MLB Offense is Down…as is the Astros’ Offense

2024 offense is below recent years’ batting stats

With the injury to Kyle Tucker—as well as Alex Bregman’s recent back injury—Astros’ fans have seen their team’s offense struggle at times. But that is pretty common around the MLB. As a general matter, offense in 2024 has been below the average of recent years.

Who knows what caused the lessened offensive environment. The manufactured balls are slightly deadened? Fielders have improved? Pitchers are throwing harder and with more spin? An influx of less experienced hitters into the game? Randomness? Take your pick among hypotheses.

I wanted to take a surface look at the Astros’ offensive decline vs. how much the overall league offense has declined. In the tables below, I compared the average 2021 – 2023 offense with 2024 offense so far. Because 2024 is a partial season, I confined the comparison to rate stats. For simplicity, I examined Isolated Power (ISO), Batting Average, and wOBA. The first table is the league comparison, and the second table is the Astros comparison.

Fangraphs Leaderboard Data

• As expected, the MLB offensive environment is lower Power shows the biggest decline in 2024, with the league ISO down 2.9%. Batting average and wOBA are also lower than the 2021 – 2023 average.

• The 2024 Astros’ offense is down compared to 2021-23 in both power and wOBA. However, the 2024 offense has a slightly higher batting average than 2021-23. Whether sustainable or not, the batting average advantage (almost 20 points higher than league average) has enabled the Astros offense to maintain a good league ranking.

• The Astros’ power has declined almost 11% since 2021-23, compared to a league decline of 2.9%. The Astros’ ISO remains slightly above league average, but the Astros’ power decline does not appear to be primarily driven by the league wide change in the power environment. The Astros’ wOBA also declined by more than twice the percentage (3.2% vs. 1.0%) of the league. However, the Astros’ wOBA remains comfortably higher than the league wOBA. This combined offensive number reflects a blending of the increase in batting average and the decline in power.

Outfield Fielding Keeps Improving

Improvement in fielding around the league may be a factor in the decline in offensive environment. And outfield defense has seen a perpetual year to year increase outfielders’ fielding. Mike Petriello, the statcast writer, recently wrote that we are living in the golden age of outfield defense. Fly balls just aren’t finding as much green space anymore.

For example, just looking at 2023 vs. 2024, fly ball batting average has declined from .218 to .204, and fly ball OPS has declined from .884 to .824. (If you read Petriello’s article, you will note charts showing this to be a longer term trend.)

Petriello’s article shows a graph of the Outfield Outs Above Average By Year:

Petriello points out that outfielders are now faster and younger.

I know that commenters frequently complain about Jake Meyers’ droughts on offense. But the reason he is in CF is primarily to take advantage of his superior defensive skill. The Astros are in a race to maintain their defensive advantage in the outfield, considering that competing MLB teams are improving their outfield defense. The Astros outfield deployment will take a step forward when Kyle Tucker returns to RF. Tucker was enjoying a resurgent defensive season before his injury.

Final Note

According to Fangraphs, the Astros’ playoff odds have grown to 86%, compared to the Mariners at 23%. This reversal is incredible if you think back to mid-May. Does this affect your perceptions of Joe Espada’s managerial ability?

I listened to the MLB Network this morning, and Jon Heyman listed the best manager performances in the MLB this season. Joe Espada was No. 3 for his managerial performance. Heyman pointed to the eight injured starting pitchers, and Espada’s ability to stay the course and come back from the a terrible start to the season. Heyman also cited the fact that the Astros erased a 10 game deficit faster than any team in history.

Thoughts?