The struggles against left-handed starters are present for the majority of the guys who makeup the regular lineups:

With the caveat that we are playing with small samples of plate appearances and recognizing that OPS is not the best measure of offensive production, Chris Young, Hanley Ramirez and Xander Bogaerts’ inability to do damage against lefty starters this year is alarming. They are all down at least 300 points from last year and 190 points from their career marks. Xander has been playing hurt and it is killing him at the plate. Likewise, Hanley’s shoulder injury affected him and likely had a knock-on effect on Young’s opportunities. Despite Young’s struggles, the Red Sox seem to be happy to move forward with him as the fourth-outfielder-primary-righty-bench-bat for the playoffs. They could have promoted Bryce Brentz, who has crushed lefties for Triple-A Pawtucket (.279/.380/.577), but elected not to. In Young we trust, I guess.

It is worth mentioning that in 2016 the Red Sox’s offense, which was largely made up of the same guys as this year, also performed considerably worse against left-handed starters than against right-handed starters (.758 v .824). However some of that was a function of rough luck in scheduling, as the lefties they lined up against last year included six top-50 starters (by BP’s WARP): Jose Quintana (twice), Chris Sale, James Paxton, Madison Bumgarner, Danny Duffy, and Dallas Keuchel. They knocked Quintana and Keuchel around, but the point stands. Given my mentioning this fact, you might think the 2017 difficulty against lefties has also been a function of who they have faced, but the difficult-opponent issue has not really been present this year. Only Paxton and Quintana currently qualify as top-50 starters among the lefties they have opposed in 2017. If you only saw bunt-hating C.C. Sabathia’s starts against the Red Sox (1.04 RA9 in 26.0 innings) you might think he was the class of the league, but his 4.8 RA9 in his 105.0 not-against-the-Red-Sox innings shows he is not and makes me even more mad about how he has dominated them this year.

All of this might come across as another pessimistic article about another fatal flaw of this 2017 Red Sox team. While there is a clear difficulty against lefty-starters, the Red Sox have patched together enough of an offense to complement their strong pitching and defense, and be in control of the American League East with strong odds of making the postseason. What’s more is that other than the Yankees, who could throw three left-handed starters in a playoff series (Sabathia, Jamie Garcia, and Jordan Montgomery), none of the other likely playoff teams in the AL feature left-handed heavy rotations. The Cleveland “21 Straight” Windians have an entirely right-handed rotation, and Keuchel is the lone lefty in the Astros’ starting corps. Don’t get me wrong, the Red Sox will be in really tough against either of those rotations in a Division Series, but considering the offense’s performance to date, the lack of lefties could make the task a little easier. And of course, given the track records of the guys on this team, the offense can be much better.

Photo by Bob DeChiara – USA TODAY Sports

As you can see, on-base percentage is also down this year from last year, but not to the extent of slugging, which is down almost 50 points. The drop is not just the lack of David Ortiz. With the exception of the catchers, each of the everyday guys is slugging at a lower rate than they did last year.

The decline in slugging this year is interesting on its own, but the (possible) downstream effect of increasing aggressiveness on the bases makes it even more interesting. This year the Red Sox are one of the most aggressive teams on the bases. They have attempted 112 stolen bases (nabbing 85 of them), sixth-most in baseball. They have taken an extra base (i.e., advanced two bases on a single, three bases on a double) 42 percent of the time, also sixth-highest in baseball. They have advanced on fly balls, passed balls, and wild pitches 152 times, second-most in baseball. They are undoubtedly making an effort to push bags, but it has not come without a cost. In addition to those positive baserunning items, Baseball Reference tracks Outs On Bases (OOB) and the Red Sox are on the wrong end of it. They have already made 69 OOB, easily the highest amount in baseball. Add in the 27 times they were caught stealing and the six times they have been picked off, and you have over one hundred guys on base turned into outs. Compare these to last year and you find:

Keep in mind the 2017 Red Sox still have a month to play, but have already surpassed last year’s squad in all but extra-base taken percentage (XBT%) and pickoffs. I did not recall noticing how often the Red Sox were picked off last year. In any case, those numbers are remarkable. And, according to Brian Butterfield, the coach leading the charge of aggressiveness on the bases, it is all part of a plan to adapt from being a team that is station-to-station and relies on hitting the ball into the seats.

I understand the sentiment and the desire to be a multi-faceted offense that puts pressure on the defense and manufactures runs. What’s more is that when you are a lower scoring team, these sorts of tactics make more sense than when you are high-scoring outfit. While outs are always precious, for groups that struggle to score, each out has less run-purchasing power, so to speak. As evidence of this, take an overly simplified example using run expectancy. In 2015, a low-scoring run environment (4.31 R/G), the cost (in run expectancy, RE) of a runner getting caught stealing second with no outs and nobody else on base was 0.586 runs. Contrast that with 2004, a high run scoring environment (4.88 R/G), where it was 0.634 runs. Not coincidentally, the difference in league-wide run scoring between 2015 and 2004 (0.57 R/G) is close to the difference between the 2017 and 2016 Red Sox teams (0.54 R/G), so the example is relevant. It means that the extra outs on the bases made by this year’s team (relative to last year’s group) could end up costing the same amount in terms of run expectancy. Making an out is costly, it is just slightly less so for a team that tends to score less (perhaps because they don’t sock dingers). So there is some logic behind the plan to implement greater aggression on the bases with this low-slugging 2017 squad. But, while that sounds nice, they aren’t even doing it well compared to last year: By Baseball Prospectus’ Baserunning Runs, the high scoring 2016 Red Sox were basically average on the bases (0.6 BRR) and this 2017 group is considerably below average (-6.9 BRR).

