Kinda tired of hearing about how the offense is actually good
There will be numbers later. Apologies for the numbers later.
You know what everyone says about the 2022 Giants by now. They have a top 10 offense, an d they have a top 10 pitching staff, but their defense is letting them down. If only they could catch the ball, the conventional wisdom goes, they’d be one of the best teams in the league.
Horseshit.
The Giants do not have a good offense. The Giants had a good offense during the month of May, in which they were the fourth best offense in the majors, hitting .254/.339/.421 for a wRC+ of 117. Great. Fantastic. No notes, other than the defense.
In April, they were league average. Back in April, the league was averaging a lot less offense, so their .240/.314/.388 put them 10th in the majors, but it wasn’t a very strong 10th, and besides, those were under different offensive conditions. Everyone was still going through Spring Training, and the league was monkeying with the ball for whatever reason. Still, that’s an offense that wasn’t anything special. They scored as many runs as anyone in the league, but based on how they hit, some of that was probably luck.
In June (through Tuesday), the Giants have hit .224/.308/.394. By Fangraphs’s Offense metric, they’ve been the 17th best offense in the majors, hitting just like they did in April, only the rest of the league is actually playing well, which makes the Giants average at best.
When people say that the Giants don’t have a good offense, what they’re talking about is right now, and for the last month that’s been true. In June, they’ve been 20th in wOBA, 18th in wRC+, 3rd in K%, 16th in WPA (18th in WPA/LI, if you’re more interested in that), and 16th in runs. Any way you slice it, they have been absolutely nothing special.
But! If they were so good in May, then that says something, right? We can’t just look at their numbers from one month and say that’s it, can we? That’s a ridiculous way to evaluate an offense. We need to look at the whole season.
And when you look at the whole season, hey, check these numbers out: 6th in runs scored (that’s the whole point!), 10th in wRC+, 8th in overall offense, 7th in WPA, and 11th in K%. You can’t just dismiss that, can you?
Wait, can you?
Wellllll…
The thing about the Giants offense is that when you go to the team stats on Baseball Savant, they tell the story of an average offense. They’re 11th in wOBA and 12th in expected wOBA, but they’re just as close to 15th (out of 30) as 11th there. On balls they make contact with, their expected wOBA is exactly 15th. They’re 12th in barrel percentage, 13th in hard hit percentage, and 16th in average exit velocity.
Over the entire season, the Giants have hit the ball like an average offense. They’ve been worse lately, but even factoring in their good month, they haven’t been anything special.
This is what you’ve seen with your eyes. They’re not hitting the ball particularly hard, or doing anything (other then walking) particularly well. People might tell you that actually, the offense is good and it’s not the problem and you should let it go. People have definitely already told you that. They’re wrong. The offense is average. If your goal is for the team to be above average, well, then it needs to be better than that.