The Brewster

The rumor around the league is that the Hawks are the “hottest team” in baseball right now. While that could be argued either way, the more important question may be, how exactly are the Hawks winning all of these games all of a sudden?

Well, let’s point to 1 statistic.

Home Runs. Not just by the bat, but home run’s being kept in the part by Omaha pitchers.

Okay, so let’s face facts. Omaha plays in a home run friendly ball park. There’s no question about it. They have already played 45 home games this year, 15 more than away games. So leading the FL in Home Runs makes sense and should be expected.

You would expect the same when the Hawks are in the field. They have had 45 games where they have taken the batter’s box at Hawks Field, which also means they have had to take the pitcher’s mound for those 45 games as well. This would only mean you should expect to find the Hawks near or at the very top for most home runs allowed as a team.

The Hawks have hit 138 home runs this season, most in the FL as mentioned.

They have allowed 103 home runs this season, which ranks 9th in the FL, basically putting them in the middle of the group.

The teams +78 run differential speaks volumes to not only runs being generated the team ranks first in the FL with 406, but don’t overlook the teams ranking of 4th in the FL with only 328 runs allowed. A .244 opponent batting average can be credited with keeping opponents on base.

For a team that went from winning 60 games a year, to a team that had to attempt to out-shootout it’s opponents by way of the long-ball, to a the team that it is now, A team that can win by hitting home runs and can trust it’s pitchers, has been a tremendous transformation for the city of Omaha.

It's a nice place to be, leading the league in HR. My best seasons have happened when I lead the league in HR hit and fewest allowed. I'm doing well on the latter this year at least.

Omaha's and Madison's offenses are interesting case studies....

Omaha: Doesn't walk a lot, doesn't strike out, not very high up on the list in hits, Hits HRs = 1st in runs scored

Madison: Draws walks, doesn't strike out, higher OBP, 2nd in SBs, last in HRs = 13th in Runs Scored

Granted we don't have a lot of base hits either. So drawing walks and stealing bases isn't creating runs for us. But hitting them out of the ballpark will always generate runs.

At the end of last season I was trying to calculate Fangraphs' BaseRuns for the league... It's basically a different measure of overall offense...sort of an advanced stats PYTH I guess.

Anyway there's some stats required that aren't easily captured from OOTP and it turned out to be a bit more work than I wanted it to be.

That's all to say I wonder how much sequencing is playing a role in the run production of Omaha vs Madison.

StatsPlus does base runs. SO there's that. I think the team's ballparks are big wrap factors in the case of Omaha and Madison. Both are on opposite extremes.