Stealing bases and taking the extra bag as often as possible can help run scoring and is fun to watch as a fan, but doing so won’t turn a pumpkin into a stagecoach.

There is a notion that things like baserunning, hitting for contact, and small ball strategies become stronger assets in the playoffs. After all, the temperature drops and the quality of pitching increases, so big bopping offenses will be neutralized, right? Butterfield suggests as much in his explanation for encouraging the team to run wild. But the reality is that there isn’t good evidence to support this as true. Rather, it is the teams that hit the ball out of the yard that tend to succeed in October. As Joe Sheehan enjoys saying: Ball go far, team go far. Even those plucky 2014 and 2015 Kansas City Royals teams who changed baseball forever with their contact-prowess and aggressive running, actually did a lot of their playoff winning by (uncharacteristically) hitting a bunch of home runs. Nevertheless, Eric Hosmer’s dash home and Lucas Duda misfiring a throw is what gets remembered.

Relying on baserunning is a really difficult way to make an offense go. Stealing bases and taking the extra bag as often as possible can help run scoring and is fun to watch as a fan, but doing so won’t turn a pumpkin into a stagecoach. Getting guys on base frequently and then moving those guys around with hits (even the ones that go over the fence) are the critical elements in a good offense. Doing either of those things at a low rate makes it hard to score, as it has been for the Red Sox this season. Butter’s plan might sound good and even have some run expectancy logic behind it, but ultimately it won’t be enough to carry this team through October.

Glorious. A fantastic moment to end what was probably the most exciting game of the year. The game’s win probability chart looks like the roller coaster ride metaphor I used to describe the Red Sox offense that morning. While I don’t love the turning point narrative that came out of that win, it is easy to see why it exists. Christian Vazquez’s blast off Cody Allen propelled the team to a half-game lead in the American League East, which they have pushed to five by going 13-3 in August (through Sunday’s game), and the offense has been anything but a roller-coaster.

Over the Red Sox’s 16 games in August, the offense as a group is slashing .278/.352/.466, and averaging 6.0 runs per game. Six runs a night is solid output and can certainly take some stress off the pitching staff. When stacked up against every other team’s output in their last 16 games, the Red Sox’s mark ranks as the fifth highest, which is more in line with where this group was expected to rank as an offense. Sixteen games is obviously a much smaller sample than the entire season, so this could just be an oddity of this grouping of games. But looking at the team’s run scoring in 16-game groupings reveals that this latest run is the third high-point for the team this year:

The weak pitching of the Oakland Athletics and Texas Rangers was a real boon for the offense around the quarter-mark of the season (Games 43-46), as was the trip to Toronto followed by another series with Texas (Games 81-84). Now around Game 120 we see another peak. Maybe this team just works toward being at high points every 40 games. But really, it is clear how things have been on a steady climb around that awesome game against Cleveland. The 12 runs they posted that night pulled up the (somewhat arbitrary) 16-game average, and it has continued upward since.

Critically, it is not just the increased average output over the last 16 games. It is the consistency with which they are doing so that has also been important. Relying again on coefficient of variation (CV), which is a standardized measure of dispersion around an average, the Red Sox’s offense has been the sixth least variable in their run scoring over the team’s last 16 games. And of the five teams who have been more consistent in their run scoring, only the Cardinals’ 6.88 runs per game is better than the Red Sox. Basically, the Red Sox have put together a stretch where they are scoring a lot, and are doing so with great consistency: this last 16-game run is the least variable the Red Sox offense has been this season. That is a potent combination and a welcome change from the ups-and-downs of the season to this point.

The Red Sox have put together a stretch where they are scoring a lot, and are doing so with great consistency: this last 16-game run is the least variable the Red Sox offense has been.

An interesting aspect of this run in August is that it comes without Mookie Betts (66 wRC+), Xander Bogaerts (72) or Hanley Ramirez (64) contributing much. Each has had critical hits in big moments, which is excellent, but they have not been leading the way this month. Rather, Vazquez (184), Andrew Benintendi (181), Rafael Devers (169) and Mitch Moreland (153) have been carrying the load. I suppose this fits with my statement three weeks ago that it seems like as soon as a couple of players get going, another couple of guys struggle. Only lately, as with two other times this season, they are producing a lot of runs. Ideally, even if the who’s hot-or-cold shifts around, the run scoring aspect holds, or at least does not falloff as terribly as it has the two other times the Red Sox have posted similar high run-scoring peaks.

August has been a fun month so far. The cosmic ballet has continued. The Red Sox have consistently scored runs, often by way of the home run (1.44 per game in August through Sunday, up from 0.98 per game through the end of July), and won games, including three walk-offs. Their top prospect has risen to stardom at the big league level and rattled a rival’s end-of-game weapon in the process. Their previous top prospect is a strong candidate for Rookie of the Year honors. Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel are on the Red Sox. Rick Porcello might be figuring things out. Their division lead has continued to increase, allowing important players, Dustin Pedroia and David Price, to avoid rushing back and risking further injury. This is all good stuff. Of course things are always more fun when the team is winning and playing good baseball, but it sure makes all of the nonsense about this team being unlikeable look even dumber now. The bottom line is that this team is really good, and has shown it over the last three weeks.

