Action Network’s MLB analyst takes a look at two teams that are struggling at the plate early in the 2022 season.
Red Sox
No offense has underperformed expectations more than Boston, which sits dead last in the AL East at 10-19. It’s important to remember when discussing the Red Sox that they were fading pretty hard prior to the playoffs in 2021 before making a run to the ALCS by beating the Yankees in the wild-card game and Rays in the ALDS.
Boston rode its hot bats deep into October and was within a couple games of the World Series, but the Red Sox started last season 54-32 and finished the season 38-38 because the offense stopped being by far the best clutch hitting offense in all of baseball. Regression was inevitable for the offense and now the pitching staff seriously lacks depth beyond Nate Eovaldi and encouraging young arms Garrett Whitlock and Tanner Houck.
The Red Sox lost Kyle Schwarber in free agency and added Trevor Story to the lineup. Story is only a .748 OPS hitter away from Coors Field in his career, and while he’s not as bad as his start in Boston suggests, I don’t think Story is really the difference-maker at the top of the lineup that some thought he’d be.
Boston ranks 25th in clutch hitting, so there is some positive regression coming for the Red Sox in high-leverage hitting situations. But there are also some major, major concerns.
No team swings at a higher percentage of pitches outside the zone than the Sox at 35.4 percent. For a lineup that thrived on plate discipline when it was hitting well last season, Boston has been surprisingly undisciplined. The Red Sox are ninth in CSW% — called strikes plus whiff percentage — because the offense is swinging and missing a ton. Only Tampa Bay and Atlanta have swung and missed at pitches inside the strike zone more than Boston this season.
Even when they are making contact, the contact hasn’t really been that good either. Boston is 13th in hard-hit rate, 14th in barrel rate, and just 20th in BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play). All of these lead to the 25th ranking in xwOBA (Expected Weighted On-base Average), ahead of only the Royals, Tigers, Reds, Athletics, and Cardinals.
Takeaway: The only argument for expecting Boston’s offense to turn it around would be past history. Because if you look at the Red Sox’s plate discipline, approach, and contact numbers, this offense is mediocre at best. Maybe they improve in clutch situations a bit more, but the back half of the lineup has plenty of holes and there’s not one-hitter in the batting order that Statcast data suggests is on the verge of a breakthrough. I’m not at all betting on a Boston renaissance.
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Phillies
Philadelphia built its all-offense, no-defense lineup through free agency by adding Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos. The results have been mixed at this point in the season. The Phillies have underperformed with their record at 12-16 entering Monday night, even if their run differential suggests they should be .500 at worst based on the Pythagorean win model.
The Phillies rank seventh in OPS, yet the offense is just 11th in runs scored per game. There’s reason to believe that should translate better to more runs in the future because the offense has been very bad in high-leverage hitting situations. They are 30th in clutch hitting, based on win probability added, per FanGraphs. The lineup hasn’t been good with runners in scoring position, for example, and that’s an indicator of regression.
Philadelphia will swing and miss a good amount — eighth-highest swinging strike rate — but its plate discipline numbers are only slightly below average with the 11th highest swing rate on pitches outside of the zone. But the Phillies do hit the ball really hard. They rank 10th in barrel rate, fourth in hard-hit rate, and seventh in xwOBA.
Takeaway: The Phillies’ offense probably strikes out too much to be a top 4-5 unit, but they’re going to be better than 11th in runs per game given their underlying processes thus far.