June Record: 10-16 (0.385)
Series Record: 1-7-0
Runs Scored: 125 (4.8 r/g, 6th in NL)
Runs Allowed: 134 (5.2 r/g, 11th in NL)
Team OBP: 0.318 (12th in NL)
Team SLG: 0.452 (4th in NL)
Team FIP: 4.80 (10th in NL)
Team DER: 0.685 (13th in NL)
Season to Date
Overall Record: 31-50 (0.383), 16.5 games back
Series Record: 6-19-1
PythagoPat Record: 36-45 (0.444)
Remaining Record Needed for 81 Wins: 50-31 (0.617)
Remaining Record Needed for 90 Wins: 59-22 (0.728)
Runs Scored: 376 (4.6 r/g, 5th in NL)
Runs Allowed: 420 (5.2 r/g, 14th in NL)
Team OBP: 0.321 (11th in NL)
Team SLG: 0.436 (3rd in NL)
Team FIP: 3.92 (6th in NL)
Team DER: 0.677 (15th in NL)
What Happened...
Coming off the worst month in recent memory, everyone (well...at least I did) expected the Reds to rebound to at least some level of adequacy. Instead, they played right at their season winning percentage on the month, falling further and further behind the pack, ending the month with easily the worst record in baseball. Here's how the NL Central race looked to date, courtesy of The Hardball Times:
It's astonishing to me that you can pretty much draw a straight line through the Reds' record from mid-April to now. There's a reason for that--they've played about as bad as you possibly can play in that time, barely topping the replacement-level expected minimum winning percentage of 0.300. Meanwhile, Milwaukee went on a massive tear in June, maintaining a commanding lead in the NL Central despite a surge by the Chicago Cubs. The Brewers scored a league-best 6.0 runs per game last month, allowing only 4.4 r/g. That's dominant.Oh, and here's a fun "Did You Know?": How many series have the Reds won since May 1st? The answer: two. One series at Houston May 29-31, and the Cleveland series at home in Cincinnati June 8-10. They have yet to sweep a series this season, and haven't had a three-game winning streak since May 28-30. ::sigh::
Breaking it down...
The Reds' PythagoPat record indicates that they "should be" about 5 games better than they have been, based on their runs scored and allowed, but that still puts them at a Pittsburgh-esque 0.444 winning percentage. They just haven't been a very good team. The offense has, on the surface, looked good this year, scoring the 5th-most runs of any NL team. But the pitching and defense has been awful (as usual), allowing 420 runs--better than only Marlins and the Phillies--both of which have had superior offense.
Here's the breakdown of how different components of the Reds' team has contributed to their struggles. Rather than break it down by series as I have in the past, I'm showing this as the year to date (June wasn't particularly interesting in and of itself):
All aspects of the Reds' team have fallen short this year. The offense has scored a good number of runs this season, but has failed to do so in a manner that has contributed in a net positive way to Reds' victories. There are two main reasons for this that I can see. First, the slugging-oriented Reds team has tended to score a runs in bunches, with their 16-1 massacre of the Seattle Mariners on June 22nd being the most obvious example. This reduces the average value of each run scored. Second, the pitching has been so terrible that the Reds often have to score a large number of runs to make much improvement in the Reds' chances of winning a game.The starting rotation started the season very strong, but has been in a free-fall since the 10th of May. And the bullpen has basically been a disaster since the 8th of April. Finally, the defense, as measured by DER, while slightly better in June, has been among the worst in baseball all season long.
There is still some reason to hope that the Reds can improve over what is left of the season, even though the playoffs seem far out of reach. The offense is clearly capable of scoring runs, and some of its key players (Edwin Encarnacion perhaps being the most crucial) have yet to catch fire. Furthermore, the offense stayed about even according to its WPA figures for the first time this month, so perhaps they can build upon that momentum. And the pitching still does have a good FIP on the season, thanks almost entirely to outstanding performance in April. Some good luck has to come the Reds way sooner or later, and when it does, this team might just post a 0.500 month. Finally, Narron's gone...so maybe the new voice and new approach that Krivsky spoke of will help?
On the other hand, with the trading deadline approaching, and the Reds clearly needing to get younger as they prepare for runs in the '08 or '09 season, some of the key parts most likely will (or should, at least) be dealt. So it could be a long second half. But at this point, we're used to this, right? :)
June Transactions
June 2
+ RHP Marcus McBeth (from AAA; he'd actually get to pitch this time) - 6/2
- LHP Bobby Livingston (to AAA; human yo-yo spot starter, pitched well) - 6/2
June 4
+ OF Josh Hamilton (from DL; tummy feeling better) - 6/4
+ RHP Todd Coffey (from AAA; pitched well since demotion) - 6/4
- RHP Brad Salmon (to AAA; human yo-yo) - 6/4
- OF DeWayne Wise (DFA; the replacement-level outfielder is gone) - 6/4
June 8
+ RHP Homer Bailey (from AAA; debut of most hyped Reds prospect since...?) - 6/8
- RHP Todd Coffey (to AAA; demoted in favor of McBeth!) - 6/8
June 12
+ RHP Todd Coffey (from AAA; now a yo-yo) - 6/12
- RHP Jared Burton (to DL; Rule 5 back spasms) - 6/12
June 15
+ RHP Brad Salmon (from AAA; human yo-yo) - 6/15
- RHP Gary Majewski (to AAA; colossal disappointment) - 6/15
June 16
+ LHP Michael Gosling (from AAA; long man lefty) - 6/16
- LHP Mike Stanton (to DL; hamstring) - 6/16
June 29
+ RHP Ricky Stone (from AAA; home town kid gets one last shot) - 6/29
- RHP Victor Santos (DFA; too many walks) - 6/29
One minor disagreement, J. The Reds don't tend to score in bunches, at least not compared to the rest of the league. Here is the run distribution compared to the NL average in parentheses:
ReplyDelete0 RS - 2 (4.5)
1 RS - 10 (8.7)
2 RS - 11 (9.7)
3 RS - 9 (13.2)
4 RS - 12 (10.7)
5 RS - 12 (10.3)
6 RS - 7 (7.9)
7 RS - 7 (5.3)
8 RS - 3 (4.3)
9+ RS - 11 (9.4)
I'd say they're pretty close to average, scoring in the higher buckets slightly higher than normal and scoring below 4 runs at a fairly normal rate.
