Run Prevention Leads to Winning Baseball: A Second Sixth Report
The Astros offense may be hobbling, but best-in-baseball run prevention produced a winning second sixth of the season. But a division race looms for the first time in years.
After the blown save and 10th inning loss on Monday, Alex Bregman’s first inning solo shot and Chas McCormick’s two run blast up to the train tracks were nice pallette cleanser. Combined with an effective outing from Brandon Bielak (6 Ks and only 6 baserunners in 5 2/3 innings), the Astros won Tuesday 5-1.
The Astros won again (they’ve won 15 of their last 19) and won primarily due to run prevention (they have allowed 2.84 runs per game in those 19 contests). It is the best run of play we have seen from the Astros this season, and, notably for this blog, closed out the second sixth of the the 2023 season. The run prevention propelled the Astros to a very successful sixth.
Here at the Orange Fire Substack, we mark the season through each 27 game block in which the Astros play—or each sixth of the season. While you usually see discussions of the end of the month, I prefer sixths for two reasons:
1) It’s easier to compare sixths because they are equal. So Alex Bregman’s slash line of .257.321/.396 this sixth is different from his .229/.357/.365 slash line in the first sixth. He is hitting more singles (increased batting average) but fewer extra base hits (lower slugging percentage.
2) The math is easier. The Astros have now played 54 games—which is two-sixth or one-third of the season. You can take all of their counting stats and multiply by 3. So Yordan Alvarez has hit 14 homers, scored 34 runs and driven in 48. Multiply those by 3 and you can see that he’s on pace for 42 homers, 102 runs scored, and 144 (!) ribbies on the season.
You can also go back and read my report on the first sixth of the season and compare how the team is doing now to how it was doing after action on April 29.
The Record
Overall Record: 32-22 (.592)
Record This Sixth: 18-9 (.667)
On Pace for a Record of: 96-66
The heart of this sixth was the 8-game win streak that included a 6-0 home stand against the Cubs and A’s. It was part of a stretch of games in which the Astros won 14 of 17 games.
The big winning stretch was needed, as it reversed the team losing 5 out of 6 in a stretch against the Giants, Mariners, and Angels that dropped the Astros to 17-18 at the time. The win streak followed, which put the team back into the black for the season and put them back into playoff position.
The Astros have started a stretch where they will play 26 games in 27 days. They do not have another off-day until June 12, and then will play 9 straight games. They’ll need that off-day, because after it comes a 9 game, 10 day road trip against the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Rangers, all playoff contenders.
The Offense
R/G: 4.51 (18th). OBP: .316 (19th). SLG: .391 (21st). OPS: .706 (22nd). OPS+: 94 (22nd).
Last year in the second sixth report, I wrote that “the runs/game number is the worst by far of any of the major offensive numbers for the Astros. They should be scoring more runs.”
This year, the opposite is true. The runs/game number is the best of any of the major offensive numbers for the Astros. The should be scoring fewer runs.”
The offense did not improve in the second sixth. The team did make some gains in slugging; they slugged .407 as a team in the second sixth, up from .375 in the first. But the on base percentage went down. It was .318 in the first sixth and .313 in the second sixth.
In writing about the first sixth, I said “It is likely that the offense will improve” noting that it was early in the season, that Michael Brantley and Jose Altuve would return from injury, and that we would see positive regression from Jose Abreu and Alex Bregman.
And well good news, Jose Altuve has returned and has been excellent.
As to the other items…welp. The season is further along, Brantley is stuck on the IL for who knows how long and neither Abreu or Bregman have reversed their slumps as of yet.
There are reasons for long-term optimism about the Astros offense, but at this point, it seems likely they will be a mid-tier offense unless we see serious improvement
The Pitching
Team Pitching and MLB Rank
RA/G: 3.55 (1st). FIP: 3.71 (3rd). WHIP: 1.19 (4th). K/9: 9.8 (2nd). BB/9: 2.8 (6th)
If you read through the section on the hitting, you get your reward by reading about the pitching. It’s excellent.
I wrote yesterday that the Astros are a “pitching-first team” in 2023. I did that in part because I knew the second sixth report was due this morning and it would be good to have a broader piece that detailed the sense of the team. The report format is more restrictive.
