No Batter, No Batter: The Charging of the Guards

So right here’s what occurred. I used to be watching the MLB sport highlights of Tuesday’s Marlins-Blue Jays matchup. I like MLB’s sport highlights; to be able to hold all the short cuts from feeling disjointed, they sort of simply plop some music on high all the things unceremoniously, and typically the music can actually shade your notion of the sport. This Mets-Padres sport from April is a good instance. It was a nailbiter, however it misplaced a few of its nerve-wracking heft due to a soundtrack that’s a cross between John Coltrane, Kool & The Gang, and Super Mario 3.

Two on, two out, backside of the ninth, and it sounds just like the monologue is about to begin on Saturday Night Live. Anyway, I used to be watching Tuesday’s Marlins-Jays highlights (the soundtrack for which feels like The Living End on their union-mandated lunch break), and I observed this single from Luis Arraez.

Normally, a single from Arraez is concerning the least exceptional factor in baseball. He is the sport’s preeminent singles hitter (and relying in your worldview, maybe the sport’s preeminent hitter, interval). What caught my eye was how rapidly Daulton Varsho managed to chop this ball off, contemplating that Arraez slashed it only a foot contained in the left area line. Varsho will get implausible jumps, however I figured he additionally needed to be enjoying extraordinarily shallow. It occurred to me that possibly each outfielder is enjoying proper on high of Arraez this 12 months, seeing as dumping liners proper in entrance of the outfielders for singles is his superpower.

I headed over to Baseball Savant to see whether or not outfielders have simply began enjoying proper on high of Arraez this 12 months. I ought to provide you with a warning at this level. A pair weeks in the past, Baseball Prospectus lead prospect author Jeffrey Paternostro expressed a (very legitimate) concern that baseball writing is “being compressed into a neutron star of ‘interesting stuff from my savant query.’” If that sort of article will not be for you, I encourage you to maneuver alongside, as a result of from right here on out we’re within the realm of unusual matter.

As you would possibly recall, fielders have been enjoying deeper since 2015, the primary 12 months that Statcast made that data obtainable to the general public. Center fielders and shortstops noticed the largest change. Playing your outfielders deeper — accepting extra singles to be able to stop extra-base hits — makes loads of sense. Average outfielder depth leveled off round 305 ft in 2019.

As David Waldstein wrote just a few days in the past in The New York Times, issues are fairly regimented as of late: “Many groundskeepers chafe at a recent trend in which visiting coaches wander the outfield grass with range finders before games. The devices are used to help position the outfielders, and the coaches sometimes scuff out marks in the grass with their heels, blemishing the near-perfect sod.” Now greater than ever, there’s analytical rigor going into outfielder positioning. In different phrases, for those who’re on the plate and the middle fielder seems like he’s enjoying shut sufficient to seize some sunflower seeds out of the shortstop’s again pocket, he’s not the one one insulting you. There’s an entire cadre of analysts, scouts, and coaches who’ve combed by means of the information, crunched the numbers, and are available to the conclusion that you just’re an enormous wimp.

I pulled the typical depth of the outfielders for each batter who’s made no less than 100 plate appearances on the street this season. It’s necessary to throw out PAs at house as a result of ballpark dimensions skew the outcomes fairly onerous. For instance, left fielders play 37 ft shallower after they’re enjoying in entrance of the Green Monster than they do after they’re in entrance of the Great Wall of Baltimore.

At 313.3 ft, Ronald Acuña Jr. is first on the checklist. He’s adopted by a who’s who of sluggers: Austin Riley, Yordan Alvarez, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Juan Soto… you get the image.

We’re not involved about that finish of the checklist, so from right here on out we’ll be turning it the other way up. Arraez is certainly fifth on this new checklist, however check out the gamers forward of him:

This article is not about Arraez; it’s about what the hell is happening in Cleveland. The high three gamers are all Guardians, and Kwan and Straw are separated from the remainder of the pack by 4 ft. We’ve written a good quantity about Cleveland’s no-strikeout, no-power strategy this 12 months, however that is nonetheless a surprising lack of disrespect. Opposing fielders would possibly as properly be chanting, “Easy out, easy out.”

