Three strikes: Astros magic in the slider era

The bells are already ringing with a notification: The Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game are just around the corner, and we’re halfway through the Major League season. Several teams have played their first 80 games of 2022, which helps us draw stronger conclusions about the performance of each one, as well as review some trends that the current baseball campaign in the United States is leaving

One of the aspects that has defined this season is the behavior of the ball in each month. The same diversity that the Rawlings’ flight displays correlates with the performance of each offense. On the other hand, we are witnessing how the slider has become the least hit pitch in baseball.

Haven’t you ever wondered why good teams lose games against such bad teams? This is another point that is evidenced every year and today we will be analyzing it. Also, since we’ve seen the Houston Astros play against good organizations lately, here are some thoughts on them. Without further ado, we call the first strike.

first strike

“One reaps in life what one sows”. There is no better phrase to describe what the Astros have accomplished in recent years. Let’s look at the following example: no team in MLB lost more games than the Astros from 2010-2014 (502 losses), but only one (the Dodgers) has won more games than them since 2015.

If we go a little further, of the 15 teams that had a balance below .500 in the stretch of 2010-2014, only the Chicago Cubs and the Astros won the World Series. The Cubs are currently undergoing a rebuild and the Minute Maid Park franchise remains one of the best in the business.

Houston is the team with the most Cubans signed (21), which, combined with the success of the franchise, has allowed them to become one of the most followed teams on our Island. In addition, their ranks include the best Cuban hitter today (Yordan Álvarez), the most media player in the history of Cuban baseball (Yulieski Gurriel) and one of the best utility players in the league (Aledmys Díaz). So, we have plenty of reasons to keep talking about them.

With all due respect to fans of other teams — especially the Yankees for their brutal start in 2022 — there is no franchise in the American League more complete than the Astros.

To begin with, “El Vagón Naranja”, as their manager Dusty Baker baptized them, came into the last Fall Classic without much pitching, but now that line has improved considerably in terms of ERA (ERA) and average number of runners on base per inning (WHIP). ), especially when it comes to the bullpen.

starting pitching

2021: 3.63 PCL (MLB 5th) / 1.19 WHIP (6th)

2022: 3.19 PCL (4th) / 1.09 WHIP (3rd)

relief pitching

2021: PCL of 4.06 (15ths) / WHIP of 1.30 (12ths)

2022: PCL of 2.63 (first) / WHIP of 1.12 (fourth)

The re-signing of Justin Verlander has helped strengthen the front line, while the likes of Rafael Montero, Seth Martinez and the return of Ryan Pressly have backed up the relief staff.

Their offense remains one of the best in part because they’ve known how to replace the talent drain. For example, when George Springer left for free agency, they made Kyle Tucker debut, and when Carlos Correa also sought to explore the market, they gave Jeremy Peña the opportunity, who today is one of the big favorites to win the prize of Rookie of the Year in the American League.

Now the team with the most postseason wins since 2017 just needs to establish this dominance, precisely, in the decisive games to reach the promised land and present a ring to Dusty Baker, one of the great helmsmen in Big Show annals.

second strike

After the Yankees lost to the Pirates last Tuesday, many Twitter users began to express their astonishment. They couldn’t believe a team 15 games under .500 would beat the Bronx Mulos, the winningest team in the Majors. The funny thing is that shortly before Pittsburgh’s victory, the Oakland Athletics, the only squad with fewer than 30 wins in MLB, beat the highly-reinforced Toronto Blue Jays for the second day in a row.

This is not new, it happens all the time and in any season we look at. This season, the trend has been maintained and the teams with the worst results play very well against those who have a winning percentage of .500 or more.

We are going to take as a reference several of the franchises that have lost the most games since 2018. At the top of the list are the Orioles (412 losses), who have achieved their best win-loss balance in 2022 (24-32/ .429) against .500-plus teams since 2016.

