Here’s the problem with this argument. It assumes that the 2023 approach was good. Yes, the Braves set offensive records in the regular season. But when they were in tough spots in the postseason, where hits tend to be harder to come by, they flamed out. Small sample size, yes, but all you get are small samples in the postseason - you have to make them count.
What role does the ever-changing MLB ball play in this? By mid-April it was apparent this year’s ball was “deader” than 2023. We saw many a Matt Olsen fly die at the track instead of landing in the chop house. If swinging for power doesn’t pay off at the dame rate it used to, at what point does the reality of the ball need to trigger a change in hitting approach?
It's a good question. I wouldn't want them to reconfigure their player acquistion/coaching approach based on a year of weird baseballs, but it's true that teams as a whole underperformed their xwOBAs by the highest they ever have in the Statcast era this year.
I have seen some commentary suggesting that the pitches the Braves saw were more down in the zone than the high heat they had seen previously. And, if we are only using a metric of whether they are swinging in the zone or not, that wouldn’t seem to capture different pitches *within the zone*. Is there a way to quantify where the pitches were, like by sector of the strike zone, and do a deeper analysis as to whether they were indeed getting better results hacking at high heat versus at low cheese? That analysis might be worthwhile — and I’m a Seitzer fan. But I do think Chipper has enough intuition and certainly enough experience to take seriously when he points out the league’s adaptations to the Braves’ approach.
It's true that the Braves saw low fastballs at the 3rd-highest rate in the sport this year and were 15th in xwOBA against those pitches. But over the last two months of the season - over which Atlanta saw those pitches at the highest rate - they were 7th in xwOBA. So if you think the role of a coach is to help players make adjustments, that's pretty good evidence that they adjusted. (As a baseline, in 2023, Atlanta saw these pitches at the 10th-highest rate and were 3rd in xwOBA against them.)
My issue with Chipper's comments is that he doesn't even attempt to make the point you reference that Eno brought up - that maybe Atlanta was a step behind adapting to pitch types. His complaints are the complaints that a certain sect of sports fans have made about baseball for years - that teams don't simply hit it the other way and strike out more.
Here’s the problem with this argument. It assumes that the 2023 approach was good. Yes, the Braves set offensive records in the regular season. But when they were in tough spots in the postseason, where hits tend to be harder to come by, they flamed out. Small sample size, yes, but all you get are small samples in the postseason - you have to make them count.
What role does the ever-changing MLB ball play in this? By mid-April it was apparent this year’s ball was “deader” than 2023. We saw many a Matt Olsen fly die at the track instead of landing in the chop house. If swinging for power doesn’t pay off at the dame rate it used to, at what point does the reality of the ball need to trigger a change in hitting approach?
It's a good question. I wouldn't want them to reconfigure their player acquistion/coaching approach based on a year of weird baseballs, but it's true that teams as a whole underperformed their xwOBAs by the highest they ever have in the Statcast era this year.
I have seen some commentary suggesting that the pitches the Braves saw were more down in the zone than the high heat they had seen previously. And, if we are only using a metric of whether they are swinging in the zone or not, that wouldn’t seem to capture different pitches *within the zone*. Is there a way to quantify where the pitches were, like by sector of the strike zone, and do a deeper analysis as to whether they were indeed getting better results hacking at high heat versus at low cheese? That analysis might be worthwhile — and I’m a Seitzer fan. But I do think Chipper has enough intuition and certainly enough experience to take seriously when he points out the league’s adaptations to the Braves’ approach.
We can do that thanks to Statcast search!
It's true that the Braves saw low fastballs at the 3rd-highest rate in the sport this year and were 15th in xwOBA against those pitches. But over the last two months of the season - over which Atlanta saw those pitches at the highest rate - they were 7th in xwOBA. So if you think the role of a coach is to help players make adjustments, that's pretty good evidence that they adjusted. (As a baseline, in 2023, Atlanta saw these pitches at the 10th-highest rate and were 3rd in xwOBA against them.)
My issue with Chipper's comments is that he doesn't even attempt to make the point you reference that Eno brought up - that maybe Atlanta was a step behind adapting to pitch types. His complaints are the complaints that a certain sect of sports fans have made about baseball for years - that teams don't simply hit it the other way and strike out more.