How The Arizona Diamondbacks Are Winning
Bad Offense, Good Pitching, and an Unconventional Bullpen
The Arizona Diamondbacks are (as of June 29th) 47–34 and in second place in the entire National League, just 0.5 GB of the Milwaukee Brewers. They are 3.5 games up on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West. The overall weakness of the NL has surely contributed to their standing atop the league, but their wins are undeniable. The ways that those wins are coming, however, is in a strangely bizarre fashion.
The Diamondbacks have a league average or below average offense in almost every statistical category this season. By itself, that doesn’t raise eyebrows; they consigned themselves to a below-average offense by not resigning JD Martinez. AJ Pollock, who was on an MVP pace, has missed 41 games (over half the season). Paul Goldschmidt woke up from an ugly slump but is still hitting just .267, well below his career average of .296. However, he is tied for fourth in the NL for home runs with 17 but is also leading the NL in strikeouts with 95. Jake Lamb, their power hitting 3B, has only played 37 games. Steven Souza was acquired in the offseason to help offset the absence of JD Martinez, and well, he’s only played 14 games too and just got put back on the disabled list until mid-July.
The most basic offensive statistic, runs, has its flaws. In general, though, runs scored can provide a pretty good snapshot of the league’s standings when viewed against wins. From the graph below, we can see that runs scored has a strong relationship with wins. We can see, that the Diamondbacks (big red dot) are outperforming their expected win total vs runs scored by the third largest margin among teams with a record above .500.
Arizona ranks 13th in the MLB in runs (360). Their team batting average of .227 is abysmal, tied with the Orioles for last in the majors. Their Batting Average on Balls In Play is .275, 29th and mere points ahead of Baltimore. As is, the D-Backs average just 4.44 runs per game. So how have they won 47 games?
By allowing less than 4.44 runs per game of course! It’s simple math. The easiest way to wins baseball games is by scoring more than your opponent. Arizona’s team ERA (again, a simplistic way of viewing this, but it tells us what we need to know) is 3.40, good enough for third in the MLB and just behind the Astros (2.82) and the Yankees (3.37), both of whom are World Series contenders. That’s a remarkable figure considering the frequent state of the back end of Arizona’s rotation.
Zack Greinke and Patrick Corbin are established pitchers; Corbin is having a career year, but we saw flashes of this talent back in 2013, pre-Tommy John surgery. Zack Godley has started 16 games but is sporting an ugly 4.58 ERA just a year after a 3.37 mark in 25 starts. The rest of the rotation has been a revolving door. Robbie Ray just returned after an extended absence to make his seventh start, posting 6 scoreless innings and 6 Ks. His return will help stabilize the rotation.
In his absence, the D-Backs have had Matt Koch (12) and Clay Buchholz (7) make numerous starts as Shelby Miller worked his way back from Tommy John Surgery. Miller has now returned and can hopefully remain healthy through the season. If so, he would give the Diamondbacks and extremely talented, if volatile, 5th man in the rotation.
The defense of the Diamondbacks has helped carry the lesser starting pitchers. Arizona ranks sixth in the MLB with a .277 BABIP against and their pitchers have left 78.4% of runners on base. The team’s overall ground ball % of 47.1% is the highest in the MLB, making it a lot easier to get force outs and hold runners on. In fact, with 203, Arizona ranks third in the majors in double plays. Forcing these double plays has been helped by the ground balls that pitchers have forced which then leads to more stranded runners. For a team that ranks about league average in strikeouts (8.68 K/9, 13th in the MLB), Arizona has compensated by turning those missed strikeouts into ground balls, a more efficient way of getting hitters out than a 5 or 6 pitch strikeout, which has allowed Arizona’s starters to pitch 457.2 innings combined, good for sixth in the MLB.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the Diamondbacks’ stellar bullpen, one of the best in the majors. The relievers for Arizona do everything their starters do and take it to another level. A bullpen ERA of 2.51 ranks 1st in all of baseball, as does a ground ball % of 51.9%, and a left on base % of 82.7%. Surprisingly, and somewhat counterintuitively, the Snakes’ bullpen is one of the least strikeout happy in the league, ranking 29th in bullpen K/9 (7.95). The typical “best” bullpens in the majors, the Astros, Yankees, and Brewers, average 10.85, 12.03, and 10.65 K/9 respectively. Those marks are 2nd, 1st, and 3rd in the entire league. That’s just another facet of the game where the Diamondbacks differ from the consensus best in the majors.
As currently constructed, the Diamondbacks are a pitching-heavy team, an identity they’ve never really had before, except for early-2000s maybe. This team has talent and star power but needs a little bit more offense to compete late in October and November. The returns of AJ Pollock, Steven Souza, and Jake Lamb will help, but an impact trade may be the eventual answer (please please please trade for Manny Machado).
The Diamondbacks success is a little unexpected given their weak offense which leads to another point of angst I have with the franchise. Why the heck not just pay JD Martinez last fall?!?! I don’t want to hear the money reasons because the owners are trying to move out of a 20-year-old stadium. They have plenty of money! If you’re going to own a team, how about spend that $$$ and win?! Re-signing Martinez means that it wouldn’t be necessary to wade into the Machado sweepstakes and you’d probably have 50+ wins. I want the D-Backs to succeed, but if they don’t, I hope it’s because they don’t have the offense they need and they can watch the rest of the playoffs and see just how good JD Martinez really is.
