Why aren't the Giants scoring more runs?
by cakes on Jun 13, 2010 10:34 AM PDT
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PrintTeam OPS: 8th in the NL (739)
Team OBP: 8th (.332)
Team runs scored: 13th
What gives? Why isn't the lineup's overall production not translating into runs? Are there better stats to judge run production that make the Giants look like worse hitters? Or have the Giants been unlucky?
One thing I noticed is that the team is dead last in the league in OPS with runners in scoring position (672). And we also lead the league in double plays. Should we expect those numbers to, what's the term, regress toward the mean?
Another way to phrase this is: which do you think is a truer representation of the Giants' offensive capability: the team OPS or the team runs scored?
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One thing I noticed is that the team is dead last in the league in OPS with runners in scoring position (672).
Karma from last year.
I’m sorry – did my karma run over your dogma?
"Row(and) will come out of this. You stay with your guys and he is one of our guys." - Bruce Bochy 05-31-10
"...and with Titanic's transverse bulkheads and watertight doors, it renders this vessel practically unsinkable." - "Shipbuilder" magazine, 1912
Good movie
Proud father of Mike Krukow (who is more than 3 times my age)
Grab Some Pine, Meat
Still cheering for Kevin Frandsen
John Bowker: One of the 3 best OF's on the Giants roster
not as good as Chasing Amy though
Jonathan Sanchez. He's left-handed, like Barry Zito. His fastball breaks 80, unlike Zito.
I liked it more
Such a weird/perfect combination of deep philospohy, zany humor, great dialogue and a cool cast.
Proudly adopted Aubrey Huff. You can't beat that!
Only one of three Good Awesome movie’s with Ben Affleck.
Matt Graham is an anagram for .... why don't you ask the scrabble expert!
by say hey nation on Jun 14, 2010 2:33 PM PDT up reply actions
The one with Yogi Berra
“And they give you money, which is just as good as cash”
Proudly adopted Aubrey Huff. You can't beat that!
It should be better
While their OBP is 8th in the NL, the number of walks that have drawn ranks 14th. Their OBP is almost entirely dependent on their batting average. They probably won’t stay middle of the pack in on-base percentage unless they can up their walks.
The first couple of answers were kinda joking about the team being slow and fat. But there is some truth in that as well.
WHY IS BENGIE?!
Dearest, Susan - The Patron Saint of Patience
by Lars The Wanderer on Jun 13, 2010 10:50 AM PDT reply actions
Well actually...
It’s quite possible that the Giants just have a bunch of high BA kinda guys, and that will allow their OBP’s to stay respectable.
by AmorVincitOmnia on Jun 13, 2010 5:44 PM PDT up reply actions
Taking Rowand and Molina out would help with the walks
Proudly adopted Aubrey Huff. You can't beat that!
Shouldn't a team with a good OBP that's BA dependent score MORE runs than a team that walks more.
…since BA includes XBHs and even singles drive in guys from 2nd?
Proudly adopted Aubrey Huff. You can't beat that!
even singles drive in guys from 2nd?
This depends on who is at 2nd at the time and is something that is uniquely applicable to the Giants.
WHY IS BENGIE?!
Dearest, Susan - The Patron Saint of Patience
by Lars The Wanderer on Jun 14, 2010 11:05 AM PDT up reply actions
Bengie LOLs!
Makes my comment right above my comment even more applicable
Proudly adopted Aubrey Huff. You can't beat that!
If Bengie and Rowand would just be good soldiers and accept a bench role, I would be a lot happier.
WHY IS BENGIE?!
Dearest, Susan - The Patron Saint of Patience
by Lars The Wanderer on Jun 14, 2010 11:39 AM PDT up reply actions
Can you be a gamer and a good soldier at the same time?
/bochy’s head explodes and leaves a big mess
Proudly adopted Aubrey Huff. You can't beat that!
The Oakland A’s announcers are trying to explain why the Oakland A’s are still behind the Anaheim Angels and the Seattle Mariners in the division standings. “The main reason this team is trailing in the American League West,” an announcer says, “is that they haven’t hit in the clutch, they haven’t hit with guys in scoring position.” Billy drops the book review, forgets about Amazon, and reaches for the TV remote control. Of the many false beliefs peddled by the TV announcers, this fealty to “clutch hitting” was maybe the most maddening to Billy Beane. “It’s fucking luck,” he says, and faces around the dial until he finds Moneyline with Lou Dobbs. He prefers watching money shows to watching baseball anyway.
