RISP Riff
By now, I think we can safely conclude that the Braves’ problem this season isn’t only batting average with runners in scoring position. But is it anybody’s, really? I’m not going to analyze the following table today, but I’d like people to take a look at it and begin thinking about how to think about this issue. It’s complicated!
The values here are compiled from the 2024 season, although now that I’ve programmed it up, I can look at any season other than 2025. The rows are in descending runs scored, from the DBacks’ 886 to the White Sox’ 507. But I have done something I’ve never seen done before: I have decomposed those runs into four buckets:
- Runs coming from homers with no one in scoring position.
- Runs coming with no one in scoring position by non-homers
- Runs coming with men in scoring position but without an at-bat: these come from a variety of sources — sacrifices, pickoff errors, steals, wild pitches, bases-loaded walks
- Runs coming with men in scoring position and an at-bat from the batter, whether or not he gets a hit and whether or not the man scoring was in scoring position
| Non-RISP Runs | Non-AB | AB | BA | All Runs | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HR | Non-HR | Plays | Runs | Plays | Hits | Runs | w/RISP | Total | |
| batteam | |||||||||
| ARI | 176 | 30 | 382 | 101 | 1439 | 410 | 579 | 0.2849 | 886 |
| LAN | 229 | 19 | 376 | 77 | 1412 | 375 | 517 | 0.2656 | 842 |
| NYA | 225 | 24 | 321 | 87 | 1266 | 331 | 479 | 0.2615 | 815 |
| BAL | 250 | 22 | 243 | 64 | 1298 | 326 | 450 | 0.2512 | 786 |
| PHI | 192 | 28 | 324 | 65 | 1366 | 364 | 499 | 0.2665 | 784 |
| MIL | 148 | 32 | 351 | 67 | 1471 | 394 | 530 | 0.2678 | 777 |
| NYN | 190 | 21 | 300 | 69 | 1341 | 355 | 488 | 0.2647 | 768 |
| SDN | 202 | 27 | 288 | 51 | 1288 | 347 | 480 | 0.2694 | 760 |
| BOS | 182 | 28 | 339 | 61 | 1396 | 345 | 480 | 0.2471 | 751 |
| MIN | 167 | 30 | 286 | 73 | 1362 | 331 | 472 | 0.2430 | 742 |
| HOU | 178 | 24 | 285 | 71 | 1365 | 364 | 467 | 0.2667 | 740 |
| CHN | 162 | 23 | 349 | 83 | 1336 | 326 | 468 | 0.2440 | 736 |
| KCA | 149 | 30 | 306 | 74 | 1246 | 351 | 482 | 0.2817 | 735 |
| CLE | 178 | 24 | 315 | 76 | 1203 | 314 | 430 | 0.2610 | 708 |
| ATL | 208 | 19 | 255 | 62 | 1245 | 307 | 415 | 0.2466 | 704 |
| CIN | 155 | 21 | 357 | 74 | 1212 | 310 | 449 | 0.2558 | 699 |
| SFN | 177 | 39 | 253 | 65 | 1289 | 302 | 412 | 0.2343 | 693 |
| TEX | 170 | 17 | 280 | 60 | 1227 | 332 | 436 | 0.2706 | 683 |
| DET | 145 | 25 | 236 | 61 | 1201 | 313 | 451 | 0.2606 | 682 |
| COL | 173 | 21 | 272 | 60 | 1268 | 314 | 428 | 0.2476 | 682 |
| SEA | 191 | 12 | 321 | 63 | 1247 | 297 | 410 | 0.2382 | 676 |
| SLN | 181 | 26 | 297 | 79 | 1293 | 296 | 386 | 0.2289 | 672 |
| TOR | 159 | 15 | 289 | 66 | 1301 | 333 | 431 | 0.2560 | 671 |
| PIT | 158 | 20 | 323 | 74 | 1268 | 292 | 413 | 0.2303 | 665 |
| WAS | 105 | 20 | 353 | 74 | 1346 | 347 | 461 | 0.2578 | 660 |
| OAK | 201 | 22 | 251 | 62 | 1186 | 270 | 358 | 0.2277 | 643 |
| MIA | 136 | 26 | 274 | 53 | 1300 | 335 | 422 | 0.2577 | 637 |
| ANA | 157 | 20 | 323 | 71 | 1191 | 278 | 387 | 0.2334 | 635 |
| TBA | 139 | 25 | 303 | 60 | 1294 | 274 | 380 | 0.2117 | 604 |
| CHA | 125 | 23 | 198 | 40 | 1166 | 255 | 319 | 0.2187 | 507 |
Fundamentally, a run is a run. But for every team, runs with men in scoring position are over half the total runs scored for the year, which is why we focus on the situation, but just scanning down the BA with RISP column, the story seems less straightforward.
Something to think about.
WWJPD
We are at the high water mark in MLB for players named JP. JP Crawford, JP Feyereisen, JP France and tonight’s pitcher JP Sears are all currently active. In other news, Ed Roebuck won 52 games in the ’50s and ’60s, mostly for the Dodgers. Kohl Stewart retired a few years ago.
The Game
Strider gave up a three run homer in the 1st, but of course this makes no difference to the never-say-die potent offense of the 2023 Braves. Wait… what year is it? Never mind. Sears, one of those guys with more guile than stuff, proceeded to guile the Braves hitlessly until a Riley double with two outs in the 4th. A Murphy double and a Jurickson Profar homer tied the game and maybe it is 2023 again.
