RISPy Business

5-2-24 – By Josh Booth – @bridge2buctober on X

YOU HAVE PROBABLY BEEN TO KENNYWOOD

You have more than likely been on a roller coaster. For the rest of you, you’ve at least heard of them.

When I was a kid, we spent a day every year at either Geauga Lake or America’s Roller Coast, Cedar Point. Cedar Point, although further away, was always the top, for me. I loved the Raptor.

I’m sure you’ve also heard things that aren’t roller coasters referred to as being a roller coaster. A roller coaster of a season or a game probably comes to mind. While baseball usually provides those types of idioms, it also borrows some.

The 2024 season has been a roller coaster so far. — Before you stop reading and call me crazy… I said SO FAR.

If you’ve been to Kennywood, I suppose you’ve been on the Phantom’s Revenge. I remember riding it 2 or 3 times on my last visit there. When you get buckled into Phantom’s Revenge, the first thing that happens when the ride begins is you go up a hill. The second thing that happens is going right back down the hill.

That’s it. That’s how far we are into the 2024 season, and it’s been exactly that. The Pirates started off 11-5 before spiraling down to where they are right now.

HERE I AM, TASKED WITH LOOKING AT TRENDS

On April 14th, I was going to look at the differences between 2023 April and 2024 April to see if I could figure out what the trend says about sustainability. I was looking into what Jared Jones was doing, only to read a number of great articles all about what Jared Jones was doing. Then looking at what happened during a 6-game losing streak. Then…. You get the point.

Everything kept changing because the month took a turn we didn’t really expect.

What we all know about is the eye test. And it’s telling us this offense is horrible.

Spoiler alert: the results back that up.

I decided to look at team-wide trends instead of focusing on certain players. Mostly because I think this is a team-wide problem.

The data in this study was pulled prior to April 30th. So, this will include statistics from March 28th through April 29th.

So, what glaringly obvious change was made between the first 16 games (11-5) and the following 14 (3-11)? That’s exactly what I set out to find.

WHAT CHANGED?

Let’s start with something obvious: They have scored 58 less runs in only 2 less games. That alone will mean that there are way less plate appearances in those 14 games. More than you would think 2 games would account for. In the first 16 games, they averaged 42 PA. In the next 14, just 35.6 PA. With that said… you’re going to see quite a few less hits when you’re talking about a difference of 173 plate appearances.

Runs Scored: 5.4 R/G vs 2.1 R/G. Sheesh.

In 2 less games, they averaged 3.3 less runs per game and 173 less plate appearances. Those things considered; you’re going to see a lot of stats that are less. (Ex. Down 15 doubles and 9 home runs, but also 26 less walks and 37 less strike outs.) You have to look at percentages.

4.2% doubles turned into 2.6%. 2.4% HR vs 1.4%. 11% BB vs 9.6%. 23.8% K vs 24.6%.

Honestly, it’s not that different. Less than a 2% difference in XBH. They only increased strike outs by 0.8%. The batting average, though, dropped 62 points to .197. That matters, but it’s a result and we already knew this. What we are looking for now is WHY.

Last month, we mentioned Batting Average on Balls in Play. This is a big factor again. A 72-point drop from .326, which is above league average, to .254, which is below league average. That’s a big drop, but it’s still not enough to say that the hitters were extremely lucky or unlucky. It’s a modest amount either way.

How do you raise BABIP?

It’s not something you really DO, but it’s something that happens. There are ways, though, to improve it. Hitting the ball hard and hitting more line drives, right? That would increase the Expected Batting Average (xBA) statistic, so you think it would, as a result, raise BABIP. This offense lowered their line drive rate by only 2.2% while increasing their hard contact (Baseball Info Solutions) by 1.3% and their Hard Hit% (Statcast) by 1.1%. Their average exit velocity also increased, but only by 0.8 mph.