Moneyball, Chapter 9
Obviously any links in the above post are probably NSFW
The baseball gods do not always punish the wicked but they will not just allow people to spit in their faces -- Joe Posnanski
I wish I would stop cheating. fuck. this is jctgamer's fault -- jponry
by jctGamer on Jun 13, 2010 10:55 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
/jots down “fealty” on my words-I-need-to-use-more flashcard.
by Grant Brisbee on Jun 13, 2010 11:29 AM PDT up reply actions
If you’ve been a Giants fan the last 5 years, you’ve already got fealty down pat.
"Row(and) will come out of this. You stay with your guys and he is one of our guys." - Bruce Bochy 05-31-10
"...and with Titanic's transverse bulkheads and watertight doors, it renders this vessel practically unsinkable." - "Shipbuilder" magazine, 1912
Well, that would indicate that it’s mostly bad luck, and we should expect the Giants to score more later in the season.
Assuming they maintain the same OPS and OBP, then yeah. A little less than we’d hope though, because they generally are pretty slow on the bases.
I feel prickishly demanding!
I couldn't be prouder of my recent adoptee - Tim Lincecum's dealer. He provides the secret fuel behind both Cy Youngs. Also, he taught Timmy the change-up.
by giantsfansince1981 on Jun 14, 2010 10:32 AM PDT up reply actions
Base-running
The Giants are middle of the pack, slightly on the plus side as to base running, according to Justin Bopp’s graph today, in Beyond the Boxscore, “Base Running: Which Teams Help (or Hurt) Themselves the Most?” The general perception is that they’re slow, but in fact they are doing a quite average job in the NL.
Well then color me wrong!
I feel prickishly demanding!
I couldn't be prouder of my recent adoptee - Tim Lincecum's dealer. He provides the secret fuel behind both Cy Youngs. Also, he taught Timmy the change-up.
by giantsfansince1981 on Jun 14, 2010 3:29 PM PDT up reply actions
Beane is ful of sh*t
Some guys can hit when it matters. Some can’t. The Billy Beane worship has (finally) started to lessen a bit around the Bay Area. Heck, his best young players are now in the NL West.
I know man
That Alex Rodriguez will never amount to anything in the playoffs, he crumbles when the games are important.
Rooting for Jose Casilla to take his K- and GB-inducing skills to the majors and join his brother.
The Kids: Lewis, Posey, Sandoval, Bowker, Schierholtz, Frandsen, Ishikawa, Amezaga... CHONE WAR projection= 12.7
Current Team: Rowand, Sanchez, DeRosa, Sandoval, Huff, Molina, Renteria, Schierholtz... CHONE WAR projection= 12.6
occam's razor
the simplest answer is usually the correct one.
The Giants are not very good at hitting the ball.
Is this occam's razor you speak of better than a Gillette?
I hate the little cuts I’m getting.
"You can always recover from the player you didn't sign. You may never recover from the player you signed at the wrong price." --Billy Beane
"I am not an idiot."--Brian Sabean
by Sabean's_Folly on Jun 13, 2010 12:45 PM PDT up reply actions
You are using the razor wrong
The question assumes decent hitting, based on the OPS.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
I'll take this one
The Giants aren’t very good.
Jonathan Sanchez. He's left-handed, like Barry Zito. His fastball breaks 80, unlike Zito.
Yeah, but occasionally they get lucky and show brief, widely spaced flashes of good.
And then there’s Buster.
/swoons
"I don’t know why people feel the need to come up with reasons 'why' for everything..." - Missing Barry
"...and is the reason 'why' really something we should be striving for?" - (guess who)
by victor frankenstein on Jun 13, 2010 12:23 PM PDT up reply actions
And of course we lead the league in Driving The Ball Much Better In Practice Recently
In all seriousness, there are a lot of outs that are ignored/hidden by OPS:
GIDPs: 2nd in MLB
SFs: 10th in MLB *
SH: 4th in MLB
CS: 15th in MLB, but then everybody above us has about 50 steals compared with our 25 – getting thrown out 40% of the time is pretty awful
Baserunning errors: I don’t have stats, but I can think of 4 suicidal outs at home off the top of my head
*obviously a SF is ‘good’, but it’s not as good as a hit, and if you never get a runner in from third without giving up an out then that’s a bad thing ignored by OPS
The high number of SH is, I think, related to the other main reason: an extremely unoptimal batting order. We have batters getting on at the top, then Molina and Rowand not getting them home. Hitters 6-8 (Uribe, Posey, Schierholtz or whatever) are often pretty good, but that only results in a decent number of baserunners for the pitcher, who is obviously either LOBing them, or bunting where possible (which gives up an out).
by sarf_london_niner on Jun 13, 2010 1:09 PM PDT reply actions
Do we know how many of the CS is are hit-and-runs gone bad?
