{"id":1396,"date":"2021-06-18T09:45:39","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T16:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1396"},"modified":"2021-06-22T06:47:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T13:47:08","slug":"a-sticky-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1396","title":{"rendered":"A Sticky Situation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"7tWVd1aYTV9iqN-kpC1RXA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1323944948\" target=\"_blank\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\nwindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'7tWVd1aYTV9iqN-kpC1RXA',sig:'osOEQ40bO-c-Hz7jhTHRxH9bagffafyYv6DwdC9wq2E=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1323944948',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nOh, hey!\u00a0 It only took me two and a half months to write my first in-season post!\u00a0 Obviously, I&#8217;m not going to be doing the monthly awards posts this season, but I will try to get back into a more regular writing schedule as the summer progresses.\u00a0 It certainly hasn&#8217;t been a lack of potential content that has kept me away.\u00a0 From the seemingly daily no-hitters of the spring, a rash of injuries like we&#8217;ve never seen before, the nose-dive in scoring across the league and now the pending implementation of punishment to pitchers caught doctoring balls, it&#8217;s been a pretty compelling 11 weeks.<\/p>\n<p>I will list all of the weekly and monthly batter and pitcher honors that have been accumulated so far this season at the bottom of this article.\u00a0 But first, let&#8217;s take a look at the leaguewide statistical trends, how they may have played a role into MLB&#8217;s decision to crack down on pitcher&#8217;s foreign substance use, and what effect that enforcement may have moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>Since I will be using PAR numbers throughout this analysis, I should explain the slight differences in how these numbers are being calculated this year compared to years past.\u00a0 Usually, the constants that make up the PAR formula are determined by taking the previous five seasons data.\u00a0 So for our last normal full season of 2019, during the season, PAR was calculated using numbers from 2014-2018.\u00a0 Then when the season ends, I do an across-the-board adjustment to include the recently completed season and remove the earliest season from the set.\u00a0 So the post-2019 update included numbers from 2015-2019.\u00a0 Those were also the numbers used during the shortened 2020 campaign.\u00a0 The difference being that I did not perform a post-season update after last season.\u00a0 Due to the extremely unusual nature of the &#8217;20 season, I decided to exclude its season totals from my calculations, not only for 2020, but moving forward as well.\u00a0 So heading into this season, I&#8217;m still using that same set of numbers from 2015-2019 to calculate PAR in 2021.\u00a0 When the season ends, the adjustment will be to lump in 2021 and remove 2015, making the included years 2016-2019 and 2021.\u00a0 Usually, the post-season adjustment has a very minor impact on the numbers.\u00a0 However, I suspect the impact will be much greater this year, because unless things change dramatically over the next few months, the 2021 season totals won&#8217;t look anything like those from 2015.<\/p>\n<p>As things stand today, PAR paints a pretty clear picture of what is going on in baseball in 2021.\u00a0 Across the league, hitters have combined to accumulate just 14.57 PAR.\u00a0 That is setting a full season pace well under 40 PAR.\u00a0 Hitters accumulated 69 PAR last year in just a 60 game season.\u00a0 The record for lowest total batting PAR for a 162 game season is 141 in 2014.\u00a0 As mentioned in the previous paragraph, this year&#8217;s numbers will be adjusted after the season, which will certainly cause batting PAR numbers to increase.\u00a0 But this is staggering stuff.\u00a0 Compared to recent seasons, hitters are simply not putting up anywhere near the normal level of offensive production.