At the All Star break, this year’s Braves have hit 109 home runs. That’s not terrible; indeed, it’s in 10th place in MLB, although that’s a little misleading since just three fewer homers would be dead average. But of course it’s a far cry from the record-setting output from last year: 307 homers, a full 111 homers above average for the season.
This of course makes a direct translation into wins and runs scored. The Braves’ record stands at 53-42 (or, if you want to get all sabermetrical, a Pythagorean 55-40) despite pitching that leads MLB in ERA+ and FIP. The best pitching team ought not have the 10th best record unless they have some trouble hitting.
Sabermetrics has studied the importance of home runs for a long time, and I want to stress that I’m not going to uncover anything new here. But I think I’ve made a table that really drives the point home about how important homers are. I looked at every Braves game from 2010-2023 and simply looked at runs which were driven by homers and runs driven in every other way. Here’s the result:
| Games | HR Runs | Other runs | Total Runs | Win% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homers | |||||
| 0 | 771 | 0.0000 | 2.6459 | 2.6459 | 0.3268 |
| 1 | 750 | 1.5893 | 2.7587 | 4.3480 | 0.5533 |
| 2 | 441 | 3.0975 | 2.7211 | 5.8186 | 0.7143 |
| 3 | 168 | 4.6131 | 2.6964 | 7.3095 | 0.8155 |
| 4 | 58 | 6.5000 | 2.5862 | 9.0862 | 0.8621 |
| 5 | 23 | 7.8261 | 2.2174 | 10.0435 | 0.9565 |
| 6 | 5 | 10.4000 | 4.4000 | 14.8000 | 0.8000 |
| 7 | 2 | 16.0000 | 8.5000 | 24.5000 | 1.0000 |
It will come as no surprise that a homer is worth somewhere around 1.5-1.6 runs. This has been known forever. Just Google “Linear Weights Baseball.” (Note that this does not include the Francoeur Rally Killer Effect, the purported effect on future runs in an inning by the runs knocked in by the homer itself.) It will also come as no surprise that every homer dramatically increases the chance of winning a game. The first homer takes you from being the Colorado Rockies to the Braves. The second homer takes you from being the Braves to being 6 games ahead of the Phillies. Any homers after that make you the best team of all time.
But the column I want you to focus on is the one called “Other Runs” which covers the runs per game which were not homer-related. Look how flat this is! Ignoring the 30 games with five homers or more, it turns out that everything you do other than hit homers gets you 2.7 runs per game, and that number is independent of the number of homers you hit. Since you’re only going to win about one-third of the games you play when you score 2.7 runs per game, you have to hit home runs to be any good. Even great pitching can’t do much when all you can do is score 2.7 runs per game.
Note that this is also (at least in aggregate) independent of the type of team you are. These stats include the 2023 Bashing Braves, but also include the power-starved teams of 2015-17. I tried repeating for the other 29 teams. The results were very similar, though in Fenway and Coors the runs scored were higher, obviously reflecting the Green Monster in Boston and the capaciousness of Denver.
So not only is there no Francoeur effect suppressing non-homer-based run in a homer-happy offense, there is seemingly no “teams that hit a lot of homers get extra runs from pitchers being careful to avoid homers” effect. Obviously pitching is important; but holding the quality of pitching constant, the astonishing takeaway for me is that winning is about homers. For every game where you score six without the benefit of a homer, you have four or five games where your non-homer output is a measly run.
At last I know what every chick already knew: the long ball is really important.
JonathanF, thanks for this!
The fact that “other runs” remain flat is fascinating and was to me counterintuitive. I figured that hitting home runs would lead to a lot of other general knock-on effects – in particular, pitchers tiring out faster or otherwise losing their cool and the general positive benefits of extending innings and not making outs. But while I suppose those things are all strongly correlated with other home runs, I would have thought that they would raise the probability of other non-homer positive outcomes, too.
How come not?
I expected it as well. One possible explanation is that pitchers are so focused on stopping homers, that every pitch is designed to be homer-unfriendly, which means that the set of other results is constant against that backdrop. But yeah: it’s definitely not what I expected.
