MLB 2022 Recap - Were There Any Significant Changes?

Here are numerous charts showing where the 2022 MLB season compares to recent seasons. 

All data is from Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference

Summer Temperatures So Far

It's August 18.  Two more weeks to go before climatological summer is over. Sure, there will be more heat into September. No need to shut it down yet.  For comparisons year over year, we use 3 month increments. Summer climate comparisons use June, July and August.  Here are the HIGH TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES across the US August 1 through August 17:

High Temperatures vs Normal (Thru August 17)

Here are LOW TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES:

Low Temperatures vs Normal (Thru August 17)

Now the summer overall since June 1 in 3 increments:  Fairly consistent warmth across the midwest

Overall temperatures ranked (warmest is 1)

Summer overall across the US (ranked):

Feast to Famine: Ohio Rainfall Since June 1st. Any Relief?

Remember the active spring we had?  Seems like it was years ago.

Most of northern Ohio had between 1/2" and 2"+ rainfall above normal during the first half of June. The driest areas were eastern Geauga, Lake and most of Ashtabula counties.  

June 1-15 Rainfall vs Normal

Since the wetter stretch of weather in early June, rainfall has been sparse. Most of the area was running 1-2" below average since June 15th. This was in our long range forecast issued back on June 18th. Rainfall map is below.

Rainfall looking well below normal through the end of June and possibly beyond @fox8news pic.twitter.com/WtsxsqVDD1

— Scott Sabol, Meteorologist CBM/CCM (@ScottSabolFOX8) June 18, 2022

June 15-30 Rainfall vs Normal

However since the start of July, the pattern has reverted back to a spring one albeit briefly. Storm track has brought rain/storms in from the West-Northwest. Below is the July 1-6 rainfall vs normal.  

Let's break down the actual rainfall amounts over 3 day periods. I circled the regions where rainfall is between 0.75" and 1.25"

Now July 4 through early July 6th. Circled regions show rainfall between 0.75" and 1.5" and 2-3". Notice the extremely dry conditions across Lake, portions of Geauga and Ashtabula counties. 

The soil moisture has dropped significantly across the Ohio Valley since mid June.  Recent rainfall will help.  Duration of rain is key. Since these storms have moved fast, much of rain runs off instead of being absorbed into the ground.

Long range forecast shows rain this week. Beyond Saturday July 9, rainfall remains well below normal through July 19th!

 

Are Summers Becoming More Consistently Humid/Less Breaks?

The plots below are the average dew point for each day from June 1 to September 30 since 1972 for Cleveland. I color coded each dew point range for easy reference.

Dark Blue: 30-49°

Light Blue:  50-59°

Light Green:  60-69°

Dark Green:  70-80°

First image is the month of June. Reading left to right for day one through 30. Horizontal black line separates each decade. I notice more breaks from high humidity days in the 1970s and 1980s. More consistently high humidity in the mid/late 1990s into the early 2000s. Recently, lower humidity days seem more frequent in the first half of the month

Second image is July. Over the last 10-15 years the frequency of "lower humidity" days (light blue) seems less than previous decades.

Third image is August

Fourth image is September:

Let's only display the days with dewpoints UNDER 60.  Basically more comfortable days. Now we can see the frequency of delightful days for each summer month/day.  Some quick observations:

* Breaks in the humid days in June look to be more frequent in the 1970s/80s and early 2000s

* Breaks in humid days in July more frequent in the 1970s, early 80s and early 2000s.

* Breaks in humid days in August more frequent in the 1970s.

* Breaks in humid days in early September more frequent in 1970s and 1980s

JUNE DEWPOINTS SINCE 1972 (UNDER 60)

JULY DEWPOINTS SINCE 1972 (UNDER 60)

 

AUGUST DEWPOINTS SINCE 1972 (UNDER 60)

SEPTEMBER DEWPOINTS SINCE 1972 (UNDER 60)

Tornado Warnings - NWS Cleveland - Date of First Issuance

 

What's Different Between 2021 Jose Ramirez and 2022 Jose Ramirez?

Jose Ramirez is on a torrid pace. He leads the league with 62 RBI.  He's second in slugging percentage at 0.649. Looking at more advanced statistics, the story remains the same. His 0.437 wOBA is good for 4th in MLB.  His wRC+ of 193 ranks 5th. 

What stands out among the top hitters in run creation is their strikeout rate. The average rate of the players below (minus Ramirez) is 19.8%.  Jose Ramirez strikeout rate is... 7.4%. 

We've seen Jose Ramirez put up great numbers in the past. What is different about this season vs last season and others?  Let's examine contact.

Jose has always been a good contact hitter. His contact percentage across the entire strike zone has been between 86-90% over his career. The increase this year is 3% versus last season. What's more noticeable is his productivity increase.

His in-zone contact is virtually identical to last year. Not much change.

Look at his out-of-zone contact. A 10% jump compared to 2021!

He's making more contact at pitches out of the strike zone!  Contact is one thing.  How productive is his contact out of the zone? 

This graphic comes from Baseball Savant. We can assign run values to the strike zone based on each base state during a typical game. Here's a detailed explanation.

Take some time to familiarize yourself with the graphic. There are four regions:  HEART, SHADOW, CHASE, WASTE.  The total number of runs for each region is indicated on the left.  For example in 2021, Jose Ramirez's center of the zone total runs was +16.  Yet his shadow zone was -15 runs.  He was near league average in swings in the shadow zone, his productivity in runs was negative!

Compare last year to this season through June 16.

His shadow zone so far this season: +5 runs vs last year which was -15 runs.  

So far this season Jose Ramirez is 5th in MLB in runs in the shadow area. In 2021 he was 188th!

Basically, he's being more aggressive with more swings at pitches in the outer part of the strike zone and in the area just outside the zone.

Interestingly he is not hitting the ball as hard as last season.  Roughly a 10% drop in hard hit balls. This hasn't impacted his productivity as his overall wOBA is higher than in any previous season through mid June.  One reason for the reduction in hard hit balls is that he is hitting the ball more up the middle and pulling the ball less.

wOBA  Hard Hit%  Center Hit%

wOBA   Hard Hit%   Pull%

Has he made changes in his approach in different counts?

Here are his slugging percentage for each count over the last 5 seasons (not counting 2020).  His slugging is lightyears ahead of last season on the first pitch. 

The changes year-to-year sum it up: He's made significant improvements when ahead in the count especially at 1-0, 2-0, 3-0 and 3-1.  Also, his slugging jumped from 0.493 to 0.613 after the 7 inning!

Sure his production with the bases empty is in line with last year.  However he is productive when it counts. 

wOBA with runners on base/empty

Let's see if these trends continue.