\u00a0 Meanwhile, pitchers have already accumulated 126 PAR and are on pace for around 300 for the season, well above the expected total of 225.<\/p>\n<p>JUNE 21 ADDENDUM:<\/p>\n<p>In retrospect, quoting mid-week leaguewide PAR numbers may have been a tad misleading.\u00a0 One part of the PAR formula for all of the counting categories is number of weeks a player has spent on the active roster (as a ratio over 26, the total number of weeks in the season).\u00a0 This value is incremented at the beginning of the week, causing the threshold needed to reach replacement level to increase in those categories.\u00a0 I figured we were far enough into the season for this to be of little consequence.\u00a0 And that is generally true for individual players, but not when looking at the league as a whole.\u00a0 Following the completion of the past week, hitters have now accumulated a total of 42.74 batting PAR.\u00a0 That&#8217;s still well below normal and on pace to break the full season futility record.\u00a0 But not to the same degree as the 14.57 number I mentioned above.\u00a0 Another factor I neglected to mention is that the abundance of injuries to position players so far this season has caused far more teams to have injured players occupying active roster spots than we would typically see at this point in the season.\u00a0 And players who accumulate no stats will see their PAR numbers drop like a rock.\u00a0 So there are some other factors besides the reduced offensive environment that are causing these low batting PAR totals this season.<\/p>\n<p>END OF ADDENDUM<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, the league batting average of .257 is actually up a tick from last year, but still well below the the .267 number from 2019.\u00a0 It is the rest of the offensive categories that have cratered.\u00a0 We are on pace for 2,840 home runs to be hit.\u00a0 That would be almost 700 fewer than 2019.\u00a0 Runs scored and RBIs are down more than 10% from two seasons ago.\u00a0 On the pitching side, the league WHIP of 1.124 would be a record low, by a considerable margin.\u00a0 ERA is down almost 0.4 points from two seasons ago.\u00a0 And the strikeout record is likely to be broken once again this year.\u00a0 What&#8217;s happening this year isn&#8217;t exactly a continuation of the three true outcome (home runs, walks, strikeouts) revolution of recent seasons.\u00a0 Only one of those outcomes is continuing to increase:\u00a0 strikeouts.\u00a0 Which means pitchers are getting the upper hand like never before.<\/p>\n<p>Enter the sticky substance debate.\u00a0 I think it is pretty clear at this point that the prevalence of pitchers using sticky substances has had a significant impact on the game, and most would agree that the fewer balls in play it has seemingly caused is not a good thing.\u00a0 So a crackdown on this is appropriate and long overdue.\u00a0 The issue is the manner in which it is being implemented and the timing.\u00a0 It certainly would have been more logical to start this enforcement of the rules at the beginning of the season, or maybe wait until next year.\u00a0 And perhaps some compromises could have been made on what substances are and are not allowed.\u00a0 We will have to wait and see if the unintended consequences are severe (see Glasnow, Tyler).\u00a0 And we will also have to wait and see how dramatic of an impact it has across the game.\u00a0 However, I am hopeful that the intended consequences of increased offense will materialize and kill any thoughts of more drastic rule changes like moving the pitcher&#8217;s mound further from the plate.\u00a0 So put me down as being in favor of the crackdown, but not the timing or manner in which it is being implemented.<\/p>\n<p>Now here&#8217;s a list of players who have excelled so far this season in spite of, or maybe because of, the foreign substance boom.\u00a0 As usual, these are strictly determined by who had the highest PAR total for a given week or month.