Chart of the Day: RISP Production

A couple of things stand out on that graph. Most noticeably, the American League as a whole is trending downwards as production with runners in scoring position has dropped each of the past five seasons with a bit of a leveling off over the last three. Secondly, after three seasons of outperforming the American League in one or both splits, the Rays have failed to do so in each of the past two seasons

Last year, the team had a .307 wOBA in this situation while the league was .319 and missing Evan Longoria for 85 games certainly did not help. The Rays had their fewest plate appearances with runners in scoring position in 2012 as they came to the plate 1507 times with runners in scoring position, which represented a drop off of 179 from the previous season and 316 from two seasons ago. 2012 was a low point for power production as the team hit just 27 home runs with runners in scoring position, 11 fewer than any other season during the competitive era.