It does seem that big hits happen often when a pinch hitter is up to bat. Are these guys truly as good as all that?
When the Atlanta Braves – or any other club – puts together a roster in the Spring, there is always a great debate about the 23rd/24th/25th spots and how they will be allocated.
This season, the Braves had 2 of these more-or-less locked up even before arriving in Florida last Febaruary: Charlie Culberson and Johan Camargo were both coming off of excellent years and each was still under team control.
It wasn’t until late in the process that Matt Joyce became available, and yet he seems to have fit in like he’s working this role for years.
It’s time, though, to stop and take stock of the Braves bench. We’re essentially at the halfway point of the season (Game #81 of 162 happens Wednesday evening), we’re approaching the trade season… if a change is needed, now’s the time to think about such things.
Let’s take a look at some numbers and see how good these guys have really been.
Not that obvious
Part of the difficulty in investigating such things is that almost everything gets to pinch hit at some time or another.
For example, the Atlanta Braves – as a team – are hitting .239 when called upon to pinch hit*.
* all stats cited are current as of Tuesday morning, June 25.
Doesn’t really sound that good, right? It’s actually worse than that.
The PH slash line for the entire team is .239/.33/.451/.785. These are rather pedestrian numbers overall, though the team OPS+ is still 112, which is above league average.
But to put this into better perspective, pinch hitters as a group have an OPS worse than any other position… except Nick Markakis‘ .770 in RF.
But this hardly tells the right story… let’s look at the bench players themselves:
- Charlie Culberson: 64 plate appearances; .328/.375/.603/.978
- Matt Joyce: 83 plate apps (he’s started in the field more often); .310/.410/.493/.903
- Johan Camargo: 133 PA; .254/.293/.405/.698
Let’s go further, for there are some notable splits coming up…
- As a starter, he’s hitting .400 with an OPS of 1.163 (7 games)
- As a substitute, it’s .261 (.262 specifically in a pinch hitting role; OPS .772).
- His “substitute role” OPS is .762
- As a starter, he’s hitting .230 with an OPS of .605 (23 games(
- As a substitute, it’s .308 (.208 specifically in a pinch hitting role; OPS .782).
- His “substitute role” OPS is .906
- As a starter, he’s hitting .300 with an OPS of .663 (5 games)
- As a substitute, it’s .342 (.333 specifically in a pinch hitting role; OPS 1.067).
- His “substitute role” OPS is 1.159
What to Make of This
There’s a few obvious conclusions to be had here:
- The pinch hitter who should be the guy off the bench in the most critical spot of any game is clearly Charlie Culberson. He has 30 plate appearances in that role and is arguably the best (or at least Top 3) in the majors, given his ‘sample size’
- Johan Camargo has been doing much better in recent days: he’s hitting .500 in the last 4 weeks and .600 in the last 2.
- Matt Joyce has been much better as a starting player and perhaps he should be in lower leverage situations as a pinch hitter.
- That said, he’s also been hot at the plate over the past month: .435 in the past 4 weeks and even better more recently.
It’s difficult to rate the Braves’ bench against the rest of the league – not without checking on literally every player since it’s hard to separate the ‘real’ pinch hitters from the ‘occasional’ ones.
The Giants have the most pinch hit AB’s (13). Atlanta has 113 (5th overall).
The Braves’ average (.239) is 6th in the NL (Pittburgh leads with a stunning .342 over 111 AB).
Boston leads the AL at a .439 average, but this is over just 41 AB.
10 teams are hitting under .200 as pinch hitters (Cincinnati the worst at .161).
There is one trend that the Braves should notice in future games, though…
Go No Further
Other than the 3 guys we’ve noted above, virtually no one else on the entire Braves roster should ever pinch hit unless Brian Snitker is desperate.
As well as these 3 “regular” bench guys are hitting, that poor-ish team PH average has to be coming from someplace else… and the answer is “everybody else”.
Prepare yourself for some ugly numbers:
- Markakis: .333 (1 for 3)
- Donaldson: .000 (0 for 4)
- Inciarte: .000 (0 for 3)
- McCann: .000 (0 for 2)
- Flowers: .000 (0 for 2)
- Swanson: .000 (0 for 1)
- Albies: .000 (0 for 1)
- Acuna: .000 (0 for 1)
- Riley: .000 (0 for 1)
Yeah – that adds up to 1 for 18.
The conclusion here? The Atlanta Braves actually do have one of the better hitting benches that they’ve ever had available… so long as those guys are the only ones called upon to hit late in games.
The rest of the team? Gotta work on that.