08-24-2021, 08:36 PM
The Athletic had an interesting analysis of how much of a home run-dependent team the Giants are.
It's true that the Giants score a very high proportion of their runs via home runs, but the Giants also have the best record in MLB in their homerless games. Of the 30 MLB teams only 14 have won more than 30% of games in which they don't homer and only 4 teams have won more than 40% of their homerless games. The Giants are 14-16 (.467) in their homeless games this year.
Obviously sample sizes are small but this does seem to refute the narrative that the Giants are overly dependent on home runs and unable to win games that require manufacturing runs the hard way. The reality is that it's difficult for any team to win a game without hitting a home run, and just because the Giants are better than other teams at hitting homers doesn't correlate to being worse than other teams at winning games via other means.
It's true that the Giants score a very high proportion of their runs via home runs, but the Giants also have the best record in MLB in their homerless games. Of the 30 MLB teams only 14 have won more than 30% of games in which they don't homer and only 4 teams have won more than 40% of their homerless games. The Giants are 14-16 (.467) in their homeless games this year.
Obviously sample sizes are small but this does seem to refute the narrative that the Giants are overly dependent on home runs and unable to win games that require manufacturing runs the hard way. The reality is that it's difficult for any team to win a game without hitting a home run, and just because the Giants are better than other teams at hitting homers doesn't correlate to being worse than other teams at winning games via other means.
