a good hitting team. They'll be the only American League postseason team to score a below-average number of runs (unless Seattle sneaks past Oakland). But with their solid starters and lockdown bullpen, they're well-positioned for the postseason, where good pitching beats good hitting, right? Except, as I showed yesterday, that's not the case. The Royals' long postseason drought has ended, but maybe not for long.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Postseason Narratives
Here is a link to an article of mine that FanGraphs published today in its Community section. It discusses six narratives you hear this time of year about the kinds of teams that are likely to succeed in the postseason. For each narrative, I explained how I tested it and the results. If you click on the link, you can read the whole thing. If you'd rather just know the results, they are:
- Does prior postseason experience matter? There is no evidence to support this claim.
- Do veteran players have an edge in the postseason? There is scant evidence to support this claim, and if you exclude one year, 2009, when a bunch of older teams did well, there is no evidence.
- How important is momentum leading into the postseason? There is almost no evidence that finishing the season strong makes a difference, and that scant evidence applies only to the Divisional Series. There is no evidence to suggest that the hot team has an edge in the Championship Series or World Series.
- Does good pitching stop good hitting? There is almost no evidence to support this claim. In the series in which a good-hitting team played a good-pitching team, the good-hitting team won 49% of the series and good-pitching team won 51%. It was basically a coin flip.
- Are teams reliant on home runs at a disadvantage? There is almost no evidence to support this claim, and if you exclude the 2012 postseason, when the low-homer Giants won the Series, there is no evidence.
- Is having one or more ace starters an advantage? There is almost no evidence to support this claim, and once again, excluding one year--2001, when the Johnson/Schilling Diamondbacks beat the Clemens/Mussina Yankees--eliminates the slim evidence that exists.
So, to summarize, prior postseason experience doesn't help, having veteran players doesn't help, ending the season strongly doesn't help nor ending it poorly hurt, good pitching doesn't necessarily overcome good hitting, being reliant on home runs for scoring runs doesn't hurt, and having aces in the rotation doesn't help.
Sorry about that. Now, about Santa Claus...
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Flyover: Minnesota Twins
When I started this series last month, my intent was to review each team's performance over the past 30 days, alphabetically. I got through Arizona, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, the Cubs, and Cleveland before I realized that I was going to run out of time and that it'd be more timely to focus on the teams that are in contention for postseason play. That's what I've done next, hopscotching among the Tigers, Brewers, A's, Angels, Cardinals, Pirates, Dodgers, and Giants. Let's take a day off from good teams, though, and instead discuss one of the most interesting teams of the year: The Minnesota Twins.
How Are They Doing Lately? Terrible. The Twins are 8-19 over the last 30 days, the worst record in the American League, and tied with the Diamondbacks for the worst record in the league. That's a 114-loss pace over a full season.
So why write about them? Well, put it this way: After the Tommy John surgery epidemic, replay, and that Yankee shortstop retiring, what's the biggest story this year? The decline of offense. Teams are scoring an average of 4.08 runs per game this year. That's the lowest average since 1980. and a run per game down from the highs of 1999 (5.08) and 2000 (5.14).
Take the American League. Since the All-Star Game, American League games are featuring 8.05 runs per game, scoring 4.06 runs and allowing 3.99. (The discrepancy is due to interleague games.) But if you exclude the Twins from the total, that figure drops to 7.91 runs per game, 4.03 scored and 3.88 allowed. Twins games have featured 10.02 runs! How's this: The last time the American League averaged less than eight runs per game, as it's done excluding the Twins since the All-Star break, it was 1972, and the league responded by instituting the designated hitter. The last time the league averaged 10.02 runs per game, as the Twins have since the All-Star break, the league batted .276 and Pedro Martinez was the only pitcher with an ERA below 3.70; this year the Tigers are the only team batting above .276 (by .001), the league ERA is 3.83, and there are 24 pitchers with ERAs below 3.70. The Twins have been a throwback to the Steroid Era!
Actually, the pitchers have been more throwbacks than the hitters of late. Over the past 30 days, the Twins are scoring 4.3 runs per game, fifth in the league, while giving up 6.1. No other team has allowed more than 4.7 runs per game.
What's Going Right? The Twins are batting .263 over the past 30 days, fourth in the league, with a fifth-best .399 slugging percentage and a sixth-best .316 on base percentage. Their .329 batting average on balls in play, compared to a league average of .297, indicates that they've probably been a little lucky, since wide deviations don't usually persist. They strike out a lot (23% of plate appearances, third in the league), but their walk rate, 6.8% of plate appearances, isn't much off from the league average of 7.2%. sixth;hey'be been good at getting on base (.284 batting average, .336 on base percentage, both second in the league) over the past 30 days. Their .421 slugging percentage is fifth, as they've hit only 20 homers, which is tenth in the NL. Their batting average on balls in play is .330 compared to a league average of .303, suggesting that their batting average and on base percentage have been a little lucky, but only 7.5% of their fly balls have gone over the fence compared to a league average of 9.6%, suggesting that their slugging percentage and home run totals have been a little unlucky. The Giants have been the toughest team in the NL to fan, striking out in only 17% of plate appearances compared to a league average of 21%. They've had problems with their bullpen, as I'll explain below, but the starters have been best in the league at getting hitters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone (33%), they've struck out the most batters (23% of batters), and walked the fourth fewest (6%).
