When Pitchers Wield the Lumber

Monday, June 06 2005 @ 02:53 PM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

The Blue Jays visit Chicago and Houston this week. When they do, they will be playing by National League rules. And you know what that means.

Are you as excited about seeing Gustavo Chacin swing the bat as I am?

As sure as eggs is eggs, at some point during the coming week, we will hear some tall forehead explain that American League teams are at a disadvantage because of course AL pitchers don't normally hit.

Listen up, people. NL pitchers don't normally hit, either. They take lots more at bats, but hitting? Not so much.

Magpie! Are you prepared to back up such a sweeping statement with something that could be construed as evidence?

Well, yeah. I prepared lots of pretty numbers for you to ponder. Here is the "hitting" performance of each major league team's pitchers since the onset of inter-league play in 1997. I have ranked them in order of Runs Created per 27 outs. And I hope you like it, because getting these numbers to line up... well, it's a good thing that I have no life, and have all this time to waste trying to entertain you:

Team	        AB   R  H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO  BAV  OBP  SLG SB CS GDP HB SH SF IW OPS RC27

Minnesota      149   5  29  4  0  0   6   6  57 .195 .226 .221  0  0  2  0  11  0  0 .447 1.66
Colorado      2594 225 464 75  5 26 196  92 860 .179 .210 .242  3  6 35 11 281 12  0 .452 1.65
St.Louis      2659 171 429 73  6 12 162 118 967 .161 .200 .207  2  4 32  9 265  6  0 .406 1.31
San Francisco 2701 201 436 68  2 15 160 100 842 .161 .196 .205  2  5 45 17 336 12  0 .401 1.27
Atlanta       2582 155 401 65  4 14 168 131 870 .155 .200 .200  3  3 39 12 349  2  0 .399 1.26
Seattle        161  10  28  4  0  0  10   4  51 .174 .194 .199  0  0  3  0  21  0  0 .393 1.24
Chicago Cubs  2592 169 407 70  1 17 158 103 987 .157 .191 .204  3  2 31  6 331  7  0 .396 1.24
Cleveland      164  13  24  0  0  3   7   7  74 .146 .186 .201  0  1  2  1  16  0  0 .387 1.17
Texas          151  12  22  6  0  1   8   4  61 .146 .178 .205  1  0  4  2  13  0  0 .384 1.13
Philadelphia  2376 145 344 67  1 10 138 134 954 .145 .192 .186  1  0 41  6 302 11  0 .379 1.11
San Diego     2514 163 359 66  4  9 156 120 997 .143 .186 .183  5  5 41 14 222 12  0 .369 1.06
Tampa Bay      133   7  19  4  0  1   6   5  58 .143 .174 .195  0  1  3  0   8  0  0 .369 1.05
Los Angeles   2553 155 354 63  7 22 127  81 978 .139 .167 .195  5  5 33  6 321  5  0 .362 1.01
Arizona       2260 131 317 51  5  8 107  97 873 .140 .179 .178  3  1 36  9 222  6  0 .357 0.98
Washington    2483 131 350 48  4 13 116  90 953 .141 .174 .179  2  1 23  8 301  4  0 .353 0.97
Florida       2574 135 356 57  8 19 133  78 934 .138 .165 .189  0  1 40  4 220  6  0 .354 0.96
Houston       2626 167 361 62  5  7 166  88 994 .137 .171 .173  3  1 30 18 326  8  0 .344 0.92
New York Mets 2460 134 337 46  3  6 137 116 967 .137 .178 .165  2  2 32  6 270 12  0 .343 0.91
Anaheim        150   8  20  4  0  0   8   8  63 .133 .182 .160  1  0  4  1  13  0  0 .342 0.89
Pittsburgh    2463 126 333 48  4  7 117 102 976 .135 .172 .166  3  1 30  8 299  4  0 .339 0.88
Milwaukee     2199 104 289 39  4  8  98  91 898 .131 .167 .164  0  1 35  4 237  3  0 .331 0.84
Cincinnati    2401 112 302 43  2  6 116  83 983 .126 .157 .153  3  2 25  7 291  6  0 .310 0.74
Chicago WS     145  11  17  2  1  0   2   8  65 .117 .163 .145  1  0  3  0  17  0  0 .308 0.71
Toronto        168   7  18  3  1  1   4   5  62 .107 .153 .155  0  2  3  4   9  0  0 .307 0.70
Baltimore      152  11  17  3  0  0   6   9  74 .112 .161 .132  0  0  1  0  11  0  0 .293 0.64
Detroit        153  11  17  2  1  0   4   7  76 .111 .150 .137  0  0  1  0   9  0  0 .287 0.62
NY Yankees     171   8  20  5  0  0   7   4  70 .117 .137 .146  0  0  4  0  18  0  0 .283 0.60
Kansas City    155   5  15  2  0  0   4   4  75 .097 .119 .110  0  2  4  0  13  0  0 .229 0.38
Boston         143   8  11  1  0  0   1   7  66 .077 .120 .084  0  1  2  0  19  0  0 .204 0.29
Oakland        149   7  10  2  0  0   3   6  66 .067 .109 .081  0  1  3  1  10  1  0 .190 0.25
How trivial are these differences? Well, in 1998 Eric Milton went 4-9, all singles. If instead he'd grounded out four times, Minnesota would fall to fifth place.

