Baker has two posts that are noteworthy, the first regarding the
bunting bologna by Wedge, not slide, but by Wedge against the
Tigers the other night, he expands to why bunt and when, which is
generally sound. The second is about the team’s improvement over
the past two year’s dismal offensive performance.
It is good stuff albeit stuff we already thoroughly chewed
before.
When Broadway shows begin, they often play in Peoria to sort the
kinks out before hitting the great white way. It’s flattering to
see it pop up later, whether it’s bunting, Smoak or the team
improvement.
May 10, 2012 at 7:49 PM
Lots of bunt attempts this week…on the field too
Posted by Geoff Baker
seager.jpg
Folks have been writing for two days asking my take on The
Great Bunt Debate of 2012, not to mention my opinion on whether a
real smoked meat sandwich is allowed to have lettuce in it. We’ll
leave the food for another time.
As for the bunting, I didn’t want to jump in right away and
engage in that great sport of piling on. I kind of like to be first
into the pile, not last. But I was off the past two nights
and…well, there are a few things I saw that weren’t touched upon,
so I’ll throw a few thoughts out there.
First off, yes there is a time and place to bunt.
No, for me, it wasn’t with runners at first and second, none
out, Dustin Ackley up and the Mariners down by two runs.
Photo Credit: AP
There, now that we got that little quibble out of the way,
let’s get on with life. Oh, wait, you want more?
OK, very quickly, my personal, in-a-nutshell bunting
philosophy (always open to change or convincing as any open-minded
person should be) is that I like it when all you need is one run
and the bunt helps you achieve that run without any further hits or
walks.
That’s it. My rule of thumb.
Exceptions? Always. But that’s my guideline.
So, a runner on second base and nobody out? Yeah, I bunt the
guy to third.
With two on and none out in the eighth inning, down by three
runs and Chone Figgins up? Nah, I’m swinging away right there, even
though Figgins wound up grounding into a double-play when that
situation arose last month. Stuff happens when you swing away, yes,
but like I said, I don’t really like bunting when you need more
than a run. As I wrote after that night when Figgins swung away,
even if he had bunted and both runners wound up scoring that
inning, you’d still be down a run with three outs to go in the
game. I’d rather swing away and take my chances at that
point.
But when you’re talking about needing one run, it’s
different. Especially in the bottom of the ninth.
Once a runner is on third base with one out, the entire
dynamic of the game changes. It no longer matters that John Jaso is
hitting just .180 or so off a left-hander. He no longer needs to
get a hit to score the run. He merely needs to make solid contact,
which he is capable of doing against righties or lefties. Takes a
ton of pressure off the hitter. Not all of it, but a good amount.
Jaso didnt get a hit off Duane Below — as the stats said there was
only an 18 percent chance of him doing — and yet, he still won the
game for his team because of the higher probability he could send
the ball someplace deep enough through contact.
Another thing getting that runner to third base does is
eliminate a good part of some late relievers’ repertoires. A
pitcher with a drop-dead splitter is going to think twice about
burying it in the dirt with a runner on third. Even if he hesitates
only a fraction, that can sometimes give a hitter enough of an
edge.
Sure, you could have a hitter swing away and get the runner
to third with a groundout. But with a bunt, you make it tougher to
throw that lead runner out at third. A grounder hit to the left
side might force the runner to freeze and retreat to second — or
worse, get thrown out at third. But a bunt that forces fielders to
charge in for the ball? They will almost always take the sure out
at first base, rather than risk twisting their bodies and making a
long throw to third. Even the catcher charging towards the bases to
pick up a bunt is conditioned to throw to first unless a sure out
awaits him at third. Not the same for a grounder to the left side,
especially with the infield in.
Lastly, if no manager ever bunted, the element of surprise
would be gone. Teams would have a much easier time positioning
their defense if they knew there was no way a manager would ever
drop a bunt down on them. This way, you keep them guessing. You
force them to positon their fielders accordingly, then maybe you
surprise them and swing away. I just like anything that keeps an
opponent on their toes.
Bunting a guy to second base with no outs doesn’t keep
anyone on their toes. It keeps them on their knees, thanking the
baseball Gods that they were given a free out.
If you haven’t read The Book by Tom Tango, he’s got an
entire section devoted to the statistical outcomes of trying to
score in specific base situations depending on the number of outs.
Breaks it down into the likeliood of winning games based on the
inning the situation is taking place in. Very interesting and worth
reading.
By no means is it the last word on bunting, which Tango does
not attempt to write.
As he notes, there are always variables, like who is
pitching, who is hitting, etc. etc.
