How do you achieve a "consistent" offense?

[homer]

You read about it all the time "We have to be more consistent on offense." Lou Pinella has been saying it all year. Brewer fans have been screaming it for several years.

I've done some cursory research on the topic and found that a consistent offense over time leads to more wins than an inconsistent one so I'll cede that point. My question is: how do you achieve consistency? In other words, what is it about the Brewers lineup that makes them inconsistent (if they are indeed inconsistent)? And is consistency a good thing if you are consistently bad? Is it better to burn out or fade away?

I'm open to suggestions - I assume most of them will involve strikeouts and/or home runs but if anyone has anything other than anecdotal evidence that would be great.

(EDIT: I saw an article on BP's website about this yesterday and now I can't get back to it. I'll post the link when I do)

Here's an article by Nate Silver from a few years ago: A Foolish Consistency where he shows that there's no common metric between consistent or inconsistent offenses.

[Ennder]

I'd think build around OBP rather than slugging, but baseball is going to be streaky no matter what you do.

[JoeHova]

It's interesting that a consistent offense means more wins, whereas an inconsistent pitcher is more valuable than a consistent one.

[joepepsi]

I'd think build around OBP rather than slugging, but baseball is going to be streaky no matter what you do.

Since the Brewers are 6th in OBP in the league that would make them one of the more consistent offenses in the league!

 

First off, I think every fan feels his team's offense is inconsistent. And it does seem as though OBP is a very important ingredient. But OBP with poor slugging might make for a consistent offense, but also one that is consistently middling.

 

I wonder if this isn't an area where batting average does matter. I've always hated that term, Professional Hitter, but I think I'm begining to understand what it means. McGehee may be a professional hitter, a guy that can put the ball into play and advance runners. We were reminded last night that Loretta is a professional hitter. I lambast batting average as much as the next guy, but I suspect a team that hits .280 with a .350 OBP scores more runs than one that hits .250/.350.

 

In the end you need balance. You need hitters who can spray singles around the field, sluggers who drive the ball, and team OBP better than league average . When the bottom half of the lineup struggles to hit .230, you will never have a consistent offense, even if those guys take their walks and have a decent amount of power.

[endaround]

You want a consistent offense? Get a bunch of poor hitters together. If you average very 1 run a game you'll be really consistent. When people say consistent they mean better in general.

[MJLiverock]

I think they mean consistently able to score a few runs rather than 1 or 10. A team that scores 1 or 10 every game may average 5.5 runs a game but will most likely lose more games than a team that scores 5 or 6 every game even though they have the same average runs per game. The Brewers are dependent on the HR which lends itself to scoring in bunches and they have a poor batting average which would result in a higher strand rate. OBP is important but walks don't drive in runners from second so the team would be better off with a .280/.350 AVG/OBP vs. .250/.350 I know it drives some crazy but at some point you have to be able to hit the ball rather than hope for the walk. Having 3 near automatic outs in Hardy, Kendall, Pitcher reminds me of the Brewers of 5 or 6 years ago with two or three innings a game with automatic 1-2-3 outs with Cousell, Moeller and Sheets at the bottom.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

It's interesting that a consistent offense means more wins, whereas an inconsistent pitcher is more valuable than a consistent one.

An inconsistent pitcher was more valuable in the model Szym ran mostly because the pitcher was bad (ERA was held constant at 5.00), and was giving up runs at a higher rate than the offense in the model was assumed to be scoring them. While the Schizo Samwell distribution will probably produce the best results no matter how good or bad you are (even if my ERA was 90.00, I'd get great results if I could manage to give up 0 runs in 9 CG SOs and then give up 900 runs every 10th game), if Szym had run the model holding the ERA constant such that the fictional pitchers were giving up fewer runs than the offense was scoring, the results would have been very different.

 

Still, I think endaround has it here: don't worry about consistency in scoring or allowing runs -- worry about scoring more runs and allowing fewer. The Brewers have been outscored by enough runs this year that they actually should have a slightly worse record than they do, so it's tough to conclude that the distribution of the runs they have scored has been a problem.

