Over the All-Star break I’d like to review the six divisions to see where teams stand and how they might be positioned for the rest of the season. The series begins with the NL West, where the Giants own the best record in Major League Baseball. They hold a 6 1/2 game lead over the Dodgers, and top to bottom the division is separated by 19 games.
San Francisco Giants 57-33, .633
Team strengths: The Giants batters are second in the league in both triples and sacrifice flies. With Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, and Joe Panik, the Giants are extremely strong up the middle. The pitchers own the lowest walk rate in the National League. Fielders good at turning batted balls into outs.
Team weaknesses: The batters hit few home runs, only 75 on the season. They are an “in the park” power team, not an out of the park power team. The strikeout rate for the pitchers is low, which is somewhat covered up by the excellent defense. The back of the rotation is old and pitching like it.
Los Angeles Dodgers 51-40, .560
Team Strengths: The best three-true outcomes staff in the NL. The Nationals allow fewer runs per game, but they are even with the Dodgers in strikeout rate, but trail slightly in walk and home run rates. Offensively, they do a good job getting on base despite a low batting average. They don’t waste outs with sacrifices.
Team Weaknesses: The offense in general, a low batting average, low power group. The team steals poorly, only succeeding in 25 of 40 attempts. Teams need to succeed at least 70% of the team to break even in terms of runs.
Yasiel Puig continues to not live up to expectations. It appears that Dave Roberts made little difference in this area.
Colorado Rockies, 40-48, .455
Team Strengths: The offense is great at home. The pitching is good on the road, but not quite as good as the offense is at home.
Team Weaknesses: The pitching is terrible at home. The offense is terrible on the road, worse than the pitching is at home.
In many of the Rockies poor seasons, the offense would be great at home and poor on the road, but the pitchers would perform poorly both home and away. I think that it is a positive sign that the pitching staff performs decently in road games. What the Rockies need this season are hitters who can deliver away from Coors Field. Home runs are not that different; it’s the doubles and triples that disappear. Rockiess hitters collected 137 doubles plus triples in 42 home games, 75 doubles plus triples in 46 road games. (The difference for the pitchers is 27 more inside the park extra base hits.) The Rockies approach at home does not work on the road, and at this point I’m not sure the adjustment can be made. They do try to run more on the road, but their stealing numbers are terrible as well.
San Diego Padres 38-51, .427
Team Strengths: Pitchers do a good job of striking out batters, keeping the opposition hit total low. Offense very good at avoiding the double play. Decent power for their batting average.
Team Weaknesses: The pitchers give back some of their advantage in strikeouts by walking a ton of batters. The batters don’t get on base very well, with a .303 mark overall. The Padres are the opposite of the Giants in that they get almost no offense from catcher, short, and second base. Good players at those positions are tough to find in trades.
Arizona Diamondbacks 38-52, .422
Team Strengths: The offense hits for very good power. They also steal well, in both quantity and success rate.
Team Weaknesses: The pitchers allow opponents high BA, OBP, and slugging percentages. The outfield is weak overall, with all the offense coming from rightfield. They have a good glove at shortstop, but get no offense at the position.
Injuries really hurt this team. If Shelby Miller and David Peralta are healthy, they would not be in last place.
Conclusion: The Giants and Dodgers are both strong up the middle. The Giants are turning a lot of balls in play into outs. It’s probably good defense, but if more of those balls start finding holes due to luck, it could hurt the team in the second half. The Dodgers are doing well without Clayton Kershaw, so when he comes back the team will know they’re going to be even better. I suspect it will be a very tight race between those two clubs.
On the other hand, it’s an even year, so the other teams should just concede to the Giants. 🙂