Last month there was an interesting story on MLB.com about the Mets’ hitting philosophy and the new internal hitting metric called Bases Per Out (BPO) that it spawned. There’s nothing particularly enlightening about the hitting philosophy. Essentially, it’s a system of selective aggressiveness in which the hitter swings at good strikes and lays off of balls outside of the zone. Walks are not the goal, according to the story, but a byproduct of following the system.
This is not groundbreaking. It’s what the good offensive teams do. It’s how the Mets hope to turn their less talented team into contenders. The interesting twist is the BPO metric and how the team is using it. A point system is in place that will leverage BPO to determine the future bonuses for players with less than three years of service time. Why the need for such incentives? Maybe the Mets were having trouble getting players to buy in to the system. That’s simply speculation, of course, and not the purpose of this article.
The purpose of this article is the noted lack of results that this system has produced so far, at least at the major league level. As of this writing, the Mets are 28th in batting average, 25th in on-base percentage, 30th in slugging, 29th in weighted on-base percentage, 29th in isolated slugging, and really we can just stop there. The offense is failing on a massive scale at this point. At least they’re in the top ten in walk percentage, right?
There are no surprises here as the noted lack of offensive production falls in line with what fans can see in-game. The problem is that it’s not only an overall lack of execution, but a lack of execution of the team’s hitting philosophy in general. How do we know this? Well, we simply need to examine the team’s plate discipline statistics.
The Mets hitters are swinging at roughly 26% of pitches outside of the strike zone, good for fifth in the league and well below the league average of 29%. So far so good. They’re only swinging at roughly 63% of pitches inside the strike zone, though, good for 24th in the league and slightly below the league average. So much for selective aggressiveness.
Another interesting aspect of this analysis is that the Mets are seeing 48% of their pitches inside the strike zone. That’s the seventh highest percentage in baseball. It seems as though teams are attacking Mets hitters. The fact that, when they are swinging at pitches in the zone, they’re only making contact 85.7% of the time probably has a lot to do with that. That strike zone contact rate is again towards the bottom of the league.
When we break down this information on a per-player basis there is an interesting mix. For example, Lucas Duda, Juan Lagares, Curtis Granderson, and Eric Young are swinging at pitches out of the zone at a rate above the team average. Duda, Young, and Lagares are also swinging at pitches in the zone at a lower rate than the team average. While Duda is making contact in the strike zone below the team average, Young has been doing so above the team average. Granderson has been swinging at pitches in the zone at a higher rate than the team average but making contact at an awful rate.
It’s really been a mixed bag on not only adherence to the team’s hitting philosophy but also success in actual production. As a team, the Mets aren’t succeeding in what the team preaches. Is that a failing of the system itself, the team’s ability to enforce the system, or the fact that the team is comprised of players that simply aren’t very good? What are your thoughts?
Depressing to think it’s the team, huh? Damn. You mention Granderson and what he’s swinging at but more often then not he’s waving at pitches and showing more and more that he’s the new Jason Bay
Answer is all of the above a failing of the system itself, the team’s ability to enforce the system, and the fact that the team is comprised of players that simply aren’t very good
A pet peeve of mine is not swinging at the first pitch when often
it’s a pretty good strike and not too fast. I always wonder if
batters think if only I could have that one again now.
I’ll be in Yankee Stadium tonight in section 405 just about
last row, though I don’t imagine I’ll be able to tell a change up
ball from a four seam strike from up there. Supposedly it’s a good
view of the Bronx. I took 175 photos of Citi Field last year,
and am going to take the same tonight in the house that
Arod sublet.
The Mets aren’t hitting well as per the averages at this time.
I suppose pitchers feel more comfortable throwing strikes to them.
I agree with never-stop-harping-on-it Keith Hernandez, aim
for the top of the ball and hit line drives. So they should
all wait for high strikes and get on base. Depending on
the pitcher, or course. If he throws a high percentage of curves,
still aim for the top of the ball. Hit lines and parade around
the bases and touch home and make the scoreboard the focus.
I couldn’t agree more that the Mets seem to be watching first pitch strikes all the time. The numbers suggest they are slightly better than league average when it comes to this, but this past week was one first pitch strike after another. That’s how you lose games from the first inning on. Getting good pitches to hit, letting them go by, and constantly starting down in the count. Maybe they aren’t always terrible at it, but this week they sure were, and that’s why they lost consistently.
end of the day, any strategy fails when you employ too many automatic outs. It allows the opposing pitcher/team to strategize away from your strengths.
I mentioned this in regard to last year’s team – the number of ABs we surrender to players that can’t hit as well as a pitcher. Of course, given the 0 for 61 our pitchers are putting up … but I digress. This year its not like the problem has gotten any better.
Outside of the 0/61, we’ve used up 475 of the 1407 plate appearances on players with an OPS under 600. That is simply astounding. I don’t care if Montero is starting, if you have George Brett teaching them how to hit, even if the other 1000 plate appearances are going to a combination of Rickey Henderson and Barry Bonds.
The whole concept of money ball is to focus on not giving up outs, but you’ve committed to throwing away 1/3 of the game. I mean, what’s the damned difference what the “strategy” is?
Right. This is where team construction comes in to play. I mean, at what point does Alderson realize that the parts he’s trying to jam together to create this team simply aren’t going to work? Sure, you spend on Granderson and the book is still out on that signing, but this team entered the season with Davis, Tejada, Duda, d’Arnaud and the Youngs as starting position players in some capacity. A hitting philosophy only works if the players you put on the team can actually produce at the major league level. This collection of players has yet to prove that, some over multiple years.