Improvement at the Plate Helps Ducks to Winning Conference Record

If you’ve watched “Moneyball,” you know there’s a school of thought in professional baseball that uses player offensive statistics to try and put together winning teams. You don’t have to be Billy Beane (or Brad Pitt for that matter) to understand that - no matter if it’s baseball or softball - if more players get more hits, draw more walks or otherwise reach base more often, your team has a better chance of scoring runs and winning games.

During the 2023 Pac-12 season, Oregon improved across the board in key offensive statistics and this, combined with improvements in pitching and defense, allowed the Ducks to improve from a 10 - 14 Conference record in 2022 to 14 - 10 in 2023.

As a team, the Ducks performance at the plate was better than their Pac-12 opponents in the aggregate in all measures. The Ducks had a higher batting average, scored more runs, had more hits, drew more walks and hit batsmen. This led, inevitably, to a higher on-base percentage than Conference opponents as well.

This record of achievement at the plate for Oregon’s hitters stands in stark contrast to their 2022 performance against Conference opponents. In the previous season, Oregon underperformed Pac-12 teams in all the same offensive categories.

It’s the same data, but it’s easier to see the improvement in Oregon’s offensive stats if the two seasons are shown together.

Some of the improvement is more marginal - runs went up 6.7 percent for example - while others took large leaps. Walks jumped 17.6 percent while Duck batters were hit by pitches 2.5 times as often in 2023 as in 2022. On-base percentage was up 7.7 percent.

There’s no denying that Oregon’s improved pitching also shows itself in these statistics as well. In 2022, Oregon pitchers walked or hit an astonishing 83 Conference opponents. This past season, this number of “free bases” dropped to 52, down over 37 percent.

Individual Performance

Team statistics are of course made up of individual statistics and of the nine Oregon players who had a meaningful number of at-bats in 2022 and 2023, six showed an improvement in batting average and on-base percentage. Of the three whose average and OBP dropped (Carlson, Sinicki, McGowan), two showed a much smaller decline in on-base percentage than batting average.

Oregon will bring back a number of experienced and improving hitters for the 2024 season. Not included in these stats due to a lack of 2022 plate appearances are players such as Kedre Luschar. After only two at-bats in Conference games in 2022, Luschar had 29 at-bats in 2023, hit 0.276 and had an on-base percentage of 0.300. Combined with what looks like a quality returning pitching staff, the Ducks will be seeking to use improved offensive production to advance past the Super-Regionals and on to the 2024 College Softball World Series.