Kurtenbach: The SF Giants are baseball’s best bean(e) counters

What's the SF Giants' secret? A rarely cited stat might provide the answer.

What’s behind the Giants’ success this year?

Countless things. You could point to team chemistry, or pinch hits, or Gabe Kapler making the right moves at the right time. There’s also player development and the bullpen. I could go on and on.

But if you were looking for something quantifiable — something to count — may I suggest Beanes.

Yes, ESPN has a rarely-cited stat called Beane Count, created by now-West Coast League commissioner Rob Neyer and named after Oakland A’s Vice President Billy Beane, the face of baseball’s modern analytics movement.

The Beane Count is a super simple stat, summing up a team’s ranks in home runs hit, walks drawn, home runs allowed, and walks allowed. But to me, it perfectly sums up success in baseball in 2021.

And the Giants have the best Beane Count in baseball, ranking first in home runs hit, fourth in walks taken, second-fewest home runs allowed, and fewest walks issued. Their Beane Count is eight.

Not only are the Giants doing well in all of those categories — they’re miles ahead of their peers in the NL in home runs hit and lapping all of baseball with walks allowed.

The second-best Beane Count in baseball? That belongs to the Tampa Bay Rays — the Giants’ spiritual brothers — and the team with the best record in the American League, despite having a payroll of around $70 million — roughly a quarter of the Dodgers’ payroll.

Of course, the Rays and Dodgers played in last year’s World Series. They were also their respective league leaders in Beane Count in the regular season.

When the Astros won the World Series in 2019, they had the best Beane Count in the American League.

Are you seeing the trend? You have to go back five years to find a World Series where at least one of the pennant winners didn’t also lead their league in Beane Count.

Obviously, there is more to baseball than walks and home runs — I sure like doubles, for instance — but Beane Count is modern baseball in a shell.

Yes, the nerds won. Algorithmically inspired baseball is no longer the counter-culture, it’s a baseline requirement for success. Yes, we’ve reached the point where Moneyball is required practice, even for teams with money, leaving us in a place where every baseball team is now, effectively, a hedge fund. (On the field, so many of these teams carry all the pizazz and sparkle of high finance, too.)

And the three true outcomes which have defined this modern game are really two: walks and homers.

Strikeouts have become so ubiquitous that there’s little — if any — correlation between regular-season success and strikeout rate. (The small sample size of the playoffs might be another story.)

No, it’s all about round-trippers and free baserunners these days.

And so long as the Giants remain the best team in baseball in those categories, I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ll remain the best team in baseball overall.