In the Giants’ three-game series against Phyllis, Giants manager Gabe Kepler used a total of seven pinch-heaters. That’s a 2.33 pinch hitter rate per game, which seems good and good for a national league series, unless you remember that we live in a society with a universal DH. Then you look at the history of Kepler’s operation with the Giants and you realize that the guy is obsessed with the pinch heater.
In 2021, Kepler averaged 2.60 PH / G, the highest in MLB, but his PH / G + (pinch hitter per game, adjusted to the league average, similar to ERA + or OPS +) was second after 162 of 137. Was, thanks to the NL average. 1.89 PH / G and AL average only 0.61. That’s right there’s the DH difference. The same thing happened in the 2020 epidemic, with Kepler leading the MLB in PH / G, but second only to Kevin Cash in PH / G +, as NL averaged more pinch heaters even with a universal DH. Since the Giants were playing Philis this weekend, we can shake off the corpse of remorse as well and look back at his tenure as Philis manager, where he posted 107 PH / G + in 2019 and 105 in 2018.
Apparently, Kepler took some time to make his progress, but he’s steaming in 2022. As of June 1, Kepler averaged 1.33 PH / G. Considering the league’s average .64 pH / G, its pinch heater use gives a pH / G + of 208. This is twice the league average and, to say the least, much higher. If Kepler continues at this pace, he will be the tweak-hitter-happiest, full-time manager since Bobby Cox with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1982 (we’re ignoring 2012, when Sandy Aloma posted a full 308 PH / G + in six games). Cincinnati Reds Trainer). In 2022, only Torey Lovullo comes close to Kepler.
Top 5 manager PH / G rates in 2022
1. SFG, Gabe Kapler – 1.33 (209 PH / G +)
2. ARI, Torey Lovullo – 1.23 (193).
3. Tex, Chris Woodward – 1.14 (179)
4. CHC, David Ross – 1.00 (157)
5. OAK, Mark Coates – 0.87 (136)
Finally, the king of the coupler pinch! Of course, the tactical thing about pinch heaters is that they perform worse than average, starting. So far in 2022, non-starting position players have an average wOBA of 0.294, with the starting position player averaging 0.309 wOBA. In 2021, the gap was even wider.
So if you use pinch heaters, you’ll want to take advantage of what your pinch heaters do আন platoon advantages, just as an example যেতে to overcome the disadvantages, as bench players are usually there because they’re worse than your starter. Or slightly injured. In the Giants’ recent series against the Phillies, the pinch hitters have performed for a variety of successes: Jock Pederson, who entered the game as a pinch hitter and held up to three at-bat, hit a game-winning three-run homer during Tuesday’s 11. Inning roller coaster; Evan Longoria strikes out in the eighth innings of Wednesday’s one-run Phillies win. The pinch gives the hitter, and he snatches.
How do Kepler’s pinch heaters usually work? Glad you asked! Here is the league-wide pinch-heater vs. pinch-heater wOBA:
There’s a team in the middle that I’m not going to isolate because the non-outliers are annoying, but the Giants are just to the right of the graph, with pinch heater performance that averages for pinch heaters. Ideally, you would like to be at the very top of the upper-right quadrant, although excessive use of pinch heaters in situations where they are not convenient will reduce their overall performance. It’s all about balance. Significantly, the Red Sox and Royals pinch hitters are doing well for themselves. Then you have the Washington Nationals pinch heater, whose position speaks for itself.
As a side note, the best pinch-hitting team in 2021 by wOBA was the Baltimore Orioles. Just as we all expected.
The horizontal league average in the plot above is the league average Non-starter, The overall league is not average. Comparing starter performance with pinch-heater performance for each team in 2022 gives you:
Yes, yes, the axes are not equal in scale despite being the same metric, but for good reason. I thought I should level my ticks for better visuals and then end up with this plot, which I hope will at least move you because it’s the only value. However, this is a similar story: the horizontal league average in the plot above again, the league average for non-starters, the sample size a factor, and the National Pinch Heaters did not do well.
Most importantly, the Giants pinch heaters perform worse than their initial counterparts in a negligible amount, even if they are not close to the distance between the Mets and the Dodgers. This means that Kepler probably shouldn’t have used the pinch heater as much as he did, but hey, who’s going to stop him? Of course not me. Kepler has been chasing this crown for the last three years, and it is time to achieve it. I’ll root him out for losing Bobby Cox’s 1982 218 PH / G + record because that’s what he deserves, and you should too.