[rotoherb]

I agree with endaround, I'd rather score a lot of runs in any way than be consistently bad. The offense isn't the problem, it's almost entirely the pitching. The Brewers have already lost 13 games this season where they scored 5 or more runs, which is the same number of times they lost all of last season. They've scored 500 runs in the first 107 games this season compared to 499 last season and I'm guessing the offense wasn't any more consistent last year. They were 60-47 at this point last year and I don't think an inconsistent offense is to blame for being seven games worse.

 

The Brewers have a 5.63 ERA since June 1st. I don't care how consistent your offense is, you are going to stink with that kind of pitching.

[JoeHova]

An inconsistent pitcher was more valuable in the model Szym ran mostly because the pitcher was bad (ERA was held constant at 5.00), and was giving up runs at a higher rate than the offense in the model was assumed to be scoring them. While the Schizo Samwell distribution will probably produce the best results no matter how good or bad you are (even if my ERA was 90.00, I'd get great results if I could manage to give up 0 runs in 9 CG SOs and then give up 900 runs every 10th game), if Szym had run the model holding the ERA constant such that the fictional pitchers were giving up fewer runs than the offense was scoring, the results would have been very different.

I considered that, but then I figured that most pitchers are bad, so I didn't think it would change the overall point much (although I figured the variation in winning percentages wouldn't be as great). Perhaps I'm wrong and it would. Maybe I should try doing what he did with a 4 ERA pitcher.

[FVBrewerFan]

It SEEMS like many of the Brewers regulars are streaky, but i don't know how you compare that to the rest of the league. Hardy, Hart, Weeks (when he was playing), Cameron...all streaky players. But maybe most teams have a few players like that? I haven't looked at the stats recently, but last time I did the Brewers were near the bottom of the league in RISP. That would obviously have a huge affect on scoring runs consitently. OBP can be high, but if there's not a hit to drive those runs in, OBP doesn't do you much good.

 

Interesting question though. I would think OBP and RISP together would generate more consistent run scoring, but then again those stats can be streaky from game to game too. I guess that's a long way of outlining my answer, which is simply....I don't know.

[thebruce44]

The best way to get a consistent offense is to consistently face bad pitching. The best way to achieve that is to take pitches and get into the bullpen or be playing the Nationals 162 games a year.

[JohnBriggs12]

The great Brewer offensive teams of the late 80's had three guys at the top of the order in Molitor, Yount, and Cooper that got their hits against any type of pitching. None of those guys had great OBP in their careers relative to their BA. They got on by swinging the bat and making the defense defend the entire field. Behind them were great power bats like Thomas, Oglivie etc, who scared pitchers. Great pitchers don't walk people. They make you hit your way on. Great hitters like Molitor, Yount and Cooper could get hits off of pitchers pitches. They didn't always need a grooved pitch to get on base.

 

The current Brewer team lacks the quality of hitters at the top of the lineup that those 3 were. Weeks has the ability to hit good pitching but he needs to be more aggressive and Fielder is becoming a more versatile hitter. If he ever gets teams to respect his ability to go the other way, look out. Braun tends to be a little streaky yet too. When he's cold, he can be pitched to. When he's hot, the Brewers usually score a pretty fair amount.

 

Hardy and Hart are extremely streaky. So is Cameron. Having 3 guys like that in the middle of the lineup everyday makes scoring tough because the odds are 2 of the 3 at any time are cold and become rally killers.

[TooLiveBrew]

I guess I'd need to see some hard proof that this offense isn't consistent. Seems like the kind of thing fans yell like, 'We have to be the worst baserunning team in the league!'

 

If there's anything not to complain about this season, it's the 4th highest scoring offense in the NL... that's been regularly posting 5 or more runs. There isn't an offense out there that scores > 3 runs every single darn game. Look at any top offense -- every single team has its bad games. And before anyone claims that the Brewers do it more, or they're the only team that has its bad games against anyone aside from Sandy Koufax, take a look at all the top-scoring teams in both leagues.

