photo: Billie Hara
Jon Heyman at Sports Illustrated applied a measurement he called the "Worry Meter" in a recent column, detailing a few major league teams "who have struggled out of the gate, and just how worried they should be."
Despite leaving Altoona with a 5 game loss streak at the back, I'd put the worry meter for the Squirrels somewhere in the 2 range out of 10.
Only 13.3% of events that get a Squirrels player on base have resulted in runs so far this season, quite low compared to an already low league average of 27.4%. Last season's aggregate league total was 40.2%. Game callers tend to fixate on men being left on base as a problem a team should be able to correct, perhaps with some kind of mystical "clutch hitting ability."
This isn't a problem, though; it's just bad luck. Joe Posnanski ran the numbers on LOB% a couple of weeks ago, and the thing about leaving men on base is, it doesn't lose games. The team that leaves the least men on base only wins 41.8% of games.
A far more useful predictor of win probability is more total men on base. The team that puts more total men on base in a matchup can expect to win 82.7% of the time. And that's an area where the Squirrels outperform both of their opponents to date: Richmond is posting a team on-base of .308, compared to .290 for Altoona and .286 for Bowie.
Even better than on base as a win predictor, the team with more total bases wins 84.7% of the time, and it's another area where Richmond outperforms both their early season opponents, posting 83 TB (league 5th) to Bowie's 70 and Altoona's 69. Those are pretty significant differentials, and very positive indicators that the basement isn't a product of poor performance.
The only problem to date with this offense is sample size. If the lineup keeps producing just like it has, the win column won't stay so quiet for too long.
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