What's Going Wrong? The Twins pitchers have been remarkably consistent over the past 30 days: 5.78 ERA overall, worst in the league; 5.78 starters' ERA, worst in the league; 5.77 relievers' ERA, worst in the league. You know the On The Field Of Play pitching mantra, It's good to throw strikes, but it's better to get strikes? As it turns out, the Twins have been pretty good at throwing strikes (51% of pitches in the strikes zone, third most in the league) and getting strikes (batters swinging at 32% of pitches outside the striek zone, fourth highest in the league). So why haven't they been successful? Because the pitches they've thrown, inside and outside the strike zone, have been hittable. Twins pitchers have the third-slowest fastball in the league (91.6 mph average), the third-slowest slider (83.0 mph average). They've allowed the highest batting average on balls in play (.334, league average is .293), the second highest percentage of fly balls going over the fence (11.7%, league average is 9.2%), and the most baserunners to score (35%, league average is 27%). Those three figures, widely different from the league averages, probably indicate some bad luck, but that's not all of it. You throw hittable pitches, you get hit.
This shouldn't be blamed exclusively on the pitchers, though. The Twins fielders have converted 67% of balls in play into outs this year, the lowest percentage in the league, and the team does poorly in advanced defensive measures.
Who's Hot? The Twins have managed to compile those awful pitching numbers despite having Phil Hughes, who'll get a few Cy Young Award votes. Over the past 30 days, he has a 3.44 ERA to go with 33 strikeouts and just one walk over 36.2 innings. His strikeout to walk ratio is 11.3, which is the highest in baseball history, topping Brett Saberhagen's 11.0 in 1994 and Cliff Lee's 10.3 in 2010. (h/t: D.J. Short at Hardball Talk) He's making me look smart when I wrote in December
The Twins also acquired Ricky Nolasco over the winter, and while he's been OK over the past 30 days (3.93 ERA), he's been a disappointment, going 5-12 with a 4.29 ERA, making me look not-so-smart when I wrote back in November
No hitter has been really outstanding, though rookie centerfielder Danny Santana has hit .290 and is seven-for-eight as a basestealer over the past 30 days.
Who's Not? Rather than name names, let's just say that Twins starters not named Hughes or Nolasco have an 8.00 ERA over the past 30 days, giving up more homers in their 77.2 innings pitched (16) than the Indians (15), Padres (15), Rangers (13), Royals (12), Braves (11), and Diamondbacks (11) have hit. No reliever has been particularly good, and closer Glen Perkins had more blown saves (three) than saves (two) and more than twice as many home runs allowed (five) than strikeouts (two) to go with a 12.27 ERA before revealing a season-ending nerve injury.
Rookie DH Kennys Vargas leads the team with five homers and 15 RBI over the past 30 days, but otherwise has looked kind of lost at the plate, striking out in 29% of his plate appearances (the league average is less than 21%) and failing to draw a single walk. Rookie right fielder Oswaldo Arcia is batting .228 with an even higher strikeout rate than Vargas's, 32%.
What's the Outlook? You'll note that every hitter I mentioned is a rookie. The Twins also have two of the most highly-rated prospects in the game, consensus No. 1 Byron Buxton, an outfielder, and third baseman Miguel Sano. Sano is 21 and Buxton's 20, and they both missed all (Sano) or almost all (Buxton) of the 2014 season with injuries, so they won't be headed up to Minnesota until sometime next year at the earliest. But there are bats on the way.
The pitching this year has been terrible, of course, but there are plenty of young arms in the farm as well. I could see the Twins being an exciting team at the plate in coming years, but my jury's still out on the pitching staff. The Twins have had a pitch-to-contact focus in recent years, while the rest of the league's gone for strikeouts. The idea is that the Twins's approach holds down pitch counts, preserving pitchers' arms, and lets the players in the field turn batted balls into outs. Well, it hasn't worked. The fielders aren't that great, and the Twins will finish the season with by far the lowest strikeout rate in the league (16.5% of plate appearances, league average is 20.1%). They were last, by far, in 2013, 2012, and 2011 as well. They weren't in 2010, which is also the last time they played in the postseason. I've heard Twins fans called for manager Ron Gardenhire's head, as this will be the team's third last place finish in the past four years, but it seems to me that someone in player development--specifically, pitcher development--is more to blame. The Twins aren't drafting, or aren't developing, or both, the type of pitchers who are successful in contemporary baseball. The Twins have used 23 pitchers this year, and the only ones with above-average strikeout rates are Hughes, Perkins, and 27-year-old rookie Aaron Thompson, who's pitched only 6.1 innings. Until the Twins embrace Ks for their hurlers, it's hard to see them competing, even in the generally weak American League Central. But their efforts to single-handedly keep run production across the league alive, I suppose, is admirable.
