Was the offense just in a run of bad luck on this road trip?

[BRobinsonfan]

1 hour ago, wildcard said:

IMO teams make their own luck.

I also find the team that shows up prepared to play and gives 110% usually wins as well. 

[Hank Scorpio]

They'd better start playing better baseball and have a few bounces go their way soon. 

Or we'll be re-living all the bad luck they've endured for the next 5 months. 

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Spy Fox said:

What do you think changed in their hitting philosophy, or ability to make their own luck, from last year-- when they were first in MLB with RISP? 

Very clearly, it was letting go of Adam Frazier.   He had a .932 OPS with RISP, successfully got runners home from 3B with less than 2 out 65% of the time, and through his veteranosity spread his RISPiness to all the other players.    

[SemperFi]

On 9/16/2024 at 8:33 AM, JR Oriole said:

I am very admittedly old school, so the xBA, exit velocities, barrels, and all of those other stats make my eyes water. I really only care about actual base hits and actual success rather than predictors of success. The 2014 Royals spent the entire ALCS dinking and dunking us to death, making productive outs, and running all over us. It started with that broken bat bloop Alex Gordon double that somehow cleared the bases and then they spent the rest of that series mosquito biting us to death.  

So in this past week when Rafaela for Boston and Torkelson for Detroit were able to poke run scoring singles to the right side with what had to be really low exit velocities to drive in runs with 2 outs, it made me think.....why can't we do this?  What is so bad about a bloop single, or a bunt with the third baseman a mile back, or hitting balls where they are pitched without trying to square up or hammer every pitch?  

I am sure there is merit to trying to hit the ball really hard all the time.  But it doesn't seem to work that well for us since if we don't homer, we have real trouble scoring runs. Maybe we should just watch Arizona and try to do what they do.  They seem to have no problem scoring runs.

It was fun to watch those Royals much as it was fun to watch last year's Orioles- plus speed at almost all positions, plus defense at most positions, forcing mistakes with aggressiveness while conversely having an elite relay system (injuries, rookies and losing Hays accuracy hurt).  I don't think it's a stretch to say there is a correlation between the Orioles most recent record, defense and pitching trends.  It's challenging to pitch when your defense is poor.

It was also fun to watch Detroit play this weekend, their defense, style of play and execution was better and much more exciting than the Orioles.

I don't enjoy the K/HR game as much-I prefer to see the ball in play and watch the choreography of the defense.  More emphasis on the things that were valued when I played-speed and defense.  But that's just me and like you I am of a different generation.

Comparing data (0lder-2014) it's still a much greater benefit hitting line drives than hitting fly's or grounders.  Of course it's of even much greater benefit if you just put the ball in play-which is frustrating watching some of the rookies struggle to advance runners.  Importantly this fails to capture the opportunities that exist for defensive errors or mistakes due to pressure when the ball is simply put in play.

Type	AVG	ISO	wOBA
GB	.239	.020	.220
LD	.685	.190	.684
FB	.207	.378	.335

 

This was another (newer) slide that shows (to me) how FB, GB, LD trends are influenced by increasing exit velocity-

                                             -Harder hit GB's translate to hit's while harder hit LD's carry for outs, FB's with greater velocity lead to more HR's or XBH's-less balls caught. On the below attached it's interesting to note the increase in HR % on FB's and the corresponding decrease in other hits (2B/3B/1B).  Note on these slides-prior to ~2013 there was no launch angle calculation-everything was visual which could affect data).

I believe the Orioles draft and develop for bat speed and a certain VBA and they have the data to support that-with much smarter people and much better data than I.  But I'm from the old line drive school of hitting-to me it's just much more enjoyable baseball.  It's also much better baseball if the current batting approach is properly taught and executed.

https://baseballwithr.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/historical-look-at-hitting-rates/

https://library.fangraphs.com/offense/batted-ball/

[Sports Guy]

2 hours ago, Spy Fox said:

What do you think changed in their hitting philosophy, or ability to make their own luck, from last year-- when they were first in MLB with RISP? 

It’s not a stat that tends to carry over year to year. Very random.

Also, you can’t tell me there isn’t a mental side to this stuff. I have no doubt there is something between the ears effecting Cowser, for example.

[JR Oriole]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It’s not a stat that tends to carry over year to year. Very random.

Also, you can’t tell me there isn’t a mental side to this stuff. I have no doubt there is something between the ears effecting Cowser, for example.

I 100% agree that there is a huge mental element at play.  I have to think the more times you fail in big spots, the more pressure you put on yourself to stop failing and to come through for your team and the fans.  And nerves and pressure can easily impact your ability to do the things you normally do in lower pressure situations. 

I don't think it explains everything. But these guys are human and constantly having things go wrong or failing in big spots has to weigh on them.  

[Frobby]

11 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It’s not a stat that tends to carry over year to year. Very random.

Also, you can’t tell me there isn’t a mental side to this stuff. I have no doubt there is something between the ears effecting Cowser, for example.

Agreed on both points, and I'll add that the mental side can start to impact an entire team at times.