I know what you’re thinking - there should be no reason for me to be doing an analysis on the Post-Trash Can Astros this early. After all, it’s only been a week. I should at least give these guys a chance before I talk trash again.
Oh, what's that? George Springer, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman just went 0-21 against the Dodgers in a two game series? Yikes.
Wait, something even better than that happened?
Oh right, Joe Kelly turned into everyone's favorite player.
Ok, that’s enough. Now it’s time for the analysis.
Let’s start off with a positive. Carlos Correa seems to have been unaffected by the trash can banging as he currently has a slashline of .409/.500/.636 through his first 26 PAs (once again this is a “way too early” analysis). He is hitting the ball pretty hard at a 50% hard hit percentage and isn’t striking out too much, posting a 15.4 K% so far. His expected numbers are also very promising with a .311 xBA, .555 xSLG, and .414 xWOBA, all in the 88th percentile or higher. His chase percentage of 25% is also at a career low and his zone swing percentage of 68.4% is a career high, showing that he has been seeing the ball very well through these first few games. Obviously we can expect to see regression to the mean in Correa’s numbers, but for now, he seems like the best and most unaffected hitter on the Astros.
Now for the fun part. Here are the slashines for Springer, Altuve, and Bregman as of 7/30.
Springer .048/.200/.190
Altuve .174/.321/.348
Bregman .174/.321/.348
This isn’t a group of random players. They are the stars of their team. These three have a combined 11 all-star appearances and have led their team to a 2017 World Series Championship (with of course the help of a trash can). Their slow start to the new season could be partially attributed to a regression to the mean as both Springer and Bregman had career highs in all three slashline categories in 2019. Though other stars like Christian Yelich (.037/.071/.148) or Kris Bryant (.091/.167/.136) are having slow starts to the season themselves, their co-star players on their respective teams all are having strong starts to the season. For the Brewers, Lorenzo Cain (.333/.429/.389) and Keston Hiura (.522 SLG with 2 HRs and 5RBIs) have both enjoyed strong starts to their season, and for the Cubs, Wilson Contreas (.313/.389/.625), Javier Baez (.250/.308/.583), and Anthony Rizzo (.765 SLG with 3 HRs) have also performed well to start the season. The Astros, however, start the season with three of their best hitters from last season all of sudden looking like they forgot how to hit. Coincidence? I think not.
The main advantage the Astros hitters had with sign stealing was knowing exactly what pitch was going to be thrown, specifically breaking balls. Now that the Astros no longer are able to steal signs, we would expect to see an increase in whiff percentage and strikeout percentage. This is exactly what happened for Springer, Altuve, and Bregman.
K% (2019 → 2020)
Springer 20.3% → 24%
Altuve 15% → 28.6%
Bregman 12% → 17.9%
Breaking Ball Whiff % (2019 → 2020)
Springer 32.4% → 37.5%
Altuve 32.6% → 47.6%
Bregman 18.2% → 40.0%
Although it is still too early to judge the true impact that signal stealing had on the Astros, the beginning of the season hasn’t been the greatest for the players that one would expect to be performing well. Though I’d like Springer, Altuve, and Bregman to put up some god awful numbers just to prove a point, it’s likely that they’ll regress back to their means and be, at the very least, above average players this season. We will just have to wait and see where that mean is for each player, now without sign stealing, and how their numbers look at the end of the season.
Data courtesy of Baseball Savant and Baseball Reference