Another possibility is hibernation mode. A team that has scored a bunch of runs on homers relaxes and stops scoring more. But note that these results are independent of when the homers were hit.
Yeah but how much of that lack of non-homer run production is because of Dan Uggla?
Good question. Maybe I’ll do a calculation for all of the teams that employ Joey Gallo, the Uggla-est guy around today.
That does suggest another explanation for the results. If players go for homers every at bat, their non-homer results ought to be both pitiful and constant.
I hate the all star break. But this post helps tremendously in getting though a week with no real games. In fact, this is more interesting than most actual games lately.
Do we have any info on this year’s Braves? Are we getting our 2.6 runs per game with or without HRs? 2.6 runs sure would have helped in our 1-0 losses. We seem to be getting shut out more this year and I’m not sure it’s the lack of HRs.
But I love this post. Excellent work.
I did the first 50 games by hand (you’re welcome). Subject to typing errors, I got 2.9 non-homer runs per game. Essentially, no different.
Thanks, Jonathan. I guess it all averages out……
I have asked this question before, can someone please advise? Why is Chipper no longer an Assistant Hitting Coach. Surely he with Seitzer would make an impact
I don’t think it has been publicized. I have wondered the same thing. My guess is philosophical differences with Seitzer.
Thanks, Jonathan. I had assumed that the greatest effect would be that more homers are hit in situations conducive to overall hitting (bad pitchers, favorable park, warm weather, day game, etc.), so the number of non-HR runs would increase along with HRs.
Not sure if it’s statistically significant, but there may be an inverse relationship between HR and non-HR runs from 0-5. The n for 6 and 7 are too small to factor in. It would kind of makes sense because if you hit a 2-run homer with a guy in scoring position, it would reduce your chances at non-HR runs for that game.
stampton, JamesD; Exactly. stampton is discussing the RallyKiller effect, and JamesD is describing what I was thinking going in. JamesD, you have made me think of a different related analysis: suppose you simply estimated the probability of a hit for the next batter (or maybe onbase event in general) as a function of whatever you want (pitcher OBA and batter OBA would be the two most obvious) but add another variable for whether or not (or how many) home runs were hit in that game before or after that particular at bat. When you think about it, it seems unlikely that “good day for homers” would affect that at bat much at all. But is that’s true, then non-homer scoring ought to be reasonably independent of home runs hit, since home runs are a pretty rare event.
I wonder how you would define “much at all.” Even a 1% increase in the likelihood of a hit (or reaching base), which doesn’t sound like much, would be .010 in BA or OBP, which I think is pretty significant in scoring implications.
I’m having trouble figuring out why, but my initial reaction is that I think doing your analysis the other way around – seeing whether hits/times reached base before or after the examined plate appearance affects the likelihood of a HR in the plate appearance – might prove more significant. It may be because I think of noise/luck as playing more of a role in HR than in the (more common) getting a hit or reaching base, and I feel more comfortable with a noisy dependent variable than a noisy independent one. In other words, it seems more likely that lots of hits means a good day for hitting than that lots of HR means a good day for HR, as the latter is more likely to result from noise/luck. If there were an effect, though, your original study probably wouldn’t have shown what it does.
Stu, hope you’re still lurking – do you have any thoughts on Carter Holton, our 2nd-rounder?
I’m not Stu (though I do hope he’s still lurking), but I did watch Holton pitch at Vandy the past 3 years.
Overall, I loved watching him pitch. He works quickly and with confidence. Undersized at 5-11 but a fierce competitor. Three-year weekend starter at Vandy. Statistically (and health-wise), his freshman year was his best. He missed some time the past 2 seasons with arm injuries (not sure exactly what). ERA this past year isn’t pretty but he was without a doubt the unluckiest pitcher on the team (would love some FIP data). And still struck out 12 per 9 innings. Typically sits low to mid 90s but has touched 98. Really good slider. And he’s a lefty. The size plus injury history makes me lean reliever long-term. But if he can stay healthy, who knows.
