Hard hits hit hard by hard luck? One metric has Rangers believing so

Advanced metrics are a whole other world for most baseball fans, but these days baseball teams don't operate without them.

Now, the new numbers aren't perfect, as many of formulas have been tweaked and tweaked against based on a new concept or improvements in technology.

Many times the metrics don't correlate with the stats found on baseball cards. For every set of probabilities, there's the flip side that says, well, just because it's probable it doesn't necessarily mean it will happen.

How do the math guys often account for that? Luck, good or bad.

One particular metric that the Texas Rangers study is hard-hit rate. It sounds simple enough — the percentage of times a hitter or a team's hitters hit the ball hard — but subjectivity can skew that numbers.

Nevertheless, the Rangers entered Monday tied for the MLB lead in hard-hit rate, according to Sports Info Solutions. Over at FanGraphs, the Rangers were No. 1 by themselves.

After a 9-4 loss Monday, they fell to second, but their .232 batting average was 12th in the 15-team American League, their .305 on-base percentage was 13th and their .377 slugging percentage was 11th.

Based on hard-hit rate, it sounds like the Rangers are leading the league in bad luck. But that rate is one of the stats that has the Rangers believing their production at the plate will turn around.

"Bad luck? I just look at it this way," manager Jeff Banister said. "Baseball is 162 games, and over the course of time that trend changes if you can continue to put the ball in play hard."

The Rangers trailed only the Oakland A's in hard-hit rate, and those two squared off again Tuesday night at Globe Life Park.

Hard-hit rate alone does not make an offense churn, and Banister identified other things the offense is doing well. He said that the Rangers are first in productive outs and in the top five at moving runners over and getting runners home from third base.

The Rangers' .206 average with runners in scoring position was fifth-worst in the AL, but teams can score runs without a base hit. Their first run Monday scored on a wild pitch, but their other three scored on a two-run homer by catcher Robinson Chirinos and doubles by third baseman Adrian Beltre and left fielder Joey Gallo.

FanGraphs has Beltre fifth on the team in hard-hit rate at 43.8 percent. Chirinos leads at 50 percent, followed by infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa (48.3), second baseman Rougned Odor (44.8) and Gallo (44.3).

"There are other positive signs other than just that," Banister said. "You can kind of sit back and wait and hit, hit, hit your way, or you can increase your team at-bat production."

But hits extend rallies. They don't give pitchers a breather.

If a hard-hit ball is caught, it's not a hit.

Beltre just rolled his eyes when informed that the Rangers are flourishing in hard-hit rate.

"I think this game is about results," Beltre said. "If you go 0 for 4 with four line drives, you're still 0 for 4. If you go 4 for 4 with four bloopers, you're still 4 for 4.

"There's no doubt that people want results. That's what we want. Yes, we've had some good at-bats with men in scoring position, but we haven't gotten the job done. We'd rather have a couple bad-hit balls fall in than line drives that are caught because we want to score more runs for our pitching staff."

The pitchers could use the offense's help. While the offense had hit the ball harder than just about any in baseball, no pitching staff had allowed more hard-hit balls than the Rangers (42.9).

That metric didn't seem unlucky at all.

This story was originally published April 24, 2018 at 8:28 PM with the headline "Hard hits hit hard by hard luck? One metric has Rangers believing so."