Proudly adopted Aubrey Huff. You can't beat that!
Shouldn’t we be using statistics with some notion of significant variation? In fact only two teams in the league, the Reds and the Braves, have significantly higher OBP than the Giants, as of this past Friday. Giants .332—I am assuming that .005 plus or minus that is effectively the same. Given that they are behind in walks, is their OBP position an artifact of an inflated batting average? Doubtful: their .266 is in the same range as another 9 or 10 teams (= .259 and above), and again, significantly lower than the Reds’ at .280.
What is your point?
In the end, America will be remembered for three things: the Bill of Rights, jazz, and baseball.
My point is that posters keep on saying that as to statistic X the Giants are fourth or eighth or eleventh in the league, without attention to whether there’s any real difference between wherever the Giants are and the next half dozen teams up or down. Stats need to be contextualized if one is trying to infer anything from them. That doesn’t make any difference to those posters whose aim is to enjoy watching themselves being boosters or snots about the team, but it does if one is asking a serious question, as cakes is asking one in this post.
Very good point
In this case the difference between the middle of the pack for these stats is minimal.
Currently, three teams (Marlins, Giants, D-Backs) are tied with a 95 OPS+, Philly is at 94 OPS+ and three teams (Padres, Mets, Rockies) are chillin’ at 93.
That’s seven teams within miniscule fractions of luck/context-independent offensive production away from each other. Those tiny differences can easily be overcome by the OPS difference with runners in scoring position noted in cakes’ original post.
Rooting for Jose Casilla to take his K- and GB-inducing skills to the majors and join his brother.
The Kids: Lewis, Posey, Sandoval, Bowker, Schierholtz, Frandsen, Ishikawa, Amezaga... CHONE WAR projection= 12.7
Current Team: Rowand, Sanchez, DeRosa, Sandoval, Huff, Molina, Renteria, Schierholtz... CHONE WAR projection= 12.6
Yes Bengie and Pablo are killing us espescially when they are back to back
The Giants need to way way way more empashis on being aggressive on the base paths. Even if they get picked off the runners will have a huge effect, the pithcer will be thinking about them and more likely to make mistakes and they would give us better chance of running,
"Who Wants some pudding pops?, delicious and nutritious!
I'm glad you are not running the team
Aggression does not equal success, but you act like it does.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
I think your part way there.
Molinia needs to moved out teh ahrt of teh order and kept away from Panda. Molinia has reached the point where haveing him bat behind a young player probably increases that players attitude to feel he is tohe only chance that runner has at reaching home. This is never a good mind set.
As for on the base paths, with this collection of non Andreas players, just stay the hell out of extra trouble is all I ask.
/ glares at Flannery
Threat level that the 2010 Pads finish with more wins than the 2010 Giants is currently at: 39%
Spoiler: Grumpy older Giants fan is Grumpy.
Also we need Renteria back, Renteria got hits in the clutch
Rowand was sorta clutch too. Thats why I like having flexibility. Insert Rowand into outfield, put Huff at first, Posey at catcher. Then have Uribe as super utility and Bengie pinch hitting.
"Who Wants some pudding pops?, delicious and nutritious!
eating ballpark food: $15
buying Giants wool cap: $34
benching the cleanup hitter: priceless
"Row(and) will come out of this. You stay with your guys and he is one of our guys." - Bruce Bochy 05-31-10
"...and with Titanic's transverse bulkheads and watertight doors, it renders this vessel practically unsinkable." - "Shipbuilder" magazine, 1912
I don't often quote myself, but
I’m glad you are not running the team
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
and DeRosa too he would have been invaluable with runners on
"Who Wants some pudding pops?, delicious and nutritious!
