This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
The last few installments of this column have been focused on offense, or the lack thereof, because the league is off to yet another slow start overall offensively. The cold weather of the past week put a massive damper on offense, as it isn't very tough to discern the differences between the start of the past two seasons from a power perspective. The table below shows the outcomes as play begins on April 14:
STAT | Start of Season '24 | Start of Season '25 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
Contests | 250 | 234 | -6% |
PA | 19,021 | 17,484 | -8% |
BA | .243 | .234 | -4% |
OBP | .318 | .312 | -2% |
SLG | .388 | .381 | -2% |
BABIP | .293 | .281 | -4% |
BB% | 9.0% | 9.2% | 2% |
K% | 22.5% | 22.6% | 0% |
HR/Contact | 4.1% | 4.2% | 3% |
HR/FB | 11.0% | 11.0% | 0% |
HR/LD | 9.1% | 9.1% | 0% |
Runs/Game | 4.5 | 4.3 | -5% |
On Pace HR | 5,025 | 5,037 | 0% |
Simply put: not great, Bob! The league is struggling to put balls safely into play as more teams are putting an emphasis on defensive abilities in the field. My favorite team, the Tampa Bay Rays, continue to lose Junior Caminero in late and close games for defensive replacements while keeping Taylor Walls and his empty bat in the lineup because they're prioritizing defense late and close. A quick glance at the FanGraphs defensive WAR leaderboard to date shows several full-time players hitting below the league average while at the same time already producing at least one run above replacement defensively. That includes Jeimer Candelario (.132), Lourdes Gurriel Jr (.145), Miguel Vargas (.148),
The last few installments of this column have been focused on offense, or the lack thereof, because the league is off to yet another slow start overall offensively. The cold weather of the past week put a massive damper on offense, as it isn't very tough to discern the differences between the start of the past two seasons from a power perspective. The table below shows the outcomes as play begins on April 14:
STAT | Start of Season '24 | Start of Season '25 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
Contests | 250 | 234 | -6% |
PA | 19,021 | 17,484 | -8% |
BA | .243 | .234 | -4% |
OBP | .318 | .312 | -2% |
SLG | .388 | .381 | -2% |
BABIP | .293 | .281 | -4% |
BB% | 9.0% | 9.2% | 2% |
K% | 22.5% | 22.6% | 0% |
HR/Contact | 4.1% | 4.2% | 3% |
HR/FB | 11.0% | 11.0% | 0% |
HR/LD | 9.1% | 9.1% | 0% |
Runs/Game | 4.5 | 4.3 | -5% |
On Pace HR | 5,025 | 5,037 | 0% |
Simply put: not great, Bob! The league is struggling to put balls safely into play as more teams are putting an emphasis on defensive abilities in the field. My favorite team, the Tampa Bay Rays, continue to lose Junior Caminero in late and close games for defensive replacements while keeping Taylor Walls and his empty bat in the lineup because they're prioritizing defense late and close. A quick glance at the FanGraphs defensive WAR leaderboard to date shows several full-time players hitting below the league average while at the same time already producing at least one run above replacement defensively. That includes Jeimer Candelario (.132), Lourdes Gurriel Jr (.145), Miguel Vargas (.148), Carlos Correa (.164), Matt Chapman (.176), Paul DeJong (.188), and more.
Just last week, the league was on an early pace for 5,470 homers, but the brutal weather this past week has reduced that pace by 7.9 percent down to 5,037. The chatter about torpedo bats and juiced balls has been put under a deep freeze this week. We saw 26 shutouts in 2024 through this date on the schedule, yet we've already had 36 this season. Keep in mind, this season's schedule is one full day of games behind last year's on this date on the table, so we have seen a noticeable increase in the possibilities of seeing a team shut out in a game. We saw it happen four times just yesterday, including the Phighting Phillies being blanked by the Cardinals.
Major-league managers are faced with a quandary at this juncture: it's tough to get base hits, and it's become increasingly tougher to hit home runs in the current weather environment. The only lever left for them to pull is the running game, and at the macro level, that's exactly what they're doing.
Just three weeks ago, I wrote about how managers were showing a new level of aggressiveness in March in both Florida and Arizona. At that time, teams were attempting 2.33 steals per contest and the model that has previously served me well forecasted the possibility of 4,728 attempts in 2025, which would be a 3.3 percent increase from 2024. So far, that projection looks wildly low, as teams cannot afford to stand around and wait for the three-run home run in this moment. The chart below only goes back three seasons to avoid mixing in the change in stolen base conditions introduced prior to the start of the 2023 season. The stolen base attempt rates are through April 14th for 2023 and 2024 and through April 13th for this season:
What we are seeing there is a 21 percent increase in stolen base attempts over this time last season. If we were to assume the league continued attempting steals at this rate, we are on pace to see 5,213 stolen base attempts, which would be a 13.9 percent increase over last season's final total. That rate has tended to decline as the season goes on in recent years, but we did see an increase just this past summer as well:
The larger point in this moment is that the league is doing its best not to stand around and wait for something magical to happen and is doing what it can to generate offense in the face of yet another slow start to the season by running. Well, at least most teams are. We still have 10 teams that have yet to steal their 10th base of the year, while six others already have 22 or more steals on the season. The bar graph below shows each team's rate of attempting steals when second or third base is unoccupied in front of a runner:
The extreme ends of things shows Bo Bichette without a steal this season despite his 47 stolen base opportunities. He did attempt one steal but was caught. Conversely, Oneil Cruz has but 17 stolen base opportunities this season and yet is a perfect 8-for-8 in his attempts. If you would like to look up a specific player, this link takes you to the report to do that at Baseball Reference.
If you would like to get in on the steals while the league is attempting them at an unprecedented rate, I would suggest focusing on players above the red line more so than those lingering well below it. The Angels may be a classic example of the current conundrum, because it's well known that Ron Washington loves to use the running game, but the Angels currently lead all of baseball with 30 homers while attempting just nine steals this season. As the homers heat up, the steals will cool off, but for now, get your speed while it's hot, because everyone is suffering through the misery of yet another slow offensive start to the season.
