MLB Trends Report: April Review and Seasonal Ramifications

Image credit: © Dale Zanine-USA Today Sports

In this series, we’ll review key MLB trends in scoring, position player pitching and injuries, as well as the ramifications of this season’s rule changes. This is a month-by-month examination to isolate seasonal trends. (Throughout this report, April refers to March and April. After all, April is both an idea and a calendar page.)

Nacional oeste
G
P
Pct.
JA

Dodgers
19
13
.594
—

Giants
14
16
.467
4.0

Padres
15
18
.455
4.5

Diamondbacks
14
17
.452
4.5

Rockies
7
22
.241
10.5

Nacional central
G
P
Pct.
JA

Brewers
18
11
.621
—

Cubs
18
12
.600
0.5

Reds
16
14
.533
2.5

Cardinals
14
16
.467
4.5

Pirates
14
17
.452
5.0

Nacional este
G
P
Pct.
JA

Braves
19
9
.679
—

Phillies
20
11
.645
0.5

Mets
15
14
.517
4.5

Nationals
14
15
.483
5.5

Marlins
7
24
.226
13.5

Americana oeste
G
P
Pct.
JA

Mariners
17
13
.567
—

Rangers
16
14
.533
1.0

A’s
14
17
.452
3.5

Angels
11
19
.367
6

Astros
10
19
.345
6.5

Americana central
G
P
Pct.
JA

Guardians
19
10
.655
—

Royals
18
13
.581
2.0

Tigers
17
13
.567
2.5

Twins
16
13
.552
3.0

White Sox
6
24
.200
13.5

Americana este
G
P
Pct.
JA

Orioles
19
10
.655
—

Yankees
19
12
.613
1.0

Red Sox
17
13
.567
2.5

Blue Jays
15
16
.484
5.0

Rays
14
17
.452
6.0

Of course, you already knew all this. When I do this in August, you might think, “Wow, I didn’t know that [elige un equipo] did that [bien/mal] in July”. April’s records have already launched a flotilla of narratives. The reason I’m posting it here is that, as I noted in this article, more than a quarter of the teams with a winning percentage of .400 or below in April have had a winning record for the rest of the season, and a similar proportion of teams with a record of .600 or better in April have had a losing record the rest of the way. (Full disclosure: Since I wrote that article, 7 of 31 teams with a winning percentage above .600 in April have had a losing record the rest of the season, most recently last year’s Pirates. Only 4 of 30 teams with a winning percentage of .400 or lower in April had a winning record the rest of the season, most recently last year’s Tigers). This year there are 12 teams on those ends. Which ones will reverse the trend for the remainder of the year?

Run scoring

In April, teams scored 4.38 runs per game. A figure lower than last year’s 4.59. Historically, it is little. In the April 25 months of the 30-team era that began in 1998, 4.38 runs ranks 18th.

But those races did not all come equally.

Runs per nine innings Month First nine Innings Extra Innings Position players April 4.36 10.48 13.50

Pitchers gave up 3,839 runs in 7,930 innings pitched in the first nine innings of April games. In extra innings, they gave up 123 runs in 105 and ⅔ innings. And the position players—a subset of the top nine total—appeared in 19 games, pitching 18 innings and giving up 27 runs. As usual, the game played after the conclusion of the nine innings has more than double the number of scores than the one played in the first nine.

As for the position players, it’s not that they have been good, but their poor performance is attributable to two games in particular. On April 11, Luis Guillorme allowed four runs in the final inning of Atlanta’s 16-4 loss to the Mets. On April 27, the Cubs were down 11-0 against Boston when Matt Mervis pitched the eighth inning. He faced nine batters and retired only two, allowing four singles and three doubles. Chicago had to call up another position player, Patrick Wisdom, to relieve. He allowed a single and a walk before he ended the inning. In total, Boston scored six runs, all with two outs, all charged to Mervis. If we remove the inning and two-thirds of Guillorme and Mervis, the position players allowed 9.37 runs per nine innings, a figure that true extra-inning pitchers would envy.

In this way, the normal scores per game in April…

…are a little less impressive if you take away the zombie running back and the pitching infielders.

In runs per game, Abril ranks 18th overall when playing real baseball with real pitchers.

Here’s the breakdown since the implementation of the universal designated hitter.

Position players throwing

Before last season, MLB changed the rules regarding pitching by position players. Downside teams may use a position player only when they lose by eight or more runs; the previous limit was six. Winning teams may use a position player only in the ninth inning, and only when they are winning by ten or more runs; Before there was no limit. (There were, and still are, no limits on the use of position players in extra innings.)

This was supposed to reduce the use of position players as pitchers. I expressed my doubts. In April of last year, he was right. This year no.

The 19 position players who appeared on the mound in April games tied in 2021 for the second most in history. But he was not the first one who had the most.

Injuries

There was a lot of talk in April about injuries, as Spencer Strider, Eury Pérez and Shane Bieber, among others, had to undergo elbow surgery before the first week of the season was completed. How was the month compared to previous seasons? Here’s a graph of DL signings during the first month of the season (i.e. DL signings announced after the first day of the season, through May 1).

On that basis, 2024 seems a bit ominous. But let’s remember that the season started relatively early this year, on March 28. For days, nothing seems out of the ordinary.

However, this is not the final word on early season injuries. Derek and I have new research that we will present in a few days.

running the bases

With the shot clock-adjacent shutdown rule implemented last season, stolen bases increased considerably. But so did the stolen base success rate, well above the break-even point. That led people, including me, to expect even more stolen bases in 2024, with less risk aversion pushing the success rate back to the cost/benefit balance of about 75%.

That’s how it was in April.

You may have read that stolen bases in April were below last year’s pace. That was true at the beginning of the season; teams were stealing less than 0.7 bases per game with a 78% success rate through April 15. In the last 15 days of the month, they stole more than 0.8 with a success rate of 79%. We could still see many more thefts in 2024.

Game time

Perhaps the most interesting finding from this series last year is that while the shot clock significantly reduced game time in 2023, the year-over-year reduction decreased over the course of the season. Nine-inning games (those in which the home team batted in the ninth inning) were nearly 31 minutes faster in April 2023 compared to April 2022. Year-over-year time savings decreased in all subsequent months: 28 minutes in May, 27 in June, 25 in July, 22 in August and 18 in September.

Apparently, the MLB was aware of this. In 2024, the time between pitches with runners on base will be limited to 18 seconds, down from 20 seconds last year. What’s winning it so far this year: MLB’s efforts to further limit game lengths or players’ efforts to lengthen them?

It seems like a tie. Nine-inning games in which the home team did not bat in the ninth averaged 2:32.1 in April 2024 versus 2:32.7 in April 2023. Games in which the home team batted in the ninth had an average of 2:40.5 vs. 2:40.8 in 2022. Since playing time is reported in minutes, these differences are negligible. The April games were just as long as those in April last year. The shortened pitch clock with runners on base—when about 43% of pitches are thrown—did not produce savings.

Thanks to Derek Rhoads for the injury data.

Thank you for reading

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2024-05-10 12:01:39
#month #April