Photo by Bob DeChiara – USA TODAY Sports

Major league sources throughout the game said that the Red Sox had been focused on bullpen help, showing little interest in some of the available bats on the market. The team believes that its offense will be adequate so long as players perform to their track records.

At this point, that is a pretty huge ‘so long as’ hanging out there. Simply put, the offense is a mess. Since hitting their high point in the standings at 49-35 on July 4 (with a 4 game cushion atop the AL East standings), they are 8-14. This is primarily because the offense as a group is slashing .217/.285/.323, and averaging only 3.45 runs per game. That is not enough to get it done. Mookie Betts has not been the Mookie of 2016 at the plate, Andrew Benintendi is in the midst of another rut, and Xander Bogearts, Mitch Moreland, Hanley Ramirez, and Dustin Pedroia are all playing through injuries that are clearly affecting their performance. Couple that with my finding that many of the current Red Sox players have a history of weaker second halves, and the outlook is not so rosy.

With that said, they have shown glimmers of breaking out over this rough stretch. As an example, from July 19th through the 21st, they scored 5, 6, and 6 runs. That is not exactly lighting the world on fire with offensive might, but it was something positive for this group. They then followed it up with 3, 2, and 0. Lunchbag letdown. This sort of (relative) boom or bust aspect has been there for the Red Sox all year. Have a look at a simple histogram of their runs scored totals:

Something of interest: if you add up the totals of the 10+ bins and compare that number to the zero bin you will find the Red Sox have been shutout more times than they have scored 10-or-more runs in a game. They are one of nine teams for whom that statement is true. If the totals for those categories were four and two, as they are for the Blue Jays then maybe this would not be that big a deal – although the Blue Jays only getting to the ten-runs scored mark twice is not something I expected. But the Red Sox’s nine scoreless nights are more than any other team and the eight 10+ run nights is middle of the pack.

It is not breaking news that a team will not score its average runs per game total every night out. After all you cannot score 4.65 runs in a game, right? The point is that teams will vary around their average, and some will vary more than others. I suspected that the Red Sox were one of the more variable teams, as they have seemed to exhibit this roller coaster of run scoring over the course of the season. By coefficient of variation, which is a standardized measure of dispersion around an average, the Red Sox are the eighth most variable team in their run scoring:

	Team	R/G	sd(R/G)	CV
1	WSN	5.57	4.24	0.761
2	SFG	3.91	2.94	0.752
3	CLE	4.89	3.57	0.730
4	KCR	4.41	3.22	0.730
5	PIT	4.25	3.10	0.729
6	ATL	4.60	3.29	0.715
7	DET	4.88	3.49	0.715
8	BOS	4.65	3.32	0.714
9	BAL	4.64	3.30	0.711
10	SEA	4.72	3.33	0.706

So my suspicion about the all-or-nothingness of the Red Sox’s offense was not far off. Relative to the rest of the league, they have dispersed their run scoring quite a lot. From night-to-night it is difficult to anticipate what we are going to get. Not as difficult as it is for the high-scoring Nationals, who have 18 10+ run games, or for the low-scoring Giants, who, with eight shutouts, are on the Red Sox’s heels in that undesirable department. But the Sox are still up there in run scoring variability.

Now, I am not exactly sure what to make of this. There is no relation between variability in run scoring and winning percentage, which should be fairly obvious as run scoring is only half the battle of a baseball game. Run prevention is just as important. On offense, ideally you score a lot, all of the time, or at least more often than you don’t. But the Red Sox have not been able to consistently score runs. It is not really a luck or sequencing thing either. For example, BaseRuns has them as a 4.57 R/G group. The Red Sox just have not had long stretches of games where opponents can’t get them out. It seems like as soon as a couple of guys get going, a couple of other guys start to struggle. Or the group only clicks as a unit for a few games. This will contribute to the ups-and-downs in run scoring that we have seen thus far.

Having Rafael Devers in the lineup rather than the Deven Marrero/Tzu-Wei Lin/Pablo Sandoval/Josh Rutledge carousel should help. Having Nunez as Devers’ complement at third and a threat off the bench should help. Having Brock Holt (and Nunez) around to give the regulars a day-off here and there should help. Getting those regulars healthy should help (a lot). There is no doubt that is a lot of shoulds, but add them all together and I can see why the front office was content to roll forward with the current group. Ideally they get rolling in the same positive direction, and post big run totals night-in and night-out. There’s no two ways about it: the bats need to wake up if this team is going to fight off the Yankees and Rays for the division crown.

Photo by Bob DeChiara – USA TODAY Sports

One place to look into this is half-splits. In doing so we can get a sense for how the current lineup of Red Sox hitters have fared over the two halves of the season– callously defined as the blocks of games before and after the All-Star break. These splits are not necessarily the most predictive tool to use, but we can look to see if the 2017 group of Red Sox players is teeming with guys who typically perform better as the weather gets warmer and they have had a chance to get 300ish plate appearances under their belts. Or, if instead this is a group of players whose performance has been more apt to succumb to the powerful grind of a long season.

Before getting into first-half/second-half comparisons, it is worth noting that by FanGraphs’ wOBA, which I will use throughout because I can more readily reconstruct it from raw data than BP’s TAv, many of the 2017 Red Sox just completed a first half above their typical first half standards. These are players who accumulated at least 75 plate appearances this year with the Red Sox and 75 PA total across all of the first halves of their career.