How Are They Doing Lately? Terrible. The Twins are 8-19 over the last 30 days, the worst record in the American League, and tied with the Diamondbacks for the worst record in the league. That's a 114-loss pace over a full season.
So why write about them? Well, put it this way: After the Tommy John surgery epidemic, replay, and that Yankee shortstop retiring, what's the biggest story this year? The decline of offense. Teams are scoring an average of 4.08 runs per game this year. That's the lowest average since 1980. and a run per game down from the highs of 1999 (5.08) and 2000 (5.14).
Take the American League. Since the All-Star Game, American League games are featuring 8.05 runs per game, scoring 4.06 runs and allowing 3.99. (The discrepancy is due to interleague games.) But if you exclude the Twins from the total, that figure drops to 7.91 runs per game, 4.03 scored and 3.88 allowed. Twins games have featured 10.02 runs! How's this: The last time the American League averaged less than eight runs per game, as it's done excluding the Twins since the All-Star break, it was 1972, and the league responded by instituting the designated hitter. The last time the league averaged 10.02 runs per game, as the Twins have since the All-Star break, the league batted .276 and Pedro Martinez was the only pitcher with an ERA below 3.70; this year the Tigers are the only team batting above .276 (by .001), the league ERA is 3.83, and there are 24 pitchers with ERAs below 3.70. The Twins have been a throwback to the Steroid Era!
Actually, the pitchers have been more throwbacks than the hitters of late. Over the past 30 days, the Twins are scoring 4.3 runs per game, fifth in the league, while giving up 6.1. No other team has allowed more than 4.7 runs per game.
What's Going Right? The Twins are batting .263 over the past 30 days, fourth in the league, with a fifth-best .399 slugging percentage and a sixth-best .316 on base percentage. Their .329 batting average on balls in play, compared to a league average of .297, indicates that they've probably been a little lucky, since wide deviations don't usually persist. They strike out a lot (23% of plate appearances, third in the league), but their walk rate, 6.8% of plate appearances, isn't much off from the league average of 7.2%. sixth;hey'be been good at getting on base (.284 batting average, .336 on base percentage, both second in the league) over the past 30 days. Their .421 slugging percentage is fifth, as they've hit only 20 homers, which is tenth in the NL. Their batting average on balls in play is .330 compared to a league average of .303, suggesting that their batting average and on base percentage have been a little lucky, but only 7.5% of their fly balls have gone over the fence compared to a league average of 9.6%, suggesting that their slugging percentage and home run totals have been a little unlucky. The Giants have been the toughest team in the NL to fan, striking out in only 17% of plate appearances compared to a league average of 21%. They've had problems with their bullpen, as I'll explain below, but the starters have been best in the league at getting hitters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone (33%), they've struck out the most batters (23% of batters), and walked the fourth fewest (6%).
What's Going Wrong? The Twins pitchers have been remarkably consistent over the past 30 days: 5.78 ERA overall, worst in the league; 5.78 starters' ERA, worst in the league; 5.77 relievers' ERA, worst in the league. You know the On The Field Of Play pitching mantra, It's good to throw strikes, but it's better to get strikes? As it turns out, the Twins have been pretty good at throwing strikes (51% of pitches in the strikes zone, third most in the league) and getting strikes (batters swinging at 32% of pitches outside the striek zone, fourth highest in the league). So why haven't they been successful? Because the pitches they've thrown, inside and outside the strike zone, have been hittable. Twins pitchers have the third-slowest fastball in the league (91.6 mph average), the third-slowest slider (83.0 mph average). They've allowed the highest batting average on balls in play (.334, league average is .293), the second highest percentage of fly balls going over the fence (11.7%, league average is 9.2%), and the most baserunners to score (35%, league average is 27%). Those three figures, widely different from the league averages, probably indicate some bad luck, but that's not all of it. You throw hittable pitches, you get hit.
This shouldn't be blamed exclusively on the pitchers, though. The Twins fielders have converted 67% of balls in play into outs this year, the lowest percentage in the league, and the team does poorly in advanced defensive measures.
Who's Hot? The Twins have managed to compile those awful pitching numbers despite having Phil Hughes, who'll get a few Cy Young Award votes. Over the past 30 days, he has a 3.44 ERA to go with 33 strikeouts and just one walk over 36.2 innings. His strikeout to walk ratio is 11.3, which is the highest in baseball history, topping Brett Saberhagen's 11.0 in 1994 and Cliff Lee's 10.3 in 2010. (h/t: D.J. Short at Hardball Talk) He's making me look smart when I wrote in December
Hughes isn't an elite pitcher. But he's probably better than what he was last year, and the move out of the Bronx should help him keep more balls in the park. By the end of the year, I wouldn't be surprised if his numbers were better than league average.Actually, that isn't all that smart, because he's been a lot better than league average, 21st in ERA, eighth in WHIP, and a 15-10 record for a team that's won 61% of the games that he's started (99-63 pace) but only 38% of games started by others (61-101 pace).
The Twins also acquired Ricky Nolasco over the winter, and while he's been OK over the past 30 days (3.93 ERA), he's been a disappointment, going 5-12 with a 4.29 ERA, making me look not-so-smart when I wrote back in November
I'd expect an average or slightly better-than-average ERA and 200 or so innings, but nothing spectacular.The league ERA 3.83 and Nolasco's pitched 153 innings.