There is no perfect formula. And like I said, mine is always
open to interpretation. If you’re bunting a guy to third with none
out, you don’t want the next hitter to be a strikeout-prone, low
on-base guy incapable of hitting a flyball. Because a strikeout in
that situation kills the previous bunt strategy.
So, lots to think about.
So no, for the record, I would not have had Ackley bunt.
Yes, I would have had Seager bunt.
Now, let’s get on to more important things. Like smoked
meat. Hold the lettuce. Always.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/marinersblog/2018185011_lots_of_bunt_attempts_this_wee.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/marinersblog/2018180774_mariners_showing_improvement_o.html
Mariners showing improvement on offense one fifth of way
through season
Posted by Geoff Baker
montero.jpg
Last night marked the passing of the one-fifth pole in this
current Mariners season and we can say with some certainty the team
is showing improvement on offense. Not championship improvement —
at least, not yet. But the team is no longer pushing historical
limits as it did the past two seasons.
Some have noted that the pitching appears to have taken a
marked step back.
I’ll agree with those folks. But here’s the thing: it’s not
as important at present.
The reason being is that the current starting pitching staff
— outside of Felix Hernandez — is not really designed to be part of
any future contention strategy. Come 2014, there’s a good chance
that no one outside of Hernandez will still be around. Heck, we
can’t even guarantee Hernandez will be, but let’s assume for now
that all the talk of him sticking here for years and years to come
actually has validity.
Outside of that, it’s possible Blake Beavan and Hector Noesi
are still here. But they are more interchangeable, back-end types.
The team isn’t counting on them for contention. If not them, some
other, similar pitchers will take their place. No, the guys the
team is counting on to fill in behind Hernandez are all still in
the minors, with the threesome of Taijuan Walker, James Paxton and
Danny Hultzen forming a big part of that.
So, that’s why the pitching doesn’t matter as much right
now.
But the offense does because it is being anchored by players
the team does hope will be around for years and years to come. At
least, a good chunk of them. And we saw the last two years how even
really good pitching was neutered by the lack of offense in
Seattle.
So far, the Mariners sit middle-of-the-pack in runs scored,
placing 16th of 30 teams. That’s loads better than being 30th of 30
as the M’s were in 2011 and 2010.
Photo Credit: AP
Scoring runs is about the most important stat you can come
up with for an offense. In the end, this is still a
results-oriented business. And if you do all the other things
right, but somehow don’t score enough, it isn’t as easy as saying
“Don’t worry, the results should be there in the next four out of
five seasons.”
No, in baseball, jobs depend on producing wins every year
and it’s tough to do that without scoring. So, in the case of
measuring offense, the “results” stats like runs scored are
probably just as, if not more important than the “process” stats
like on-base-plus-slugging percentage (OPS).
Sure, you expect a team with a good OPS to score a good
number of runs. But people who run baseball teams don’t keep their
jobs because the team owner says “Hey, don’t worry about the run
total, I know you had a good OPS.”
No, they keep their jobs because the owner says “Nice job
with the offense this year, you scored a lot more runs! OP…Z, S,
what was that called, again?”
Teams don’t win games by posting a higher OPS that the other
team. They win by scoring runs and OPS (though measured as a result
of something) is a process by which those run results are
accumulated. Follow?
That’s why you still see teams preoccupied with players
being able to hit with runners in scoring position (RISP). Even
though the more advanced stats research show us that — over time —
the numbers should balance out to where a player’s hitting with
RISP is about the same as his normal batting average, teams
sometimes don’t have that long to wait.
When a team is losing 15 games in a row and the cleanup
hitter keeps striking out with RISP despite a .280 batting average,
a manager whose job is on the line won’t have another 50 games to
wait for everything to level out. I think, once again, this is
where some of the disconnect between more advanced stats theory and
real life baseball ends up crossing paths.
We all think we know how things will turn out over a
complete, detailed “sample size” of 162 games. But when a team’s
season could come down to its play during any given three-week
span, you will see decisions made over shorter samples designed for
shorter-term results.
Not really as big an issue where the Mariners are concerned.
Even after a solid 4-2 homestand, they are still three under .500
and more than a half-dozen games out of the division lead.
But where offense is concerned, there are still shorter term
considerations. If the team once again scores fewer than 600 runs,
there will be a perception that not enough was accomplished and
that could very well lead to changes and/or firings. Hitting coach
Chris Chambliss likely would be the first to go and even manager
Eric Wedge likely would not be on solid footing heading towards
2013.
And no matter how much teams tell fans what they want to
hear about every move being made for the greater long-term good,
it’s a little naive to believe that’s the case. We’re all human. We
all have our survival instincts. No one wants to lose their job.
