Another way to look at the offense
Wait, don't leave, I know you don't want to look at the offense but please stick around
So the offense is bad.
It’s been bad enough for long enough that we can confidently say that this isn’t a phase. Since June 20 (all stats through Sunday, so not counting the team’s ninth inning outburst last night), the Giants have scored 134 runs (the fewest in the majors) in 40 games, an average of 3.35 runs per game. The next worst team, the A’s, have scored 141 runs in 38 games in that timespan, and this is where I will remind you that the A’s were literally not constructed to be a major league team.
Last week, we talked about the team’s problems with runners in scoring position. A couple weeks earlier, we talked about how the rookies had suffered a precipitous staistical decline. The Giants’ bad offense has been a recurring theme among literally everyone who’s watched the Giants for the last couple of months, so it makes sense that it’s come up once or twice.
But here’s the question that occurred to me: What’s the difference between this offense and a good offense? I don’t mean, like, number of runs scored, but simply, what did the Giants offense look like when it was good? Well, we have a recent example of the Giants offense being good: They were very good in 2021. Two years ago, they were sixth in the majors in runs; this year, they are 18th, and trending downward.
So, let’s compare how those two Giants teams did by position, and then overall, and see what we learn.
Catcher:
2021: .271/.360/.446, 118 wRC+, 3rd in MLB
2023: .246/.300/.388, 89 wRC+, 15th in MLB
1st base:
2021: .268/.363/.516, 136 wRC+, 3rd in MLB
2023: .285/.381/.478, 136 wRC+, 4th in MLB
2nd base:
2021: .262/.319/.409, 97 wRC+, 14th in MLB
2023: .216/.280/.357, 74 wRC+, 26th in MLB
3rd base:
2021: .255/.335/.449, 111 wRC+, 7th in MLB
2023: .227/.309/.396, 94 wRC+, 17th in MLB
Shortstop:
2021: .281/.347/.483, 121 wRC+, 4th in MLB
2023: .207/.269/.318, 61 wRC+, 27th in MLB
Left field:
2021: .243/.329/.439, 108 wRC+, 10th in MLB
2023: .246/.306/.400, 94 wRC+, 19th in MLB
Center field:
2021: .247/.314/.417, 96 wRC+, 15th in MLB
2023: .225/.298/.367, 87 wRC+, 25th in MLB
Right field:
2021: .235/.315/.465, 108 wRC+, 12th in MLB
2023: .235/.320/.406, 98 wRC+, 18th in MLB
Designated hitter:
2021: In 2021, the universal DH was not in place, and the game was better for it
2023: .269/.355/.474, 125 wRC+, 5th in MLB
Overall:
2021: .249/.329/.440, 107 wRC+, 5th in MLB
2023: .240/.316/.393, 95 wRC+, 21st in MLB
The biggest gaps come at catcher, second base, and shortstop, and none of those are a surprise. As great as Patrick Bailey has been defensively, he hasn’t been Buster Posey at the plate. With Thairo Estrada on the IL, second base was an absolute black hole of offense, and 2021 Brandon Crawford was simply a much better hitter than the 2023 version. All of those are huge, known problems.
But it’s also worth mentioning the positions that have downgraded from solid to below average. Third base and the corner outfield positions have all taken a step back in the last couple of years, with the team seeing significant decreases in power from all three positions, as well as a drop-off in batting average at third base. Though it started from a lower baseline, center field is similar, as the position lost some batting average, which also affected OBP, but then the slugging declined beyond that.
Overall, as a team, the average is down some, and the walk rate is down a bit, but what they’ve really lost en masse is the power they showed two years ago. Even at first base, the one position where the team is really excelling due to the fine work of LaMonte Wade Jr and Wilmer Flores, they’ve lost some isolated power, but their overall OBP and wOBA numbers have been boosted by a higher batting average, which has raised their wRC+.
The one caveat to all this — and it’s not much of a caveat since you can see the decline in overall numbers from 2021, a season in which the team had pitchers hitting — is that using the DH has meant keeping better hitters in the lineup there on what would otherwise be rest days while putting weaker hitters but better defenders in at their natural positions. This means that offensive numbers by position will be naturally depleted as the team redistributes those at-bats (Joc Pederson’s, for example) to the DH spot.
So there is actually a power outage. Some of that, as Grant noted yesterday, comes from the team being unable to hit meatballs in the middle of the plate. Some of it is because this team simply doesn’t have the talent that that one did: the Brandons both had career years and Buster Posey was Buster Posey again and they got contributions from just about everyone on the roster not named Alex Dickerson. This year, piecing together a roster with platoon advantages is tougher going, and guys are slumping at inconvenient times, and the middle infield has been a black hole, and it’s just not quite the same.
But they’re not better anywhere, and that’s an issue. There’s one position (first base) at which they’re about as good, but everything else is a downgrade. Now, you can point out that that 2021 team won 107 games, which was swell, but they had a merely very good offense, and not one of the best offenses in league history. It is fair to expect a very good offense again, because Farhan and company have proven they can build one.
The ninth inning last night was a good start, but there’s more work to be done. If this team is going to get to the postseason, much less make some noise there, they’re going to have to shore up the middle infield and hit for more power. It’s not going to be easy, because the players they have aren’t likely to drastically improve in season, but that’s the path ahead of the Giants if they want to stay competitive.