While they are a below average offense, many of the individual performances have been better, even if only slightly in many cases, than in these players’ past first halves. That is not the cleanest comparison, as the sample size of plate appearances can differ wildly for some guys, but it is worth noting. As far as the Red Sox offense is concerned, the obvious problem is that a couple of the key cogs in the offensive machine, Hanley Ramirez and Dustin Pedroia, have underperformed relative to previous selves, and the over-performance of some players (e.g., Sandy Leon and Christian Vazquez) still leaves a lot to be desired. A sub-.300 wOBA is simply not good.

Getting back on track with the original question of interest, here are career-up-to-2016 first-half to second-half comparisons for these same players:

Four guys have tended to be worse in the second half, steady old Pedroia is the same beast everyday, and six guys have tended to be better in the second half. If Mookie hits better as the season goes, as he has the last few seasons, we are in for another treat. The troubling thing you will note about the table is that the everyday guys, Hanley, Pedroia, Xander Bogaerts, Mitch Moreland, and Jackie Bradley Jr., all tend to be basically the same or worse in the second half. The ‘everyday’ part of that sentence likely underscores why that is the case. Being in the lineup day-in and day-out is very hard. If all those guys trend downward in the second half as they have done in the past, then the pitching-and-defense side of this team is going to need to be even better than it has been to keep things pointed at the top of the standings.

Given all the expectations and suggestion of a second-half resurgence from Hanley Ramirez, I was surprised to see that for his career he has been basically the same guy before and after the All-Star break. If the idea is that this year the four day reprieve from baseball will help his ailing shoulder, then he probably should have taken a trip to the 10-day DL before now. I suspect it is not that, but rather a melange of wishful thinking and recency bias after last year when he hit 22 of his 30 home runs in the second half. But overall the data do not really support the idea that he is about to take off:

His career has second-half outbursts as bookends, but in the middle there are more instances of poorer second halves (6) than better ones (3). Even if you toss out 2015, in which his second half was derailed by injury, the story remains that he has been, on average, the same player regardless of the All-Star game having been played or not.

I really don’t mean this to come across as doom-and-gloom and picking nits about a first place team and its slugger. Rather, I am highlighting a characteristic of the players that might suggest the offense is not about to become a standout strength for the next three (and hopefully four) months. If they add or promote a competent third baseman – Manny Machado is capable of letting bygones be bygones, right? – that will certainly help production. If Xander and JBJ’s up-to-now lesser second halves have primarily been a function of young players not totally knowing how to handle the demands of a long season, then perhaps, in their third and fourth seasons, respectively, they are better equipped to hold their first half performances. But then even suggesting that idea makes me worry about Andrew Benintendi.

In the end, this 2017 team is good, and will start the second half with a 3.5 game lead in the division and all projection systems giving them strong odds of a postseason berth. If that comes as it has in the first half, with a combination of average-ish offense and strong pitching and defense, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is if they win, and it looks like they will.

I can’t say that I noticed Red Sox players taking a lot of time to clean off their cleats, get their batting gloves tightened, and anticipate the next pitch, but it turns out they have been taking 1.4 seconds more between pitches than the league average. Couple that with the fact that Red Sox batters are seeing the third-most pitches per plate appearance and the ridiculous length of Red Sox’s games make sense. Interestingly, each of the top five teams in pitches-per-plate-appearance (Yankees, Twins, Red Sox, Rays, and Athletics) are found among the ten slowpokes above, but beyond that there is not much of a relation between those two measures (r = 0.35).

Recent research shows that taking more time between pitches could be beneficial for pitchers in terms of their fastball velocity, so why would batters want to do it? Well there is previous evidence that batters, particularly older batters, benefit from taking more time between pitches. Look again at those slowpoke batting groups in the table above and you may note that they are many of the stronger offenses in the game to this point in the season: by True Average (TAv) seven of the ten are above league average, with only the Tigers, Angels and Athletics falling below the mark. But contrary to the finding that older players in particular benefit from more time between pitches, those better hitting teams are not the older teams. In fact, the Tigers, Angels, and Athletics are on average three of the five oldest teams, but not really seeing the benefit of the extra time taken. Perhaps, as Swydan found with the pitching data, the positive effect of a slower pace does not clearly show up when evaluating things at the team level.

With that in mind, and given that we are focused on the Red Sox on this website, here are Pace, TAv, and Pitches/PA for Red Sox hitters who have accumulated at least 75 PA:

All told, I don’t see much of a relation between the player’s age and pace, or their pace and TAv, but there does appear to be a clear relation between seeing more pitches and hitting well. However, as with the team-age comparison made above, using aggregated data is not really the best way of looking into this situation. Using pitch-by-pitch information to compare outcomes on pitches where the batter took a lot of time getting back in the box, as compared to when they got right back in there is a much better approach – and exactly what Rob Arthur did in the articles linked above.

A positive note in all of this slow play for Red Sox fans is that while Red Sox hitters are taking a lot of time between pitches and seeing a lot of pitches in their plate appearances, they tend to eventually put the ball in play. To date, the Red Sox lead the way in making contact and accordingly have the lowest three-true-outcome percentage (TTO%) in baseball. This differentiates them from those other slowpoke, see-many-pitches-per-plate-appearance teams discussed earlier. The Rays, Yankees, and Athletics are frontrunners in ending their plate appearances with one of the three true outcomes (i.e., home run, walk, or strikeout); over 40% of Rays’ hitters plate appearances have ended with one of those three results. That can’t be much fun to watch. Knowing the Red Sox have a chance to string hits together and not wait for the three-run dinger is somewhat reassuring, albeit a difficult way to do offense in the current game.

