Paul Simon wrote there must be 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. I’m probably going to run out of ways to measure offensive ineptitude. Today’s topic is the 2012 Pirate inability to get runners in. This is not a surprising stat by any means given that the team has a hard time getting people on. And when they get on, they have a tendency to stay on. Using data from baseball-reference.com and teamrankings.com, the Pirates are 29th in the Majors in getting runners home.
I added hits, walks and HBP and subtracted home runs to generate a modified ‘Times on Base’ value. Then I found out how many men were left on base as a team and calculated the percentage. The Pirates have left 67.5% of their runners on base. Coming in last at 68.5% is Oakland. The league leader is Baltimore at 57.9%. The league average is 62.5%.
Not surprisingly, this team has the fewest number of at bats with runners in scoring position in all of the Majors. And they are 27th out of 30 in batting average and 29th out of 30 in slugging percentage with runners in scoring position.
Another way of saying: this team needs batting help in order to stay in the race.