MLB trends: Craig Kimbrel’s crucial adjustment; Yordan Alvarez’s returning power; the worst offense since 1972

Only three weeks remain in the 2022 MLB regular season. The postseason races have really begun to heat up and a few unfortunate teams have already been eliminated from postseason contention. A dozen teams will play in October this year and there’s still plenty of time for the races to get flipped upside-down. 

With that in mind, our bi-weekly series breaking down various trends across the league continues Wednesday with one slugger rediscovering his power stroke, one closer getting his mojo back, and one team’s offensive futility. Last time we looked at the Red Sox’s lack of home runs, Reid Detmers figuring out his strikeout pitch, and Patrick Corbin trying to avoid 20 losses.

Alvarez’s returning power

By almost any measure Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez is one of the best and most feared hitters in baseball today. He is top three in the American League in on-base percentage and slugging percentage, and he’s top five in home runs, walks, win probability added, and a bunch of other important stats. Alvarez is one of the game’s greatest batsmen, clearly.

There’s also this: Alvarez entered Tuesday’s game with two home runs and a .339 slugging percentage in his previous 33 games. There was a noticeable dip in his contact quality as well. Alvarez’s expected slugging percentage, a quick and dirty measure of how hard a player is hitting the ball based on launch angle and exit velocity, slipped significantly in recent weeks:

Yordan Alvarez’s contact quality has suffered in recent weeks. Baseball Savant

That uptick at the end there is perhaps a sign the power is returning — Alvarez had three doubles and two home runs in his last five games and all five hits were rockets — and a nagging hand injury potentially explains the power outage. Alvarez missed one game in June, spent 11 days on the injured list in July, and missed another five games earlier this month with the hand issue.

“We want to make sure he’s feeling good, get him back in the lineup today, see how he is but our hope and expectation is that these things are behind us and we’ll see the Yordan Alvarez from earlier this year,” Astros GM James Click said during a radio interview on Sept. 4 (per MLB.com). Alvarez recently described the hand injury as “not anything to lose sleep over.”

The Astros are notoriously stingy with injury information — officially, Alvarez went on the injured list with “right hand inflammation” in July — though it’s not hard to connect the dots between an injured hand and a power outage. If your hand is compromised and you can’t grip the bat properly, you’re not going to drive the baseball. That certainly seems possible with Alvarez.

Houston has a sizeable AL West lead and if there were any long-term concern about Alvarez’s hand, he would be on the injured list. They wouldn’t risk further injury (or slowed healing) by letting him play through the injury. The Astros are in postseason preparation mode now and getting Alvarez healthy is a top priority. The fact his power has shown up these last five games is encouraging. Still, a hitter of this caliber having a month-long power outage is unusual, if not outright worrisome.

Kimbrel’s recent adjustment

Earlier this week the Dodgers became the first time to clinch a postseason berth, and Tuesday night they clinched their ninth NL West title in the last 10 seasons. The Dodgers are a juggernaut on pace for 105 wins with a staggering plus-320 run differential. No team has had a plus-300 run differential since the 2001 Mariners (plus-300 on the nose), and the Dodgers are likely to finish with the sport’s best run differential since the 1939 Yankees (plus-411).

If there is an Achilles heel with these Dodgers, it’s the closer situation. Craig Kimbrel is having the worst full 162-game season of his career — opponents are hitting .241 against him, something that seemed unthinkable even a year ago — though Los Angeles has given him a long leash, and now the faith is being rewarded. In his last eight appearances Kimbrel has thrown 8 1/3 hitless and scoreless innings while retiring 25 of 27 batters faced. That’s more like the Kimbrel of old.

The secret to Kimbrel’s turnaround? He “Let It Go,” as in the signature song from the movie “Frozen.” On Aug. 21, Dodgers players used walkup and entrance songs picked by their families, and Kimbrel’s wife and young daughter selected the number from “Frozen.” He’s stuck with it ever since and has been dominant.

So it was that easy, huh? Well, no. Although continuing to use the entrance song his wife and daughter picked is a cute story and endearing, there is much more tangible explanation for Kimbrel’s recent success. Specifically, he’s changed his position on the pitching rubber, and is now closer to the middle rather than the extreme third base side.