It's like this:
Coming into Sunday, the Giants had scored 259 runs, but had hit well enough that on average they would have scored 270, so they’re about 4% under from tough luck. That is, by coincidence, just about the average size of expected random error at this stage of the season. In short, they are scoring—within normal randomness—the runs their on-field performances suggest. (They could do a little better by making better use of the personnel they have, starting with benching or getting completely rid of Molina, but that’s another topic.)
It would be nice to say that luck evens out over the course of a season, but in reality it distributes itself randomly among the 30 teams: some get almost exactly the runs they have “earned”, most are reasonably close, a few are fairly off, and a couple will be real outliers (all of this can be up or down from “expected”).
As I trust all McCovens know, “clutchiness” is an urban myth.
Professional baseball analyst since 1980.
From . . .
. . . here. The big table at the bottom of the page.
Professional baseball analyst since 1980.
after sunday
from BP: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/standings.php
They are at 265/274. TOP page has them at 265/276 – so independent confirmation using slightly different stats. BP also dings them a run for “quality of opposing pitching”
The projected wins on the site you linked above seem…. large.
TEMPORARY SIG AWAITING FINAL SABEAN APOCALYPSE
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PARPG- Indy post-apocalyptic roleplaying game in development
They do.
I’ve found it remarkable myself. Typically, though, as the season wears on, the range narrows: the weirdly high and weirdly low ends start approaching realistic results. In the end, it’s simply doing the math—remember that those are not “projections” in the sense of “What should these particular sets of players be accomplishing based on their histories?”, but rather simply “What numbers of runs scored and allowed, and games thereby won and lost, should we expect from what has actually gone down between the white lines so far this season?” The formulae used to calculate runs from component data are well-proven and rather accurate, ditto the one for getting games won from R/OR. So, strange as the resulting wins projections may look, they’re actually rather basic and uncontroversial applications of ordinary analytic equations.
I do a different sort of thing, wherein I simply project expected current performance from each individual’s career-to-date history (which includes 2010 to date), with no exceptions or allowances for things like injury years (because it’s programmatically generated, not hand-calculated). So far, without going into details, the team is performing well under the projections-from-career, maybe 80 runs’ worth (on a seasonal basis—maybe 31 runs to date). Some 11 of the 31 are just weak luck; the rest are “underperformance”. I put that in quotation marks because till one analyzes each man’s history by hand, to see what parts, if any, are tainted data (down from, say, injury, up or down from especially friendly or hostile parks, and so on and so forth), one can’t be sure that “career to date” is a reliable indicator. Right now, some guys, such as Huff (roughly +10%, are somewhat over career, while some, such as Rowand (roughly -35%), are under career, while yet others, such as Torres, have career data that we have good cause to believe non-representative, and others yet, such as DeRosa, have obvious reasons for being under their norms.
All in all, my general impression—not my reasoned, analyzed conclusion, because it isn’t that—is that the offense is by no means over its head, and will finish up no worse than average and maybe somewhat better. With the pitching—if that holds up—winning the diivision, as competitive as it is shaping up to be, is quite plausible.
Which, before you celebrate, means Bochean forever.
Sidebar: the Giants’ play so far would ordinarily generate 276 runs scored (265 actual) and 229 runs allowed (219 actual). Apply your “Pythagorean” or other games-won equation of choice, and you’ll get 96 games won from either expected results or actual results. (Because there is a balancing 10-run difference on projected-versus-actual for both R and OR.) Even just pro-rating actual wins to date shows 91, almost 92 wins, and the team is about 2 wins under norm right now.
Professional baseball analyst since 1980.
I still think there is an error
BP projects – based only on 2010 performance-to-date 88 wins. That’s NOT ANYWHERE NEAR 96.
The High Boskage site also predicts 100 wins from STL and COL, and 110 from NYY…not to mention 106 losses by the Orioles, 112 by the Astros, and 113 by the Pirates.
If you average the columns, they get MLB at .516 winning percentange at 83.4 games… but really I think the SD is off. They need to correct their pythag wins/losses for a 162 game season where the league averages .500.
TEMPORARY SIG AWAITING FINAL SABEAN APOCALYPSE
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PARPG- Indy post-apocalyptic roleplaying game in development
As I said . . .
. . . that’s based on performance to data. At this stage of the season, we can and do expect unusual team results—when pro-rated—just as we expect unusual streaks up or down for some players. I’d reckon the offset from .500 average is from roundings in projecting runs yielded and scored, since the tables don’t do fractional runs.
