04/01/2026 3:40pm EDT Detroit Tigers at Arizona Diamondbacks

[monkeytargets39]

13 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Is this trure?  

I’m largely speaking anecdotally on that over 35 years of following the team, but the Diamondbacks were #1 in the league in 1 run inning percentage last year and just swept us.  Granted it wasn’t all small ball, but they executed in key situations offensively and defensively where we shot ourselves in the foot.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Interseting data.  I am just not sure how to interpret it.  I would think that percent of innings in which a team scores runs would be highly correlated with how many runs they scored or a production stat like wOBA.  Is there a prediction advantage to knowing how many innings they scored in compared to just looking at total runs scored?

You mean for gambling purposes? Not sure. Asking for a friend? 😉 

The only thing I think might be reasonable to take away is that we have the ability to be a top playoff-contending offense, but are simply not scoring consistently. Is this a development issue? A maturity issue? A luck issue? A lack of specific underlying skills issue? There's the $64 question I don't have any insight to.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, monkeytargets39 said:

The one-run only stat jumps out at me a bit with how low we are on it.  
 

It signals to me that we don’t do a good job of situational hitting and manufacturing a run.  
 

Just a minor example from yesterday- Skubal is pitching a great game but it’s 1-0 and we’ve put very little pressure on Gallen.  McGonigle triples with one out.  All we need at point is to get that run home: RBI groundout, sac fly, squeeze play, whatever.  

Torres proceeds to get behind in the count and then swings at a pitch near the top of the zone and tries to drive it but instead hit a line drive and ends up as a double play.  We hit probably 10 fly balls out to center and right field off Gallen but couldn’t do it the one time we really needed it with one of our more skilled hitters.

 

Not to criticize Gleyber or AJ or anything, but it’s worth pointing out that when our offense isn’t clicking, we don’t seem to have a lot of faith in the hitters to execute a sacrifice, steal a base, put a ball in the air or on the ground, etc.  I get going for the big inning if you string a hit or two together or a walk, but the types of teams that outperform their expectations each year are the ones that don’t squander those opportunities nearly as often as we seem to.

If a team has the potential to be a high-scoring offense, as we seem to have indicated with our own run-scoring rank and our percentage of innings scoring 2+ runs, does it make sense to re-make the offensive strategy entirely to focus on manufacturing a single run at a time because they fall short on scoring exactly one run in an inning? Or, if that's not what you are suggesting, when do you think it would be appropriate times to switch up strategies? 

[chasfh]

So, we have now played two games wearing those cheap-looking amateurish dark blue jerseys, and we are 0-2, getting shut out twice. Take that for what you will. 

Maybe it's a psychological thing where they think they're back in spring training, so their heads are all about working on process, more than playing to win. 😏

[Tiger337]

4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

You mean for gambling purposes? Not sure. Asking for a friend? 😉 

The only thing I think might be reasonable to take away is that we have the ability to be a top playoff-contending offense, but are simply not scoring consistently. Is this a development issue? A maturity issue? A luck issue? A lack of specific underlying skills issue? There's the $64 question I don't have any insight to.

My question was whether percentage of innings scoring runs in 2025 was more predictive than runs scored in 2025 of runs scored in 2026.  I loved seeing it broken out that way (potentially for other puposes), but it didn't seem to lead to a different conclusion than just looking at total runs scored.

[monkeytargets39]

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

If a team has the potential to be a high-scoring offense, as we seem to have indicated with our own run-scoring rank and our percentage of innings scoring 2+ runs, does it make sense to re-make the offensive strategy entirely to focus on manufacturing a single run at a time because they fall short on scoring exactly one run in an inning? Or, if that's not what you are suggesting, when do you think it would be appropriate times to switch up strategies? 

Not entirely.  I’m more suggesting that these stretches where multiple impact bats like Carp/Greene/Tork all seem to be scuffling at the same time that we shift strategies more fluidly—be more willing to sacrifice/steal/etc when it becomes obvious runs are going to be at a premium both ways.  We know a lot of Skubal starts can be won if we just score 2 runs, so if the other pitcher is dealing early on, make adjustments to the approach.

[chasfh]

1 minute ago, Tiger337 said:

My question was whether percentage of innings scoring runs in 2025 was more predictive than runs scored in 2025 of runs scored in 2026.  I loved seeing it broken out that way (potentially for other puposes), but it didn't seem to lead to a different conclusion than just looking at total runs scored.

I think it raises more questions about why it's happening and can anything be done about it, then how many runs does this predict for the Tigers in 2026. Maybe it's more of an inside issue than an outside issue.

[Tiger337]

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

I think it raises more questions about why it's happening and can anything be done about it, then how many runs does this predict for the Tigers in 2026. Maybe it's more of an inside issue than an outside issue.

I do think if a team ranks better in pct of innings scored than it does in runs scored, then it probably indicates they are relying less on home runs than other teams.  I don't know if that's a bad or good thing though.    

[chasfh]

7 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Not entirely.  I’m more suggesting that these stretches where multiple impact bats like Carp/Greene/Tork all seem to be scuffling at the same time that we shift strategies more fluidly—be more willing to sacrifice/steal/etc when it becomes obvious runs are going to be at a premium both ways.  We know a lot of Skubal starts can be won if we just score 2 runs, so if the other pitcher is dealing early on, make adjustments to the approach.