Kimbrel made the adjustment between his Aug. 17 and Aug. 21 appearances — his new position on the rubber coincided with his new entrance song — and you can see it here, though the camera angles don’t do us many favors:

Craig Kimbrel recently shifted his position on the rubber. MLB.com/CBS Sports

Changing positions on the rubber is a small adjustment that can pay huge dividends. The Cubs moved Jake Arrieta to the extreme third base side of the rubber and he turned into a Cy Young winner. The Rays moved Fernando Rodney to the extreme first base side of the runner and Blake Snell to the middle of the rubber, and they became dominant. There are countless other examples.

A shift like this changes the pitcher’s angles, his direction to the plate, how hitters see the ball out of his hand, etc. For Kimbrel, shifting on the rubber has allowed him to better land his curveball for strikes. That equals more favorable counts, a more effective curveball because it’s less likely to be an easy take out of the zone, and also a more effective fastball too. Everything plays up.

“I’m landing my breaking ball. I’m getting into counts where I’m ahead. I’m in good counts. That’s really the biggest difference,” Kimbrel told the Los Angeles Daily News about his recent effectiveness. “That was all of the things I was working on with my direction, my line (toward the plate). It wasn’t that my breaking ball hasn’t been breaking or hasn’t been hard to hit. It hasn’t been starting on the right line that hitters have to respect. That’s what I’ve been working on. I’ve gotten to the point where it’s in a good spot and I’m going to continue to work on it to make it better.”

Even after changing his position on the rubber Kimbrel’s strikeout rate remains way down relative to the rest of his career, and strikeouts are the best possible out. Late in close games, the situations Kimbrel often finds himself in, avoiding contact is a major plus. Getting that strikeout rate up will be the next goal. For now, Kimbrel has made a relatively minor adjustment that has gotten him on track these last few times out. Now he has to build on that recent success.

A’s offensive utility

By design, the Athletics are one of the worst teams in baseball this season. Since the end of the owner-initiated lockout they have stripped the roster down to the studs by parting ways with their most recognizable players via trade (Chris Bassitt, Matt Chapman, Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas, Matt Olson, Lou Trivino), free agency (Mark Canha, Jake Diekman, Yan Gomes, Josh Harrison, Starling Marte), and release (Elvis Andrus, Jed Lowrie, Stephen Piscotty). The result is a 51-91 skeleton crew.

The combination of a bad roster and a pitcher-friendly ballpark has led to a miserable offense. Entering Tuesday the A’s were hitting .217/.281/.345 as a team this season. For reference, Albert Almora hit .223/.282/.349 this year, and was released by 56-85 Reds earlier this month. The entire A’s team is hitting like Almora. Adjusted for ballpark and the offensive environment, the A’s have been 18 percent worse than league average offensively this season. They are truly dreadful.

With three weeks remaining in the season the Athletics are on pace to have the lowest team batting average since the 1972 Rangers (.217) and the lowest team on-base percentage since the 1968 Mets (.281). And the thing is, they’ve actually been better in the second half. The A’s hit .211/.272/.331 before the All-Star break. It’s .227/.298/.373 since. You can thank Seth Brown, Tony Kemp, and Sean Murphy getting hot for that.

The Athletics tore their roster down and raised (!) ticket prices this season as part of their efforts to secure a new ballpark. It is a tried and true formula. Tank attendance, say you need a new ballpark, and if you don’t get one, use the poor attendance to justify relocation. The A’s have been flirting with Las Vegas since last year (really longer than that) and sooner or later we’ll know whether they’re staying in the Bay Area with a new stadium, or moving.

What that means is it is likely to get worse before it gets better on the field. Murphy is likely a goner this offseason (top prospect Shea Langeliers is ready to take his spot behind the plate at a much lower salary), ditto Kemp and Ramón Laureano. Chad Pinder is a free agent-to-be as well. If you think the A’s are anonymous this season, next year might be worse. This is one of the worst offensive teams in long time, and it didn’t have to be this way.