Notes on A Dysfunctional Offense

Tuesday, June 10 2008 @ 09:55 PM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

Dewey was wondering if the Blue jays lead the majors in runners left on base. No, it just seems that way.

By popular demand, a Data Table!

The teams are listed by the number of runs they score per game. You will notice that the Blue Jays are second in the AL in people left on base - the Rangers, who score more runs than anyone else in the league, also leave more runners on base. That is quite normal.

What the Blue Jays are doing is not.

                                                                         Est. Base     Lost Surviving    
Team RPG HR RBI AVG SLG SB CS BB HBP GDP OBP LOB Runners OE 1 BRs BRs OE 2

Texas 5.55 81 346 .284 .465 35 8 244 21 45 .354 511 923 .391 53 870 .415
Boston 5.06 71 315 .282 .444 58 12 245 29 70 .357 501 910 .367 82 828 .403
Chicago White Sox 4.77 83 299 .259 .429 22 11 228 26 63 .335 443 820 .372 74 746 .409
Detroit 4.65 62 284 .259 .411 21 7 227 19 56 .333 445 800 .366 63 737 .398
Tampa Bay 4.63 66 284 .264 .412 72 25 225 18 43 .335 452 817 .362 68 749 .395
Minnesota 4.59 40 281 .270 .391 45 19 182 9 50 .325 437 791 .372 69 722 .407
NY Yankees 4.58 65 286 .273 .429 31 14 202 27 58 .340 462 830 .353 72 758 .387
AL AVERAGE 4.50 59 276 .261 .404 41 15 215 21 53 .331 457 810 .356 68 742 .389
Oakland 4.49 46 268 .252 .379 29 8 249 14 50 .331 478 808 .350 58 750 .377
Cleveland 4.42 58 271 .240 .381 33 10 219 41 45 .320 446 773 .366 55 718 .394
LA Angels 4.22 54 260 .256 .383 53 18 193 21 58 .320 442 778 .352 76 702 .390
Baltimore 4.21 67 251 .252 .407 43 20 206 13 41 .320 423 756 .351 61 695 .381
Toronto 4.14 41 253 .262 .377 46 22 255 26 76 .341 504 868 .315 98 770 .355
Seattle 4.00 53 240 .249 .377 46 13 178 9 49 .306 428 728 .352 62 666 .384
Kansas City 3.70 39 223 .257 .372 36 20 154 17 44 .310 428 736 .322 64 672 .353

Chicago Cubs 5.50 70 333 .282 .445 42 17 262 25 47 .361 513 920 .383 64 856 .411
Philadelphia 5.29 93 331 .263 .454 43 7 245 25 39 .341 481 859 .400 46 813 .423
Florida 4.97 95 299 .261 .457 31 11 198 19 34 .326 438 782 .400 45 737 .425
Pittsburgh 4.83 62 295 .258 .402 18 7 210 27 38 .327 470 815 .379 45 770 .401
Arizona 4.78 71 291 .250 .427 24 8 242 22 39 .330 449 796 .384 47 749 .409
NY Mets 4.68 53 275 .254 .392 62 14 244 12 46 .330 470 797 .364 60 737 .393
St. Louis 4.66 58 289 .273 .412 28 13 278 16 59 .356 524 901 .336 72 829 .366
Atlanta 4.66 64 285 .275 .427 25 10 256 13 60 .352 519 874 .341 70 804 .371
Cincinnati 4.60 74 282 .255 .415 48 22 254 14 42 .333 481 831 .360 64 767 .390
NL AVERAGE 4.55 63 276 .259 .410 39 14 227 21 47 .332 474 816 .356 61 755 .384
Houston 4.50 64 272 .264 .416 64 20 177 18 37 .322 427 769 .375 57 712 .404
Milwaukee 4.41 70 266 .252 .413 44 17 203 34 36 .323 464 781 .356 53 728 .382
LA Dodgers 4.33 43 248 .264 .382 54 20 209 15 60 .332 438 783 .349 80 703 .388
Colorado 4.16 50 252 .254 .393 47 14 219 20 48 .326 482 796 .329 62 734 .357
San Francisco 4.09 46 255 .262 .403 55 21 197 21 55 .326 467 797 .329 76 721 .363
San Diego 3.66 53 228 .242 .369 21 6 229 25 46 .316 507 803 .296 52 751 .317
Washington 3.62 42 222 .232 .348 23 13 215 31 62 .309 455 746 .315 75 671 .350


Let me explain some of the more cryptic headers. Estimated Base Runners simply adds a teams hits and walks and hit by pitches. This doesn't account for everyone who reaches base - guys reach on errors as well, which appear as outs in the batting record. We're hoping that they're fairly even at this point in the season. As a rule, though, RH batters reach base on error more often than LH batters, and Toronto does have a somewhat RH heavy lineup.

The Jays are 3rd in the league in Estimated Base Runners with 868, trailing only Texas and Boston. No surprise there - they're third in ONP, behind the same two teams. Alas, they have managed to get only 273 of those base runners safely home. If I divide those runs by the number of BaseRunners, I get .315 - which I'm calling Offensive Efficiency to save time. That .315 figure is the worst in the American League, and comes very close to being the worst in the majors.

There are some obvious reasons for this. The Blue Jays have lost more base runners through double plays and caught stealing than any other team in the majors. When we take those lost runners out of the picture - generallly 30 more lost base runners than the other AL teams - they're still third in the league in number of runners, but much closer to the middle of the pack. They're still not very good at turning those Runners into Runs (that's the OE 2 column, which divides Runs Scored by Surviving Base Runners), but the gap isn't as wide.

The problem is pretty obvious. It's a Power Shortage. Toronto is 13th in the league in Slugging. They're 12th in the league in Home Runs. They're even below the league average in hitting doubles, which absolutely boggles the mind. There are only so many runs you can score by hitting singles.

Weird things are afoot, and the weirdest of all is that the more runs are being scored in the National League than the American League.

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