OnlyBucs

I saw this in the Trib and thought it was interesting:



The Pirates traded power for on-base skills last offseason. It has had little net effect. While the Pirates have exceeded last season's home run total (148 to 140) entering Monday, the club has fallen from ranking 23rd in home runs last season to 26th this season. Power has spiked throughout the game. The Pirates met their objective of reaching base more often. They rank fourth in baseball in on-base percentage (.334) after ranking ninth last season (.323). But they rank 13th in runs this season (4.56 per game) after ranking 11th last season (4.3). Weighted runs created plus takes into account ballparks and run-scoring environments, and 100 is league average. The Pirates' wRC+ was 100 last season. This season, it is 99.

http://triblive.com/sports/pirates/1120 ... rates-kang



After losing Alvarez and Walker, the Pirates now have 10 more HRs than last year (the article was written prior to the 2 HRs last night). They also significantly improved their team OBP. But these improvements have only resulted in a slight increase in runs, and their ranking in runs actually decreased since last year due to a surge this year in league scoring. To me, this seems to suggest what we already know: this team has performed very badly when it comes to timely hits. They rank 4th in LOB.

I'm stunned there are three teams with more left on base than the Pirates. That's amazing. I would have guessed we were way ahead in that category.



I think the idea was to get their strong hitters up with more people on base to score. The complaint last year was that Cutch would often come up with no one on base and so get pitched around. Part of shifting him in the lineup was to get him up with more people on base. That seemed to work in that he saw more of those situations where there were runners on base, he just didn't handle them well. The sense I had, without any stats to back it up, is that he hit a lot better without people on base.



He obviously wasn't the only one with trouble when runners were out there waiting. Not sure there is even a cure to the problem.

Interesting. Good post, Bobster.



The HR would clean up the bases. One hit can knock in three, two or one run compared to having to put together a bunch of hits to score that many.



The difference in players brought in over who was replaced wasn't that great.



Alvarez OBP in 2016 - .322, 2015 - .318

Walker OBP in 2016 - .347, 2015 - .328

Harrison OBP in 2016 - .311, 2015 - .327

Jaso OBP in 2016 - .345, 2015 - .380



Walker and Alvarez were better than Harrison. Walker was better than Jaso. Freese played a lot of 1B too (.351 & .323 respectively) but didn't break down as Freese played more 3B.



Point is the main replacements weren't better in getting on base than the main departures.

how much of the league increase in runs is from the Pirates pitching staff going downhill this season?



The Bucs allowed 596 runs in 2015 and have given up 726 so far this season.

466061766070030 wrote: how much of the league increase in runs is from the Pirates pitching staff going downhill this season?



The Bucs allowed 596 runs in 2015 and have given up 726 so far this season.
Good point. It sent me to the stats. Only 6 of the 15 NL teams have given up more runs this year than last. And 2 of those are just by a handful. The bulk of the scoring increase has been against 4 teams. With 6 games left to play, the Reds have given up 65 more runs this year. The Pirates have given up 130 more. Arizona has given up 158 more. The worst is the Cardinals who have given up 170 more. But that's a little misleading because they gave up so few last year and are still 7th in fewest runs allowed this year. Similarly, the Pirates were the 3rd stingiest team last year in runs allowed. They are currently 9th.

That's interesting. It seemed like they were giving up runs left and right this year, yet they're still in the top ten for fewest.

67657F796F0A0 wrote: That's interesting. It seemed like they were giving up runs left and right this year, yet they're still in the top ten for fewest.
Yeah but 9th out of 15 isn't even in the top half.

The Pirates are actually third in the NL in team wRC+ at 100, which is a pretty decent measure of how they've performed offensively given ballpark factors and such. Unfortunately, they are behind two other teams in their own division (Chicago and St. Louis), and it hasn't quite translated into scoring runs at that level (6th in the NL), although they are still well above average in pretty much every meaningful offensive category.



I don't really see much in the numbers that leads me to believe that the offense is the problem with the 2016 Pirates, whether it be lack of power or otherwise. The pitching on the other hand, is both the main reason for the drop-off from 2015 and the main concern going forward as well.

7B4C5A5A566F5C5556390 wrote: The Pirates are actually third in the NL in team wRC+ at 100, which is a pretty decent measure of how they've performed offensively given ballpark factors and such.   Unfortunately, they are behind two other teams in their own division (Chicago and St. Louis), and it hasn't quite translated into scoring runs at that level (6th in the NL), although they are still well above average in pretty much every meaningful offensive category. 



I don't really see much in the numbers that leads me to believe that the offense is the problem with the 2016 Pirates, whether it be lack of power or otherwise.    The pitching on the other hand, is both the main reason for the drop-off from 2015 and the main concern going forward as well.


No doubt the pitching sunk them. I think the point of the article was to evaluate the results of the strategy of trading power for OBP.

537E73626574632320110 wrote: The Pirates are actually third in the NL in team wRC+ at 100, which is a pretty decent measure of how they've performed offensively given ballpark factors and such.   Unfortunately, they are behind two other teams in their own division (Chicago and St. Louis), and it hasn't quite translated into scoring runs at that level (6th in the NL), although they are still well above average in pretty much every meaningful offensive category. 



I don't really see much in the numbers that leads me to believe that the offense is the problem with the 2016 Pirates, whether it be lack of power or otherwise.    The pitching on the other hand, is both the main reason for the drop-off from 2015 and the main concern going forward as well.


No doubt the pitching sunk them. I think the point of the article was to evaluate the results of the strategy of trading power for OBP.


Oh I totally understand. My point was that the impact on the offense wasn't really material, in that the offense was still above-average to very good across the board, even if it was achieved in a slightly different manner. I still think you can win with the offense as it's projected next season (a balanced, higher OBP lineup), especially if you are getting a full season at bats from Josh Bell and more of Adam Frazier and less of JHay at second base. But it won't matter if the pitching doesn't improve substantially.