This morning I was scrolling through baseball stats at the mlb.com mobile site, and I noticed something curious. This is the list of major league leaders for assists:
Tulo, Hill, Castro, Ramirez, Dozier...all make sense. They're middle infielders, and middle infielders get a lot of ground balls. But there's the Rockies' Nolan Arenado tied for seventh. He's a third baseman. That seems out of place.
Arenado is in just his second year, but he's already won plaudits for his glovework. He won the National League Gold Glove last year as a rookie, and he hasn't let up this year. Still, how unusual is it for a third baseman to rank in the top ten in assists?
Really unusual, it turns out. As in, it hasn't happened since baseball expanded in 1961. The only third basemen in the 53 seasons since then to have finished in the top 20 in major league assists were Brooks Robinson (No. 13 in 1967), Ron Santo (No. 15 in 1967, No. 20 in 1966), Brandon Inge (No. 19 in 2006), Clete Boyer (No. 19 in 1962, No. 20 in 1961), and Graig Nettles (No. 20 in 1971). Nobody's been close to the top 10 until now.
Is this a fluke? I figure there are three things that could give Arenado a big advantage. First, handedness. Right-handed batters hit grounders to the left side of the infield more than left-handed batters, and managers load up on right-handed batters in order to gain a platoon advantage when they face lefties. Do the Rockies feature an unusual number of southpaw pitchers, resulting in opposing lineups full of right-handed batters, hitting grounder after grounder to third?
This year, lefties have pitched 37% of Colorado's innings. That's a lot. But it's not extreme: The Rangers, White Sox, Angels, Rays, Phillies, and A's all have had a greater proportion of innings pitched by lefties. So Arenado's pace isn't because he plays behind a steady stream of left-handed pitchers.
How about the pitchers' tendencies themselves? Do Rockies pitchers, in an effort to keep batted balls out of the thin air at Coors Field, generate tons of ground balls?
Again, yes, but it's not dramatic. Rockies pitchers have induced grounders on just under 49% of balls in play. That's high, but not highest: The Pirates, Phillies, Giants, and Dodgers have all gotten more. So that's not the explanation.
Finally, how about games played? Have the Rockies played more games than others, giving Arenado a chance to see more balls hit his way? Again, kind of yes. The Rockies have played 30 games so far, second-most in the majors. But other than the Tigers, every team's played at least 26. Maybe when the games even out, two of the players below him on the list above, Marcus Semien and Jose Altuve, will pass him. But that's probably it, at least on that basis. (And no, Arenado's assists aren't inflated by shifting, because, as Rockies Zingers points out, the Rockies do relatively little shifting.)
More likely, he just slows down. When a player's on pace early in the season to do something that's never been done before, the easy answer is to assume that he won't do it, either. But for a while here, I'm going to keep track of Arenado's assists and see if he can keep hanging with the middle infielders.
At some point in May, I'll start up my Sunday "Trailing 30" feature, which lists the hottest and coldest teams and players over the past 30 days. For now, though, I'm going to look at the three teams with the best and worst records in the majors up to this point. It's still April, and trends can and will change. But let's see what we've got so far.
Let's start with the third-worst team, the Houston Astros.
How Bad Have They Been? The Astros are 8-17, a .320 winning percentage. Over a 162-game season, that's equivalent to going 52-110.
How Much of a Surprise is This? Nobody expected Houston, which had the worst record in baseball in 2013 (51-111), 2012 (55-107), AND 2011 (56-106) to be good. But they expected an improvement. Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs, and ESPN projected 63-67 wins. They were supposed to be bad, but not this bad.
What's Been Wrong? They're last in the league at scoring, with 3.20 runs per game, more than a run below the league average of 4.44. They're fourth in the league in home runs, with 28, but that's the only time they get hits, it seems--they're last in batting (.210) and on base percentage (.282). Their pitching hasn't been anything to write home about--third-worst in ERA, third in walks and home runs allowed--but the offense has been more of the problem. Their All-Star second baseman, Jose Altuve, is the only player batting above .238.
Has Luck Been Involved? To answer this, I'm going to look at four measures.
- First, a team's record in one-run games is generally not replicable. Prior success in one-run games is not an indicator of future success, generally. Case in point: The Orioles were 29-9 in one-run games in 2012. Indicator of special skills in late games? If so, they acquired the skill suddenly, having gone 22-22 in one-run games in 2011, and lost it immediately, going 20-31 in 2013.
- Second, major league hitters, on average, hit .300 on balls in play (i.e., excluding strikeouts and home runs). A figure way off that mark can indicate that some batted balls just aren't (or are) dropping in.
- Third, about 10% of fly balls leave the park. A homer rate way at odds with that might be skill (Matt Cain of the Giants somewhat famously had a very low rate of home runs per fly ball through 2012, but he's regressed since) but it may be chance.
- Finally, batting average with runners in scoring position, while a skill, usually indicates chance if it's way different from a team's overall batting average. Good example: The Cardinals set a record with their .330 batting average with runners in scoring position last year, leading to hosannas over the team's ability to bear down in the clutch. This year, they're hitting a decidedly un-clutch .223.
So let's check it out. The Astros are 2-3 in one-run games. Nothing unusual there. Their pitchers have allowed home runs on 12.4% of fly balls and their hitters have gone deep on 13.8% of fly balls. Those are both the second-highest figures in the American League, possibly a Minute Maid Park issue, but in any case not suggestive of luck one way or the other. But two factors may indicate they've been unlucky at the plate: They've hit just .251 on balls in play (their pitchers have allowed a more normal .304) and they've hit only .171 with runners in scoring position (compared to .206 given up by their pitchers). Both of those batting averages are the worst in the league.
What's The Outlook? The Astros have a very highly-regarded farm club, so the future is bright. The present is less so, though the numbers seem to say that their offense won't remain this terrible all season.