TIME FOR SOME TABLES

I’m going to look at the batting averages (AVG), expected batting averages (xBA), and BABIP for the first 16 vs the next 14. xBA is defined by measuring the likelihood that a batted ball will become a hit. The difference between BABIP and xBA would be looking at what happened vs what was likely to happen. The xBA would be directly impacted by Hard Hit% and Launch Angle while the BABIP is always going to depend on what actually happened.

Stat	First 16	Next 14
AVG	.259	.197
BABIP	.326	.254
xBA	.253	.227

What about swing and miss?

They were swinging the bat 0.4% more often and whiffed just 0.2% more often.

“Hey Josh… these are practically dead ends. What are we doing?”

RUNNERS IN SCORING POSITION (RISP)

In the first 16 games, the Pirates saw more pitches, in more plate appearances, than anyone else in the league with runners in scoring position. In the next 14 games, they saw the 25th most pitches in the 24th most plate appearances. Not only were they decreasing their opportunities with RISP, but production with the opportunity got even worse.

This table compares stats with RISP in the first 16 against the next 14 games.

Stat w/ RISP	First 16	Next 14
PA/G	13.2	7.6
K%	22.7	24.3
BB%	14.2	9.3
AVG	.259	.130
OBP	.365	.217
BABIP	.328	.149
Hard Hit%	36.2	27.1
Barrel%	6.9	2.9
Whiff%	25.5	30.9

We look at something like this and it starts to shed a light into what’s going on. Across the board, each one of these numbers is worse.

This table shows the difference between ‘with RISP’ and ‘without RISP’. It shows the major league average so far in 2024, the Pirates first 16 games, and the Pirates next 14 games. As you probably can assume, without RISP is the baseline.

(Ex. League PA/G is -18. That means 18 less plate appearances with RISP than without RISP.)

Stat	PA/G	K%	BB%	AVG	OBP	BABIP	Whiff%	Hard Hit%	Barrel%
League	-18	-1.6	1.6	.021	.025	.013	0.2	-1.1	-0.2
PIT, 16	-15.3	-1.6	5.4	.000	.041	.003	-2.4	-3.1	-1.7
PIT, 14	-20.1	-0.4	0.0	-.085	-.075	-.133	4.4	-16.2	-4.6

MAKE SENSE OF THIS

Let’s look at the league average first. Hitters tend to strike out less, walk more, swing and miss less, hit the ball hard less, and barrel balls less. Loose assumption: with RISP, they shorten up and put the ball in play while sacrificing some of the harder hits in the process.

(I think it’s interesting that they increase their batting average with this approach. I checked, too; this was usually 10 points higher over the last 5 years. While not quite the 21 points so far in 2024, it’s still higher. Makes you wonder why they don’t do this all the time. – I digress.)

During this 14-game stretch of offensive struggle, the Pirates have lowered their AVG by 85 points with RISP. From .215 without RISP to a dismal .130 with RISP. They did not limit strike outs as much, they didn’t walk more, they whiffed more often, while also drastically lowering barrels and hard hits when they did make contact. It has not been pretty.

Say what you want about the approach. You can include whatever narrative you want here. I think a lot of people have a misperception of what this “philosophy” or “approach” is. Instead of going down that path, I think we can all agree on one thing that is lacking: execution.

The hitters are not doing their part and the coaching staff is not doing their part. When you have trends like this showing team-wide struggle across the board, you would expect the coaching staff to identify some issues and begin working on what’s going on. Naming the problem is the first step to fixing it.

CONCLUSIONS

Clutch hitting is something that I don’t believe we have a good statistic for, yet. I think it’s a human thing. Is it possible that this team is full of guys who just freeze when it matters? Maybe the first 16 games say no and the next 14 say yes. The fact is the further they are from league average, one way or the other, will most likely write the story of 2024 for this organization. The trend seems to point to their ability to produce with RISP being a key indicator of their success.

Also, if something on the field does not change, something in that hitting room must. If it is not going to be gameplan, philosophy, or the time put into individual hitters, it’s going to be changing the humans, right? It’s difficult to blow up the roster and change all the hitters. So, we will continue to go to one place: the hitting coach.

I won’t touch that with a 10-foot pole. That’s not what I’m here for.