Diagnosing the Giants Issues Driving in Runners

Last nights game was vintage 2011 Giants offense, they get a bunch of guys on base (10 hits, 2 walks) but fail to cash those runners in (1 for 6 with RISP and 9 left on base). The starting pitching is good but a couple mistakes cost the team a game that very well could have been a win.

Last year the Giants had a triple slash line of .219/ .301/ .329 with runners in scoring position compared to .248/ .305/ .387 when no one was on. Many figured it would be bound to get better this year but so far that doesn't seem to be the case, in fact the gap has widened. This years triple slash is .194/ .282/ .312 with runners in scoring position compared to .288/ .333/ .419 with no one on.

So what gives here?

Well to try to figure this out it is important to take a look at who is getting the opportunities to drive the runners in. Luckily for us, baseball prospectus keeps these stats so we can take a look.

NAME	2nd + 3rd	2nd + 3rd Scored	2nd + 3rd %	wOBA
Brandon Crawford	27	5	19%	0.239
Melky Cabrera	26	5	19%	0.364
Pablo Sandoval	22	8	36%	0.395
Angel Pagan	21	2	10%	0.303
Aubrey Huff	18	3	17%	0.275
Buster Posey	17	1	6%	0.451
Nate Schierholtz	16	4	25%	0.398
Emmanuel Burriss	15	4	27%	0.280
Pitchers	15	1	7%	0.058
Hector Sanchez	13	5	38%	0.329
Brandon Belt	10	1	10%	0.324
Gregor Blanco	9	2	22%	0.304
Ryan Theriot	9	0	0%	0.154
Brett Pill	5	1	20%	0.463
Joaquin Arias	1	0	0%	0.000

Right off the bat you see that three of the top five guys with the most opportunities are guys with some of the lowest wOBA on the team. That right there is a recipe for struggling in run scoring positions.

Brandon Crawford who is on the team for his glove and not his bat leads the team in opportunities with runners in scoring position. While Crawford has done a respectable job getting 19 percent of the runners in scoring position in, it really isn't great when you take into account that 70 percent of his plate appearances have come with less than 2 outs. For comparison half of Melky Cabrera's at bats have come with 2 outs so he doesn't have as many chances to make an out but still get a runner in.

The big surprise in all of this is Buster Posey, he has been the teams best hitter by wOBA but has been one of the teams worst people at driving in runners. This to me seems like quite a bit of bad luck (I don't think think clutch is much of a repeatable skill and it would go totally against the narrative of BUSTER POSEY so I don't think anyone is going to suggest that) that will likely rebound as the season goes along.

Aubrey Huff and Angel Pagan haven't hit well this season and it is not a huge surprise that it has carried over into their at bats with runners in scoring position. They have a combined 39 opportunities and have driven in just 5 of those runners.

Overall I would say that the Giants struggles have been part luck and part a result of players not hitting well being the ones with high chances (115 opportunities with players under 100 wRC+ vs 109 for players above 100) to drive in runners. The first part should hopefully even out but the second part is harder to fix without being able to play better players (#FreeBelt).

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Who's Going to Drive Them Home?

RBIs must be the snipe hunt of this summer's Giants camping trip. They seem impossible to come by. The Giants are currently ranked 28th in RBIs, ahead of only San Diego and Seattle. It's no surprise that it's been a struggle to score runs this year, but what does tonight's lineup looks like through the rose colored glass of average with runners in scoring position. It doesn't look that good, really.
 

Nate Schierholtz is the big surprise on this list. He's the leader of the team for clutch hitting if you don't include Belt's .333 average wRISP in only 6 ABs. Nate's been the breakout of the year, and I'm hoping he doesn't get his playing time reduced if the Giants pick up Beltran. The only downside on Sheirholtz's production is his dismal .185 avg. when he's hitting fifth. With some luck, the guys ahead of him tonight will get on against Hamels and he'll be able to drive them home from the seven spot.

