Found this on another site and thought it was interesting. Just thought I would share it with the rest of the class, lol.... The most glaring difference - to me - between this year and last year is the almost universal regression of Atlanta hitters. Lets take a look at the wOBA of all Atlanta hitters who had >90 plate appearances each of the last two years. For those of you who arent familiar with wOBA (weighted on-base average), it is one of the most popular and well respected catch all offensive statistics. At the risk of oversimplifying it, consider it a version of OPS that properly weights different at-bat outcomes in terms of run values. You can read more about it here. 2013 wOBA 2014 wOBA Freddie Freeman .383 .380 Andrelton Simmons .303 .275 Jason Heyward .344 .332 Justin Upton .357 .371 Chris Johnson .354 .287 Jordan Schafer .303 .218 Evan Gattis .329 .361 Gerald Laird .333 .249 Ramiro Pena .338 .273 Dan Uggla .303 .222 BJ Upton .252 .275 Thats almost painful to look at. Of the 11 hitters who have had significant plate appearances with the Braves over the last two years, only three saw their wOBA increase from last year to this year. An additional two (Freeman and Heyward) stayed around the same level. The rest...woof. So, is this all random noise? Did many of these guys just simply have career years last year? Thats certainly a possibility, but fortunately we have statistics to help us out! We can use a paired sample t-test to determine if the difference between 2013 and 2014 is statistically significant. This examines the observed differences between each batter to determine what the likelihood is that the differences are just due to random chance. (After all, everyone in baseball has up years and down years.) After calculating the test statistic, we find that our test has a p-value of ~0.03. This means that the probability of obtaining a difference as extreme as the one we saw between 2013 and 2014 is roughly 3%. This value is small enough to be considered statistically significant. In other words, we can be reasonably sure that the drop off in offense from 2013 to 2014 was not the result of random chance. Because this is an observational and not a controlled study, we cant say for certain what the cause was of the decline. But we can make some educated guesses. And if I had to guess, Id say the coaching had something to do with it. Under Greg Walker, the Braves had not made any secret that they are trying to strike out less. (One wonders how much of this was spurned by the ridiculous narrative that strikeouts are awful, but thats a thought for another day.) So, instead of waiting for their pitch and driving it like they did in 2013, the Braves are instead expanding their zone in an attempt to make contact. But heres the problem: if youre reaching to make contact, chances are the contact you do make wont be very authoritative. And the numbers bear that out. From 2013 to 2014, the Braves groundball percentage increased from 43.5% to 45.5%. And thats not a good thing. After popups, groundballs are the least desirable type of contact. Opposing defenses turn ground balls into outs at a roughly 80% clip. Plus, groundballs are more likely to make multiple outs. Fly balls go for hits about as often as groundballs, but they have a chance to go over the wall. So, basically, the Braves have sacrificed power to try and make more contact. And theyve sacrificed a ton of it. A year ago, the teams ISO (Isolated power, which is slugging percentage - batting average) was .153. This year, it sits at .122. And theyre walking less too: 7.9% of plate appearances down from 8.8% last year. And heres the kicker: strikeouts have not changed. In fact, theyve actually gone up a bit! (22.4%->22.6%) How anyone believes this is a model for success is beyond me. This, to me, is the biggest reason that Fredi Gonzalez and Greg Walker must go. They abandoned what was a successful offensive ideology because of a fabricated narrative, and the team has suffered dearly for it. A year ago, Andrelton Simmonss bat made him look like a potential MVP. Now hes totally lost at the plate. Atlantas recently-extended third baseman cant seem to do anything but helplessly roll over pitches to second base (if he even makes contact with them.) Not only has such a damaging philosophy cost Atlanta wins this year, but it could (continue to) significantly hinder the development of the organizations young talent. Atlantas management has bought in to a model of hitting that encourages batters to make weak contact over striking out, and the teams offense has paid the price.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 01:47:10 +0000
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