This past weekend, Ben Cherington sat in front of reporters at PNC Park and spoke about how he believes the Pirates' offense will come around because a few players are underperforming based on the team's "internal measurements."
"The offense hasn’t got going yet," he said. "I believe it will, and there are a few components with that. We do have some players who, at least based on our internal measurements, are hitting into a lot of bad luck. We have a bunch of guys whose surface performance is below what we’d expect based on quality of contact."
Two days later, while speaking on his weekly team-produced show on the Pirates Radio Network with Joe Block, Cherington explained what he meant by "internal measurements," saying, "It’s basically looking at what has actually happened and what we’d expect to happen over the course of a season if a hitter continues to do these things. If a hitter continues to make these swing decisions and hit the ball this hard at this angle and this distribution across the field over the course of a season, what would we expect to happen. What we’re seeing so far in our group is that what is actually happening, which we know needs to improve, is below what we would expect to happen over the course of the season."
So, we here at DK Pittsburgh Sports dove into the numbers to see how much the Pirates are actually underperforming. While these may not be the numbers the Pirates are taking into consideration with their "internal measurements," they paint an interesting picture as this team, which sits at the bottom of the National League Central with a record of 8-15, gets set to begin a six-game road trip tomorrow here in Anaheim, Calif. against the Angels.
We used Baseball Savant's expected team batting average and expected team slugging percentage to paint this picture and compared those statistics to how the team has actually performed through 23 games. The Pirates have the largest gap (-0.036) in Major League Baseball between their expected batting average (.242) and actual batting average (.206). They also have the largest differential (-0.089) between their team slugging percentage (.320), which ranks 28th in the major leagues, and their expected slugging percentage (.409), which ranks 17th.
So, how would have the Pirates' offense performed over the first 23 games if they were performing up to expectations? Well, they would have tallied 27 more hits or 1.17 per game. But, how many runs, per game, would that turn into?
If you consider both expected batting average and expected slugging percentage, the Pirates are underperforming by 1.47 runs per game to start the season. That would amount to 112 runs, the 14th highest total in the major leagues and 34 more runs than what they've produced so far this season.
Any improvement to the offense would help at this point and playing up to their expectations could help them in the win column over time as the Pirates have lost four one-run games and have played in eight.
Is this offense unlucky at times? Sure. One could look at the Marlins' Griffin Conine robbing Jack Suwinski of a sure home run in the first series of the season. Or they could look at Oneil Cruz hitting a line drive with an exit velocity of 115.3 directly at Nationals shortstop Nasim Nuñez to start off a game last week. And the Pirates have also found good contact this season as they have the ninth-best average exit velocity in the league (89.8), which is 1.2 mph behind the Red Sox's league-best mark of 91 mph. So, there's evidence there.
However, there's a difference between expected results and actual results. The Pirates currently have five players hitting below .200 and they still rank in the bottom of the league in batting average, slugging percentage and OPS. On top of that, they have drawn the 10th most walks (82) and stolen the fourth-most bases (29) but have scored the 78 runs, the fifth lowest mark in the league despite hitting .255 with runners in scoring position, the 11th-best mark in the league.
So, yea, the Pirates are a little unlucky, but it's also more than that.
____________________
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THE ASYLUM
Greg Macafee
2:06 am - 04.22.2025ANAHEIM, CALIF.Analysis: Is the offense unlucky?
This past weekend, Ben Cherington sat in front of reporters at PNC Park and spoke about how he believes the Pirates' offense will come around because a few players are underperforming based on the team's "internal measurements."
"The offense hasn’t got going yet," he said. "I believe it will, and there are a few components with that. We do have some players who, at least based on our internal measurements, are hitting into a lot of bad luck. We have a bunch of guys whose surface performance is below what we’d expect based on quality of contact."
Two days later, while speaking on his weekly team-produced show on the Pirates Radio Network with Joe Block, Cherington explained what he meant by "internal measurements," saying, "It’s basically looking at what has actually happened and what we’d expect to happen over the course of a season if a hitter continues to do these things. If a hitter continues to make these swing decisions and hit the ball this hard at this angle and this distribution across the field over the course of a season, what would we expect to happen. What we’re seeing so far in our group is that what is actually happening, which we know needs to improve, is below what we would expect to happen over the course of the season."
So, we here at DK Pittsburgh Sports dove into the numbers to see how much the Pirates are actually underperforming. While these may not be the numbers the Pirates are taking into consideration with their "internal measurements," they paint an interesting picture as this team, which sits at the bottom of the National League Central with a record of 8-15, gets set to begin a six-game road trip tomorrow here in Anaheim, Calif. against the Angels.
We used Baseball Savant's expected team batting average and expected team slugging percentage to paint this picture and compared those statistics to how the team has actually performed through 23 games. The Pirates have the largest gap (-0.036) in Major League Baseball between their expected batting average (.242) and actual batting average (.206). They also have the largest differential (-0.089) between their team slugging percentage (.320), which ranks 28th in the major leagues, and their expected slugging percentage (.409), which ranks 17th.
So, how would have the Pirates' offense performed over the first 23 games if they were performing up to expectations? Well, they would have tallied 27 more hits or 1.17 per game. But, how many runs, per game, would that turn into?
If you consider both expected batting average and expected slugging percentage, the Pirates are underperforming by 1.47 runs per game to start the season. That would amount to 112 runs, the 14th highest total in the major leagues and 34 more runs than what they've produced so far this season.
Any improvement to the offense would help at this point and playing up to their expectations could help them in the win column over time as the Pirates have lost four one-run games and have played in eight.
Is this offense unlucky at times? Sure. One could look at the Marlins' Griffin Conine robbing Jack Suwinski of a sure home run in the first series of the season. Or they could look at Oneil Cruz hitting a line drive with an exit velocity of 115.3 directly at Nationals shortstop Nasim Nuñez to start off a game last week. And the Pirates have also found good contact this season as they have the ninth-best average exit velocity in the league (89.8), which is 1.2 mph behind the Red Sox's league-best mark of 91 mph. So, there's evidence there.
However, there's a difference between expected results and actual results. The Pirates currently have five players hitting below .200 and they still rank in the bottom of the league in batting average, slugging percentage and OPS. On top of that, they have drawn the 10th most walks (82) and stolen the fourth-most bases (29) but have scored the 78 runs, the fifth lowest mark in the league despite hitting .255 with runners in scoring position, the 11th-best mark in the league.
So, yea, the Pirates are a little unlucky, but it's also more than that.
____________________
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