How to Score More; Clutch Hits or Walks?

It has been a matter of debate among Indians fans, particularly those writers who speak on the Tribe Time Now network of podcasts, why the Indians had trouble scoring runs early in the season. On one side, they weren’t getting hits with runners in scoring position. On the other, they weren’t getting many runners in scoring position. This is a solid old school versus new school argument where the old wants players to be more clutch and the new claims that it is not possible. Now that the Indians have turned up the offense a bit, we should be able to find out which was the bigger issue.

Since this answer can only be found by digging into the numbers, let’s get a shovel and a chart.

While May isn’t over yet, this is a good time to judge as, through Sunday, the Indians had played just one more game in May than in April. Despite a similar amount of games, the Indians have had almost 100 more at bats with runners in scoring position in May and 30 more with runners in scoring position and two outs. The above chart shows the Tribe’s success rate in those situations with success being defined as at least one run scoring. It turns out the Indians actually scored more often in both these situations in April, although the numbers are within 2% in both cases.

Of course, this may be getting ahead of things as we don’t even know for sure that the Indians offense has improved in May other than anecdotally, so we need another chart.

So, yes, the Indians offense has improved and at an incredible level. From being in the bottom 20% of the league in runs in April, the Indians have been the seventh best team at both hitting safely and scoring in May. The biggest difference, however, has been the on base percent. Jumping from a respectable batting average of an OBP to being first in the league is a huge leap, particularly because it increased vastly more than their average did.

The jump in average isn’t hard to explain. In April, the Indians were incredibly unlucky in almost every way. For a team this talented to fall this far below .500 they would have to be and there is some proof of this. In April, Cleveland ranked 26th in baseball with a .268 offensive batting average on balls in play. In May, they jumped to 13th with a .302. These numbers correlate very well with each other as the actual team average jumped 27 points and the BABIP jumped 34. The league ranks were similar as well and for further comparison, the top five teams in BABIP so far in May, the Giants, Tigers, Nationals, Rangers and Diamondbacks, are also the top five teams in batting average only with the Tigers in fourth and the other two moving up one spot. While not completely luck based, BABIP can often explain why a good hitting team is not getting the desired results.

One aspect of an offense that isn’t affected by luck is taking a ball. The increase in OBP greater than the increase in average can only be explained two ways, either the Indians are getting hit by more pitches (likely true for at least Jason Kipnis when he hits against St. Louis) or they are being more selective at the plate and working more walks. Whose fault is this? Observe the chart to the right.

As we all expected, the blame should fall on former starting catcher and current reserve, Roberto Perez. After just seven walks in 43 at bats in April, he walked 13 times in 36 at bats in May. Seeing the other names with large increases in walk rates to the right gives credence to the theory that these players may be “settling in” at the plate.

Perez was unexpectedly thrown into the starting role just over a week into the season, Brantley dealt with a sore back from day one, Michael Bourn and Jason Kipnis have been fighting BABIP monsters and Jose Ramirez is having to deal with being a Major League starting short stop with a magnifying glass pointed at him as if he were an ant and Francisco Lindor, the sun. Each of these players had obviously been pressing in April and a large part of this stress likely came from the unsustainable .268 BABIP. As soon as Perez and Ramirez got used to their new roles and Bourn and Kipnis got a little luckier, they all started to swing at fewer pitches and take more walks.

Of course, we were talking about the Indians getting hits in run scoring situations and what do walks have to do with that?

While individual runs scored are generally not a good indicator of success as they vary greatly on both opportunity for at bats and the following batters in the lineup, they illustrate and interesting point here. Using the increase in walk rate listed above, you can see that, outside of Perez, the players who increased their walk rate also increased their rate of runs scored per at bat. On the other side, the two players who maintained or lowered their walk rates in May also maintained or lowered their runs scored rate. In order to score, you need to get on base. Yes, Kipnis is scoring far more than his increase in walks, but he has improved his all around game to a level rarely seen in baseball. The increase in runs scored for Brantley, Bourn and Ramirez look much more directly related to their increase in walks.

Back to the original topic of what happens to the runners once they get in scoring position, the increase in walks shows up again. The above shows the total occurrences of each event with runners in scoring position and the rate at which they occur. While the Indians have scored in a smaller percentage of chances overall as seen in the first chart, they have hit safely an increased amount of times and had more extra base hits as well. Despite this increase in getting on base and extra base hits with runners in scoring position, the Indians have actually scored less runs per RBI hit (1.2 in May to 1.3 in April).

The real reason for the Indians increased scoring is in the very first chart at the top of the page. Despite slight decreases in their success rate with runners on, the Indians have been able to score more runs simply because they are having considerably more opportunities. Those opportunities are coming from an increase in walks and hits (largely thanks to an out of whack BABIP in April) and those walks and hits are continuing at the same pace when runners are in scoring position.

Brandon Moss leads the Indians in RBI (27). He also leads the Indians in runners stranded in scoring position (48). In these situations he has batted .212/.254/.404 compared to .225/.299/.442 on the season, a fair representation that he is a very similar hitter in all situations. The answer to why the RBI is a unfair statistic is the same as always, it has a lot more to do with having the opportunities to knock in runs than it does the ability to knock in runs. The simple reason that the Indians have been scoring more runs in May than in April is that they have increased those opportunities. Keep walking, Tribe.