Baltimore Orioles: Three Really Fun, Early Offensive Stats For The Birds

The season is young, but here are three fun stats from Baltimore Orioles’ hitters to start the 2019 season.

When the 2019 Baltimore Orioles lose a baseball game, they really lose a baseball game (see their second series against the New York Yankees or one of their three losses against the Oakland A’s), but when they win, it provides one pleasant evening of fun baseball for fans to enjoy in year one of the rebuild.

Back-to-back series wins on the road against American League East foes was a pretty unbelievable moment in these first two weeks of the season. Davis Hess taking a no-hitter deep into a game against the Toronto Blue Jays was another. And how about the blazing speed of Cedric Mullins and Richie Martin on Monday night when they combined for three triples in one night?

There have been a lot of unbelievable and surprising moments through the first two-plus weeks of the season. Here are three individual offensive statistics that have shocked us all, aren’t flukes, and should make for an interesting 2019.

Trey Mancini has been a force for the Baltimore Orioles.

Trey Mancini is making the art of hitting look pretty easy. He’s been quoted numerous times as saying his hot start has a lot to do not overthinking each at-bat, a simple, yet extremely complicated task.

You hear about it during the game broadcasts, how Mancini has stopped trying to cover the entire plate and is instead waiting for his pitch to be delivered where he wants it. Fastball comes in on the outside part of the plate? Mancini sends it the other way for an opposite-field home run. He looks confident at the plate and his numbers are showing that.

Thursday’s 0-4 with a strikeout performance against Oakland was the first time all season Mancini was kept off the basepaths. During his 12-game stretch to start the year, Mancini recorded five multi-hit games and found himself near the top of the leaderboards in several offensive categories.

As of Thursday, Mancini has a 216 wRC+, good for 7th best in the major leagues, behind the likes of Mike Trout (288), Cody Bellinger (249), Pete Alonso (230), and others.

He’s hitting .333 with six home runs, two doubles, 12 runs driven in, a .392 ISO, and .725 slugging percentage. Only Bellinger, Khris Davis, and Jay Bruce have more home runs than Mancini.  His expected stats are a close match to his actual stats, meaning this isn’t a lucky streak. The 27-year-old OF/DH is putting barrel to baseball, keeping the ball off the ground, selectively swinging at his pitches, and has been effective at limiting the strikeouts (currently under 20%).

In his impressive rookie season, Mancini finished with a 1.7 fWAR, following it up with a -0.2 mark in a season that saw his offensive production dip, across the board (minus matching his 24 home runs and slightly increasing his walk rate). In just 13 games this season, Mancini is worth 0.8 fWAR.

These numbers may not be sustainable, however, nothing shows that Mancini is experiencing a lucky streak that will come crashing down at any moment. His numbers will obviously stabilize over the next few weeks, but will likely continue to be a better version of Trey Mancini than we have ever seen.

Jesus Sucre has been a pleasant surprise for the Baltimore Orioles.

To be honest, I was going to find any way possible to write about Jesus Sucre. The Baltimore Orioles catcher went from being stuck in Venezuela with visa issues and arriving to camp much later than his teammates, to becoming a leader on the field for this young roster.

His emotion behind the plate is fun to watch and he’s clearly a student of the game. Frustrations were high when Chance Sisco was sent to the minor leagues after a hot start to spring training, but he’s off to a 1-18 with seven strikeouts start to the year with the Norfolk Tides. The Tides have faced a one elite pitching prospect after another through their first week, but that doesn’t excuse Sisco’s early performance. Choosing to go with Sucre over Sisco has been the right choice, up to this point.

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Despite me wanting to find any reason possible to write about Sucre, I didn’t have to look hard to find an eye-popping number. It’s not his .226 average or .273 on-base percentage. It’s obviously not his .531 OPS or one total extra-base hit in 31 at-bats. It’s all about his ability to put the ball in play.

Sucre is currently sporting a 9.7% whiff rate on pitches he’s seen in 2019. The 30-year-old catcher sports a career whiff rate that falls well below league-average, but single digits is highly impressive. He’s making contact on 98% of pitches he swings at in the strike zone and swinging at the first pitch just 6% of the time.

Throw Jesus Sucre a strike and he won’t miss it. His swinging strike rate is 3.7%, which is good for ninth best in baseball, among hitters with at least 30 plate appearances. He’s a fraction of a percentage point behind the likes of Mike Trout and Mookie Betts in this category. Good things happen when you put the ball in play, something Sucre is pretty good at.

Are there any numbers that are surprising to you? Positive numbers only, please. We’re trying to keep our minds off a certain first baseman and his lack of production at the plate.