Game 41 - State of the offense, part two
The Mariners are in a good spot to start the year, but their outlook is limited by a too-low contact rate on offense.
One of the goals for the Mariners this year was to get off to a strong start. It’s something the front office, the coaching staff, and the players all commented on. There isn’t an exact threshold where the season turns from “it’s early” to “it’s not early.” But Scott Servais has said it takes him about 40 games to get a feel for the roster. And so here we are.
The Mariners are 22-19 after Sunday’s 8-4 win over Oakland. They’re in first place in the AL West by a half game over Texas. It’s their best start since 2018.
2023: 21-20
2022: 17-24
2021: 21-20
2020: 19-22
2019: 20-21
2018: 24-17
2017: 19-22
2016: 24-17
In the first 41 games, the Mariners have outscored their opponents 156-150. They’ve won seven series, including those against the Rangers, Astros and Braves. They’ve had dominating wins, close wins, and comeback wins. They’ve displayed one of the best rotations in MLB and even flirted with a very specific record that takes a few sentences to explain but is impressive when you think about it.
The story of the season, however, remains the offense, which has looked inconsistent at times and consistently bad at others. The Mariners have a 97 wRC+, a .300 wOBA, and .303 xwOBA. Those rank 18th, 24th, and 26th, respectively.
Here’s their average wOBA rolled over 100 plate appearances.
The Mariners have only been above average about 37% of the time—the fifth lowest rate in MLB. That number is even lower at 33% when looking at xwOBA.
Here are their CoreScore rankings so far.
CoreScore: 11th
Heart Swing Index: 7th
Whiff Rate: 28th
EV50: 6th
LA wOBA: 16th
The Mariners approach has been great. They rank in the top 10 by the heart swing index, meaning they’ve dedicated a high portion of their swings to pitches down the middle. They’re not chasing out of the zone, and they’re not watching good pitches go by—they’re making good swing decisions.
The’ve also made decent contact. By overall contact quality, the Mariners rank 11th with a .378 xwOBAcon. They're hitting the ball hard with the sixth best EV50, and they’re hitting the ball at OK angles with a league average launch angle wOBA.
But these positives are cancelled out by one big negative—the Mariners are among the worst in MLB at making contact. They have the third worst whiff rate at 28.3% and the fourth worst ball-in-play rate on heart swings at 42.1%. As such, more than 30% of the pitches they’ve seen this year have come with two strikes, leading to an MLB worst strikeout rate of 28.4%.
The good news is the Mariners as a team are doing most things good or great. If they can make more contact without a massive dip in quality, they’ll likely finish with a better-than-average offense.
The bad news is that contact rate isn’t weather dependent, and the Mariners can’t rely on another summer boost. The issue in April and May in prior seasons was that cold weather suppressed an overall good offense, and the team ran a strongly negative wOBA-xwOBA. As the season warmed up, more well-hit balls started to land for hits or clear the fence, and the offense scored more runs. This year, however, the Mariners wOBA-xwOBA is about even, suggesting they’re not losing much if anything to the weather. If you cut and paste these Mariners with these fundamentals into August, they probably aren’t more productive.
The underlying contact issue right now is the issue, and they will have to intentionally improve in that area before we see better results.
The Mariners potential isn’t capped by the data to this point, of course. This isn’t the 2022 Mariners, where only one or two core players are producing and it’s unclear how they can extract more value from the fringes. The 2024 Mariners have several historically good batters who are slumping at the same time, and that probably won’t be the case for all of the next four months.
The other positive is that, for better or worse, the Mariners have banked 22 wins that can’t be taken away. They’ve gotten through (hopefully) the toughest part of the season in first place without help from their best batters. If they start to make more contact, the Mariners are in a great position to compete for 90+ wins and the AL West.
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