A Justin Smoak Fun-related Fact

by Matthew on Jul 10, 2011 10:26 AM PDT in Seattle Mariners Stats

There's been some antsyness regarding Justin Smoak lately and curious what was driving his plummeting offensive stats, I looked at some monthly splits.

Month	BB*%	K%	HR%	GB%	LD%	RBBIP
April	15	20	4.5	46	14	0.321
May	13	25	3.6	51	19	0.292
June	10	15	3.7	45	18	0.243
July	9	23	0.0	29	13	0.167

There's both good and bad news in there. Namely, the declining walk plus hit by pitch rate is frowny news, but I'm not convinced that's worth getting worked up over since one single more walk in July and it becomes 11%. Similarly, I do not think much of the strikeout or the home run rates, but I included them for opposite reasons. The strikeouts have seemed like a lot lately, but actually they bounce around a ton and were quite down in June. The home runs are pretty consistent and since I do not think Justin Smoak has suddenly lost power this month, should rebound and a Justin Smoak hitting home runs makes it a lot easier for us to feel better about Justin Smoak.

The batted ball stuff is the key I feel. Smoak's numbers for reaching base on his balls in play (RBBIP) has fallen each month and since May they have cratered. However, there's been no reason for them to do so. Smoak was certainly lucky to post a number in the .320s in April. He's not quick enough to maintain a rate that high, but upper 200s seems legit given his strength. If/when he gets back up to that level, I imagine much of our collective fretting about Smoak will go away.

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What are your thoughts on the BABIP for the team as a whole?

Fangraphs shows them to be firmly at the bottom (the Astros, amusingly, are at the top), and I assume your RBBIP would track along with that. The question i have is: why? Obviously some team is going to be at the bottom, but it’s not clear to me there’s a good reason beyond that (and bad luck). The M’s GB rate isn’t absurd, their LD% is low but so are some other teams with much better results on BIP (like the Yankees) .

Aside: since RBBIP is your own creation, it might be handy for you to define it (or link to a page defining it) the first time you use it, as a convenience for the folks who haven’t been following along with every one of your posts. (I wonder too if taking it in the direction of “On Base on Balls in Play” or OBBIP might be more suggestive, so that it sits alongside OBP the way BABIP complements BA )

by J0SER on Jul 10, 2011 11:06 AM PDT reply actions

The spacious confines of Safeco Field could have something to do with it.

With all that room in the outfield, a lot of base hits in other stadiums just become well-hit outs. Additionally, this team makes a lot of weak contact because they’re fooled easily, even by mediocre pitching. Weak contact is usually easy to field.

That’s just my guess.

"Perhaps the worst comment I've ever seen on LL." - sanford_and_son.

by Ride the Apocalypse on Jul 10, 2011 12:11 PM PDT up reply actions

I'd go with the weak contact.

BABIP ability in general is something that can vary a lot from hitter to hitter. Unlike pitching, where it’s mostly believed that pitchers have little control over it, batters are assumed to have a great deal of control on their BABIP (and RBBIP by extension).

by nathaniel dawson on Jul 10, 2011 12:23 PM PDT up reply actions

I haven't been fretting about him.

I know there’s a tendency for some people to look at his declining production and get concerned about it, but I’ve liked the way he’s looked all season. It would be nice if he were getting better results lately, but shit happens, and he looks to me like a pretty good Major League hitter.

by nathaniel dawson on Jul 10, 2011 12:27 PM PDT reply actions

This is a fun fact, since I have been worried about Smoak

I am glad to know that I do not have to.

by SuperDopaLiciousFunkStar on Jul 10, 2011 3:07 PM PDT via mobile reply actions

I don't like seeing Trumbo and Moreland playing well while Smoak slumps

But articles like this make me feel much better.

Carlos Silvelite

by OceanBird on Jul 10, 2011 4:24 PM PDT via mobile reply actions

I miss his dingers :(

by sanford_and_son on Jul 10, 2011 4:35 PM PDT reply actions

Line drive and ground ball rates are low.

Which means he’s hitting more fly balls. That explains his low RBBIP, and the no home runs means just simply that he’s not squaring the ball up right now. While there’s nothing abnormal about this with a young player like this, it’s not a non-issue. Smoak’s lack of production is a result of him making poor contact, not bad luck.

by TripleAvery on Jul 10, 2011 8:49 PM PDT via mobile reply actions

There's more than just July in question

especially since those sample sizes are very small. It’s far more April compared to June that I’m referring to and even with a low ground ball and line drive rate, Smoak’s RBBIP should be nowhere near .167 and more near .250 unless you can show that it’s 100% the effect of “poor contact”

by Matthew on Jul 11, 2011 10:30 AM PDT up reply actions

I was mobile, so I didn't have great access to advanced metrics

But Smoak has seen an increase in strikes on a month by month basis. In Mar/Apr he saw about 56% strikes, May 59%, June 61%, July 61%. And I don’t have the access to (or they don’t have available) the monthly splits for swing rates, but in 2010 Smoak swung at 43.0% of pitches and this year he’s at 44.6%. While he’s making contact with the same amount of pitches (77.3% to 77.2%), he is swinging at 68.5% of all pitches in the strike zone compared to last year when he swung at 62.5% of pitches in the strike zone. He is swinging at fewer pitches outside the strike zone (27.1% last year, 25.2% this year) which correlates with the greater percentage of strikes he’s seeing. He is still seeing 3.9 pitches per PA, which is good for 23rd in the AL. He’s just not getting anything good to hit and pitchers are attacking him. Until he learns how to hit those borderline strikes on a line, he’s going to continue to struggle.

by TripleAvery on Jul 10, 2011 9:31 PM PDT reply actions

To state it directly, I don't follow your correlations.

He’s “seeing more strikes”, but “not getting anything good to hit”? Sure, he could be seeing more borderline strikes on him, but I’m skeptical it’s a gigantic increase. After all, if pitchers could locate borderline strikes, they would all the time, against everyone. I’d need to see some sort of evidence for this claim.

Furthermore, when you say "swinging at fewer pitcher pitches outside the strike zone", quoting a decrease in O-Swing% is actually stating that Smoak is swinging less often at pitches outside the strike zone, which is related, but importantly different and not automatically related to “seeing more strikes” as you seemed to indicate.

Finally, I’d be wary about making a case relying so much on in or out of strike zone data, it’s a fuzzy and subjective line.

by Matthew on Jul 11, 2011 11:05 AM PDT up reply actions

So you're telling me my logic is flawed.

I had a long-winded response stating my novice level of statistical analysis, my learning style of blabbing out my thoughts and listening to persons wiser than I correct or validate me, and further development of my thoughts above. Instead I remembered what my girlfriend told me about over-explaining things and decided to delete and replace with this.

- Thank you for responding with patience, I can see the confusion in my posts.

- My summary is that pitchers and scouts are figuring out Smoak and now he has to adapt to the new approach other teams are taking against him. They may be (seem to be?) exploiting a weakness (as Jeff noticed pitchers may be doing with Ichiro, for example) and getting into pitchers counts.

- That was a knee-jerk reaction to the July line drive and ground ball rates. I still have trouble with what an appropriate sample size is.

by TripleAvery on Jul 12, 2011 12:17 AM PDT up reply actions