RISP and Solo Home Runs stats?

[mtrebs]

Does anyone have any stats of the Brewers' ability to bring in a runner from scoring position with less than two outs or the percentage of solo home runs that they hit, especially compared to all other teams, for the last couple of years? I don't watch many non-Brewers games, but it seems like for the last couple of years they have a very difficult time brining in a runner from third with less than two outs and, even though they hit more home runs than other teams, it appears that most are solo home runs. I'm sure this is amplified because I'm a Brewers' fan, but I really think that they Brewers must be near the top of teams with their inability to drive in these extra runs.

[Ennder]

http://www.baseball-refer...ituational-batting.shtml

 

Don't have time to look at it right now but that link should get you started.

[rluzinski]

Here's another resource:

 

http://www.tangotiger.net/RE9902score.html

 

With a runner on second and no outs, teams score no runs an average of 37% of the time. With a runner at third and one out, they score zero runs about 34% of the time.

 

With the Brewers being a high K/HR offense the last couple of years, it wouldn't surprise me if the Brewers are a little below average on this category. I think that most fans just have to high an expectation in those situations (all they had to do was hit a flyball!).

 

They also have not had the greatest OBP, so 1 run HR rate is probably a little higher than average as well.

[endaround]

No Russ, all they have to do is make contact! You know, like last night...

 

And lets not let the announcers off the hook. Most people learn what they know of the game from the people talking about it on TV and vague rememberences of things their little league coach said 30 years ago (or maybe that guy in the movie said that..). Announcers tend to treat runners on 3B with less than 2 outs as runs that should already be tallied.

[rluzinski]

RE: One Run HRs

 

http://www.baseball-refer...team=MIL&year=2010#bases

 

Empty: 3415 PA, 111 HRs

Men On: 2888 PA, 71 HRs

 

About 54% of their total PA occurred with the bases empty. They hit about 61% of their HRs in those PAs. I don't see a league tally, to see how that compares.

[DuWayne Steurer]

RE: One Run HRs

 

http://www.baseball-refer...team=MIL&year=2010#bases

 

Empty: 3415 PA, 111 HRs

Men On: 2888 PA, 71 HRs

 

About 54% of their total PA occurred with the bases empty. They hit about 61% of their HRs in those PAs. I don't see a league tally, to see how that compares.

They're slightly below league average in % of homers with men on base, but not so much so that it should be looked at as anything more than a normal outlier.

[RightFieldCoder]

RE: One Run HRs

 

http://www.baseball-refer...team=MIL&year=2010#bases

 

Empty: 3415 PA, 111 HRs

Men On: 2888 PA, 71 HRs

 

About 54% of their total PA occurred with the bases empty. They hit about 61% of their HRs in those PAs. I don't see a league tally, to see how that compares.

I ran the numbers for everyone. I'm not a professional stat man, so someone else might glean better knowledge from this.

Legend:

Column A: Team/Division/League name

Column B: The number of plate appearances with nobody on base

Column C: The number of plate appearances with someone on base

Column D: The percentage of plate appearances with someone on base

Column E: The number of solo home runs hit

Column F: The number of multi-run home runs hit

Column G: The percentage of home runs that were multi-run home runs

Column H: The difference between the percentage of multi-run homers and the percentage of PA's with runners on base. If a team only has 40% of PA's with runners on base, it should have a lower multi-run homer percentage than a team with 60%. This finds the difference to nullify the difference of PA's with runners on.

Column I: Instead of finding the difference, this finds the percentage change by dividing percentage of multi-run homers by the percentage of PA's with runners on. This is an enhancement to Column H. A 2% difference for a team with 40% PA's with runners on is a different number that 2% of a team with 60%.

My observations:

MLB as a whole has 44.46% PA's with runners on base. 42.58% of home runs are multi-run shots. This is a difference of 1.89%. This is expected, since PA's with runners on includes intentional walks and sacrifices that don't occur with the bases empty.

The Brewers have 45.82% PA's with runners on base, better than average. 39.01% of home runs are multi-run shots, below average. This is a difference of 6.81%. Only the Tigers, Twins, Braves, and Pirates have larger differences. These four teams are also the only ones with lower percentage changes than the Brewers. The Brewers rank them 25th in baseball in pure multi-run homer percentage, ahead of the Rays, Twins, Braves, Nationals, and Pirates. Only the Dodgers and the Cubs hit more multi-run homers than solo shots.

Conclusion:

The Brewers do hit more solo shots than multi-run shots compared to the opposition. My study doesn't try to point to a reason. One thing to point out that may lead us to view this phenomenon as worse than it actually is. The Brewers hit more HR's than other teams in the NL. They were 2nd in HRs, 2nd in solo shots, and 6th in multi-run shots. That's a lot of solo shots to witness, and this may cloud our view of how bad it is.

[DuWayne Steurer]

One thing to consider last year.........the Brewers had a leadoff man that hit 29 homeruns. He hit 8 homeruns leading off an inning. He had almost 500 plate appearances with the bases empty, and he had 21 of his 29 homeruns with no one on base. Given that most teams don't have a power hitter in the leadoff spot, it would make perfect sense that Rickie might skew the numbers a few percentage points.

[jeffy]

Conclusion:

The Brewers do hit more solo shots than multi-run shots compared to the opposition.

 

 

But shouldn't we consider whether or not this is a result of hitting more solo shots than average or fewer multi-run homers? If the team hits just as many multi-run homers as the average, then the "extra" solo shots could be looked at as just a bonus.

 

Based on your table the Brewers are slightly above the league average in hitting a HR with runners on base. In plate appearances with runners on base the Brewers hit a HR 2.46% of the time, while the league average is 2.32%.

 

This is the same reaction I alway have to Bill S's constant refrain that they "rely too much on the HR". If they are average in scoring runs without a HR (and I don't know if they are) but then score more than average via the HR, why would that be a problem? So rather than looking at the % of runs scored via the HR, I'd want to see the number of runs (per game or per inning) scored by the Brewers without a HR and how that compares to the number of runs scored by the average team without a HR. IOW, are they "too reliant on the HR" due to a lack of ability to score without a HR or due to a superior ability to score via the HR (combined with ~average ability to score without a HR).

[jeffy]

Here is a spreadsheet comparing the 2010 Brewers ability to score runs in various situations:

 

https://spreadsheets.goog...e=true&gid=0&output=html

 

 

This seems to show them to be about average in ability to score runs with runners on or with runners in scoring position, a bit above average (about +6%) in ability to score runs with 2 outs and runners in scoring position, and far above average (+28%) in ability to score runs with the bases empty. This would imply that the solo HR are a bonus and not a sign of inability to score in other situations.

 

Thinking a bit more about this, the analysis of situations with runners on and RISP is not perfect as it does not consider how many were on or which bases they occupied.

 

Edit: By subtraction of RISP w/2 out from RISP, the Brewers' ability to bring in a runner from scoring position with less than two outs is a bit below average (-6%)...by about the same amount as they are above average w/RISP and 2 outs.

[endaround]

The whole issue to me is that Brewers are a high scoring team and the complaints about how they score is all about aesthetics. There is absolutely no evidence that the Brewers "failure to manufacture runs" or their run distribution costs them any games over a season.