It would be interesting to look at 2010 and compare it -- with due recognition that any conclusions would be completely tentative because of the extremely small sample size -- with the 2011 season so far.
In particular, I mean looking at the seeming "perfect storm" of below par stats in the areas you cover.
I would expect that a full season would bring those stats significantly closer to MLB norms. However, if those same issues (to a somewhat lesser degree) surface for the 2010 season, the recent Mariners could be an indicator that the perfect storm is not the stats themselves. It could be the team, as constructed, that is producing these "unlucky" stats.
This in turn would buttress the notion that the M's are just poorly constructed offensively. The incredibly poor stats you point to would just be the lower bounds of production -- one that will persist, and be characteristic of the team, unless and until changes are made.
This could be something other than mere bad luck.
1. The offense needs more hitters. These should have been added during the offseason. That's stipulated, mate.
2. The offense, however, has had a run of bad luck that has put Eric Wedge's sanity to an acid test right out of the gate.
The Big Three Luck Stats used by neo-sabes are:
- AVG on balls hit into fair play
- HR's on balls hit up into the outfield
- Strand rate
Neo-sabermetrics is concerned largely with asking, "What would have happened if these three stats had been average?"
Fangraphs takes it for granted that the above stats are almost purely luck, with a few minor caveats. Dr. D allows considerably more room for the syndrome of a hitter swinging the bat badly and creating his own "unlucky" BABIP ... in the short term.
The Big Three Luck Stats are not only bad for the Mariners ... they're almost impossibly bad. The 2011 Seattle Mariners have:
- A .196 AVG with men in scoring position (should be slightly higher than whatever the team AVG is)
- A measly 3.8% HR/F rate (10-11% being normal)
- A 25.4% hit rate on balls hit into fair play (30% being normal)
The effect, of course, is cumulative. The offense should be weak, sure, but no way is its 3.5 runs per game representative of its bases gained.
The question is, when the bad luck is going to end... I liked Blowers' comment tonight. He said it's okay to not hit many home runs, but you'd better have a good hitting line with men on base then. You can't combine lack of home runs with a .196 RISP. That, in a nutshell, is 4 wins and 10 losses.
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Paracorto notes,
Eric Wedge comments by Shannon Drayer:
"He threw well but I know what you are talking about. What you can't do is get passive up there. We want guys to be aggressive with their mindset have the discipline to get into hitters counts but ultimately a couple of things are happening. When we get pitches to hit we can't miss them. I think that one of the things that is happening is either we are a tad past at times in taking pitches we should take hacks at and when we do take hacks at them we are not squaring them up and rifling the ball all over the place like we need to be doing."
Any mammal's nervous system can be conditioned ... by electric shocks, by sudden food supplies, by getting hit in the eye socket with a pitched ball (or, worse, by psyching up for a Mariners game and then spectating it).
The Mariners have played 14 games, and the only times that anything good has happened, is when they've strung a bunch of walks. ... they swing at a pitch, and it's time to run head down to first base; they hold up on it and sometimes they wind up in a rally.
Wedge's job to serve as conditioning in favor of hitting the ball a long ways.
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BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
Man, I wish I could edit and simplify that first paragraph of mine.
...and that was just the beginning.
Again Wedge after being shutout by KC:
"I don't think we've been in it for a little while in regard to what I've been seeing,'' he said. "We've done an OK job of getting runners on base. But we're leaving about eight to 10 on when we do that. You've got to finish off ABs. You've got to finish off innings.''
Runs Batted In do not mean anything until you miss them.
Just for instance ... they're at 3% or so on HR's per outfield fly. But what if you construct an entire roster of Chone Figginses and Endy Chavezes and put it in Safeco Field?
No question SOME of the stats are bad luck - no team could hit .196 with RISP over the course of a season. But also little question that they're hitting badly enough to cause some of the BABIP and so forth.
They're in a power dive, big time. Hope Capt Jack stocked up on Bromo-Seltzer :- \