In the end, I am not sure what to make of all of this. The Red Sox are slow, which can be junk to watch, except when it means they (might) perform better. For me, the pace of play is not a huge deal, but for a more causal fan, it is likely a deterrent and for that reason matters for the future of the sport. Unfortunately, with both hitters and pitchers apparently gaining something from taking more time between pitches, the slow pace is likely here to stay. If something leads to better on-field outcomes, or is even perceived to do so, players are likely to keep doing that thing. Remember Phiten necklaces?

With that said, the revelation of a slow-play-based pitching advantage is more recent. I wonder if, given that pitchers have perhaps found this advantage from taking more time, the batting advantage from taking more time, which was based on data from 2014, still holds. After all, league-wide BABIP is at its lowest point since the early 2000s and the strikeout rate is at its highest ever. In general, pitchers are dominating. Fortunately, the Red Sox’s offenses have still managed to be some of the best in these recent pitcher-dominated years, perhaps, at least partly, because they take their time between pitches.

]]> http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/30/red-sox-hitters-appreciate-slow-jams/feed/ 0 http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/14/the-red-soxs-barrel-blast/ http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/14/the-red-soxs-barrel-blast/#comments Tue, 14 Mar 2017 13:14:06 +0000 http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=16893 We are officially in the Statcast era of major league baseball. The Statcast tool offers unprecedented information regarding player movement and ball flight path and speed. The access to this information has undoubtedly changed the way we watch and think about the game. Highlights of home runs now come equipped with the requisite exit velocity and launch angle of the ball off the bat, and diving catches are now presented alongside the route efficiency of the fielder. Just watch a game on MLB.tv and between innings you will get to (repeatedly) see a rotation of three highlights augmented with Statcast information: a 504ft. Giancarlo Stanton home run in Coors Field, a 105 mph throw from deep left field by Aaron Hicks, and a Mike Trout home run to dead center. Seriously though, why, with all of the highlights available to the folks at MLB.tv, am I forced to watch those same three highlights interspersed among three mind-numbing segments from the Chatting Cage? In case you didn’t know, Nolan Arenado loved Remember the Titans. But I digress. While a lot of the Statcast information has been primarily descriptive in nature, Mike Petriello and his colleagues within the Statcast lab have been working to develop metrics that aim to infer something about player process.

One of the first metrics released by the Statcast lab team is Barrels. Barrels combines exit velocity and launch angle to determine high-value batted balls: those that were ‘barreled-up’. The basic idea is that if a ball is hit hard and within a certain range of angle it is likely to leave the yard, or at least go for extra bases. Either piece of information on its own is not enough. You can hit a ball hard (i.e., high exit velocity) but if you hit it too high or into the ground you likely won’t have much to show for it. Conversely, you can hit a ball at a typically strong launch angle, but if it is hit weakly it will probably find a defender’s glove. As determined by the Statcast lab members, a barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have typically resulted in at least a .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage. In Statcast terms these are balls that were struck with an exit velocity of at least 98 mph and a launch angle between 26 and 30 degrees (and expanding as the exit velocity increases). I recommend you check out the linked article above and the MLB.com glossary entry for barreled ball to see a visual of this idea.

As an example, this is what a barreled-up ball looks like:

Those are the details, but the take away note here is that barrels are what batters want. They are well-struck balls that typically end in good results. Those nice folks at the Statcast lab have even created leaderboards for us to find which batters are the best at barreling up the ball (and which pitchers are best at limiting barreled balls). This can be defined per batted-ball event (Brls/BBE) or per plate appearance (Brls/PA). This first limits things to when the batter puts the ball in play, while the second factors in things that might come with trying to crush balls every time in the batter’s box, namely more strikeouts and fewer walks. I played around with the leaderboards to see how Red Sox batters fared in barreling up the ball.

First, I limited the 2016 dataset to only include batters who had at least 60 batted ball events. I did this because 60 is a reasonable sample… ah who am I kidding, I did it because this is the highest minimum that includes Andrew Benintendi. Using the 60 BBE minimum leaves 439 players. The average Brl/BBE for this group was 6.38 percent (SD = 4.22). These barrels do not happen all that often; they are somewhat special events. Top barreler in this group last year was David Wright at 20.3 percent. I was as surprised as you are right now. Second best was Yankees’ hall of fame catcher Gary Sanchez at 18.8 percent. Shifting to things to a PA basis basically halves the average rate (3.74, SD = 2.30) and shakes up the top spots. Oakland’s Khris Davis was best at 10.7 percent and Sanchez dropped to third best (10.5 percent).

How about the Red Sox hitters? Interestingly, despite having the best offense in baseball last year, only four of the 14 Red Sox hitters who accumulated at least 100 PA had a Brl/BBE rate above the average (of my sample) and two of them are no longer with the team. David Ortiz (15.8 percent), Jackie Bradley Jr. (9.8), Hanley Ramirez (9.5), and Travis Shaw (8.8) were the above-average barrelers. Yet another measure showing how ridiculous David Ortiz was last year. Last year, old friend Jake Peavy was on the wrong end of Big Papi’s penchant for barreling baseballs:

While Shaw and Ortiz are gone, the good news is that their replacement, Mitch Moreland (10.7) was also an above-average per-BBE barreler last year. Putting things on a per PA rate adds Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts into above-average territory.

