Add new comment

Was looking at the Mariners' overall luck stats (I call them luck stats because large differences from expectation are generally a result of small sample anomalies and not real skill...but some skill may be at play...this disclaimer will now appear in every post I make here to avoid Sandy accusing me of thinking everything is luck)
Montero and Smoak are getting hosed right now in that regard. They've had their share of bat at bats, but they've also been repeatedly robbed on line drives and served a helping of frustrating bad reOh...and one other thing:sults with men in scoring position.
But they're just the unluckiest on the team (minus a few of the lesser contributors and of course...Ichiro). The whole team is unlucky in the extreme and the various "luck" stats are 95% aligned against them.
Team LD%: 23.2
Team BABIP: .281 (49 points of delta, normal is 100)
**note that Safeco suppresses BABIP, but mostly because line drives turn into fly balls there due to the heavy air...not because line drives that actually get scored as line drives have less chance of being hits
Team CT%: 81.9 (dead on league average)
Team SW-S%: 8.3% - near the bottom in baseball (suggesting they shouldn't be striking out at a league average rate but much less...many many called third strikes)
Team O-SW%: 25.9 (third from the bottom)
Team Z-SW%: 63.4% (league average) - so the Ks aren't happening because of bad strike zone judgment...when it's a strike, we swing as often as anyone else...when it's a ball we're not swinging
Team Z-CT%: 88.9% (third in baseball) - so...when we swing at in-zone pitches...we make great contact...this means our Ks aren't happening because we're not hitting in-zone strikes or takign them more often than normal...it has be bad luck or inordinantly good pitching.
Team O-CT%: 65% - low-normal...so...we're not fanning on out of zone pitches any more than average
Team Pitches/PA: 3.78 (league average...so it's not like we're sitting there with the bat on the shoulder in bad counts and getting racked up for extra Ks)
Team HR/Fly - 8.3% (7th worst in baseball - Safeco in April likely has some affect on this as does the quality of pitching we faced...but this rate will not continue into the summer...especially not when you note this:
Team GB/FB: 1.04 (third from the bottom)...we're hitting it in the air a LOT...if we keep doing that and hitting homers on those airballs when the weather warms...the homers may strart coming in bunches.
Oh...and one other thing...
Team Offensive Clutchiness (using WPA) - +0.41 (slightly clutchy)...meaning we've been a tad lucky on high leverage plays...but not by much
I'm having a hard time finding any stat commonly used to address luck/small sample variation that shows the Mariners getting any advantage. This won't be true forever.