The Offense Struggles but the Pitchers Pick Up the Slack: First Week Observations
The Astros start out 2022 4-2. The bats have slumped. But the pitching staff, headlined by some different relievers than we expected, have kept opponents off the scoreboard.
Two months ago it seemed like it would be taken from us due to the greed of the baseball owners and their employee Rob Manfred. A month ago it seemed too far in the distance to ever get here. Yet, we reached Opening Week of the baseball season. It was here, and even though it featured too many late night games on the West Coast, it was awesome.
It is also not very much baseball. The Astros have played 6 games, which makes up only 3.7% of their schedule on the season. The good news is that there is still a whole season of baseball to go. They play a 156 more games—and major league teams only played 154 games until the early 1960s.
The bad news is that for an analyst like me, it’s hard to make any conclusions from this few number of games. It’s a week of games, and in the middle of August, a player having a hot week or a cold week would draw little notice. But in April, well, it’s all we have to go on.
And of course, unlike Spring Training, these games count. The Astros 4 wins this week count just as much as wins in June or September. And it’s certainly better than they have more wins than losses so far.
So we need to examine what the Astros have done in the first week of the season, as these results matter. I’ll do some of that here in today’s post.
But we can do so with the knowledge that any conclusions we make are tentative at best. The small sample nature of each of these observations means that there is a wide degree of uncertainty around each of them. We need more baseball to make clear observations, and the good news is, we are going to get just that.
Kyle Tucker is hitting the ball well. You might look at that sentence and say “are you sure about that?” And I understand that, as Tucker has a .130 batting average in 23 at bats.
But a look at the batted ball data shows that Tucker is hitting the ball hard, but has nothing to show for it. Fangraphs shows that Tucker has an expected weighted on base average (xwOBA) of .458, an outstanding number. But his actual weighted on base average (wOBA) is a dreadful .242. According to Baseball Savant, Tucker has an expected Batting Average of .334 and expected Slugging Percentage of .755 and an expected weighted on base average on contact1 of .458. In short, expect Tucker to find some holes in the defense soon.
Tucker’s early slump is mirrored by a number of Astro batters. Overall, the team has averaged 4.0 runs per game, and has a collective slash line of .218/.294/.398. They have hit 9 home runs, which is 2nd in the American League, but outside of that, their offensive numbers through the first week are second division. And as we are all too well aware, they only scored three runs in 18 regular innings in their two game set against the Diamondbacks.
There are a number of reasons for the slow start. Jose Altuve has also started the season in a slump, as he has hit 3 for 20 (though he has 2 stolen bases, so maybe his slump has compelled him to be more aggressive on the base paths). Yuli Gurriel missed three games in Anaheim while on paternity leave and Yordan Alvarez missed both games in Phoenix with an illness.
Jake Kaplan wrote about the first six games yesterday in The Athletic, and he had an eloquent description of the situation with the Astros offense:
Those particular hitters struggling offensively is highly unlikely to continue. The Astros are going to hit. The better question is to what extent? Will they have a top-eight offense? Top five? Top three? It wouldn’t exactly be surprising if they produced less without Correa in 2022 than they did with Correa in 2021. But in the event of a drop-off, perhaps it will be their pitching that makes up the difference.
While the Astros bats have been slumping, the Astros pitching staff has taken up the slack in the first week. The Astros have allowed only 14 runs in the first six games this season (and only 10 of them have been earned). That is the fewest number of runs allowed so far among American League teams, and the 1.69 ERA is also league best.
The pitching burden has been shared nearly equally between the starting rotation and the bullpen. The starters have thrown 27.2 innings, while relievers have tossed 25.2. Both have been nearly equally effective. The bullpen has a collective ERA of 1.75, while the rotation’s ERA is even better at 1.63.
Obviously, this level of run prevention is unsustainable. And the strikeout and walk numbers for the pitching staff are both close to league average. But the early success of the pitching staff is a welcome sign, and not just because it is making up for the early offensive slump.
The bullpen has produced for the Astros, and some of that has been from expected sources. Closer Ryan Pressly already has 3 saves, and free agent signing Hector Neris has thrown 3.1 scoreless (and walk-less) innings as Pressly’s set-up man.
Some other bullpen arms have stepped up in more unexpected ways.
Rafael Montero has been excellent so far, not only because he has not allowed a run in 3 innings, but because that has come with 5 strikeouts and 0 walks. I thought Montero was simple a throw-in for financial reasons in the Kendall Graveman-Abraham Toro trade last season, but the Astros have made some adjustments with Montero (he’s throwing more fastballs) that have paid early dividends.
Phil Maton seems to have moved ahead of Ryne Stanek in the bullpen depth chart, and he’s been given the 7th inning set-up role ahead of Pressly and Neris. The Astros have revamped Maton’s slider, and the results have been excellent—of the 15 sliders Maton has thrown this season, he’s gotten swings and misses on 10 of them.
Cristian Javier has also had a hot start to the season, striking out 8 win 4.2 innings over two relief appearances. He’s walked none, hit two batters, and not allowed a run. Javier has pitched twice and gone multiple innings in both of his appearances. The team wants to keep him stretched out as he would take a spot in the rotation if any of the current starters went down.
As noted, the Astros lead the American League in run prevention but are in the middle of the pack when it comes to striking out and walking batters. How do we account for the difference between the two? One reason is the Astros defense. The Astros had one of the top defenses in the majors in 2021, but there was reason to think that it would decline in 2022 with Carlos Correa—awarded the Platinum Glove in 2021 as the major’s best defensive player—having moved on to Minnesota.
Early numbers show that the Astros remain a top notch defensive team. They rank at the top of baseball in both the Defensive Runs Saved Above Average and Outs Above Average metrics. They rank 3rd in the majors in Fielding Runs Above Average.
How are they able to maintain their defensive edge over their competition? One reason is that they replaced a top notch defender at shortstop with a top notch defender at shortstop. At the moment, Jeremy Pena leads the majors in Outs Above Average with 3.
The Astros will play their top two challengers in the American League West this week, as they will go to Seattle for three games starting today and then play the Angels for the opening homestand at Minute Maid Park. No games this early in the season are critical. But it would be nice for the Astros to have a good week and put some early distance between themselves and their division rivals. Here’s hoping.
This metric is given the delightful name xWoBacon. Whoa Bacon!.