No hitter has been really outstanding, though rookie centerfielder Danny Santana has hit .290 and is seven-for-eight as a basestealer over the past 30 days.
Who's Not? Rather than name names, let's just say that Twins starters not named Hughes or Nolasco have an 8.00 ERA over the past 30 days, giving up more homers in their 77.2 innings pitched (16) than the Indians (15), Padres (15), Rangers (13), Royals (12), Braves (11), and Diamondbacks (11) have hit. No reliever has been particularly good, and closer Glen Perkins had more blown saves (three) than saves (two) and more than twice as many home runs allowed (five) than strikeouts (two) to go with a 12.27 ERA before revealing a season-ending nerve injury.
Rookie DH Kennys Vargas leads the team with five homers and 15 RBI over the past 30 days, but otherwise has looked kind of lost at the plate, striking out in 29% of his plate appearances (the league average is less than 21%) and failing to draw a single walk. Rookie right fielder Oswaldo Arcia is batting .228 with an even higher strikeout rate than Vargas's, 32%.
What's the Outlook? You'll note that every hitter I mentioned is a rookie. The Twins also have two of the most highly-rated prospects in the game, consensus No. 1 Byron Buxton, an outfielder, and third baseman Miguel Sano. Sano is 21 and Buxton's 20, and they both missed all (Sano) or almost all (Buxton) of the 2014 season with injuries, so they won't be headed up to Minnesota until sometime next year at the earliest. But there are bats on the way.
The pitching this year has been terrible, of course, but there are plenty of young arms in the farm as well. I could see the Twins being an exciting team at the plate in coming years, but my jury's still out on the pitching staff. The Twins have had a pitch-to-contact focus in recent years, while the rest of the league's gone for strikeouts. The idea is that the Twins's approach holds down pitch counts, preserving pitchers' arms, and lets the players in the field turn batted balls into outs. Well, it hasn't worked. The fielders aren't that great, and the Twins will finish the season with by far the lowest strikeout rate in the league (16.5% of plate appearances, league average is 20.1%). They were last, by far, in 2013, 2012, and 2011 as well. They weren't in 2010, which is also the last time they played in the postseason. I've heard Twins fans called for manager Ron Gardenhire's head, as this will be the team's third last place finish in the past four years, but it seems to me that someone in player development--specifically, pitcher development--is more to blame. The Twins aren't drafting, or aren't developing, or both, the type of pitchers who are successful in contemporary baseball. The Twins have used 23 pitchers this year, and the only ones with above-average strikeout rates are Hughes, Perkins, and 27-year-old rookie Aaron Thompson, who's pitched only 6.1 innings. Until the Twins embrace Ks for their hurlers, it's hard to see them competing, even in the generally weak American League Central. But their efforts to single-handedly keep run production across the league alive, I suppose, is admirable.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Flyover: San Francisco Giants
This continues a series of looks at teams over the past month. Got the Dodgers yesterday, so let's check in on the San Francisco Giants today.
How Are They Doing Lately? The Giants have been just OK over the past 30 days, going 15-12. They've lost a game and a half to the first-place Dodgers and three games to the Pittsburgh Pirates, with whom they're now tied. Since the Pirates took the season series between the clubs, 4-2, a wild card tie would mean the Giants would have to travel to PNC Park for a one-game play-in. Over the past 30 days, the Giants are third in the league in scoring, 4.7 runs per game, but fourth-to-last in run prevention, giving up 4.5 runs per game.
What's Going Right? They'be been good at getting on base (.284 batting average, .336 on base percentage, both second in the league) over the past 30 days. Their .421 slugging percentage is fifth, as they've hit only 20 homers, which is tenth in the NL. Their batting average on balls in play is .330 compared to a league average of .303, suggesting that their batting average and on base percentage have been a little lucky, but only 7.5% of their fly balls have gone over the fence compared to a league average of 9.6%, suggesting that their slugging percentage and home run totals have been a little unlucky. The Giants have been the toughest team in the NL to fan, striking out in only 17% of plate appearances compared to a league average of 21%. They've had problems with their bullpen, as I'll explain below, but the starters have been best in the league at getting hitters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone (33%), they've struck out the most batters (23% of batters), and walked the fourth fewest (6%).
What's Going Wrong? The team ERA of 4.10 over the past 30 days is the third worst in the league. The starters have been mediocre (3.58 ERA, eighth in the league) but the relievers have been awful, with a league-worst 5.25 ERA. The relievers haven't allowed an unusually batting average on balls in play, one of the key factors indicating that they've been unlucky. They've just been bad.
Who's Hot? Buster Posey is on an absolute tear over the past 30 days, leading the league in batting average at .402, second in on base percentage at .427, and second in slugging percentage at .647 as he makes a bid for a second MVP award in three years. Left fielder Gregor Blanco has a .300/.382/.544 slash line filling in for the injured Mike Morse, and his outfield mates Angel Pagan and Hunter Pence are, coincidentally, also hitting exactly .300 over the past 30 days. Shortstop Brandon Crawford has emerged from a seasonlong slump--his slash line was .225/.313/.362 at the end of August--to hit .342/.376/.468 over the past 30 days.
The Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw has sewn up the Cy Young award and, possibly the MVP as well, but the Giants' Madison Bumgarner will get some downballot Cy Young votes, as he's tied for third in wins and is fourth in innings pitched and strikeouts. Over the past 30 days, he's 4-0 with a 1.59 ERA, but that's been only second best on the club, as Jake Peavy, who joined the club via a July 26 trade with the Red Sox, is 4-1 with 0.79 ERA.
Who's Not? No GIants reliever has pitched ten innings over the past 30 days, as manager Bruce Bochy has scrounged around looking for somebody who's good. Setup man Sergio Romo has a 2.70 ERA and closer Santiago Casilla's at 3.38, but Tim Lincecum, Jean Machi, and Jeremy Affeldt have combined for an 8.20 ERA over 20 innings. Starter Tim Hudson has collapsed following a strong first half (2.78 ERA at the All-Star break), as he's compiled a 7.03 ERA over his past five starts, and made it out of the fifth inning in his starts only three times since the end of July. Ryan Vogelsong's been bad too, with a 4.93 ERA over six starts, during which he's walked nearly 12% of the batters he's faced.
Left fielder Morse has managed only 33 plate appearances over the past 30 days, batting just .214 with no home runs as he's battled an oblique injury that looks likely to shut him down for the rest of the year. While you can't complain about the performance of Blanco, Pagan, and Pence, Morse is the team's most dangerous power hitter. Another good hitter, first baseman Brandon Belt, has had a lost, injury-marred year, but at least he's back playing.
What's the Outlook? The Giants, having been swept by the Padres over the weekend, have probably played themselves out of contention for the National League West, though they seem solid for the wild card. As I noted in my Pirates comment, I like their chances against the Bucs, to the degree that one can predict the winner of a single game. The winner, though, moves on to what's likely to be the Nationals, a team with few if any notable weaknesses that's playing the best baseball among National League contenders of late. It's going to be tough to keep the Giants' streak of world championships in even-numbered years in this decade going.
How Are They Doing Lately? The Giants have been just OK over the past 30 days, going 15-12. They've lost a game and a half to the first-place Dodgers and three games to the Pittsburgh Pirates, with whom they're now tied. Since the Pirates took the season series between the clubs, 4-2, a wild card tie would mean the Giants would have to travel to PNC Park for a one-game play-in. Over the past 30 days, the Giants are third in the league in scoring, 4.7 runs per game, but fourth-to-last in run prevention, giving up 4.5 runs per game.
What's Going Right? They'be been good at getting on base (.284 batting average, .336 on base percentage, both second in the league) over the past 30 days. Their .421 slugging percentage is fifth, as they've hit only 20 homers, which is tenth in the NL. Their batting average on balls in play is .330 compared to a league average of .303, suggesting that their batting average and on base percentage have been a little lucky, but only 7.5% of their fly balls have gone over the fence compared to a league average of 9.6%, suggesting that their slugging percentage and home run totals have been a little unlucky. The Giants have been the toughest team in the NL to fan, striking out in only 17% of plate appearances compared to a league average of 21%. They've had problems with their bullpen, as I'll explain below, but the starters have been best in the league at getting hitters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone (33%), they've struck out the most batters (23% of batters), and walked the fourth fewest (6%).
What's Going Wrong? The team ERA of 4.10 over the past 30 days is the third worst in the league. The starters have been mediocre (3.58 ERA, eighth in the league) but the relievers have been awful, with a league-worst 5.25 ERA. The relievers haven't allowed an unusually batting average on balls in play, one of the key factors indicating that they've been unlucky. They've just been bad.
Who's Hot? Buster Posey is on an absolute tear over the past 30 days, leading the league in batting average at .402, second in on base percentage at .427, and second in slugging percentage at .647 as he makes a bid for a second MVP award in three years. Left fielder Gregor Blanco has a .300/.382/.544 slash line filling in for the injured Mike Morse, and his outfield mates Angel Pagan and Hunter Pence are, coincidentally, also hitting exactly .300 over the past 30 days. Shortstop Brandon Crawford has emerged from a seasonlong slump--his slash line was .225/.313/.362 at the end of August--to hit .342/.376/.468 over the past 30 days.
The Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw has sewn up the Cy Young award and, possibly the MVP as well, but the Giants' Madison Bumgarner will get some downballot Cy Young votes, as he's tied for third in wins and is fourth in innings pitched and strikeouts. Over the past 30 days, he's 4-0 with a 1.59 ERA, but that's been only second best on the club, as Jake Peavy, who joined the club via a July 26 trade with the Red Sox, is 4-1 with 0.79 ERA.
