I hope not, but…
In the box score, the Braves had what looked like an exciting win over a moribund Rockies team at Coors Field last night, falling behind 3-0 in the first before scoring six unanswered runs across the rest of the game. But, having actually watched the game, I am kind of concerned.
Consider the following: of the 28 games they’ve played so far, their .243 xwOBA in this one was their second-lowest. The same goes for their .267 xwOBACON (xwOBA only on contact, i.e., excluding walks, strikeouts, and hit-by-pitches). The same also goes for average exit velocity (84.7 mph). They had no barrels, and again, their second-lowest hard-hit rate of any game they’ve played. On average across swings last night, it was a bottom six bat speed day. But, when you think about the players individually, it’s even weirder:
- Austin Riley’s average bat speed was 22nd of 28 games played.
- Marcell Ozuna’s was 14 of 25.
- Matt Olson’s was 17 of 28.
- Ozzie Albies already has bat speed/approach issues/weirdness right now, and his was 26th of 28.
- Michael Harris II ripped the go-ahead double at 111 mph, but even he was still in his bottom half of performances, 15 of 28.
I didn’t include the part-timers, but I also want to point out that I am eternally thankful for Sean Murphy, who either didn’t get the memo (third of 15) or just c-c-c-c-combo broke this trend for the sake of my sanity, anyway. You’ll either find this chart of all bat speeds (each dot is a swing by a Brave on that date) compelling or not, I’m somewhere in the middle.
Sure, those numbers aren’t so glaring that it’s definitive that the Braves were trying to do something different. But it is, at least, somewhat striking — after all, they were playing at Coors Field! That’s like the one park where you definitely don’t want to slap the ball around.
Plus, it’s not like Ryan Feltner is a guy that somehow prompts slow swings: based on some quick math, he’s about in the top quartile of swing-speed against, which I’m not saying is a pitcher quality, but just bringing up as evidence that there’s no real reason to swing slowly against Feltner at Coors Field. (If you only take pitchers’ home outings, Feltner is very close, but not quite in, the top quintile instead, which makes sense since hitters are presumably incentivized to swing harder at Coors than elsewhere.)
So, I dunno, not yet. But, I can still ask, like 4 Non Blondes, hey, what’s going on?
Daily Notes
Record: 13-15
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: .349 / .243 (Season rank: 9th | 8th)
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA allowed: .299 / .330 (Season rank: 22nd | 20th)
Yesterday’s homers: 0
Yesterday’s homers allowed: 1
Record when out-xwOBAing: 9-7 (League: 311-111)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 4-8 (League: 111-311)
Record when out-wOBAing: 12-2 (League: 360-63)
Record when out-wOBAed: 1-13 (League: 63-360)
Record when outhomering: 6-3 (League: 213-64)
Record when outhomered: 2-8 (League: 64-213)