Article: KC 6, MIN 1: Bad Inning Spoils Awesome Uniforms

[Cap'n Piranha]

 

I'm not sure how you figured "top-11"? The MLB non-pitcher walk rate is 8.8% this year. So 7.7% would be below average. (Among MLB teams, 7.7% would rank 25th, just ahead of the Royals.)

 

And walk rates are also higher in the minor leagues. 9.5% in the IL this year, for example. 9.1-9.2% in the Southern League this year and last year, etc. And I'm not sure minor league BB% is all that correlated with SLG -- see LaMonte Wade.

 

Reflecting this, and the change in competition, ZiPS projects Arraez to have a 6.2% walk rate the rest of the MLB season, which is indeed up from their preseason projection of 5.5%, but a far cry from his current 16.7%!

 

Of course, Arraez could still be good/useful with a below average walk rate, or a sub-.400 OBP.

 

Yeah, that was a typo, it was supposed to be top 100.  My inclusion of his relatively low SLG was meant to demonstrate that despite not a lot of power, Arraez maintains a healthy walk rate, which you wouldn't expect for a guy that's seen nearly 80% of his MiLB hits go for singles (this year the MLB rate is 62%, IL is 62%, Southern League is 70%).

 

Arraez thus far has displayed elite contact ability (best among all players with 40+ PA's at 95.7%, 2nd at Zone contact at 98%, and 1st at Out-of-zone contact at 90.5%).  He also has the 21st lowest out of zone swing rate, 40th lowest in-zone swing rate, and 20th overall swing rate, which means he's actualyl allowing his contact skill to play.  Compare that to Astudillo (4th in contact, 6th in zone contact, 7th in non-zone contact; 6th HIGHEST non-zone swing, 2nd zone swing, 2nd overall).  This is why Luis Arraez has a .521 OBP and 198 wRC+, and Astudillo is at .276 and 67.

[SwainZag]

 

It's interesting how the Twins keep saying "it was just one bad inning" for Pineda.

 

Welcome to being the next Gibson, I guess, but the bad innings count too. In fact, the bad innings are the only ones people will remember.

 

I wonder how many baseball games are decided by "one bad inning" for the pitcher. I would think it's at least 40%.

 

I don't think saying "one bad inning" is a pass for Pineda, but at least IMO, it's encouraging that outside of the 3rd inning Pineda was pretty sharp.

 

In the other 4 innings, he gave up three hits, only one reached the OF and didn't walk a batter, so outside of the 3rd, there were a lot of positives.