Who's Not? No GIants reliever has pitched ten innings over the past 30 days, as manager Bruce Bochy has scrounged around looking for somebody who's good. Setup man Sergio Romo has a 2.70 ERA and closer Santiago Casilla's at 3.38, but Tim Lincecum, Jean Machi, and Jeremy Affeldt have combined for an 8.20 ERA over 20 innings. Starter Tim Hudson has collapsed following a strong first half (2.78 ERA at the All-Star break), as he's compiled a 7.03 ERA over his past five starts, and made it out of the fifth inning in his starts only three times since the end of July. Ryan Vogelsong's been bad too, with a 4.93 ERA over six starts, during which he's walked nearly 12% of the batters he's faced.
Left fielder Morse has managed only 33 plate appearances over the past 30 days, batting just .214 with no home runs as he's battled an oblique injury that looks likely to shut him down for the rest of the year. While you can't complain about the performance of Blanco, Pagan, and Pence, Morse is the team's most dangerous power hitter. Another good hitter, first baseman Brandon Belt, has had a lost, injury-marred year, but at least he's back playing.
What's the Outlook? The Giants, having been swept by the Padres over the weekend, have probably played themselves out of contention for the National League West, though they seem solid for the wild card. As I noted in my Pirates comment, I like their chances against the Bucs, to the degree that one can predict the winner of a single game. The winner, though, moves on to what's likely to be the Nationals, a team with few if any notable weaknesses that's playing the best baseball among National League contenders of late. It's going to be tough to keep the Giants' streak of world championships in even-numbered years in this decade going.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Flyover: Los Angeles Dodgers
This continues a series of looks at each team over the past month. The National League West is the only divisional race I haven't discussed so far. Let's change that, starting with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
How Are They Doing Lately? Their 16-10 record over the past 30 days is the third best in the league and half a game ahead of their divisional rivals, the San Francisco Giants. They've scored the most runs in the National League, 5.7 runs per game, by a wide margin; the Giants are second with 5.0. However, they've given up 4.5 per game, the third most in the league. At 88-67 entering play today, the Dodgers have assured themselves a playoff berth, and any combination of five Dodgers wins and/or Giants losses will give them the NL West crown. They're two games behind Washington and a game ahead of St. Louis in the race for the best record in the league (and home field advantage throughout the playoffs).
What's Going Right? The Dodgers are first in the league in batting average (.296) and on base percentage (.359) and third in slugging percentage (.454) over the past 30 days, while the league's averaging .253/.314/.386. The pitchers have been pretty middling, seventh in the league in ERA. They have the sixth-highest strikeout rate and fourth-lowest walk rate, but they're third to last in strand rate, as 31% of baserunners have come around to score. They've had good control, as LA's one of four pitching staffs in the National League with over half of pitches in the strike zone over the past 30 days.
What's Going Wrong? Those offensive stats are a little bit of an illusion. The Dodgers have benefited from a .356 batting average on balls in play, by far the best in the league, which is averaging .302 over the past 30 days, and they've gotten home runs on 15% of fly balls, while the league's averaging less than 10%. Neither of those sorts of deviations are usually sustainable; the Dodgers were at .309 and 9.5%, respectively, in the first half of the year. So while they've been hitting like crazy, they're not likely to keep it up. The pitchers are third-worst in the league at inducing swings outside the strike zone, at 30%, and as a result opposing hitters are making contact on 80% of swings, which is above average.
The Dodgers have also had a pretty easy schedule. Over the past 30 days, entering play today, they've had five games against the worst team in the league (Arizona), three against the second-worst (Colorado), three against the third-worst (Chicago), and six against the sixth-worst (San Diego). They've had only six games against teams with winning records, San Francisco and Washington, and they split them. So there's plenty of reason to take that 16-10 record over the past 30 days with a grain of salt.
Who's Hot? Most Dodgers batters have been swinging the bat well of late. Over the past 30 days, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez is leading the league in home runs (eight) and RBI (28), and he's second in runs (21) and slugging percentage (.614). Juan Uribe and Justin Turner have been a formidable tag team at third, with a combined .395/.429/.463 slash line over the past 30 days. Left fielder Carl Crawford's batting .379, right fielder Matt Kemp is batting .310 with seven homers and a .610 slugging percentage, second baseman Dee Gordon's batting .327 while shortstop Hanley Ramirez is at .305. That's six of eight lineup positions where the Dodgers have a .300+ batting average over the last 30 days.
Three starting pitchers--Clayton Kershaw, Dan Haren, and Zach Greinke--have been almost unbeatable, combining for an 11-1 won-lost record and a 2.40 ERA. Setup man Pedro Baez has a 1.46 ERA over the past 30 days, the only reliever with over eight innings pitched with an ERA below 3.00.
Who's Not? Much has made of center fielder Yasiel Puig's slump, as he's gone from batting .309 with twelve homers prior to the All-Star break to .283 with three homers since. He was particularly bad in August, when he hit .216 with no homers. He's come alive some in September (.313 with two homers entering play today), and over the past 30 days his slash line is .250/.365/.375 compared to .253/.314/.386 for the league as a whole--not great, but not much different from the league average.
After Kershaw, Haren, and Greinke, the rotation's been a mess. The No. 4 starter, Hyun-Jin Ryu is hurt, and the other three starters the Dodgers have tried (Roberto Hernandez, Carlos Frias, Kevin Correia) have a combined ERA of 7.92.
