Baseball, perhaps more than any other sport, lends itself to examination through the numbers. A big reason for that is there are over 150 years of detailed statistical data that have been compiled. As the years have gone by, the granularity of that detail has been ever-increasing.
The three sites that I use most frequently, in no particular order are Baseball Reference, Fangraphs, and Baseball Savant. The traditional offense and pitching metrics such as batting averages, homers, RBI, pitcher wins, ERA, etc, can be found just about anywhere, including those sites.
In addition to those traditional numbers however, each of the above mentioned sites offer their own unique way collecting and presenting interesting data. In my view, all three are equally valuable and indispensable for anyone that enjoys gaining greater understanding of the game through numbers.
Today, we take a look at the Arizona Diamondbacks Detailed Stats pages of Baseball Reference. There you can find a trove of information that helps tell the story with some of the not-so-obvious numbers. To find these you go to the Diamondbacks main page, then scroll over either Batting or Pitching and select Detailed Stats. Below are some numbers that stood out as noteworthy or interesting.
Inherited Runners Scored for Relievers
Sometimes ERA can be misleading for relievers. It's always a good idea to check in on how they're doing with Inherited Runners. Kevin Ginkel, Bryce Jarvis, and Justin Martinez have done a good job so far in this department.
Joe Mantiply has come into games with by far the most runners on base. Surprisingly Ryan Thompson is among the pitchers with the highest IRS%. Overall the team's 47% IRS rate is significantly higher than the league average.
Runner on Third, Less than two outs
This table includes those players with at least 6 opportunities in this situation. Bryce Jarvis' number of just one in 14 chances really stands out. That is the best rate of any pitcher in MLB with more than 10 chances.
Quality Start Percentage
Despite missing three of their top starters and having used openers five times already this season the D-backs have a league-average QS%. Getting Zac Gallen back soon should help improve that rate. Merrill Kelly is out past the All-Star Break with a shoulder strain, however. Precious few of the team's quality starts have come from replacement pitchers Ryne Nelson, Slade Cecconi, or Tommy Henry.
Batting Detailed Stats Highlights
Batted Ball
If you have the impression that a lot of Blaze Alexander's hits come on ground balls through the hole to the opposite field, you'd be right. His ground ball percentage (52%) is the highest on the team, as is his opposite field percentage, (37%). League average opposite field rate is 18%, so Alexander's ratio is more than double that.
Ketel Marte and Joc Pederson have had the most pull heavy approaches. Corbin Carroll leads the team in line drive percentage and Christian Walker hits the most fly balls. Note the numbers below exclude bunts for ground balls and popups for fly balls.
Productive Outs
Teams that lead the league in productive out percentage don't usually score the most runs. But, notably, the top four players on the D-backs table for this category are role players. Pavin Smith when he was here, Tucker Barnhart when he plays, and platoon partners Jake McCarthy and Randal Grichuk are making the most of their chances to help the team win.
First Pitch Swing %
Listening to the Diamondbacks broadcast every night, one might get the impression that the D-backs swing at the first pitch more than any team in the league. In fact, their 27% rate is five points lower than the league average. There are only two teams that swing at the first pitch less, the Brewers and the Tigers.
Blaze Alexander is interesting in that while he swings at the first pitch a lot, his average pitches seen per plate appearance is close to league average. He has the ability to stay in an at bat and work the count, but he's also very aggressive. Perhaps just a little more selectivity on the first pitch is in order.
It's no surprise to see Joc Pederson with the fewest first pitch swings. But how about Gabriel Moreno? He's taking pitches and trying to work the counts. As his swing rounds into form don't be surprised if he takes advantage of that plate discipline to have a big second half.
Power Speed Number.
This last one is just for fun, mostly because of who leads the Diamondbacks table. Created by Bill James, this number is described as the Harmonic Mean of Home Runs and Stolen Bases. To do well, you need a lot of both. The formula is 2 X (HR X SB) / (SB + HR). The D-backs team total of 53 ranks in the lower half of the league. The average team has 62, and the Brewers (86) and Reds (84) dominate the league table.
Seeing Joc Pederson atop this table is a bit of a shocker. That's in part because he hardly seems like the type of player to put up a big number. But also because of how the team has fallen in this category. In 2023 they had the 5th highest team total. Corbin Carroll led the team with 34.2, and was 5th in MLB overall. Christian Walker was second with 16.5 thanks to 11 stolen bases.
