Hitting Woes... who's to blame?

[RedRamage]

First, let's get the disclaimers out of the way:

• I know it's early. I know that the Tigers generally start slow.
• I know the Tigers have a winning record right now, and yes I'm happy about that.
• I know that hitting is complex and the right answer is going to be multiple people, not just one instance.

Okay, all that said: Why so the Tigers suck so bad at hitting? 27th place in OPS, 28th in SLG, 26th in OBP. 9th highest strike out total while tied for 20th in walks drawn. And least you think I'm being too biased on recent play, the Tigers were 28th in OPS last year and 29th in OPS in 2022. I guess I should be happy we're moving up a slot each year??

So where do we start assigning blame?

The front office's stance is that we want to control the strike zone. But clearly weren't not. Bottom third of the league in strike outs and just outside bottom third of the league in walks. To be fair the front office is likely hindered by semi-tight purse strings and a bad team, making free agents less thrilled with coming here, so it's hard to get too upset... but it still feels like we have a lot of "meh" players and all we added in the off season was a couple more "meh" players.

The coaching staff seems to be onboard with the front office's desire to control the strike zone, but if they're preaching it to players, the players don't seem to be getting the message. I fully understand that these are professional ball players who earn massive amounts of money and should be motivated and working to improve. Sure, fine... but we have coaches for a reason, right? If the coaches can't identify the issues and help the players correct the flaws... or they can and the players are just ignoring them... why do we keep them around?

Which of course brings us to the players. Ultimately they're the ones who need to perform at the plate and they aren't. Is it because they don't have the talent? Is it because they're getting bad advice/coaching? Are they forgetting everything they're being directed on before the game and just flailing at the plate?

As I mentioned at the beginning I know this is a complex answer that can't be a simple: It's "X's" fault. That said, I feel there is something missing in the coaching staff area. As great as our pitching coaches has done elevating and improving out pitchers, I feel like our hitting coaches bring nothing to the table. If it was one or two or even 5 hitters not getting the job done, I'd look more a the players, but right now we have all of 4 players with an OBP over 800 (and one of those, Perez, has only played in 4 games). We only have one player with double digit talks (Greene) but he's also tied with the most strike outs, beating out even Baez on the team.

Everyone has a part of the blame in our woes at the plate, but I can't help feeling like out coaching staff is doing nothing to improve our guys. I'm putting the more blame there than the other two spots.

 

[oblong]

The hitters aren't as good as fans think.

Fans never think about the other side. "Look how good our pitchers are, why do our hitters stink"

You could also say "Look how good their pitchers are and why do their hitters stink?"

When your side succeeds it's because of their efforts and performance and when your side fails it's because of their lack of effort/performance.  It's NEVER about the other team or players.

 

[Edman85]

The Tigers' bats really weren't supposed to be good. Projection systems that project that tend to be mocked and dismissed by rose colored glasses wearing fanbases. That doesn't necessarily mean blame should fall at the front office. This is a "see what you've got" type year, and there's plenty of reinforcements in Toledo to sift through and figure this out.

The weather in early April is always underappreciated as a factor, both on the Tigers' hitting but also on their pitching.

Last night's goose egg was largely sequencing and batted ball luck.

[Tigermojo]

The talent just isn't there. They do not punish mistake pitches. They cannot make adjustments for their weaknesses and even mediocre pitchers are able to exploit that.

[casimir]

6 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

Last night's goose egg was largely sequencing and batted ball luck.

Lorenzen's FIP for the outing was 4.63.  3 well times double plays helped foil the Tigers.  I don't know for sure, but my guess is that run expectancy for those innings with runners at 2nd and one out would accumulate 2 runs.  The Tigers ended up with 0.  That's just baseball sometimes.

[gehringer_2]

38 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

The front office's stance is that we want to control the strike zone. But clearly weren't not. Bottom third of the league in strike outs and just outside bottom third of the league in walks. To be fair the front office is likely hindered by semi-tight purse strings and a bad team, making free agents less thrilled with coming here, so it's hard to get too upset... but it still feels like we have a lot of "meh" players and all we added in the off season was a couple more "meh" players.

It was interesting to hear Carlos Pena say he believed you drew MORE walks by being more aggressive swinging at strikes. Carlos talked about young players "looking over their shoulders, worried about having too quick ABs".