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Batters of the Week:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Week 1 (4\/1 &#8211; 4\/4) &#8211; Nick Castellanos, Mavericks<br \/>\nWeek 2 (4\/5 &#8211; 4\/11) &#8211; Ronald Acuna,\u00a0Jackalope<br \/>\nWeek 3 (4\/12 &#8211; 4\/18) &#8211; Ronald Acuna,\u00a0Jackalope<br \/>\nWeek 4 (4\/19 &#8211; 4\/25) &#8211; Fernando Tatis, Demigods<br \/>\nWeek 5 (4\/26 &#8211; 5\/2) &#8211; Kris Bryant,\u00a0Cougars<br \/>\nWeek 6 (5\/3 &#8211; 5\/9) &#8211; Yordan Alvarez, Komodos<br \/>\nWeek 7 (5\/10 &#8211; 5\/16) &#8211; Aaron Judge,\u00a0Mavericks<br \/>\nWeek 8 (5\/17 &#8211; 5\/23) &#8211; Fernando Tatis,\u00a0Demigods<br \/>\nWeek 9 (5\/24 &#8211; 5\/30) &#8211; Fernando Tatis, Demigods<br \/>\nWeek 10 (5\/31 &#8211; 6\/6) &#8211; Ryan Mountcastle, Moonshiners<br \/>\nWeek 11 (6\/7 &#8211; 6\/13) &#8211; Bo Bichette, Beanballers<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pitchers of the Week:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Week 1 (4\/1 &#8211; 4\/4) &#8211; Zack Wheeler, Kings<br \/>\nWeek 2 (4\/5 &#8211; 4\/11) &#8211; Clayton Kershaw,\u00a0Mavericks<br \/>\nWeek 3 (4\/12 &#8211; 4\/18) &#8211; Shane Bieber,\u00a0Choppers<br \/>\nWeek 4 (4\/19 &#8211; 4\/25) &#8211; Brandon Woodruff, Choppers<br \/>\nWeek 5 (4\/26 &#8211; 5\/2) &#8211; Zack Wheeler, Kings<br \/>\nWeek 6 (5\/3 &#8211; 5\/9) &#8211; John Means, Beanballers<br \/>\nWeek 7 (5\/10 &#8211; 5\/16) &#8211; Freddy Peralta, Demigods<br \/>\nWeek 8 (5\/17 &#8211; 5\/23) &#8211; Zack Wheeler, Kings<br \/>\nWeek 9 (5\/24 &#8211; 5\/30) &#8211; Brandon Woodruff, Choppers<br \/>\nWeek 10 (5\/31 &#8211; 6\/6) &#8211; Jacob deGrom, Darkhorses<br \/>\nWeek 11 (6\/7 &#8211; 6\/13) &#8211; Zach Davies,\u00a0Beanballers<\/p>\n<p>Quite a list of stars on the hitting side, including two players who won back-to-back weekly honors.\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, they parlayed those weeks into monthly honors as well.\u00a0 Zack Wheeler has won the weekly pitcher award three times, with Brandon Woodruff adding a pair.\u00a0 Surprisingly, league Pitching PAR leader Jacob deGrom only has one weekly honor so far.<\/p>\n<p><strong>April Batter of the Month:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ronald Acuna,\u00a0Jackalope<br \/>\n.341 AVG, 8 HR, 18 RBI, 25 R, 3 SB, 2.10 PAR<\/p>\n<p><strong>April Pitcher of the Month:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Gerrit Cole,\u00a0Jackalope<br \/>\n1.43 ERA, 0.717 WHIP, 4 W, 0 SV, 62 K, 4.41 PAR<\/p>\n<p><strong>May\u00a0Batter of the Month:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Fernando Tatis,\u00a0Demigods<br \/>\n.353 AVG, 9 HR, 26 RBI, 21 R, 8 SB, 3.01 PAR<\/p>\n<p><strong>May\u00a0Pitcher of the Month:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Kevin Gausman, Cougars<br \/>\n0.73 ERA, 0.757 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 49 K, 4.67 PAR<\/p>\n<p>Not sure any player in baseball is having a more under the radar stellar campaign than Kevin Gausman.\u00a0 He is right on deGrom&#8217;s heels for the PAR lead.\u00a0 Two of the previous three first overall draft picks, Ronald Acuna and Fernando Tatis, are off to tremendous starts as well.\u00a0 They are third and first in Batting PAR, respectively.\u00a0 In between them is Moonshiners first baseman Vladimir Guerrero, who surprisingly does not appear anywhere above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Oh, hey!\u00a0 It only took me two and a half months to write my first in-season post!\u00a0 Obviously, I&#8217;m not going to be doing the monthly awards posts this season, but I will try to get back into a more regular writing schedule as the summer progresses.\u00a0 It certainly hasn&#8217;t been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cougars","category-demigods","category-jackalope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1396"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1401,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions\/1401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}