Generally, the order of the list falls in line with what we should expect. Power guys up top, weaker, slappy hitters at the bottom. However, there are a couple of players worth noting. I was surprised to see Mookie Betts be so far down the list (and below average in Brls/BBE). I mean, he hit 31 home runs last year, but evidently they were not all barreled. Perhaps there is some Green Monster magic afoot here. Also, Mookie hit a lot of doubles and many of them are likely a result of his speed more than his barreling up the ball. Referring back to the Statcast article there is a plot of slugging percentage on batted balls shown as a function of exit velocity and launch angle that has a large, sweeping area of decent slugging just below the barrel area. Petriello says this area has “…some extra-base hits, but mostly the kind of doubles and triples that are bloops, well-placed or generated by speed…”. I suspect Mookie has a bunch of contact in that region. Also, he fared well on this measure when considering the rate per plate appearance. Dustin Pedroia showing up toward the bottom of the list might be a surprise given his great year last year, but his power numbers were down, and he reported making a conscious effort to not focus on strength during last offseason. So it makes some sense. Finally, at the bottom is poor Ryan Hanigan, who went barrelless last year; a rough end to his time in Boston.

It is important to note that this measure, barrels, is supposed to be a process metric. So it is great that a player gets a barrel here and there – sorry, Ryan – but we care more that it reveals the players who have a swing (and approach) that consistently generates velocity and balls in the air. For now the Statcast data are only available for the 2016 and 2015 seasons so we are limited in seeing consistency over many years, but I found that the year-to-year correlation in Brls/BBE was 0.747 and 0.742 for Brls/PA (for players who had at least 60 batted ball events in each of 2016 and 2015). Just a quick note that Giancarlo Stanton led the way in 2015 with almost a third of his batted balls getting classified as barrels. Maybe MLB.tv has a few more highlights of him lying around on the cutting room floor. The magnitude of the year-to-year correlation suggests this measure is picking up on something more than randomness or luck, which I suppose is not all that surprising given that characteristics of a player’s swing (plane, strength) is not likely to change dramatically from one year to the next.

The year-to-year consistency was evident for Red Sox players (positive numbers mean the rate was higher in 2016):

Some reasonably large changes at the extremes, but all centered around a team-level change of about 0, which was also true for the full sample.

All told, while the 2016 Red Sox did not exactly light the world on-fire with their ability to barrel up the ball (at least according to this Statcast metric), they were still a dominant offense. What they perhaps lacked in barreled-up triples and dingers, they made up for with a steady barrage of doubles, singles and walks. David Ortiz and his barreling ability will certainly be missed, but Mitch Moreland will help pick up some of the slack with his strong ability in getting the barrel to the ball. Also, Pablo Sandoval, who actually managed to barrel-up fairly often (6.3 percent of BBE, 4.20 percent of PA) in his disastrous 2015 season, should give the team an offensive boost from the third base position. On the whole, lots of barrels or few barrels, I expect the Red Sox will have a top-five offense again in 2017.

Photo by Kim Klement/USA Today Sports Images

Having a successful two-strike hitting approach is an often talked about area of focus for players and teams, and seems to come with advice in every direction. Shrink the zone. Expand the zone to protect the plate. Shorten up your swing. Widen your stance. Stay inside the ball. Be a two-strike brawler. I don’t really know about the specific merits of any of these things. It seems to me that having a fairly consistent approach regardless of count would reduce the likelihood of getting exploited by a pitcher’s tactics. But my advice can just as easily be added to the list in the previous sentence. In any case, whatever Red Sox hitters were doing last year when the count had two strikes, it was working. As a team they found themselves in two-strike counts around half the time, but in those situations hit .209/.277/.324, which by OPS was 30 percent better than the major league average.

This probably does not come as a huge surprise. As noted above, the Red Sox had a great offense last season, so it would be really odd if they just wilted in the face of two strikes. And if they did then we wouldn’t be talking about them as having a great offense. These two things, hitting and hitting with two strikes, are related. In four of the last five seasons the team with the highest OPS has also had the highest OPS in two-strike counts. The connection was not just at the top of the charts: for the 2011 through 2016 seasons, team hitting performance with two strikes was strongly correlated with their hitting in general (as measured by OPS; r = 0.816). Basically, good hitting teams tend to hit well (relatively) even when they are faced with two strikes.

The idea of good hitting teams hitting well in (mostly) all situations makes sense, but things get a little more interesting when looking specifically at how the Red Sox hitters performed last year. Here are all the players who accumulated at least 200 PA with the Red Sox last season, and one guy who didn’t reach that threshold but warrants inclusion:

* : did not reach 200 PA. Only had 118.

This shows a couple of noteworthy items. First, all but two Red Sox players (Travis Shaw and Christian Vazquez) posted an OPS in two-strike counts that was better than the league-average OPS (.522) in such counts last year. That result comes from Baseball Reference.com’s play index, through which a player’s performance (OPS) in a certain split (e.g., two-strike counts) can be compared to the league-wide performance in that split. The measure for this is sOPS+ and is what is shown in the third column. So David Ortiz’s 0.845 OPS with two-strikes was 121% above the league’s mark. Have we mentioned that he was 40-years old last year? What a tremendous final season.

The second noteworthy aspect of the data shown in the table is that other than Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramirez, all of the players who performed above the league average also performed above their career marks – note that we don’t have a major league career mark for Andrew Benintendi because he debuted last season, so for now his career mark is his 2016 mark. That overall performance is remarkable. Almost every Red Sox batter who got a reasonable amount of playing time hit better in two-strike counts last year than their established track records would have had us expect. Shaw and Vazquez, again on the wrong side of this analysis, joined Pedroia and Hanley in underperforming relative to their career levels; those two, Shaw and Vazquez, were just terrible with two-strikes last year. I recognize that there are significant questions/doubts regarding what Pablo Sandoval will provide in 2017, but Travis Shaw did not exactly leave a high-bar for him to exceed.