“Pythag”-type errors are a consequence of variations in what we might call “run efficiency”. If you win a game 1-0 or 11-10, either way you have been highly run-efficient; if you win 7-1 or 11-3, you have been inefficient. (And vice versa for losing.) Run efficiency tends to distribute randomly: you will have 1-0 wins and 7-1 wins, and vice-versa for losses. But randomness needs time to work itself out: 7 heads in 10 coin tosses does not suggest that the laws of nature as we know them have ended, whereas 700 out of 1000 might cause a cold sweat (or a conviction that the coin is biased).
(Aside: the old saying that “the good teams win the close ones” is, like so many old baseball sayings, dead wrong; luck largely determines outcomes in “the close ones”, whereas talented teams win a lot more laughers than poor teams.)
In any event, pro-ratings of smaller samples are not “predictions”, they are indicators of present circumstances. The old “if things go on like this”, used for everything from baseball wins to world population, are useless because things rarely “go on like this”. This early, even schedule inequities can make a material difference.
Professional baseball analyst since 1980.
by owlcroft on Jun 14, 2010 3:35 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
chokey with a clutchy aftertaste
Billy Hayes: His job is better than yours.
Adopting Denny Bautista until someone tells me he's already spoken for.
Sounds like the 1966 F-150 my friend had in high school.
Utter frustration and futility.
Adopted 'nephew' to the ever avuncular and always awesome Jon Miller
by Johnny Disaster on Jun 14, 2010 11:38 AM PDT up reply actions
So essentially...
…we’re looking at a league-average offense that’s scoring slightly less (13 runs by my count) than league-average.
I’m hopeful that the recent additions of Posey, Sanchez and Burrell will help on both fronts.
Proudly adopted Aubrey Huff. You can't beat that!
I did a little more research
If you look at the Giants’ offense month by month, things have actually been pretty normal in May (13th in OPS, 13th in runs) and June (5th in runs, 3rd in OPS!) in terms of the hitters’ OPS translating into runs. The month that was out of whack was April – the Giants were 4th in the league in OPS but only 12th in runs scored. A 768 team OPS in April translated to 101 runs, whereas the Dodgers’ 767 team OPS translated to 117 runs, and the Cubs’ 766 OPS led to 112 runs.
So what happened in April? Two things stick out to me: the Giants led the league in GIDP by far (28 – league average was 17) and had the fewest SB in the league (8 – league average was 16). That’s a bunch of outs made and extra bases not taken. In May, the Giants cut down on their DPs (tied for second-fewest in the league) and stole more bases (4 fewer than league average), and the result was that their OPS neatly correlated to their runs scored.
This has been your totally unscientific analysis of the Giants’ offense. :-)
June = 4.58/runs per game
Thread is moot point. We’re now above league average!
Proudly adopted Aubrey Huff. You can't beat that!
Well, I probably didn’t articulate myself that well, but the point was, why is the Giants’ OPS so much better than their runs scored? But obviously the team is swinging the bat better overall in June.
Why runs worse that OPS
lack of speed is a big factor. Particularly when they don’t hit a ton of HR’s.
11th in team wOBA
For whatever that’s worth.
by RoyaleWithCheese on Jun 14, 2010 12:22 AM PDT reply actions
Steals? Yes. Fangraphs’ version of wOBA does, anyway.
Double plays? Probably not.
by RoyaleWithCheese on Jun 15, 2010 2:42 AM PDT up reply actions
Also, as a surprise to no one
The Giants are last in the league in team O-Swing% (30.9%).
by RoyaleWithCheese on Jun 14, 2010 12:27 AM PDT reply actions
You mean FIRST in the league!
TEMPORARY SIG AWAITING FINAL SABEAN APOCALYPSE
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I'm surprised that no one has posted the simplest reason:
Bochy!
Back on the market.
by positiveuphemism on Jun 14, 2010 2:06 PM PDT reply actions
Here's another clue for you all:
OPs is not Runs. OBP is not Runs. The walrus was Paul.
Professional baseball analyst since 1980.
You have to factor in outs per AB, and with the DP, you can show why this has occurred
But over the course of the year, the numbers should equalize a bit, unless the gmen continue to hit into DP’s at a record pace.
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