Wedge doesn’t feel pressure to win and succeed because he’s got
some secret bet with Mike Hargrove that he can win more games than
he did after leaving Cleveland. No, he feels pressure because this
is his livelihood. It’s what he’s paid to do and he wants to keep
doing it. He loves the job, naturally. But he’s a professional, not
an amateur doing this as a hobby. And that’s what makes paid
professionals in baseball different from the amateurs who study it
as a hobby.
It’s easy to toss ideas around and scoff at decisions when
you’ve got nothing on the line. Much different to have to make
decisions and seek results when your daily livelihood is at
stake.
Anyhow, something else to consider about MLB and numbers
that you may not have read elsewhere.
Back to the Mariners and offense, they sit only 25th in
batting average at .234.
So, that appears to point to the big jump in run scoring
being due to something other than more hits per at-bat. The team’s
on-base stats are still abysmal as well, sitting 29th of 30 at
.289. We know the Mariners aren’t big on going to the plate and
trying to work a walk anymore, thanks to Wedge’s “attack-first”
mentality in which walks are mere byproducts of not getting a
hittable pitch. His hitters still haven’t mastered that yet, so
they aren’t always hitting the hittable stuff and they sure as heck
ain’t walking. So, that helps explain the low OBP.
OK, then, how in the world can the team be
middle-of-the-road in run scoring if they aren’t hitting like a
good team and aren’t getting on-base period even the way mediocre
teams do? Isn’t OBP the be-all, end-all?
The answer is, no. No one stat is the be-all, end all. There
is much that goes into offense. And in Seattle’s case, if the team
isn’t getting many more hits than it once did and is nearly as
futile at getting on base, logic tells us the quality of that
slightly increased hits total must have gotten better.
In other words, the M’s are doing something other than
“death by a thousand pinprick singles” against opponents.
Looking at their total bases, the M’s sit 16th out of 30,
which is much more reflective of their run total. And the big
reason for that is that Seattle sits fourth — fourth! — out of 30
teams in terms of doubles with 58. They also sit 15th in terms of
home runs with 27.
Interestingly, the M’s only sit 24th in slugging percentage
at .368. Still, that’s better than where they usually are — dead
last.
Why such a big fluctuation in homers and doubles versus
slugging percentage rank? Shouldn’t it all be ranked about equally,
since homers and doubles form the bulk of a team’s
slugging?
Simple answer: the Mariners have played more games than
other teams. Not many more, but enough to impact the
rankings.
And yes, once those ranks even out, the M’s could go from
being a mid-rung scoring team to something in the bottom third
again. Something more reflective of their 27th ranked OPS of .368
(dragged down by their very low OBP) or even their 25th ranked
batting average. Probably not as low — maybe 20th-23rd or so — but
a little lower down than 16th.
And yeah, lower bottom third is better than dead last by an
historically bad margin.
I never said the Mariners had a contending offense. What
they do have is the makings of a somewhat respectable one. The
difference being, the team now has some bigger bats that can put
runs on the board with a swing or two.
Guys like Kyle Seager, Jesus Montero and Michael Saunders.
Think of how much higher it could climb if Justin Smoak was hitting
anything and Dustin Ackley had not gotten off to such a slow
start.
Anyhow, coulda, woulda. But you can see here how a few
bigger bats have already made the offense better. How does this
team actually put a real, mid-rung, 15th-or-16th-ranked-ranked
offense out there without playing more games than anyone
else?
Easy. Get the OBP higher.
Yes, the presence of big bats in any MLB lineup is huge. But
you still still to get on base to really make them count. A 23rd,
or 25th ranked offense isn’t going to win any titles. Put a
15th-ranked offense out there with a stellar pitching staff? You
might have the makings of something.
The doubles numbers are a positive sign. But this team still
needs fewer sub-.200 hitters as well as fewer “in-between” or
“checked-swing” types. Once these players adapt to the new “attack
first” approach and make pitchers pay for good pitches, the theory
is that the walks will come because those pitchers will be more
reluctant to throw strikes.
Having some big boppers out there will help that fear
factor.
But it’s not enough for Jesus Montero to hit 20 homers. If
he’s to be effective, he can’t have an OBP below .300. None of
these Mariners can. That’s the new OBP Mendoza Line, not some
Seattle comfort zone.
So, call it a beginning. But for anyone to start discussing
contention, we need to see more hitters climb well beyond that .300
OBP mark. That’s when the big bats can be maximized to their
fullest.
Yeah, I could have written this quicker. But hopefully, by
walking us all through this exercise, some of the non experts and
non-know-it-alls out there will have a greater appreciation for
what goes into building an offense — both in theory and
reality.
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