Having the majority of your everyday lineup and bench perform in difficult counts better than the league and better than has been typical for them is a good recipe for a potent offense. Performing better than league-average can be chalked up to the fact that Red Sox hitters are (for the most part) better than league-average hitters. The fact that almost the entire group outperformed their individual levels is related to them having strong years, generally, but is somewhat interesting. Every team gets worse with two strikes, but the Red Sox managed to limit the reduction: the ratio of their OPS with two-strikes to their total OPS was third-best in baseball. What was going on here? Were hitting coaches Chili Davis and Victor Rodriguez preaching an effective two-strike approach that the players were receptive to and able to implement? Was it just a general approach that worked regardless of count? For example, not changing the approach much, as I suggested above. Importantly, will it carry-over to 2017?

To generate a rough idea of what we might expect these hitters to do in two-strike counts in 2017 given the excellent 2016 performance, I looked into the year-over-year correlation for OPS in two-strike counts. Excellent resources already exist for this sort of analysis for many hitting statistics, but not this specific split on which I am focused – perhaps that is for a reason. In any case, I examined data from non-pitcher batters who accumulated at least 150 two-strike plate appearances in a season between 2011 and 2016. Player data sets were then divided into even and odd season halves, with the requirement that a player had at least 250 PA total in each half. In all, 257 players met these criteria. With this sample of players I found the correlation between even- and odd-OPS to be 0.548, which is moderate. It is around the values reported for OBP and SLG in the linked article (using a much larger dataset). Again, hitting and hitting with two strikes are related. Essentially, the year-over-year correlation I found suggests that about a third of the performance in two-strike counts can be attributed to something about the player’s skill, with the rest best attributed to random (or unknown) variation. Things like BABIP, pitchers faced, weather, and health will all considerably influence the outcome.

All told, last year’s over-performance in two-strike counts was wonderful, but it reeks of looming regression. Good hitters, as the Red Sox have in their lineup, are likely to perform better than the league, but going into 2017 expecting them all to perform better than their career levels again is ill advised, and the only moderate year-to-year correlation in two-strike hitting I found suggests that the performance will change due to things that are (for the most part) out of the player’s control. This certainly doesn’t mean that the offense is going to fall to bits this year. I still expect them to be a top-five group. After all, this is just one performance split and is likely much ado about nothing. But all else being similar, which is a major assumption, this is an example of why I suspect the run-scoring side of the Red Sox will not be as outstanding as it was in 2016. Good thing they worked on shoring up the run prevention side of the team this offseason.

Photo by Brad Penner/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): Given the final score, this one is pretty obvious. In the top of the second inning, Mark Trumbo hit a missile over the Green Monster to give the Orioles all the runs they would need (WPA: + .102). Considering the strong wind that was blowing in from left field this home run was quite a feat. The “Trumbomb” was the lone blemish on an otherwise sparkling performance by Rick Porcello.

Bottom Play (WPA): The Red Sox offense struggled to get many scoring chances going off of Orioles’ starter Kevin Gausman and the excellent defense behind him. The seventh inning was when the Sox had their best chance to score. After Mookie Betts popped out to the catcher, Hanley Ramirez hustled down the first base line to earn an infield hit. Travis Shaw was unable to get on-base or move Hanley over, as he struck out swinging. With two outs, Chris Young then blooped a single to centerfield that allowed Hanley to scamper into third base. Other than Trumbo rounding the bag on his home run, Hanley was the only runner to advance to second base and beyond. This really was a pitcher’s duel. Fun game notes aside, the Sox had first-and-third with two outs and noted offensive machine, Sandy Leon, coming to the plate. Unfortunately, Leon struck out on three pitches (WPA: -.110) to end the threat.

Key Moment: It is difficult to select a standout key moment from last night’s game. Generally, the Orioles’ infield defense was great. A number of times they made plays that prevented the Red Sox from getting base runners on early in innings. In the end I will select a Red Sox defensive play as the key moment, as it ensured the game remained 1-0 heading into the bottom of the ninth, where Big Papi loomed. With one out and Manny Machado on first base, Chris Davis flew out to deep right field. Machado tagged up and headed for second but was gunned down by Mookie Betts on a tremendous throw; another display of Betts’ ability as a defender. The doubling up of Machado was Mookie’s 13^th outfield assist, second-most by right fielders this season. Last night, it ended the Orioles’ chances in the ninth and kept the Red Sox one swing away from tying the game.

Trend to Watch: Have you heard that the Red Sox struggle in one-run and low scoring games? Well they do and last night was another 1-run and low scoring loss. I don’t think the Red Sox’s performance in these types of games shows anything about their mettle, character, or whatever adjective you want to pick. But it is weird. The Red Sox are a good team but struggle in low-scoring affairs. After last night’s loss, the Red Sox are now 10-20 in games in which five or fewer total runs are scored. That makes them the second-worst team in baseball in such games. Only the Twins are worse (8-18). The best team? The Orioles (22-10). There are likely to be more of these low-scoring games over the next couple of weeks. The Red Sox will need to be better than they have been – not a big request – in such games if they are going to hold off the Jays and Orioles.

