.258

[DrungoHazewood]

25 minutes ago, jamalshw said:

I used to be vehemently opposed to the idea of banning the shift, but while I'm not exactly a proponent of it, I'm not up in arms about it either. I'm interested to see if this helps return us to a game closer to what I remember seeing growing up. If that's how it plays out next year, I could be swayed to be in favor of it. I wouldn't mind seeing the league average bump up a good 15-20 points and with it the averages of our players as well. 

I'm sure I'll get over it, it'll be fine.  But it will be a lot different than 30 or 40 years ago.  Averages will probably creep up a little, but with strikeout rates still well over 20% it'll all be on BABIP. There won't be any more balls in play, there won't be any change in players trying to pull everything, we'll just have more balls in play turn into hits. Mostly from big lefty sluggers.  This isn't to develop more Tony Gwynns, it's to make it easier on Chris Davis.

[Spy Fox]

For context I was curious how many other teams had similarly low leading hitters. Seven teams had leading qualified hitters with lower AVGs than Mullins: the Nationals, Marlins, Brewers, Reds, Royals, Tigers, and Athletics. I noticed several of those teams only had 1-3 hitters that played enough to qualify. The Orioles had 5 which was a common number among relatively successful teams. The highest I noticed was the Dodgers with 7. 

These were all the leading htiters: 

NYM - McNeil .326 / PHI - Bohm .280 / ATL - Swanson .277 / WAS - Hernandez .248 / MIA - Rojas .236

STL - Goldschmidt .317 / CHC - Hoerner .281 / PIT - Reynolds .262 / MIL - Renfroe .255 / CIN - Farmer .255

LAD - Freeman .325 / SD - Machado .298 / ARI - Rojas .269 / COL - Rodgers .266 / SF - Estrada .260

AL

NYY - Judge .311 / BOS - Bogaerts .307 / TB - Diaz .296 / TOR - Bichette .290 / BAL - Mullins .258

MIN - Arraez .316 / CHW - Abreu .304 / CLE - Kwan .298 / KC - Witt .254 / DET - Baez .238

HOU - Alvarez .306 / TEX - Lowe .302 / SEA - Rodriguez .284 / LAA - Ward .281 / OAK - Murphy .250

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

BA has become a stat that is too undervalued.

OBP and OPS are more important but that doesn’t mean BA isn’t. 
 

Im wondering if good bat to ball skills is going to be something that becomes undervalued in the FA market?  Might be a way of adding some value to the team without spending a ton to do it.

Well, I don’t think BA is undervalued at all.  There are stats like wOBA that factor in exactly how important BA is.   My only problem with them is you can’t easily calculate them yourself, whereas BA is incredibly easy to calculate.   The reason people use BA/OBP/SLG slash lines is that it’s still relevant to know the BA component of OBP and SLG.

[Moose Milligan]

44 minutes ago, jamalshw said:

I used to be vehemently opposed to the idea of banning the shift, but while I'm not exactly a proponent of it, I'm not up in arms about it either. I'm interested to see if this helps return us to a game closer to what I remember seeing growing up. If that's how it plays out next year, I could be swayed to be in favor of it. I wouldn't mind seeing the league average bump up a good 15-20 points and with it the averages of our players as well. 

 

I used to be opposed to it.  Now I'm actually looking forward to it.  Every time I saw one of our guys get robbed of a hit down the stretch due to the shift I thought about how it'd have been nice if that were actually a hit.  

I agree that banning the shift isn't going to be a big cure to get offense up but I don't think I'm going to miss it.

 

38 minutes ago, JR Oriole said:

I definitely understand the school of thought that hitters should just adjust to it.....but in large part, they haven't.  And I am not patient enough at this point to wait for them to adjust.   

Good article worth reading:  https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24049347/mlb-hitters-explain-why-just-beat-shift

Some select quotes:

Quote

"I'm not trying to hit it in one specific place. If I look up, and they're full-shifting me, and I only have one defender in the 5-6 hole where the third baseman plays, I have to let the ball get a little deeper. But the pitchers are pretty good, and that's now a foul ball. I'm really never in the business of trying to aim for a certain area because I have to be perfect, and I'm not perfect.

"If any of us could control hits, we would get more of them. But you can't. You can only control the process.

Quote

"There's this whole narrative of 'Why don't guys just hit ground balls to short?' The answer is: (a) It's not that easy and (b) it's the complete thing you've taught yourself your entire baseball career to avoid. If a guy has a chance to hit a homer and a double, and he goes up there trying to slap a ground ball to short, the other team is perfectly fine with that.

Quote

"I think it gets blown out of proportion when people say, 'Just hit a ground ball to short.' You can't just take a 98 mph cutting fastball in on your hands and do that. Let's just say I sell out tonight, and I try it four times. The likelihood of me hitting four straight ground balls to short and ending up 4-for-4 are very slim. If I succeed once or maybe twice, at best I'm going to go 2-for-4 with two singles, where if I just play the game, I might go 2-for-4 with a homer and a double. It makes no sense to me.

"Just think about this: When there's a runner on third base and less than two outs and the infield is playing back, every hitter in baseball knows that all you have to do is hit a ground ball anywhere, and you score the run. And that success rate is still super small. That play is easy, and it gets screwed up all the time. Guys can't hit a ground ball when all they have to do is hit a ground ball to score a run.

I think the whole "WHY CAN'T THEY JUST HIT IT TO THE OTHER SIDE WHERE THE SHIFT ISN'T????" argument is a lot easier said than done.  

