Bees Again

              Well, I’m back again, taking a look at the Salt Lake Bees. Since we last met the bees have played Round Rock three times. The results were positive, 2 wins and 1 loss and a new winning percentage of .435. They may still be in 8^th place, but I’m still “buzzing” with excitement for these two wins. As I promised last time I will be taking a gander at the specific batting and pitching stats of the team. So let’s get after it.

             To start off, who do you think had the most games played as a batter? If you guessed Chad Stevens, you’d be correct. The 26 year old has batted in 112 games for the Bees. So Mr. Stevens batting in the most games, let’s look at their stats. They have a Batting Average of .289, On Base Percentage of .372, and a Slugging percentage of .488. A couple of fun facts about Mr. Stevens they have the most total bases on the Bees and 5 games played in the majors. Whilst playing in the show they have had 14 plate appearances, one run, and two hits. Now let’s transition from Mr. Stevens to the whole line up…well the 28 players that baseball reference provides me. The highest Batting Average belongs to Christina Moore, .350, and only six players have an average at or over .300. Those include Ben Gamell, Carter Keiboom, Bryce Teodosio, Gustavo Campero, Nelson Rada, and Christian Moore. I’m happy these six are sitting over .300, but that does mean 22 players are under .300. This is 75% of batters hitting less than a third of the time. “But Matt Batting Average isn’t everything”. Duh that’s why I have more words about stuff to write. Looking at OBP 21 players have an OBP at or over .300. Nelson Rada is leading the team with a .469, though it is only from 24 games with 91 at bats. So I guess we can call that a small sample size and assume it will not carry through the rest of the season. Though Mr. Rada, I hope you prove me wrong.

             Moving from hits and getting on base let’s look at runs. Leading the team again is Mr. Stevens with 70 runs and 65 RBIs. This means that 17% of his at bats have resulted in a run and 15% of their At Bats have resulted in an RBI. Which is much better than I can do, though compared to Ryan Ward of the Oklahoma City Comets they are lagging a bit. Why did I choose Mr. Ward? Well because they have the most At Bats, Runs, and RBIs on the number one team in the league. While I’m just looking at the two top players on the Bees and Comets, it does show that the Bees could improve their standing by increasing those percentages. Another factor is that eight of their players have a Batting Average at or above .300 and 22 players with an OBP above .300. What does this comparison mean though? It is literally just two more people with a .300 or more Batting average and one more person with an OBP of .300 or more. I think it means that if only a few more members of the Bees stepped it up they could be much higher in the standing. Though that is with the caveat that AAA players who are looking good should be moving into the majors quickly leaving the team with lower performers…At least that is my opinion.

             I know I sated above that I would be talking both hitting and pitching…but I’m not going to get to pitching this time. It’s late on this fine Labor Day and I am tired. So, I am going to leave that for next time. Thank you again for your time and thank you to the Bees players for doing their best each game! I look forward to the next series against El Paso this week. Call me an optimist, but I believe the Bees can take all six games!

All stats pulled from https://www.baseball-reference.com/ on 09/01/2025