I think the bigger problem is that while the rest of the league is winning almost 80% of their games when their offense scores 5 runs or more, the Reds have only won 55% of such games. You touched upon that in your second point about the offense, but I think it is actually the major reason, as usual, as to why this team is still losing.
This is why I'm still not comfortable with WPA for this type of evaluation. It seems to me like it punishes one side for the mistakes of the other side. If the offense scores 6 runs in the first 5 innings, but is being matched along the way by the other team, the WPA value of those runs isn't that high. Then if the other team takes the lead early enough, the offense gets nothing but negatives for the rest of the game if they fail to score more runs, even if they've scored a reasonable amount already to win.
I may be missing something, but it seems like the offense gets punished because the pitching staff can hold a lead for very long.
Joel, thanks for that. It's one of those cases where I should have checked this out more carefully before making the claim. The Reds do seem to be a bit higher than usual in the 1-2 runs scored bins, but you're right that they don't seem to be in the upper bins more often than expected, especially for a team that is scoring as many runs as they have.
ReplyDeleteThe issue of any production on offense being influenced by the performance of pitching (and vice versa) is a significant limitation of WPA. But WPA also gets at something that simply looking at runs scored does not, and that's the historical tendency to score (or prevent) runs when it counts. This can help us figure out why the Reds, for example, are five games below what is expected by Pythagoras, as I toyed with here. Yes, "when it counts" for the offense will be determined in part by the defense, but that's the way games work.
Supporting WPA's critique of the Reds' offense, we can compare their overall performance versus performance in key situations (via ESPN):
Overall OPS: 0.756 (5th in NL)
Rnrs Scoring Pos: 0.722 (13th in NL)
Scr Pos, 2out: 0.696 (10th in NL)
Close and Late: 0.595 (last in NL)
To be clear, I'm not claiming that the Reds offense needs a major overhaul, or that it's the major problem with the Reds' team. It is a good offense, which is why it's scored the 5th-most runs in the league. I'm just saying that it's production hasn't matched the game situations very well this year.
If it makes you feel any better about WPA, teams that show great pitching and poor offense can show negative offensive WPA's and yet still show positive pitching WPA's. The San Diego Padres, for example, have starter WPA = 6.97, reliever WPA = 6.78, and yet have offensive WPA = -7.26.
WPA isn't a perfect stat, but I think it's worth a fair bit more than a grain of salt.
-j
A couple comments. First, they are in the 1 RS and 2 RS bucket more than we would like, but that is balanced by being in the 0 RS and 3 RS bucket less. I know this isn't right, but in my head, I tend to group everything under 4 runs together as those are games that I don't expect the team to win. And the Reds have only lost one game where the pitching staff has given up less than 3 runs, so you can pretty much move the numbers around in those 4 buckets and at most it gives the Reds one win. That's why I didn't think it was a big deal that the 1 & 2 buckets were a little high.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, on WPA, I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with it as any more than a way to look at the ebb and flow of a game. I've never been able to get through that "leap of faith" required to accept the assigning of WPA to individuals, let alone to start aggregating it over games. I can see how it can be useful to identify something like why they fall short of their pythag, but it doesn't necessarily give me any information as to what needs to be fixed. Does that make sense?
I appreciate that people like yourself keep looking at it though because I see potential there, but I'm just not sure it's been properly fleshed out yet.
Hi Joel,
ReplyDeleteI probably didn't attach enough qualifiers to my previous post, as I wasn't disagreeing at all with your assessment of the data you provided.
As for WPA, I see it's value more an indication of what happened, rather than a tool that can be used to figure out something that will happen. David Appleman showed that it does have some predictive value, but then again, so do RBI's. I sort of treat WPA as an informative measure of performance in situations, so in that way it is somewhat like RBI totals (though I'd argue it's more informative).
If someone has high or low WPA relative to their other stats, I don't get particularly hyped up about that as far as what I expect from that player in the future. But I do find it useful to understand how specific players have contributed to games over the course of the season (historically). It helps me ground past player performance in the reality of the games that were played. So that's why I like it. But I agree that you have to be careful in how you use it.
There are some things that could be improved about it, but I still think it's useful. You don't have to agree, of course. :)
-j