What's the Outlook? The Dodgers should win their division, but they're not as good a team, it seems to me, as their recent record would suggest. As things stand now, they'd play the Cardinals, another team that I've described as good but flawed, in a divisional series. The Dodgers' top three starters may give them the edge, but the Cardinals can pitch as well. It could make for an interesting series.
How Are They Doing Lately? Their 16-10 record over the past 30 days is the third best in the league and half a game ahead of their divisional rivals, the San Francisco Giants. They've scored the most runs in the National League, 5.7 runs per game, by a wide margin; the Giants are second with 5.0. However, they've given up 4.5 per game, the third most in the league. At 88-67 entering play today, the Dodgers have assured themselves a playoff berth, and any combination of five Dodgers wins and/or Giants losses will give them the NL West crown. They're two games behind Washington and a game ahead of St. Louis in the race for the best record in the league (and home field advantage throughout the playoffs).
What's Going Right? The Dodgers are first in the league in batting average (.296) and on base percentage (.359) and third in slugging percentage (.454) over the past 30 days, while the league's averaging .253/.314/.386. The pitchers have been pretty middling, seventh in the league in ERA. They have the sixth-highest strikeout rate and fourth-lowest walk rate, but they're third to last in strand rate, as 31% of baserunners have come around to score. They've had good control, as LA's one of four pitching staffs in the National League with over half of pitches in the strike zone over the past 30 days.
What's Going Wrong? Those offensive stats are a little bit of an illusion. The Dodgers have benefited from a .356 batting average on balls in play, by far the best in the league, which is averaging .302 over the past 30 days, and they've gotten home runs on 15% of fly balls, while the league's averaging less than 10%. Neither of those sorts of deviations are usually sustainable; the Dodgers were at .309 and 9.5%, respectively, in the first half of the year. So while they've been hitting like crazy, they're not likely to keep it up. The pitchers are third-worst in the league at inducing swings outside the strike zone, at 30%, and as a result opposing hitters are making contact on 80% of swings, which is above average.
The Dodgers have also had a pretty easy schedule. Over the past 30 days, entering play today, they've had five games against the worst team in the league (Arizona), three against the second-worst (Colorado), three against the third-worst (Chicago), and six against the sixth-worst (San Diego). They've had only six games against teams with winning records, San Francisco and Washington, and they split them. So there's plenty of reason to take that 16-10 record over the past 30 days with a grain of salt.
Who's Hot? Most Dodgers batters have been swinging the bat well of late. Over the past 30 days, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez is leading the league in home runs (eight) and RBI (28), and he's second in runs (21) and slugging percentage (.614). Juan Uribe and Justin Turner have been a formidable tag team at third, with a combined .395/.429/.463 slash line over the past 30 days. Left fielder Carl Crawford's batting .379, right fielder Matt Kemp is batting .310 with seven homers and a .610 slugging percentage, second baseman Dee Gordon's batting .327 while shortstop Hanley Ramirez is at .305. That's six of eight lineup positions where the Dodgers have a .300+ batting average over the last 30 days.
Three starting pitchers--Clayton Kershaw, Dan Haren, and Zach Greinke--have been almost unbeatable, combining for an 11-1 won-lost record and a 2.40 ERA. Setup man Pedro Baez has a 1.46 ERA over the past 30 days, the only reliever with over eight innings pitched with an ERA below 3.00.
Who's Not? Much has made of center fielder Yasiel Puig's slump, as he's gone from batting .309 with twelve homers prior to the All-Star break to .283 with three homers since. He was particularly bad in August, when he hit .216 with no homers. He's come alive some in September (.313 with two homers entering play today), and over the past 30 days his slash line is .250/.365/.375 compared to .253/.314/.386 for the league as a whole--not great, but not much different from the league average.
After Kershaw, Haren, and Greinke, the rotation's been a mess. The No. 4 starter, Hyun-Jin Ryu is hurt, and the other three starters the Dodgers have tried (Roberto Hernandez, Carlos Frias, Kevin Correia) have a combined ERA of 7.92.
What's the Outlook? The Dodgers should win their division, but they're not as good a team, it seems to me, as their recent record would suggest. As things stand now, they'd play the Cardinals, another team that I've described as good but flawed, in a divisional series. The Dodgers' top three starters may give them the edge, but the Cardinals can pitch as well. It could make for an interesting series.
Trailing 30 - September 21
Here are the top (and bottom) performers over the past 30 days, made possible through the magic of FanGraphs and its fabulous Leaders application. Comment for the week: If you're wondering how the Pirates have put together the best record in the National League over the past 30 days, take a look at the NL batting leaders.