I have thought in general that under the Hinch regime, the young Tigers hitters are too reluctant to swing at strikes early in the count, esp the 1st pitch, if they are not perfect - thus getting themselves into a hole they never get out of in the AB. The Tiger mantra seems to be that you are going to get your pitch in every AB if you wait for it. No, you are not. MLB pitchers are better than that, and if you are waiting for perfect you are just going to end up 0-2 a lot and BAs from 0-2 are pretty dismal, which is pretty much what we are seeing. Hitters have to resign themselves to hunting pitches that are les than ideal when the pitcher has shown his ability to throw the ball where he wants to. The other idea was to drive pitch counts, but so many teams have deep strong bullpens today that chasing starters doesn't even get you much advantage.

Now in point of fact, I think they were more aggressive early last night against Lorenzen, but to Casimir's point, they couldn't barrel much up.

Edited April 16 by gehringer_2

[SkyBlue]

37 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

 

The front office's stance is that we want to control the strike zone. But clearly weren't not. Bottom third of the league in strike outs and just outside bottom third of the league in walks. To be fair the front office is likely hindered by semi-tight purse strings and a bad team, making free agents less thrilled with coming here, so it's hard to get too upset... but it still feels like we have a lot of "meh" players and all we added in the off season was a couple more "meh" players.

The coaching staff seems to be onboard with the front office's desire to control the strike zone, but if they're preaching it to players, the players don't seem to be getting the message.

 

I think we don't appreciate how long it takes to change the approaches of hitters who have been in a system, many of them, longer than this front office/development staff have been in the system.

There will be some who you can get to change, others who won't or don't have the talent to change.  Add in they, hitters are probably anxious about making changes to what got them drafted, to AA, AAA or even MLB levels which makes it more difficult.

I think it is why the front office and coaching staff if you want to include them in this mix, are viewing this year as a year of evaluation.  What players have bought in, but more so than buying in which is perhaps easy to say, but are then transferring the buying in to better performance at the plate.

It's not what any msg board wants to hear but in the middle of year 2 of Harris and this development group it takes time to change hitters and their ability to control the zone.   TBH, I'm not sure how much you can change a hitters ability to control the strike zone/improve their eye so to speak.  So, 2024 we see what we have in the hitters and possibly more importantly, or as important, what we have in pitching.   Can we flip a couple of pitchers for a more improved bat plus a FA hitter to strengthen the offense.

[John_Brian_K]

A question as old as time itself, but we all know who is really to blame.....

[Dtrain72]

"I blame opposing pitchers...it's not the Tigers hitter's fault that 9 out of 10 opposing starting pitchers are Cy Young candidates!"

- Craig Munroe...maybe...probably...

[Toddwert]

I think people over valued how good the hitting was this spring and thought it was gonna mean something in the regular season and now they  are all disappointed

[chasfh]

I might have been one of the first, if not the first, to hypothesize that the main issue might not be that the coaching is failing the hitters, but that this collection of hitters just might not be good enough. After all, not every player can produce at a Hall of Fame level if only he had the right coaching. Some guys simply have very low ceilings. I think we might have a few of those guys on this team right now.

That said, I also can't say that this is true, or even that this is what I firmly believe. It's still just a hypothesis for me, and it may not really be provable one way or the other, because how do you do so except through the eventual results years from now? So I expect we will have an active and spirited discussion about this during the coming couple of years.

But I am glad we've gotten this discussion rolling, because frankly, I was getting a bit tired of hearing the hitting coaches, and by extension A.J. Hinch, getting raked for failing to put All-Star-level hitters in the batter's box this year. Not that I'm a slappy for Hinch and the coaches, but it seemed like too simplistic an implication being made: change the manager and coaches and the guys we have now will become All-Star hitters. To Oblong's point, there is a force on the other side of the field actively trying to thwart us and that we have to work through. But, also, we were told by multiple sources (ZIPS, Marcel, PECOTA, etc.) coming in that this team was going to be a bottom-of-baseball offense, and I'm pretty sure they were not predicting that because of the coaches we have.

Edited April 16 by chasfh

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, Toddwert said:

I think people over valued how good the hitting was this spring and thought it was gonna mean something in the regular season and now they  are all disappointed

TBF, not only this spring. Greene, Tork, Rogers, and even Meadows were productive last season once they got on track. So there has been regression from a bar set last season, not just in ST. You can always chalk up a little bit to the transition from FLA to cooler weather - but it's pretty nice today - so we'll see.

Edited April 16 by gehringer_2

[kdog]

Is there a happy medium between expecting elite hitting and our young hitters not being able to get a .600 OPS? Why are Tork, Meadows, and Keith this bad?(small sample size disclaimer).

They'd be so much better off if these guys were just below average lol.

Edited April 16 by kdog

[Toddwert]

53 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I might have been one of the first, if not the first, to hypothesize that the main issue might not be that the coaching is failing the hitters, but that this collection of hitters just might not be good enough. After all, not every player can produce at a Hall of Fame level if only he had the right coaching. Some guys simply have very low ceilings. I think we might have a few of those guys on this team right now.