Coming next: The Red Sox continue their home stand and battle with AL East foes, as they welcome the surprisingly-still-in-it New York Yankees to Fenway. Eduardo Rodriguez will take the mound looking to build off his recent strong outings. In 2016, the Yankees have been bad against left-handed pitching (86 wRC+, seventh worst in baseball) so Rodriguez has a solid chance to string up some zeroes. Opposing Rodriguez on the mound will be Yankee ace, Masahiro Tanaka. Tanaka has been great this season (89 DRA-) and his starts against the Red Sox have been no exception. In two outings (12.2 innings) he has held the potent Red Sox offense to just three runs, while striking out almost a batter an inning (12) and only walking one. The bats will need to do more damage than they have in the previous two bouts with Tanaka for a win to be likely.

Photo by Winslow Towson/USA Today Sports Images

Despite a recent downturn, the offense has hardly been to blame. It’s been frustrating at times, but it’s still the best in the game in terms of runs scored,and leads the American League runner up (Baltimore) by nearly 40 runs. Of course, much of this is due to Boston’s insane start to the year when the offense was looking like one of the best lineups in league history. Since the calendar has flipped to June, things have changed a bit. The Red Sox’s bats have still been good, or at least above-average, ranking 11th in baseball and sixth in the American League over that time.

I think it’s safe to say Travis Shaw has not been the problem this year. He’s been frustrating at times, but he’s still been comfortably above average with a .273/.338/.455 slash line and a .271 TAv. Of course, much of this is due to his insane start to the year when he was looking like one of the better bats in the AL. Since the calendar has flipped to June, things have changed a bit. He’s hitting an atrocious .225/.289/.325 this month, which is a far, far cry from where he was entering the month.

The trajectories of the lineup as a whole and Shaw have almost mirrored each other as the season has gone on.

Do you see what I did there? The trajectories of the lineup as a whole and Shaw have almost mirrored each other as the season has gone on. Now, it’s fair to say that both of their early-season runs were unsustainable, but the steep fall was certainly unexpected. Because of this correlation, it’s my opinion that Shaw is the most important bat in Boston’s offense.

Now, let’s address a few things before I explain why this is the case. For one thing, “most important” is obviously different than “best.” I’m an idiot, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you Shaw is better than Ortiz, Bogaerts, Betts, Pedroia, Ramirez or Bradley. Duh. Speaking of Bradley, he’s the only other guy with an argument to be in this discussion, as he’s obviously taken a step back this month. Even with the step back, though, he’s still the owner of an .825 OPS in June. He may be more important to the Red Sox being great, but Shaw is more important to the Red Sox being good, rather than average.

The reasoning is actually fairly straight-forward. Right now, thanks to injuries and regression, the Red Sox have a devastatingly clear drop off at the bottom of the lineup. Assuming we’re not taking Sandy Leon and his .467 average seriously (which, come one), catcher is an obvious black hole between him, Christian Vazquez and eventually Ryan Hanigan.

Likewise, left field is currently being manned by the likes of Bryce Brentz and Ryan LaMarre. Even Brock Holt’s return doesn’t promise much added punch to the lineup. When players need a day off, the depth that fills in the lineup includes guys like Marco Hernandez (who I like but who isn’t there yet as a MLB hitter) and Deven Marrero (who I don’t like as a player and probably won’t ever get there as a MLB hitter).

Simply put, the Red Sox can’t thrive if the bottom of their lineup only extends that deep. Shaw is the man who hits between the Ortiz/Ramirez/Bradley trio and the abyss that is catcher plus left field. When Shaw fails to get hits in that spot, it all but guarantees anything the top of the lineup did was all for naught. Right now, he’s failing to hit, and everything is happening for naught. This can be seen by the team’s free-falling run total.

Because of his importance to the team, it’s worth looking into what has plagued Shaw this month. Looking at the base numbers, there are two clear issues that jump out: BABIP and power. Both of these areas have regressed heavily since the beginning of the season, and it’s an interesting pairing.

To start with, there is surely some luck involved. Baseball has a way of evening itself out, and this appears to be that process in action. However, it also indicates that Shaw is making less quality contact right now than he was earlier in the year. There are a few underlying reasons why this is the case.

The first is that he appears to be getting pull-happy. It’s unclear whether this is a new phenomenon brought on by stress due to his struggles or if this him simply trying to tap into his power too much after that hot start to the season. Either way, FanGraphs has his opposite-field rate this month down at 15.6 percent. It’s easily the lowest single-month rate of his career and is significantly different from his career 26.4 percent rate. This is particularly bad for a lefty at Fenway, who should be using the Monster to his full advantage. For those who do better with visuals than numbers, this is for you.

The other issue is that Shaw is simply not hitting enough fly balls. Now, this should help his BABIP, particularly since his 25.4 percent line-drive rate in June is stellar. However, the lack of fly balls has a clear effect on his lack of power, particularly in terms of home runs. Brooks Baseball backs this point up, as his average spray angles have gone down as the year has gone on. This is particularly true against fastballs, a pitch he has struggled with the most this month. Unfortunately, it appears pitchers have noticed this, as he’s seen more and more fastballs with each passing month.

The bad news is that Shaw’s struggles showed no sign of stopping Wednesday, as he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. The good news is that Shaw has shown an ability to adjust in the majors before. He said last year that he’s been helped tremendously by advanced scouting in the bigs, and Sox fans have to hope he can turn to that again.

When he’s hitting, this lineup is deep and powerful. When he’s not, Boston loses punch at a critical point in the batting order, and the Red Sox offense looks far more average like it has throughout June.

Photo by Tim Heltman/USA Today Sports Images