As the lineup jumble begins to settle down, it's easy to point to hitters that are not pulling their weight with runners on. Aubrey Huff's numbers have been the most worrying this year, as he's dropped from a near .300 hitter with RISP down to just above his weight. That's detrimental to run production when it's any hitter, but doubly so when it's your clean up man.

If the rumors hold true and Carlos Beltran was in the lineup tonight, he'd lead the team with a prodigious .340 avg. w/RISP. I know Dan Murphy's hitting behind him, but Pablo's just as effective. With a middle of the order that includes Schierholtz not in the five spot, those slippery RBIs just might start piling up. And the pitching staff would appreciate those runs even more than Giants fans. Now we just wait to see if they can score more than two runs and if they end up with Beltran.

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The Giants Run Producers

We all know that Brian Sabean has a fascination with guys that are run producers so I thought that with the great chase for a run producer (here's looking at you Carlos Beltran) to see who on the Giants has done the best job of turning opportunities into runs.

Using the always data from baseball prospectus I have pulled the data on the runners driven in for the Giants.

Here are the results:

Others Batted in %			Runners on 2nd or 3rd Driven in %
Pablo Sandoval	19.2%		Brandon Belt	44.4%
Brandon Belt	17.9%		Pablo Sandoval	29.0%
Nate Schierholtz	15.3%		Nate Schierholtz	28.2%
Buster Posey	14.9%		Buster Posey	26.6%
Aubrey Huff	14.3%		Aubrey Huff	23.5%
Freddy Sanchez	14.3%		Freddy Sanchez	23.2%
Cody Ross	12.6%		Miguel Tejada	20.2%
Brandon Crawford	11.9%		Eli Whiteside	19.0%
Aaron Rowand	11.8%		Aaron Rowand	18.8%
Miguel Tejada	11.7%		Brandon Crawford	18.8%
Andres Torres	11.5%		Mark DeRosa	18.8%
Mike Fontenot	11.1%		Andres Torres	17.8%
Pat Burrell	11.0%		Pat Burrell	17.7%
Eli Whiteside	10.6%		Cody Ross	17.2%
Mark Derosa	10.3%		Mike Fontenot	17.1%
Matt Cain	8.8%		Matt Cain	16.7%
Chris Stewart	8.5%		Ryan Vogelsong	16.7%
Ryan Vogelsong	7.1%		Emmanuel Burriss	12.9%
Jonathan Sanchez	5.9%		Jonathan Sanchez	12.5%
Emmanuel Burriss	5.7%		Chris Stewart	10.7%
Madison Bumgarner	3.6%		Bill Hall	6.7%
Bill Hall	3.3%		Madison Bumgarner	5.9%
Barry Zito	0.0%		Barry Zito	0.0%
Conor Gillaspie	0.0%		Conor Gillaspie	0.0%
Darren Ford	0.0%		Darren Ford	0.0%

In case you are interested the team MLB Averages or each was 12.65% for OBI and 21.45% for OBIs per runners in scoring position and the team averages were 12.42% and 31.33%.

From what I can tell is that the Giants have done really well as a team in getting runners who are in scoring position home (even though it seems that they do a really bad job when you are watching the games) but overall are not great a getting people home.

I would imagine that they struggle in the getting others home from first because they lack in team power and team speed. With neither of those you aren't going to get a lot of runners scoring when they aren't in scoring position.

If you needed another reason to fall in love with Pablo Sandoval look no further than his ability to turn people on base into runs. Also of note I am sure that Brandon Belt will keep this pace up because he is a future hall of famer and please never let Emanuel Burriss come to bat with the game on the line and runners on base.

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Why Can't the Giants Score Runs?

The Giants have scored the fewest runs in the Majors this season and are on pace to be among the lowest scoring teams in the clubs 128 years of existence. So why can't the team score runs?

I wonder what an unnamed Giants official might say. Luckily, the Boston Globe got the low down for us, "We need RBI bats. That’s what we’re looking for right now."

Wow, I can't believe it took them this long to think of this. It's not that they have the fourth lowest OBP in the Majors or that they have the sixth lowest slugging percentage or that they are battling the Mariners for the lowest wRC+ in the Majors.