Are you wondering who stole all those bases? Well, I will tell you. The Prince of Thieves is San Diego's Adam Eaton, with 5 SB since 1997. Tied for second, with 3 apiece, are Mike Hampton and Greg Maddux (Maddux? Yes.) Darren Dreifort and Orel Hershiser each have two SB. Dreifort also hit 6 HRs during this period, which I'm pretty sure puts him second to Hampton in the Home Run Derby.

It's true that the very worst hitting teams come from the AL. Nearly half of the AL teams hit just like the NL pitchers - and the rest of them hit just like you and me. How much does it matter?

Not a whole lot. The difference between the best hitting staffs - Minnesota and Colorado - and the worst hitting staffs - Boston and Oakland - is large indeed. However, it's not nearly as the large as the difference between, say, Reed Johnson and Carlos Delgado. It's roughly equivalent to the difference between Reed Johnson and Vernon Wells (or, for that matter, the difference between Vernon Wells and Carlos Delgado. Vernon, off 2004, is roughly right in the middle between Sparky and Carlos.)

Now that is indeed a huge difference over the course of 650 plate appearances - it amounts to roughly 20 - 25 runs a year, and that's enough to make a tangible difference in the W/L column.

But not even NL staffs send their pitchers up to hit anywhere near that many times, and AL pitching staffs, as a unit, seldom make as many as 30 plate appearances in a season. The difference between the best hitting staff in the AL and the worst is, at best, more like two runs. Over the course of the entire AL season.

Ah, but that isn't the main thing most teams want their pitchers to do when they wield the lumber. If they can manage to get a bunt down when needed, we'll take that. Won't we?

I guess. Do NL staffs succeed at getting the sac hit more regularly than AL staffs? It's hard to know for sure, because it's very difficult to figure out how often they were asked to bunt. Well, we know it would be every time there's a runner on first or second and less than two outs - it's just hard to know how often that circumstance arose. At least it's hard to know without doing way more work than I feel like doing.

What we can figure out is how many sac hits each team's staff had per plate appearance. So here's another pretty table:

Team	                Pl App	SH	SH/PlApp

Atlanta	                3076	349	0.113
Boston	                 169	 19	0.112
Seattle	                 186	 21	0.113
Chicago Cubs	        3039	331	0.109
Philadelphia	        2829	302	0.107
Los Angeles	        2966	321	0.108
San Francisco	        3166	336	0.106
Houston	                3066	326	0.106
Pittsburgh	        2876	299	0.104
Washington	        2886	301	0.104
Cincinnati	        2788	291	0.104
Chicago White Sox	 170	 17	0.100
New York Mets	        2864	270	0.094
Colorado	        2990	281	0.094
Milwaukee	        2534	237	0.094
New York Yankees	 193	 18	0.093
St.Louis  	        3057	265	0.087
Arizona	                2594	222	0.086
Cleveland	         188	 16	0.085
San Diego	        2882	222	0.077
Anaheim	                 172	 13	0.076
Texas	                 170	 13	0.076
Florida	                2882	220	0.076
Kansas City	         172	 13	0.076
Minnesota	         166	 11	0.066
Baltimore	         172	 11	0.064
Oakland	                 167	 10	0.060
Tampa Bay	         146	  8	0.055
Detroit	                 169	  9	0.053
Toronto	                 186	  9	0.048
Assuming that this is indicative of anything, the AL staff with the most sac hits are getting bunts down just as regularly as the best NL staffs. And this is about twice as often as the worst. But still - the difference for the AL teams is roughly one successful sac bunt each year - a difference of one or, maybe, two bases gained.

There is roughly one thing that does seem to be suggested by both tables. More or less half the AL pitching staffs swing the bats with about the same general level of mind-numbing incompetence as their NL counterparts. And the other half is even worse, busily plumbing new depths of non-performance.

These guys suck. Pretty well all of them. Even Mike Hampton sucks, when you get him out of Coors Field. (Two years and 143 AB at Coors: .315 with 10 HR. The rest of his career, in 496 AB: .218 with 4 HR.) He's Ken Huckaby with a little more power.

It just doesn't matter.

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