Runners in Scoring Position, BABIP and the Yankees

These past couple weeks have been rough. The Yankees have hit a bit of a rut and with this Posada thing last night, fans seem universally down. Moshe made several good points earlier on why the offense isn’t as bad as advertised, mainly in reference to their batting average. Lately though they’ve been pretty terrible. Here are some relevant facts on the offense.

-          It seems like the Yankees never score with runners in scoring position, right? I certainly feel that way. While the Yankees have a regular season wOBA of .345, which leads baseball, with RISP the Yankees have a .319 wOBA, which is middle of the pack.

-          Their BABIP with runners in scoring position is also pretty illuminating-it’s the second lowest in baseball at just .235, better than only the Athletics.

-          In April, the Yankees batted .253/.337/.475 with a .356 wOBA. In May though they’re down to .247/.333/.395 with a .325 wOBA. You’ll notice the only huge difference there is the SLG%. Too many hoomahs. In April they lead baseball in ISO by 20 points with a .222 mark.  In May it’s down to .148.

The whole, “too many homers” thing is ridiculous of course.  Scoring runs anyway you can get them is always the name of the game. Is it possible the Yankees score most of their runs via the HR? Sure. Is that some horrible, awful sign? Absolutely not. While it does seem they’re not scoring as much when it doesn’t come after a big fly, I think the low BABIP with runners in scoring position could be to blame. Going forward, I’d be surprised if that didn’t change.