That might be kind of a tricky thing to consider because that kind of suggests that all three players are sucking so, instead of trying to break out of that like a hitter, lean into that and bunt more like a pitcher hitting. I don't think any player who has had success as a slugger would want to lean into that.

If you're suggesting that Hinch should just make them do so, then he would basically have to sell these sluggers on the idea that since they suck right now, at this moment, they should be playing small ball like a pitcher hitting. That might help us win this particular inning this time, but I bet it would also create some friction over what the boss is suggesting about their abilities. I'm guessing that's a big reason sluggers don't turn to bunting and striving for productive outs when they are scuffling.

[monkeytargets39]

3 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Not entirely.  I’m more suggesting that these stretches where multiple impact bats like Carp/Greene/Tork all seem to be scuffling at the same time that we shift strategies more fluidly—be more willing to sacrifice/steal/etc when it becomes obvious runs are going to be at a premium both ways.  We know a lot of Skubal starts can be won if we just score 2 runs, so if the other pitcher is dealing early on, make adjustments to the approach.

To add onto this, I think a main reason we don’t do this much is too many guys on this team lack the bat-to-ball skills required.  Meadows for example would be so much more useful if he could just make consistent directional contact, but his pitch recognition isn’t there.  You also really can’t rely on several guys to make contact at all—particularly Javy.  If we are going to stick with our typical lineups the way we have, then I wonder if it would’ve been better to use Jahmai Jones’ roster spot for an extreme pinch runner/high contact/low power guy.  Something like what Terrance Gore was for a few championship teams.

[Tiger337]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

That might be kind of a tricky thing to consider because that kind of suggests that all three players are sucking so, instead of trying to break out of that like a hitter, lean into that and bunt more like a pitcher hitting. I don't think any player who has had success as a slugger would want to lean into that.

If you're suggesting that Hinch should just make them do so, then he would basically have to sell these sluggers on the idea that since they suck right now, at this moment, they should be playing small ball like a pitcher hitting. That might help us win this particular inning this time, but I bet it would also create some friction over what the boss is suggesting about their abilities. I'm guessing that's a big reason sluggers don't turn to bunting and striving for productive outs when they are scuffling.

I am also not sure how useful it would be for Greene to lay down a perfect sacrifice only to have Torkelson retired on a towering flyball that he "just missed".  

[chasfh]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I do think if a team ranks better in pct of innings scored than it does in runs scored, then it probably indicates they are relying less on home runs than other teams.  I don't know if that's a bad or good thing though.    

The correlation of total runs scored to scoring zero runs in an inning is r^2=-0.95; for scoring exactly one run, it's r^2=0.47; and for scoring two or more runs, it's r^2=0.94. Not sure whether that tells us much more.

[chasfh]

3 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

To add onto this, I think a main reason we don’t do this much is too many guys on this team lack the bat-to-ball skills required.

I think this is true, but it could also be true that if we did have players with very good bat-to-ball skills, we would want them to use those skills to break out of the slumps and get solid base hits and home runs, not to make outs by bunting guys to the next base.

[monkeytargets39]

12 minutes ago, chasfh said:

That might be kind of a tricky thing to consider because that kind of suggests that all three players are sucking so, instead of trying to break out of that like a hitter, lean into that and bunt more like a pitcher hitting. I don't think any player who has had success as a slugger would want to lean into that.

If you're suggesting that Hinch should just make them do so, then he would basically have to sell these sluggers on the idea that since they suck right now, at this moment, they should be playing small ball like a pitcher hitting. That might help us win this particular inning this time, but I bet it would also create some friction over what the boss is suggesting about their abilities. I'm guessing that's a big reason sluggers don't turn to bunting and striving for productive outs when they are scuffling.

Well if they don’t want the friction on what they are asked to do, don’t strike out 200+ times a season, don’t hit 30 HRs with an OPS under .800, or don’t go 6-62 over multiple years when you have a runner on second and/or third.  
 

Be willing to make the right play for the team at the right time.  You’ll get more than enough ABs in situations where you can slug all you want.

Edited 2 hours ago by monkeytargets39

[monkeytargets39]

11 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I think this is true, but it could also be true that if we did have players with very good bat-to-ball skills, we would want them to use those skills to break out of the slumps and get solid base hits and home runs, not to make outs by bunting guys to the next base.

Well yeah, if we had guys who made consistent contact: swing away.  But we don’t, so there needs to be times where we look to some ways to offset that inconsistency.

I think we are starting to get a group of guys like that with how Keith and Dingler are developing, along with McGonigle and Torres.  Adding Clark to that mix, and subtracting Javy will help as well….we just aren’t there yet.

Edited 1 hour ago by monkeytargets39

[monkeytargets39]

16 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I am also not sure how useful it would be for Greene to lay down a perfect sacrifice only to have Torkelson retired on a towering flyball that he "just missed".  

I’m less talking about having Riley/Tork/Carp do that type of stuff and more about having them just play for the sac fly or productive directional groundout when it’s obvious they’re scuffling a bit.  I’d suggest the Meadows/Baez/Vierling group be more of the sac bunt types.  There’s roughly an 75% chance they’re going to make an out anyway, might as well try for a positive result out.

[Tiger337]

I think the only time I want to see a sacrifice bunt is in the ninth inning behind by one or tied with a weak hitter at the plate.  

[monkeytargets39]

In other news, 

 

Brandon Inge is throwing out the first pitch tomorrow.  Can you check your swing on your own pitch?

[theroundsquare]

only if you're pitching to yourself like you're ted williams