There has been so much hew and cry about the Giants offense that I thought I would peep into StatCast's team stats and see how things look. And as I thought, giant bad luck for the Giants.
ogc thoughts
I had seen some posts talking about how Jung Hoo Lee was just suffering from bad luck, so I decided to dig into the stats and look team wide. Whoa! Was I surprised!
First of all, look at the overall Giants stats vs. the Majors:
- Giants: .238/.303/.370/.673, .300 wOBA, .345 WOBACON
- Majors: .239/.313/.383/.696, .311 wOBA, .359 WOBACON
Pretty close, but clearly worse than MLB average. What I found surprising is the Majors .696 OPS, which is pretty low, that was what the worse hitter in the NL lineup (7-8-9) roughly hit in 2023 season, and now the whole lineup averages that!
But then look at the expected stats, based on what the average result was across the majors (that is, every batted ball is categorized by a variety of parameters, and while we know that the Giants hitter made an out or a hit, across the majors, there is an average, which is the expected):
- Giants: .249 BA, .398 SLG, .312 wOBA, .361 WOBACON
- Majors: .247 BA, .403 SLG, .318 wOBA, .370 WOBACON
This cuts the difference in half, roughly, making the Giants basically league average offensively.
Now, I'll look a few of the hitters, which people have been complaining about.
Jung Hoo Lee
Now, as reported, there is a huge difference between Lee's actual stats versus his expected:
- Actual: .250 BA, .328 SLG, .289 wOBA, .274 WOBACON
- Expected: .300 BA, .444 SLG, .346 wOBA, .400 WOBACON
What a huge difference! With a .310 OBP, adding that difference to the expected, his batting line then becomes .300/.360/.444/.804, which is pretty good for a CF! He goes from much below average to much above average!
Given his great contact rate, he should rise towards that expected batting line over time. I've seen some people comment that this is because of all the grounders he hits. However, StatCast accounts for all that, because it takes launch angle as part of the parameters. He has simply been very unlucky, relative to the majors, with his hard hit (46.3% vs. MLB 39.1%) balls which leads to high Exit Velocity (90.6 MPH vs. MLB 88.8 MPH).
Matt Chapman
Chapman has also been unlucky:
- Actual: .225 BA, .379 SLG, .287 wOBA, .359 WOBACON
- Expected: .250 BA, .419 SLG, .306 wOBA, .386 WOBACON
- Majors: .247 BA, .403 SLG, .318 wOBA, .370 WOBACON
I've included the Majors here to show that Chapman has been about league average so far, which is not what we expect, we expect him to be a bit above average. Still, he's not as bad as his actual stat make him appear. His expected batting line is .250/.297/.419/.716, which is about 40 points less than his past few seasons, but not that far from it that one should be worried.
Jorge Soler
Soler has been unlucky as well:
- Actual: .212 BA, .381 SLG, .307 wOBA, .359 WOBACON
- Expected: .222 BA, .417 SLG, .318 wOBA, .376 WOBACON
- Majors: .247 BA, .403 SLG, .318 wOBA, .370 WOBACON
Again, including majors to show that he's been hitting as expected per wOBA and WOBACON, and his batting line should be .222/.312/.417/.729, which is about 40-50 points less than his stats over the past three seasons. But as can be seen, his overall numbers are suffering from a bit of bad luck, and not so far from his career numbers to be worrisome.
Mike Yastrzemski
I was only going to cover the free agent hitters, but many have been down on Yaz as well, so I wanted to include him.
- Actual: .242 BA, .387 SLG, .313 wOBA, .397 WOBACON
- Expected: .233 BA, .390 SLG, .304 wOBA, .382 WOBACON
- Majors: .247 BA, .403 SLG, .318 wOBA, .370 WOBACON
As most of us know, Yaz had a very poor start to his season, but then has been helping keep the lineup afloat for the past couple of weeks with robust hitting. His actual and expected are basically the same, and are also within range of the majors as well. Of course, for a corner OF, we want more than that, he's batting .242/.319/.387/.706, which is about 40-50 points less than what is seen from COF, but within range.
Conclusion
The Giants have had a fair amount of bad luck with their hitters so far, some more than others. Lee, in particular, would be a smash as a signing right now, almost 200 points difference in OPS between actual and expected.
Thinking about this, I think there's a few factors which contributed. First of all, playing LA, SD and SD one after another, road and home, that's 14 games at pitcher's parks to start off the season, then pitcher's park in Tampa Bay and basically neutral park in Miami, then another 10 games at home, that's 29 games in mostly pitcher's parks to start the season, then this road trip to Boston, Philly, Colorado, hitter's parks, but the hitters might be psychologically affected by all the pitcher's parks that may be causing them to be gripping their bats differently.
Another factor is just that BABIP luck varies greatly all through a season. There are a ton of good hitters who just start off poorly in the first month, but then goes on to be back to their good self the rest of the season. As much as we might think that a month's worth of games is significant, in baseball, it's still a small sample of games, and also ignores the fact that they are all humans, could get into bad habits and then can adjust to being good again.
Most important of all is that individual lives' matter. Yaz was undoubtedly affected by the birth of his child, especially helping out at home after birth. It takes some time to get your life reorganized and your mind focused on hitting. Soler, Chapman, and Lee could be affected by their wanting to prove themselves with their new teams. Chapman is playing to get a much larger contract than he got. Soler wants to prove that he can be the middle lineup guy he was hired to be.
Lee has more potential issues, as he wants to prove himself, while also learning a new level, new pitching, new parks. There's also bad luck, his line drive in Boston to deep center would have been a homer in many other parks, including Oracle, but instead, it's an out. That would have boosted his SLG by 35 points or so, his OBP by nearly 10 points, and added about 45 points to his OPS right now. I went through his game log and it appears to be a back and forth right now, he hit for 5 games, then was lost for 5, then had a 11 game hit streak, and been struggling since.
The great news is that his contact rate is extremely elite, at 99th percentile, as well as his base running. And for all the complaints I've seen about his arm, his arm strength is 97th percentile, arm value is 71st percentile. His main weaknesses are related, in sweet spot and barreled balls, which is odd, because he's among the better in hard hit balls with 71st percentile and exit velocity at 72nd percentile, suggesting if the Giants can teach how to hit the sweet spot and barrel balls, he'll be a monster of a hitter. It took Belt a few years in the majors to become the good hitter he is.
Of course, just because they are not getting the results expected, does not mean that for, whatever reason, they just get lesser results than other hitters. That can and does happen over a full season. We'll see how this season turns out. But for now, things look like a streak of bad luck affecting these hitters and they should come around at some point.
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