The Grand Slam is one of the most exciting plays in all of baseball. It is the play that scores the most runs in an instant, the best thing a batter can do at any point in any game. Based on the Indians pitching staff this season, a single grand slam would likely be enough to win any given game, yet they have hit a total of zero this season.
The Indians are not alone here as seven teams have yet to hit one in 2015 including the Diamondbacks, Pirates and Rangers. While this is nothing new (two teams went slamless in 2014, three in 1980, which is as far as MLB.com’s split stats go back), it does show a marked decrease for the Indians. The chart below shows the team’s numbers with the bases loaded in the three seasons of the current roster make up (2013-2015) as well as the two best seasons in franchise history with bases loaded, 1999 and 2006.
All Situations | Bases Loaded | |||||||||||||
Year | AB | AVG | OBP | SLG | HR | AB/HR | Runs | AB | AVG | OBP | SLG | HR | AB/HR | Runs |
1999 | 5634 | .289 | .374 | .467 | 209 | 27.0 | 1,009 | 169 | .320 | .328 | .639 | 12 | 14.1 | 183 |
2006 | 5619 | .280 | .349 | .457 | 196 | 28.7 | 870 | 152 | .382 | .385 | .737 | 14 | 10.9 | 176 |
2013 | 5465 | .255 | .327 | .410 | 171 | 32.0 | 745 | 124 | .323 | .342 | .516 | 5 | 24.8 | 124 |
2014 | 5575 | .253 | .317 | .389 | 142 | 39.3 | 669 | 112 | .321 | .351 | .473 | 1 | 112 | 102 |
2015 | 3452 | .249 | .320 | .385 | 84 | 41.1 | 398 | 78 | .128 | .228 | .154 | 0 | 0 | 49 |
While obviously things have dropped off since the Tribe’s first and only 1,000 run season, there has been a more direct decrease in every offensive stat across the board since then. The left half of the chart shows the Tribe’s overall numbers and very nearly every stat has fallen each year.
There are two components of hitting a grand slam. The first is getting the bases loaded, something that used to be a lot easier. One possible reason for this is total lineup strength. The primary way to load the bases is by walking since a single to the outfield with a runner on second will generally score him. With a runner on third, only an infield single where the runner wasn’t going on contact will leave the bases juiced. Looking deeper into walks, the easiest way to do that is to have an intentional walk load the bases with runners on second and third and the only way that will happen is if the hitter at bat is so much scarier than the hitter on deck that it is worth the increased risk. The chart below shows the total of intentional walks and non intentional walks (left column) in the years originally compared.
2nd & 3rd | BB | IBB |
1999 | 17 | 17 |
2006 | 10 | 15 |
2013 | 17 | 11 |
2014 | 15 | 10 |
2015 | 6 | 10 |
The 1999 season featured one of the scariest lineups in MLB history, let alone Indians history. In general, the order went Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel, Roberto Alomar, Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome followed some combination of Richie Sexson, Travis Fryman and Sandy Alomar. Every player from three on was a home run threat including two of the biggest ever in baseball history. The top three, were especially adept at getting on base.
Looking back at our walks with runners at second and third chart, it shouldn’t be surprising that these generally weren’t walking Ramirez to get to Thome, although that did happen three times. Much more often it was walking Thome himself (4 times) or Justice (6 times) to get to the comparably weaker bottom of the lineup. Even when not directly on purpose, it was obvious pitchers didn’t want to face Justice with less talent behind him as he walked 7 other times in this situation, giving him 13 of the Indians 34 that year.
Because the most powerful players were unable to be completely avoided in this manner, Ramirez, Thome and Sexson accounted for 108 of the Indians’ 209 home runs, and six of the Indians’ 12 slams, but many others were involved as well. Accounting for the other six were Dave Roberts, Vizquel, Alomar (2) and Justice (2).
The second half of the grand slam is the easy part, hitting the home run. At least this used to be the easy part. In each of the first three seasons compared the Indians hit about 40 more home runs than they had at bats with the bases loaded. This season, that number has dropped to six. This is not attempted to assume causality, only to point out that they have been decreasing at very differing rates. In addition, if you remove Travis Hafner‘s 42 home runs from 2006 (154 other home runs), that season looks a lot more like the ones to follow than 1999.
That 2006 season was more of a fluke as far as grand slams are concerned than anything else. The team set the record for most in a season and Hafner tied the player record as well with six on his own. He did this without any of the help mentioned above as the number three hitter all year, Jhonny Peralta, walked just once with runners at second and third and never intentionally. Adding to the pure statistical randomness, seven other players accounted for the final eight slams with only Casey Blake hitting two.
On to more modern times, the Indians no longer have players so feared that you can’t walk a batter in front of them or a player like Thome or Hafner who is capable of regularly leaving the ballpark. The ten intentional walks with runners on show the overall weakness of the lineup, particularly the second half, and the lack of bases loaded opportunities is more a reflection on the fact that these Indians rarely get on base.
All things being equal, the chances of a team with a .320 OBP getting three runners on base in a row are about 3%. Given that just 2% of the Indians at bats this year have come with the bases loaded shouldn’t be too surprising, especially since that number is within 0.07% of every other season checked. More worrisome than the lack of home runs, however, should be the lack of hits altogether.
Just as 2006 was a fluke statistical year for the positive, 2015 seems to be a fluke towards the negative; some grand slam karma if you will. In general, it is much easier to get a hit with the bases loaded than not. The numbers from the first chart show that (this is the first year their average has been below .300 of those checked) and the logic does as well. With less than two outs, the defense often brings the infield in with the bases loaded, increasing averages and the pitcher is much more incentivized to throw strikes, leading to more pitches in the middle of the zone, also increasing the average batting average.
BL BABIP | |
1999 | .292 |
2006 | .296 |
2013 | .318 |
2014 | .361 |
2015 | .139 |
The final chart above shows some of this luck. Because of the increased chances of getting a hit and the decreased chances of taking a walk, you would expect a significant increase above the general league batting average on balls in play of about .300 when the bases are loaded and the Indians saw that in both of the two previous seasons. This year, however, things have completely changed. Instead of getting better, the Indians have been worse on an almost unimaginable scale.
For the whole year, the Indians have a BABIP of .290. With runners in scoring position it drops to a poor .249, but to be as low as .141 is pretty much unfathomable. This is contention changing bad luck. It is particularly attributable to luck as the Indians’ worst regular hitter according to BABIP, Carlos Santana, has still had a .250 on the season and even Jason Kipnis, who has a .375 BABIP on the season with a .326 average has hit safely only twice in eight at bats with the bases loaded. In fact, no Indians hitter has more than two hits with the bases loaded all year and eight have none, totaling 27 at bats between them. There are some very weird baseball things happening with this team and this may be the oddest of all. At this point, there is little the Indians can do, however, outside of playing out the season and hoping the karma flips back the other way in 2016.
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