Welcome to Behind the Plate With DJ, a weekly look at what is going on in the world of baseball. This series will weigh in on the interesting, the controversial, and the downright cool. The play of the week could be an incredible play or an unusual one. If something made you scratch your head, you will probably find it here. So sit back, relax, and let’s take a look at the week that was.
MLB Draft
The Major League draft is scheduled for June 9-11. Over 1,200 high school and college players will realize their dreams with a chance to play professional baseball. Some will turn down the chance to go to or continue a college career, but many will sign and start playing Minor League ball either later this year or next year.
The Phillies have the first overall pick this year and the pressure is on. There is no one player that stands out this year, though there are several that have the potential to be stars. Left handed pitcher A.J. Puk out of the University of Florida is 6’7 and he has a high-90s fastball and a plus slider. Jason Groome is high school left handed pitcher with a hard fastball and a big curveball. Third baseman Nick Senzel out of Tennessee that hit .352 with 8 home runs and only 21 strikeouts in 57 games.
The number one overall pick has been extremely successful in recent years. Justin Upton, David Price, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Gerrit Cole, and Carlos Correa have all been the number one pick since 2005. This is a time of optimism as teams search for the player that will carry their team into the playoffs.
The Red Hot Sox
The Boston Red Sox have been on an offensive tear this season. The lead all of baseball with a .293 batting average, .488 slugging percentage, .847 OPS, 148 doubles, and 336 runs scored. They are also in the top 10 in home runs, triples, and stolen bases. They have done it all this season.
Individually, they have 2 hitters in the top 10 in batting average, home runs, doubles, triples, RBI, and 3 in the top 10 in runs scored. That is in the Major Leagues, not just the American League. The hitting has made up for a lackluster pitching staff and has the Red Sox just a half game out of first in the AL East.
Jackie Bradley had a 29-game hitting streak, but he is only the third best hitter on the team. Xander Bogaerts is hitting .345 with 4 home runs, 33 RBI, and 7 stolen bases. David Ortiz is having a phenomenal final season, hitting .340 with 16 home runs and 54 RBI. Dustin Pedroia is doing what he always does, hitting .316 with 7 home runs and 41 runs scored. Mookie Betts is hitting “only” .285, but he has 14 home runs, 45 RBI, 9 stolen bases, and 53 runs scored.
If the Red Sox can get their pitching staff going, they will be extremely hard to beat. Catcher Christian Vazquez is the only starter hitting less than .280. To give you an idea of how deep the Red Sox lineup is, Bradley hit in the bottom third of the order during most of his hitting streak.
Astros Are Coming Back
The Astros are finally looking like the team they were last year. They have won 8 of their last 10 to move from last place to third place, just 4 games behind the second place Mariners. Unfortunately for them, the Rangers also won 8 of their last 10, so they are still 8 games out of first.
Jose Altuve has been leading the offense with a .336 average, 17 stolen bases, and 45 runs scored and is second on the team with 10 home runs and 34 RBI. The pint size second baseman has added some power to his repertoire. Along with the 10 home runs, he has 20 doubles and has his OPS up to .969, good for 5th in the Major Leagues.
Advanced Stat of the week
Every week, Behind the Plate will look at an advanced stat that is being used in baseball. These stats give a better idea on what value a player gives a team. This week’s stat is Runs Created.
Runs Created (RC) is a stat that was developed by Bill James as a way to evaluate offensive performance. The basic idea is that scoring runs is the way to win ball games and certain events tend to lead to more runs than others.
According to Baseball Reference, the general formula is Times on Base multiplied by Bases Advanced divided by Opportunities. Times on Base is Hits + Walks + Hit By Pitch – Caught Stealing – Grounded into Double Play. Bases Advanced is Total Bases + .26(Walks + Hit By Pitch -Intentional Walks) + .52(Sacrifice Hits + Sacrifice Flies + Stolen Bases). Opportunities is At Bats + Walks + Hit By Pitch + Sacrifice Hits + Sacrifice Flies.
This may seem like a complicated formula, and it is not one that is easy to calculate on the fly. Luckily for us, there are sites like Baseball Reference and Fangraphs to provide us with these stats. RC does a good job of revealing the hitters that are most valuable to their team.
RC is commonly weighted and normalized, giving us weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+). This gives adjustments based on a range of factors such as the ballpark played in, and it sets it to a scale where 100 is the average value. Thus, a wRC+ of 80 is not good, whereas 130 would be excellent. This helps evaluate players from different teams. A hitter who plays half of his games in Coors Field in Colorado will create more runs than one who hits in AT&T Park in San Francisco.
The top 6 Major Leaguers in RC up through Monday’s games were Ortiz (59), Altuve (57), Daniel Murphy (56), Dexter Fowler (50), Manny Machado (50), and Mike Trout (50). The top 6 in wRC+ were Ortiz (200), Murphy (178), Trout (162), Altuve (161), Fowler (160), and Bradley (159).
Play of the Week
Melvin Upton Jr. of the Padres had a straight steal of home on June 3. With the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the fourth against the Rockies, Upton took off as Chris Rusin was in an abbreviated windup and slid on the inside of the plate just out of reach of catcher Nick Hundley.
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