Brandon Hyde’s team’s ERA today is the second-best (4.28) since 2015, when they posted a grand average of 3.63 against the league’s strongest opponents. It is not surprising then that he is winning the particular series against the Red Sox (5-3), the Cardinals (2-1) or the White Sox (3-1), in addition to drawing 2-2 with the Blue Jays. . Against the Yankees they have won four of 13 times.

On the other hand, Detroit, third with the most failures (380) since 2018, is having a disappointing season after delighting many fans in the last contest. One of the few consolations they have left this year is the performance of their bullpen and their pitching against top teams.

An example of this is that the effectiveness of the team, its WHIP and the opponent’s batting average are the best against teams of .500 or more since 2015. However, this has not been able to translate into victories against the strongest due to of his offense, one of the weakest in the circuit.

Tigers hitters post a .224 average against ninth-calibers, the worst they’ve posted in the Wild Card era (since 1995). His OPS has also been the lowest in that span.

As for the Marlins, fourth losing team (370) since 2018, their pitchers combine for a 3.99 ERA against teams of .500 or better, the second best of their career in the last 20 years. This detail leaves them with their second best winning percentage in the period 2016-2022, which invites us to think that the Marlins still have aspirations to achieve a positive record at the end of the course.

His month of July has too many games against weak ninths. We will see how they finish before the deadline (August 2), at least, they have been better against good teams, that is another step gained from their reconstruction.

Despite the fact that the Pirates have one of the worst records in recent years, they swept the Dodgers in Los Angeles and also won the series at PNC Park (2-1). The Padres have taken two games out of six and the Giants, one out of three.

The Rangers, like the Marlins, have taken a step forward in their organizational process, which has helped them play better against teams with a balance of .500 or more. His pitching is looking better than ever against strong opponents, posting a 3.60 ERA and 281 so far this year.

It’s risky to say that these trends will continue into the second half of the season, when typically weak teams underperform after becoming sellers during the FX market. However, that doesn’t mean they won’t continue to win series or games, but it must be at a slower pace.

Third strike Strikeout!

Three months into the competition, one thing is clear: The slider has become the hardest pitch to hit in baseball. At the same time that the use of the straight S has decreased, the use of the “slider” has increased.

In 2019, the 30 MLB teams combined to throw 51.9% of fast pitches, so far this season, use of these has fallen to 48.4%. Since every pitch has been tracked (2008), that’s the lowest rate of fastballs on record.

On the other side of the scale we have the sliders, which this year are being used 21.2% of the time, which represents an increase of 3.7% compared to 2019. How did we get here? It’s an easy answer, teams increasingly identify with a theory: more spin and less pitching speed are synonymous with success.

The best example to illustrate that is the San Francisco Giants. In 2021 they won 107 games, the most for a season in their history. One of the keys to winning the West pennant, above the all-powerful Dodgers, was his pitching.

The Giants pitchers’ team ERA was 3.24, the most since 2011. Even more impressive was their 1.15 WHIP, the franchise’s second-best mark since the start of the Live Ball Era in 1920.

In short, what has made teams like the Rays, Mets, Marlins and Giants use the slider more? The answer can be found in the following data.

As you can see, the increased use of the slider is not affecting the result. She pitches 20% of the time and the batter’s average against them is .209, the lowest of all pitches. Instead, a pitch like the sinker is thrown less because it gets hit more.

In the current campaign, who are the Cuban batters who throw the most sliders at you?

Jorge Soler (Miami Marlins) is one of the hitters who observes the most breaks every year, he could not be the exception. On the contrary, he has been the Cuban batter who has seen the most sliders, 681 (30%). It’s the eighth-highest rate in the Majors among qualified hitters.

Luis Robert is the second-highest hitter in observed slider percentage (29.7%), slightly higher than the 27.1% he observed last year. “La Pantera” is hitting .230 with a .391 slugging percentage against said cast. Lastly, we have Randy Arozarena, who gets 4.6% more sliders thrown year-over-year (23.7% to 28.3%). The positive is that the player from Pinar del Rio is registering an average of .282 against them.