Anybody got an update on Michael Harris?
Last I heard – maybe on the most recent broadcast? – he still wasn’t running, so he remains weeks away at least.
Via DOB today:
“Even with Harris likely returning by early August, at which point Jarred Kelenic will move back to a corner, the Braves still have a glaring need for a bat, either to replace or serve in a platoon with Duvall.”
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5644394/2024/07/18/atlanta-braves-trade-deadline-needs/?source=user_shared_article
No inside info but I think this is the year AA pulls off a huge trade similar to those from his Toronto days.
From your lips to his ears, and how about a huge trade with Toronto for Bo Bichette?
Dallas Keuchel’s available!
Who hangs up first?
https://jaysjournal.com/posts/analyzing-a-pair-of-bo-bichette-trade-proposals-that-make-sense-for-blue-jays
I feel both sides might hesitate. From the Braves side, I think they’ve identified nearly all our tradeable prospect assets, but with both Waldrep and AJSS injured, I’m doubly worried about essentially trading away all our depth in a single deal, AND doing so at a relative low in those players’ value.
From the Jays’ side, most other contending teams in baseball have a stronger, deeper farm system than we do right now, so they could probably get a more marquee name to highlight the deal.
I was think the Braves more because of the salary that comes back in that deal. Gausman is a replacement-level pitcher this year and we’d be on the hook for about $50 million over the next 2.5 seasons. If he doesn’t bounce back to 2021-23 levels, he becomes our worst contract, and if it takes Fried’s money, it is a hard no. Now, because we’d be taking on his contract, you might get the Jays to take significantly less back that what is proposed, but I think it’s a non-starter.
Just to ask a question that’s almost literally unaskable:
Is there a world in which trading Max Fried would not be catastrophically awful? I don’t mean dumping everybody in a “sell” mode, but given our lack of both bench depth and farm depth, I wonder whether trading our one extremely high-value rental asset could help us both to shore up our team for the stretch run in terms of depth, and shore up our franchise over the next two years in terms of the farm.
It’s possible nobody would pay enough for Fried for that to be worth it, and frankly I kind of hope that’s the case. At all events I’ve been on team “pay the man” for years, but this question doesn’t really change whatever we do about his contract in November. So it’s really just a question of what we want to do over the next three months.
Sometimes questions, even “unaskable” ones, have simple answers. I don’t know about other worlds, but in this one trading Max would be catastrophically awful.
Simply put, trading Fried would be certainly “dealing from a position of strength.” If you got back a spare part to help you this year and a lot to fill the farm with, then I think it makes sense. You’d be left with a good-not-great rotation, but we won in 2021 without a great rotation.
At some point, do we need to acknowledge that Olson is an every-other-year player? OPS last 7 seasons:
.788, .896, .734, .911, .802, .993, .714.
Reggie Sanders had this phenomenon, if I remember correctly.
So what if that is set in stone? This is an off year for Olson? At what point do we simply have too many guys not hitting to be a legitimate contender?
Arcia was looking like the best deal in town, and now he has a 57 wRC+.
From ASB last year through the end of the year, Sean Murphy hit .164/.313/.284. He’s hitting .211/.277/.376, completely debunking my theory that Snit ran him into the ground.
Riley’s OPS is almost 100 points lower than last year.
All in all, it feels like we’re kinda doooooooomed here.
The optimistic viewpoint is that the Braves hitters have collectively underperformed to a genuinely extraordinary degree while the injury bug has taken a catastrophic toll and… we’re still one of the better teams in the league. If the guys started hitting just to their career averages, the team could be truly dangerous. And if AA does anything at the deadline, we’ll be a better team.
(That said, it’s fair to expect that the other contending teams will get stronger, too.)
Is there any MLB draft expert that would like to write a piece on how the Braves did?
New thread.
FG capsules on the Braves’ first three picks:
https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2024-mlb-draft?sortcol=2&sortdir=desc