[JR Oriole]

9 minutes ago, Spy Fox said:

For context I was curious how many other teams had similarly low leading hitters. Seven teams had leading qualified hitters with lower AVGs than Mullins: the Nationals, Marlins, Brewers, Reds, Royals, Tigers, and Athletics. I noticed several of those teams only had 1-3 hitters that played enough to qualify. The Orioles had 5 which was a common number among relatively successful teams. The highest I noticed was the Dodgers with 7. 

These were all the leading htiters: 

NYM - McNeil .326 / PHI - Bohm .280 / ATL - Swanson .277 / WAS - Hernandez .248 / MIA - Rojas .236

STL - Goldschmidt .317 / CHC - Hoerner .281 / PIT - Reynolds .262 / MIL - Renfroe .255 / CIN - Farmer .255

LAD - Freeman .325 / SD - Machado .298 / ARI - Rojas .269 / COL - Rodgers .266 / SF - Estrada .260

AL

NYY - Judge .311 / BOS - Bogaerts .307 / TB - Diaz .296 / TOR - Bichette .290 / BAL - Mullins .258

MIN - Arraez .316 / CHW - Abreu .304 / CLE - Kwan .298 / KC - Witt .254 / DET - Baez .238

HOU - Alvarez .306 / TEX - Lowe .302 / SEA - Rodriguez .284 / LAA - Ward .281 / OAK - Murphy .250

Yeah I had started to look at this, but I am glad you followed it all the way through.  What is amazing to me is we didn't even have any non-qualifying players who hit higher than Gunnar's .259.  I could count Mancini, but since he ended the season on a different team I didn't.  And even if I did count him, .268 isn't exactly great. 

Of course it doesn't mean hardly anything if we have somebody at the top who hit .300 by going 3 for 10.  But to not see anyone anywhere on the stats ledger that hit for high average is kind of amazing....to me at least.  I think some (if not all) of those other teams you mentioned at least had some part-timers who hit for higher averages.  If our players' averages were plotted on a bell curve, we would have almost nothing in the right tail, a fat bell, and some on the left.  

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, JR Oriole said:

Yeah I had started to look at this, but I am glad you followed it all the way through.  What is amazing to me is we didn't even have any non-qualifying players who hit higher than Gunnar's .259.  I could count Mancini, but since he ended the season on a different team I didn't.  And even if I did count him, .268 isn't exactly great. 

Of course it doesn't mean hardly anything if we have somebody at the top who hit .300 by going 3 for 10.  But to not see anyone anywhere on the stats ledger that hit for high average is kind of amazing....to me at least.  I think some (if not all) of those other teams you mentioned at least had some part-timers who hit for higher averages.  If our players' averages were plotted on a bell curve, we would have almost nothing in the right tail, a fat bell, and some on the left.  

I think it's an indication of what Elias is looking for in hitters.

 

[JR Oriole]

7 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think it's an indication of what Elias is looking for in hitters.

 

That very well may be true.  Looking forward to seeing if this holds true again next year, or if it was really sort of a statistical anomaly.  An entire ledger of hitters were none hit at .270 or above (regardless of number of ABs) has to be pretty rare.

[DrungoHazewood]

FYI, shift bans in the minors had impact to BABIP that were too small to be seen in the data.  Instead of seeing batting averages jump 15-20 points, the effect may be too small to be discerned.

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

FYI, shift bans in the minors had impact to BABIP that were too small to be seen in the data.  Instead of seeing batting averages jump 15-20 points, the effect may be too small to be discerned.

That syncs with data I saw years ago showing that the shift didn't have much of an impact for most hitters.

[Natty]

I'm dissapointed. I'm always hopefull, and I was hoping that this year we were going to see a breakout year for Hays, Mountcastle, Santander, and a good year for Mancini, and I was hoping Mullins could have another great year like last year. 

But I'm blaming this on the dead ball. Well it was dead for almost everyone except Judge. 

[BohKnowsBmore]

3 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

 

I agree that banning the shift isn't going to be a big cure to get offense up but I don't think I'm going to miss it.

It would be interesting if it leads to an equilibrium where teams actually dramatically increase the value they place on rangy, glove-first SS/2B types, leading to a negligible increase in offense (or even a decline).

[Frobby]

6 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

That syncs with data I saw years ago showing that the shift didn't have much of an impact for most hitters.

Seems unlikely to me.   There’s a reason all teams are doing it, and it’s not because it has no impact.  

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

Seems unlikely to me.   There’s a reason all teams are doing it, and it’s not because it has no impact.  

 I didn't say no impact.

 

[Orioles0615]

13 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

RIght, it's just another stat!

So why do folks complain so much about it?

Why is there a thread bemoaning the low batting averages on the team?

In 2019 we had Hanser Alberto hit 305, he didn't walk or hit for power so his OPS+ was 98.

Is that what folks want?

An empty batting average?

The game has changed, strategy has evolved.

 

The guys like Hanser Alberto are few and far between. Normally if you hit for average you also have a high OBP. 11 guys hit above .300, only Nate Lowe wouldn't lead the O's in OBP and his was .358

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, Orioles0615 said:

The guys like Hanser Alberto are few and far between. Normally if you hit for average you also have a high OBP. 11 guys hit above .300, only Nate Lowe wouldn't lead the O's in OBP and his was .358

Guys like Hanser Alberto are few and far between because teams don't acquire and develop players like that anymore because they aren't as valuable.

Used to be a lot more of that type of player.