Nothing much happened until the 7th. Then (Shades of 2023!) Ozzie Albies hit a homer to give the Braves a 4-3 lead. Remember when he used to his home runs? I’m old, so I don’t. This caused the A’s to bring in (Shades of 2022!) Sean Newcomb. Strider was allowed to start the 7th and got two quick outs before departing, having thrown 101 pitches, only one of them really bad. He may not yet quite be what he was in (shades of) 2023, but he’s still fun to watch.
Sean Newcomb is a career 2.4 WAR pitcher. 4.0 of that 2.4 came wth Braves. His 10 most similar Bref pitchers are ten guys you never heard of. He has made several million dollars as a sub-replacement level player. Good for him.
Dylan Lee had not allowed a homer since late May. I hope you didn’t think that had any intrinsic meaning. Nick Kurtz hit one out to tie the game and began to make it unlikely I’d get to bed before midnight.
Raisel Iglesias pitched an excellent 9th inning. He does seem to be back. A little late, but he seems to be back.
Extra innings begin with Eli White pinch running for Marcell Ozuna. Yes, Ozuna is a near-stationary object, but this still seemed like a weird decision to me. After Albies and Harris strikeouts, the decision began to look even odder. When White was given third base on an uncontested steal, I began to think maybe I was wrong. I wasn’t. Pinch hitter Drake Baldwin flew out to end the half-inning.
Pierce Johnson was given the bottom of the inning. He got a strikout and then a lucky line drive double play when Rooker lined one to Luke Williams (now the shortstop after Baldwin pinch hit for Allen) and doubled Langeliers off 2nd.
Note that we are now in the situation where Ozuna’s bat might actually be needed soon. This is why pinch running for the initial Manfred Man is a tough proposition. The Braves didn’t score, and Eli White is scheduled to bat third in the 12th, if we can get there. (Oh, and we just passed midnight.)
Aaron Bummer was given the bottom of the 11th. Didn’t last all that long. If I’d added the Bummer factor, the decision to pinch run for Ozuna made perfect sense. A single gave us another 1 run loss.
So the Braves end the season 1-12 in California in 2025. May the entire state tumble into the sea… hopefully without hurting anybody.
St. Louis for 4 3 starting tomorrow night.
Michael Harris is 7 for his last 77, a -41 wRC. How long would this have to go before he’s in BJ Upton/Dan Uggla territory with his contract?
Get ready for the “Michael Harris is in the BEST Shape of His Life” articles this winter.
It’s too early to pull the plug in my opinion. Upton and Uggla lost their bat speed in a hurry, but that’s actually the one thing on Statcast that isn’t blue for Harris. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/michael-harris-ii-671739?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb
It actually takes considerable skill to foul off some of the balls he’s able to that are way outside the zone; the issue is he’s swinging at these pitches in the first place and I truly hope he gets sent down for the rest of the season. He’s still very athletic, but seemingly cant see the ball. That’s more correctable than what’s happening with Ozzie, unfortunately.
I assume he’ll get a lot of runway, but it doesn’t send a good message that he can be this bad and at least not suffer a few weeks in Gwinnett, especially when this team is going nowhere. Who cares what CF defense is like.
If you made me guess, I assume he’ll have a “bounce back” year in 2026 where he posts something like an 80-90 wRC+ and it is enough to keep a roster spot into 2027.
If he is this bad next year, you have to start thinking about the Scott Kingery route. He can go play out his contract in Gwinnett or get traded for a bag of balls.
My gutters guy said a year and a half
Snit…. Is that you?
Quiet you, or you’ll blow both our covers
2-7 on this nine-game stretch against the Angels, Orioles, and A’s. That’s pretty much all you need to know about this group.
According to NYT, on July 4th, when asked if the Braves will be sellers:
“Nobody wants to hear that,” first baseman Matt Olson said in the Braves’ quiet postgame clubhouse. “We’re in here competing every day. We still have playoffs on our mind. I understand there’s going to be some outside noise when you have a record like we do, but we still feel like we’ve got a good unit in here.”
How ’bout now, Matt?
This team has no guts. Nobody getting angry about this pathetic brand of baseball they’ve been playing. There’s no accountability. It starts at the top – and goes all the way down.
I’m glad I cancelled my trip out to St. Louis – had tickets for tonight’s game with my son – but it’s not worth all the $$.
All the guts in the world can’t overcome having basically 2.5 major-league caliber starting pitchers, as Elder is a 50–50 proposition to be horrible every time he takes the mound.
They have to go 33-37 to avoid 90 losses. I don’t see that with this rotation. Snitker blathered some folderol last night about waiting for a hot streak and all I could do at this point is sadly shake my head. This club has had its share of misfortune, but it would be folly to overlook the culpability of front-office and dugout personnel in this disaster, too.
Only 3 in STL. I enjoyed the recap more than the game itself.
Acuña is out of the Derby. Parkview High School alumnus Matt Olson is in.
Yeah, Murphy is such a bum. Let’s just trade him now.
It is pretty sad when the opposing pitcher pitches around and walks Nick Allen to let Michael Harris bat with the bases loaded. Unfortunately it worked perfectly.
Recapped