Thu Apr 10, 2014 9:11 pm
Contributing factors, to my way of thinking:
You are in Target field, with 3 of your 6 starters LH and your two highest salaried hitters LH.
You have only 3 hitters with balance ratings farther right than 1R (Cano, A-Jax, and Ramiro Pena). Two of them hit left-handed against RHP, not the best plan in your ballpark, and the 3rd has only 18 AB through 114 games.
You are giving regular AB's to Wil Venable, who is a LH bat better against LHP. But you are seeing about 2 1/2 x as many RHP as LHP. This is, in general, sapping your whole lineup of considerable value - You think your platoon of 8R Pena and 3L Arenado is a righty-killing machine, but actually Arenado has more on-base chances and more XBH chances against lefties than Pena does against righties. So, rather than a net of 5R from your 3B platoon, it is more like E or 1L.
Run scoring in 2013 was way down from previous years, which means that teams constructed with cannon bullpens and weakish rotations are no longer so easily able to overcome a bad outing from your starter. This is consistent with a + run differential but a losing record.