The humorous factor is that the largest hole between the place fielders play the Guardians and the place they play all people else is within the reverse area. Relatively talking, that’s the place the Guardians have probably the most energy. Their 83.6 mph exit velocity is the fifth-lowest within the sport, however they’re useless final when hitting the ball straightaway and third-to-last when pulling it. Left fielders play seven ft shallower for Kwan than they do for anybody in baseball, and the identical is true of Straw in proper. Center fielders play each of them no less than 4 ft shallower than Arraez, who’s in third place. In all three instances, we’re speaking a few full normal deviation between Kwan and/or Straw and the following non-Guardian.

It’s not simply Kwan, Straw, and Andrés Giménez both. Amed Rosario is eighth on the checklist. Will Brennan is ninth. Tyler Freeman doesn’t have sufficient PAs to qualify, however he’d slot in at eleventh. Here’s a graph of the typical outfielder depth for each workforce within the league. The Braves are in first at 309.7 ft. At the decrease finish of the spectrum, the Progressive Field grounds crew may drive a driving mower between the Guardians and each different workforce.

I do know that I’ve now listed six Guardians who populate the highest of the checklist, however it’s not simply them both. For the desk beneath, I’ve dropped the PA necessities means down so you’ll be able to see how the workforce stacks up as an entire. This 12 months, the league common outfield depth is 305.3 ft. I’ll spotlight the gamers who get performed shallower than that.

Not a single Guardian will get performed that deep. Not one! Amazingly, the one Guardian inside one foot of league common is Mike Zunino. Yeah, that Mike Zunino — the one with the 63 wRC+ who simply bought DFA’d to make room for Bo Naylor. Zunino is within the twenty seventh percentile. In different phrases, on an inventory of all certified MLB gamers ranked by the depth of the outfielders after they’re on the plate, you’d must scroll previous 73% of the league till you bought to at least one participant from Cleveland (and 78% of the league till you bought to at least one participant who’s nonetheless there). Zunino and Josh Bell are the one Guardians above the nineteenth percentile.

Kwan, who almost led the league in singles final 12 months, is presently working a 97 wRC+. While he actually doesn’t boast a lot energy, his inclusion may no less than conceivably be seen as a tribute within the vein of Arraez. He hits loads of singles, so possibly groups are enjoying in much less as a result of they don’t worry his energy and extra as a result of they worry all these singles he’s hitting. It’s not a very sturdy case for Kwan, however he’s the one participant on the workforce for whom you’ll be able to actually make it.

The solely actual shock right here is José Ramírez. By his terribly excessive requirements, his 130 wRC+ is a disappointment. After surgical procedure to restore a hand harm that sapped his energy for many of the 2022 season, his hard-hit price and common exit velocity have ticked again up, however opposing outfielders don’t appear to purchase that he’s again. Regardless of whether or not he’s hitting righty or lefty, they’re enjoying him 4 ft shallower than they did final 12 months. He has but to make them pay for it, working a .219 ISO, his worst since 2019.

The Guardians are performed three ft shallower than the following workforce, the Reds. In the 9 years of knowledge that we’ve got, no workforce has ever had a niche that huge. But the Guardians are additionally performed 5 ft shallower than league common, and two groups have had an even bigger hole. The first, at 6.7 ft beneath league common, is the 2020 Orioles, who had been horrible, and about whom one sentence is greater than sufficient. The second, at 5.3 ft, is the 2018 Tampa Bay Rays, who received 90 video games however missed the playoffs. They posted a 107 wRC+, sixth-best in baseball, regardless of being within the backside six of the league in ISO, barrel price, hard-hit price, and exit velocity. They had been common when it comes to walks, strikeouts, and baserunning, and so they largely BABIP’d their solution to their success. They hit loads of line drives, and their batting common on grounders was almost 50 factors increased than their anticipated batting common.

Cleveland may actually use a few of that batted ball luck. The Guardians don’t have the worst offense in baseball this 12 months; that honor goes to the Rockies and their 81 wRC+. Cleveland is tied for twenty fourth place with a wRC+ of 88 however has the league’s lowest ISO, hard-hit price, barrel price, and common exit velocity. Nobody is afraid {that a} Guardian would possibly hit a ball over their head, and in contrast to the 2018 Rays, the batted balls have but to bounce their means. When the Guardians are on the plate, outfielders play at a median of 300.3 ft, the identical as when Rosario and Brennan are on the plate. That is to say, for those who eliminated all the person Guardians and handled your entire roster like one participant, that one participant could be the fourth-least-feared hitter in all of baseball. All in all, it’s a fairly attention-grabbing Savant question.

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