That said, I also can't say that this is true, or even that this is what I firmly believe. It's still just a hypothesis for me, and it may not really be provable one way or the other, because how do you do so except through the eventual results years from now? So I expect we will have an active and spirited discussion about this during the coming couple of years.

But I am glad we've gotten this discussion rolling, because frankly, I was getting a bit tired of hearing the hitting coaches, and by extension A.J. Hinch, getting raked for failing to put All-Star-level hitters in the batter's box this year. Not that I'm a slappy for Hinch and the coaches, but it seemed like too simplistic an implication being made: change the manager and coaches and the guys we have now will become All-Star hitters. To Oblong's point, there is a force on the other side of the field actively trying to thwart us and that we have to work through. But, also, we were told by multiple sources (ZIPS, Marcel, PECOTA, etc.) coming in that this team was going to be a bottom-of-baseball offense, and I'm pretty sure they were not predicting that because of the coaches we have.

its possible that Tork and Carpenter and Rodger are at their ceilings..they battled to get to majors and Tork played at a top flight college that may have already got a lot out of him.... I did notice Tigers social media freaked out that the pre season predictions had the Tigers around an 80 win team... at the end of day there is a lot or liked good in the minors and werent stars in the majors

Edited April 16 by Toddwert

[RedRamage]

15 minutes ago, kdog said:

Is there a happy medium between expecting elite hitting and our young hitters not being able to get a .600 OPS? Why are Tork, Meadows, and Keith this bad?(small sample size disclaimer).

They'd be so much better off if these guys were just below average lol.

This is kinda what I'm feeling. I'm not expecting HOF caliber hitting just because a coach alters a guys hand position or anything... but it feels like even our guys who were highly touted are hitting, often, well below league average. 

I'm sure I'm not looking at this 100% objectively, and again I'm certainly not trying to blame ONLY coaches. I know it more complex than that. But I'll just quote kdog again: "Why are Tork, Meadows, and Keith this bad?"

[Shinzaki]

The guys with the bats in their hands

[chasfh]

OK, just for kicks, I took at hack at trying to figure out whether the problem here is the chicken or the egg. I can tell you upfront that I'm not sure yet, mainly because I believe April 16th is too early for such conclusions, but I wonder whether this approach I am considering is directionally valid.

I want to compare each player's estimated wOBA from ZIPS with their actual wOBA so far, and then group them together as a team. The challenge is figuring out what the team wOBA when bringing it all together. But you can't simply just average everyone's wOBA together because they all have different numbers of plate appearances. You have to even that all out somehow.

So what I did what to multiply each player's actual PA with their actual wOBA into a number I'm calling "Mtlply" (I'm obviously not good at naming things), adding up both for to arrive at the team number, then dividing PA into Mltply to get the team wOBA. Then I do the same with their ZIPS PA (Z-PA), ZIPS wOBA (Z-wOBA), and Z-Mltply, and then index the actual to estimated to see whether they are beating their ZIPS or not. Index average is 100; anything higher, the player is outperforming his ZIPs estimates; a lower index means he is underperforming his ZIPS.

Here's what I mean—here are the Tigers numbers so far (minimum 30 PAs):

Read it like this: Kerry Carpenter's ZIPS projection was for 496 PAs and a .323 wOBA. (That multiplies out to 159.960, which matters only when adding up all the players). His actual PAs so far is 45 and his wOBA is .361 (which multiples out to 16.240). Index his actual wOBA to his Z-wOBA and he is coming in at 111.9, which is well above average at +11.9%. Rinse and repeat for all players.

Then, add up all player's ZIPs PAs (5,360) and their Z-Mltpy (1689.549), divide the former into the latter, and we get the ZIPS wOBA of .315 for just these eleven players. Do the same with actual PAs (556) and Mltply (155,170), get the actual wOBA of (.279) for the eleven, then index actual to ZIPs to get how the whole group of players is indexing against their ZIPS estimates, which is 88.5.

Easy peasy, right? 😜

A group index for these eleven Tigers hitters of 88.5, which is -11.5% against average, is, frankly, bad. How do we compare to all the other teams?

Second from the bottom, which, even for a team projected to end up with a bottom four offense anyway, according to Z-wOBA, is prettehhh, prettehhh, prettehhh bad. Such underperformance would lead some to indict the team's coaching after all.

So now here's the $64 question: how real is this? Are we as bad as all this? Is the coaching making the hitters worse than they should be? Are the players feeding off each other and making everyone else worse? Is this just a random small sample that will iron itself out as the season progresses?