That article notes that the Astros pitching staff has 14 men who have pitched this season who have ERA+s above 100, which is scaled to league average. And that includes 6 of the 7 players who have started a game for the Astros this season.
The bullpen is just as good. They are 4th in the majors on the season in ERA; 3rd in FIP; 2nd in xFIP, and 1st in K% and K%-BB%. While Bryan Abreu and Ryan Pressly have handled the 8th and 9th innings respectively, Hector Neris and Phil Maton have been the most effective pitchers on an inning-per-inning basis on the team. The team’s strength in the 2022 playoffs has returned just as strong in 2023.
The Fielding
Team Fielding and Rank
Fielding Runs Above Average: 15 (5th). Defensive Runs Saved: 6 (10th). Ultimate Zone Rating: 0.4 (12th). Outs Above Average: 4 (10th). Defensive Efficiency .694 (14th) Errors: 20 (T-4th)
One of the keys to the Astros success in the Golden Era has been their excellent defense. It has been a big advantage in preventing runs in the regular season and a specific advantage in a number of their postseason series.
But the Astros seem to have taken a step back in their defensive abilities in 2023. The team ranks high in Fielding Runs Above Average, but they are in the middle third of baseball in other advanced defensive metrics. The most basic advanced defensive metric shows that they have converted 69.4% of the balls hit in play this season into outs.
One of the biggest differences in 2023 is the outfield play of Kyle Tucker. In 2022, Tucker was credited with 16 Fielding Runs Above Average and 14 Defensive Runs Saved. This season, he has earned -8 FRAA and -6 DRS. It’s a slump on defense, similar to what we have seen from Alex Bregman on offense. Chandler Rome of The Athletic wrote about Tucker’s defense, attributing his slide in 2023 to a lack of “precision timing” in “pre-pitch positioning, reaction times, or routes” to balls. A return to his 2022 form from Tucker would go a long way to improving the Astros team defense.
Notable Player Performances
Cristian Javier 30 IP. 5 GS. 4-0. 2.40 ERA. 28.8 K%. 8.1 BB%
I find discussions of who is an “ace” tiresome and semantic. But whether or not Javier is an ace, he continues to show that he is one of the top starting pitchers in the majors. Control issues have been Javier’s biggest concern, but he has lowered his walk rate this season.
Yordan Alvarez. 26 G. 1110 PAs. .297/.409/.637 wOBA: .436 wRC+: 184
That’s the 6th best wOBA and 7th best wRC+ among qualified major league hitters in this sixth. But more impressive is the games played stat. Dusty was resting Yordan occasionally in the first sixth, but he played every game of the second sixth with no ill effects on his game.
Jose Abreu: BA: .216. xBA: .225 SLG: 266 xSLG: .324 wOBA: .246 xwOBA: .271
These are season long numbers and they show that 1) it’s been as bad as you think, and 2) even if Abreu was hitting in better luck, he still would not be a productive hitter. He was -0.5 fWAR over the second sixth.
Hector Neris. 13 G. 11.1 IP 0.00 ERA 34.9 K%. 14.0 BB%
Neris feels like he does not get enough attention as he should. But as a middle reliever, his job is to reduce attention. Get out of innings without any damage or Astros fans cursing at him. He is doing that every time out this year.
Their Place in the Race
Overall Record: 33-22 (.593)
2nd place. 3 games behind the Rangers
Run Differential: +55
Expected Record: 33-21
With the calendar passing Memorial Day, it becomes useful to take an occasional peak at the standings. The Rangers have been one of the biggest surprises in baseball, and lead the division by 3 games.
The Rangers went 16-11 in the first sixth of the season to take the lead in the AL West. They did better in the second half going 19-8. There are reasons to think that the Rangers are out over their skis, as they are on pace to win 105 games right now. But the high quality of the Rangers offense gives reasons to think that there will be a real race in the AL West this year, which is something we haven’t really seen in a good long while.
The race features the major’s best team at scoring runs (Rangers) against the best team at preventing runs. But the Astros are clear favorites. Their run prevention is more likely to sustain at this level than the Rangers are to sustain at their level of run scoring.