Baseball is a fickle game.
The best hitters in the sport are still failing roughly 70% of the time, which is not something professional athletes in other sports have to come to grips with. A player could smash a ball with an exit velocity above 100 mph only to line out to a well-placed defender, while his teammate could follow that with a looping bloop down the line resulting in a double to raise their slugging percentage.
As they say, the numbers tend to even out over the course of a 162-game season. The best hitters ultimately will get rewarded more times than not on batted balls, but many hitters aren’t so lucky.
Included in that list of players experiencing bad batted-ball luck, according to a RotoWire analysis of Statcast data, are two Cleveland Guardians players.
Guardians’ Patrick Bailey, Jose Ramirez ranked among the ‘unluckiest’ hitters in MLB
RotoWire’s breakdown, including the entire month of May, analyzed 350 qualified batters’ expected stats (xBA, xSLG and xwOBA) against their actual stats. The results of which they have coined the “luck gap.” Essentially, the analysis shines a light on which players have much better expected stats versus what’s actually getting seen in the box scores.
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Defense-first catcher and trade acquisition from the San Francisco Giants Patrick Bailey checks in at No. 2 on RotoWire’s ranking of MLB’s unluckiest hitters by this measure. Only Gold Glove third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes of the Cincinnati Reds has experienced worse luck on batted balls.
According to their analysis, Bailey’s contact quality is dramatically outpacing his actual results. As RotoWire’s Thomas Leary writes that Bailey, “ranks second in MLB with a composite luck gap of −.314. Across 119 plate appearances, the catcher’s xBA outpaces his actual batting average by .076, while his xSLG exceeds his real slugging by .152. Bailey appeared on our early-season list as well, and his presence here two months in suggests genuine bad luck rather than a small-sample fluke.”
The Gold Glove catcher has always been known more for his flashy leather and pitch-framing skills than his bat. With a career slash line of .222/.280/.329, Bailey’s reputation as a light-hitting catcher is certainly warranted, so it’s interesting that he’s viewed among MLB’s unluckiest hitters when it comes to contact quality against actual results.
If that evens out over the remainder of the season, and Bailey’s paltry .148/.200/.333 slash line through 10 games with the Guardians improves, that would bring yet another spark to a much-improved Cleveland lineup.
The other Guardians player on RotoWire’s ranking is a much more accomplished hitter by comparison.
Future Hall of Famer Jose Ramirez checks in at No. 22 on the list of MLB’s unluckiest hitters. His luck gap sits at -.171, which is nowhere close to as stark as Bailey’s, but it certainly suggests his slash line of .228/.341/.397 at the time of writing is due for a rebound closer to his career figures of .278/.353/.500. J-Ram’s OPS of .738 at the time of writing sits at the lowest mark since 2015, which was the veteran’s third year in the majors.
While Ramirez’s bat is looking for better fortunes, his impact on the bases remains unchanged. As of June 2, J-Ram leads all American League players with 20 stolen bases. Across all of Major League Baseball, that total is second only to Washington Nationals speedster Nasim Nunez (22 stolen bags).
Entering games on June 2, the Guardians still hold a 1.5 game lead over the Chicago White Sox for first place in the AL Central. If the collective luck for Bailey and Ramirez turns around, the Guards may start pulling away for another division crown as the weather warms.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Unluckiest hitters in baseball? These Guardians may have a gripe
Reporting by Ben Leibowitz, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