Runs Runs
American League National League
Team W-L Team W-L
1. Los Angeles 20-9 1. Pittsburgh 18-9
Baltimore 20-9 2. St. Louis 18-11
3. Detroit 18-11 3. Washington 17-11
4. Cleveland 16-12 4. Los Angeles 16-10
5. Seattle 15-13 5. San Francisco 16-11
Worst Team W-L Worst Team W-L
1. Minnesota 10-18 1. Milwaukee 9-19
Oakland 10-18 2. Arizona 9-18
3. Boston 11-17 3. Atlanta 9-17
4. Chicago 11-16 4. Cincinnati 10-17
5. Texas 12-16 5. Miami 11-17
5. Texas 12-16 5. Miami 11-17
Batting Average Batting Average
1. Abreu, Chi .398 1. Posey, SF .408
2. Altuve, Hou .384 2. Harrison, Pit .361
3. V Martinez, Det .378 3. Marte, Pit .360
4. Brantley, Cle .363 4. Martin, Pit .333
5. JD Martinez, Det .363 5. McCutchen, Pit .327
Lowest Batting Average Lowest Batting Average
1. Teixera, NY .143 1. Smith, SD .122
2. Markakis, Bal .168 2. Baez, Chi .142
3. Gordon, KC .184 3. J Upton, Atl .181
4. Schoop, Bal .184 4. Adams, SL .184
4. Schoop, Bal .184 4. Adams, SL .184
5. Middlebrooks,Bos .185 5. Hamilton, Cin .191
On Base Percentage On Base Percentage
1. Abreu, Chi .495 1. Werth, Was .451
2. V Martinez, Det .448 2. Posey, SF .432
3. Beltre, Tex .447 3. Martin, Pit .412
4. Brantley, Cle .419 4. Marte, Pit .412
5. Dozier, Min .414 5. 2 with .400
Slugging Percentage Slugging Percentage
1. Trout, LA .632 1. Posey, SF .689
2. V Martinez, Det .622 2. Gonzalez, LA .614
3. JD Martinez, Det .611 3. Kemp, LA .610
4. Cabrera, Det .596 4. Martin, Pit .595
5. Bautista, Tor .596 5. Dickerson, Col .584
Home Runs Home Runs
1. Bautista, Tor 10 1. Gonzalez, LA 8
2. Trout, LA 8 2. 6 with 7
2. Trout, LA 8 2. 6 with 7
3. 4 with 7
Runs Runs
1. Trout, LA 28 1. Rendon, Was 22
2. V Martinez, Det 24 2. Gonzalez, LA 21
3. Santana, Min 23 Gordon, LA 21
4. Bautista, Tor 22 4. Valbuena, Chi 20
Calhoun, LA 22 Yelich, Mia 20
RBI RBI
4. Bautista, Tor 22 4. Valbuena, Chi 20
Calhoun, LA 22 Yelich, Mia 20
RBI RBI
1. Bautista, Tor 24 1. Gonzalez, LA 28
2. Longoria, TB 23 2. Posey, SF 27
Pujols, LA 23 3. Holliday, SL 25
Santana, Cle 23 4. Kemp, LA 24
5. 3 with 21 5. LaRoche, Was 21
5. 3 with 21 5. LaRoche, Was 21
Stolen Bases Stolen Bases
1. Schafer, Min 9 1. Hamilton, Cin 10
2. Altuve, Hou 8 Revere, Phi 10
Dyson, KC 8 3. Lagares, NY 9
4. 6 with 7 4. 3 with 7
Saves Saves
1. Rodney, Sea 10 1. Mejia, NY 9
2. Britton, Bal 8 Melancon, Pit 9
3. Nathan, Det 7 3. Storen, Was 8
4. Allen, Cle 6 4. 5 with 7
4. Allen, Cle 6 4. 5 with 7
5. 3 with 5
ERA ERA
1. Shoemaker, LA 1.39 1. Peavy, SF 0.79
2. Carrasco, Cle 1.50 2. Liriano, Pit 0.82
3. Gonzalez, Bal 1.56 3. Collmenter, Ari 1.01
4. McHugh, Hou 1.56 4. Matzek, Col 1.56
5. Samardzija, Oak 1.66 5. Bumgarner, SF 1.59
Worst ERA Worst ERA
1. May, Min 8.22 1. Hudson, SF 6.07
2. Oberholtzer, Hou 5.83 2. Vogelsong, SF 5.16
3. Price, Det 5.81 3. Anderson, Ari 5.00
4. Vargas, KC 5.51 4. Colon, NY 4.97
5. Hellickson, TB 5.46 5. Lohse, Mil 4.85
WHIP WHIP
1. Hammel, Oak 0.74 1. Collmenter, Ari 0.70
2. Samardzija, Oak 0.76 2. Haren, LA 0.77
3. McHugh, Hou 0.81 3. Miller, SL 0.82
3. McHugh, Hou 0.81 3. Miller, SL 0.82
4. Carrasco, Cle 0.86 4. Peavy, SF 0.85
5. Feldman, Ho 0.86 5. Petit, SF 0.87
5. Feldman, Ho 0.86 5. Petit, SF 0.87
Strikeouts Strikeouts
1. Carrasco, Cle 50 1. Kershaw, LA 44
2. Samardzija, Oak 44 2. Petit, SF 43
3. Hutchison, Tor 43 3. deGrom, NY 40
4. Sale, Chi 40 Wood, Atl 40
5. 4 with 39 Zimmermann, Was 40
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