I report. You decide.

My decision is to give them more time to see whether this state of batting affairs is persistent after all.

[CMRivdogs]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

OK, just for kicks, I took at hack at trying to figure out whether the problem here is the chicken or the egg. I can tell you upfront that I'm not sure yet, mainly because I believe April 16th is too early for such conclusions, but I wonder whether this approach I am considering is directionally valid.

I want to compare each player's estimated wOBA from ZIPS with their actual wOBA so far, and then group them together as a team. The challenge is figuring out what the team wOBA when bringing it all together. But you can't simply just average everyone's wOBA together because they all have different numbers of plate appearances. You have to even that all out somehow.

So what I did what to multiply each player's actual PA with their actual wOBA into a number I'm calling "Mtlply" (I'm obviously not good at naming things), adding up both for to arrive at the team number, then dividing PA into Mltply to get the team wOBA. Then I do the same with their ZIPS PA (Z-PA), ZIPS wOBA (Z-wOBA), and Z-Mltply, and then index the actual to estimated to see whether they are beating their ZIPS or not. Index average is 100; anything higher, the player is outperforming his ZIPs estimates; a lower index means he is underperforming his ZIPS.

Here's what I mean—here are the Tigers numbers so far (minimum 30 PAs):

Read it like this: Kerry Carpenter's ZIPS projection was for 496 PAs and a .323 wOBA. (That multiplies out to 159.960, which matters only when adding up all the players). His actual PAs so far is 45 and his wOBA is .361 (which multiples out to 16.240). Index his actual wOBA to his Z-wOBA and he is coming in at 111.9, which is well above average at +11.9%. Rinse and repeat for all players.

Then, add up all player's ZIPs PAs (5,360) and their Z-Mltpy (1689.549), divide the former into the latter, and we get the ZIPS wOBA of .315 for just these eleven players. Do the same with actual PAs (556) and Mltply (155,170), get the actual wOBA of (.279) for the eleven, then index actual to ZIPs to get how the whole group of players is indexing against their ZIPS estimates, which is 88.5.

Easy peasy, right? 😜

A group index for these eleven Tigers hitters of 88.5, which is -11.5% against average, is, frankly, bad. How do we compare to all the other teams?

Second from the bottom, which, even for a team projected to end up with a bottom four offense anyway, according to Z-wOBA, is prettehhh, prettehhh, prettehhh bad. Such underperformance would lead some to indict the team's coaching after all.

So now here's the $64 question: how real is this? Are we as bad as all this? Is the coaching making the hitters worse than they should be? Are the players feeding off each other and making everyone else worse? Is this just a random small sample that will iron itself out as the season progresses?

I report. You decide.

My decision is to give them more time to see whether this state of batting affairs is persistent after all.

Or as Sparky used to say "You can't tell anything about a baseball team until 40 games have bee played"

The Tigers are on game 17

[Toddwert]

2 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Or as Sparky used to say "You can't tell anything about a baseball team until 40 games have bee played"

The Tigers are on game 17

some of these problems are from last season too

[casimir]

4 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Or as Sparky used to say "You can't tell anything about a baseball team until 40 games have bee played"

The Tigers are on game 17

Yes, there's that, too.

[kdog]

see center cut fastball, drive it in the air...it's that easy haha...except for us.

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, Toddwert said:

some of these problems are from last season too

and the year before - and that is where the bite is. In a randomly distributed world, half the teams in any given year should come out of the chute doing a little better than their long term average. Make some allowance for weather and all that but I'm waiting for the team to proves we are seeing noise and not trend.

Edited April 16 by gehringer_2

[Dtrain72]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

and the year before - and that is where the bite is. In a randomly distributed world, half the teams in any given year should come out of the chute doing a little better than their long term average. Make some allowance for weather and all that but I'm waiting for the team to proves we are seeing noise and not trend.

Yeah, being ass at hitting and scoring runa has pretty much been the Tiger's offensive m.o. since 2017

[Toddwert]

13 minutes ago, Dtrain72 said:

Yeah, being ass at hitting and scoring runa has pretty much been the Tiger's offensive m.o. since 2017

revenge of JD Martinez... you traded me for that crap?

Edited April 16 by Toddwert

[Sports_Freak]

Other teams know we're trying to "work the strike zone." So they pound the strike zone and get ahead. The hitting stats would show how much worse a hitter is when behind in the count. I think we have 2 batting coaches? They're not doing a very good job if the entire line-up can't hit. Canha alone has cost us at least 2 games hitting in the 2 hole. A double play waiting to happen.