 

 

Fielder is becoming a more versatile hitter

 

Fielder has been the best hitter in baseball this season aside from Pujols & Mauer. He was 'becoming a more versatile hitter' over the past few seasons. He is as good as there is now.

[Hate those Rodents]

Well, in the NL, where the pitcher hits, you can't have black holes like Hardy and Kendall in the lineup. I'd also like to have a guy or two hitting over .250 somewhat consistently in the second half of the lineup.

[logan82]

I wish we had guys like Jimmy Rollins in our lineup to make us better. Almost every single team has a couple bad hitting players in the lineup. None as bad as Kendall, but most don't have one hitter as good as Fielder and Braun let alone 2.

[joepepsi]

he offense isn't the problem, it's almost entirely the pitching. The Brewers have already lost 13 games this season where they scored 5 or more runs, which is the same number of times they lost all of last season. They've scored 500 runs in the first 107 games this season compared to 499 last season and I'm guessing the offense wasn't any more consistent last year. They were 60-47 at this point last year and I don't think an inconsistent offense is to blame for being seven games worse.

Wow, that's about all we need to know, isn't it? Thanks for that.

[logan82]

joepepsi wrote:

I lambast batting average as much as the next guy, but I suspect a team that hits .280 with a .350 OBP scores more runs than one that hits .250/.350.

Batting average doesn't correlate well with runs scored on a team level at all. BA compared to runs looks like a shotgun blast. OBP looks more like a line.

[homer]

So I gather from all this discussion that the Brewers need a better offense rather than a more consistent one.

[Fatter than Joey]

No

 

We need better pitching.

[Thurston Fluff]

I wonder how much speed plays into it. I haven't really seen much about it but just thinking about it logically speed means more badly hit balls will end up hits. A few more infield singles and the ability to bunt for a base hit when the player is in a slump can keep him slightly more productive in those slumps. Scoring from first on a base hit would produce more runs even if the team is in a slump.

[Fatter than Joey]

I wonder how much speed pays into it.

 

Our pitchers throw slowly.

[DonMoney4Mgr]

I'd say balance. Lefty/righty balance, OBP/slugging balance. and you can throw in speed/power in a perfect world.

[owbc]

We do have speed, we just choose not to utilize it. I'm sure we are at least league average in infield singles, Macha just decided to give up base stealing and play for the 3-run homer.

 

I don't think there is anything wrong with the offense. If you threw out day games at Miller Park, we probably would have the #1 or #2 offense in the league. If we had even an average pitching staff, we would be right there with the Cubs and Cardinals.

[DuWayne Steurer]

This came up a long time ago, and I wish I could remember where the article was. It had a great run distribution chart that compared a bunch of teams for about 10 years with similar runs per game. They were comparing extremes. The examples they used was the Brewers and Mets in '07. The Brewers scored 3 fewer runs, but had 54 more homers. So similar Runs per game, with a pretty big difference in how they got there.

 

The thought was that the "small ball" team would be more consistent, and have a bell curve run distribution, with few games of 0-2 runs, and few of 8 or more, and that the homerun team would have a distribution that would have weight on the ends.

 

What they showed (and I just checked) was that the Brewers scored 2 runs or less 30 times, and scored 8 or more 24 times. The Mets scored 2 runs or less 40 times, and scored 8 or more 29 times, so the "small ball" team that had the higher batting average and stole more bases (but many fewer homeruns) were actually less consistent in their run distribution.

 

So this is just one example, which really doesn't mean squat, but they had 3-4 other examples as well, where the distribution was literally all over the place.

 

Run distribution is going to be random, regardless of what "type" of offense you have.

[badgerfletch]

...

The thought was that the "small ball" team would be more consistent, and have a bell curve run distribution, with few games of 0-2 runs, and few of 8 or more, and that the homerun team would have a distribution that would have weight on the ends.

 

...

This really got me wondering why nobody seems to use a standard deviation of runs stat to find consistency. It could be a somewhat crude measure of how consistent a team is at scoring (using only each game, but I suppose you could do it for innings too). Then there would be an objective measure to point to in regards to consistency. I wonder the measure would be statistically significant though (ie small sample). Or what that would mean in terms of building a team.