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It is my custom to examine some odds and ends at the conclusion of the regular season, once the final game is in the books and I've had a chance to update my Big Honking Database. I like to play Snakes and Ladders, I like to check in with Pythagoras...

A digression. The Big Honking Database contains fairly detailed records for each team (runs scored and allowed, at home and away, in one-run games etc) for the last 120 years or so. It's a fairly hefty (2803 row, the columns go to GC) Excel file. It was a chore to assemble it in the first place, and add on to it as various subjects caught my fancy. All this would be much easier if I were starting from scratch today, with all the marvelous upgrades we've seen at at baseball-reference.com, of course. Anyway, the Database had a very close call this year. A couple of months back my hard drive failed. Oh, I'd heard and read many horror stories describing this sort of thing. But it had never happened to me, not in almost 30 years of using computers. Was I prepared? Of course not. I didn't have a backup in place. I lost absolutely everything, everything I'd saved for the last fifteen years (except my music collection, stored on an external hard drive.)

But by the happiest of freak chances, I'd copied the Big Honking Database to my laptop for some reason. So I'm still good to go. And perhaps because the Database had such a narrow escape, I'm inclined to wring more from it than usual this year. Much, much more.

We shall begin by checking in with Pythagoras, ancient Sage of the Desert.

As everyone knows, the number of games a team wins and loses can generally be predicted by the relationship between the runs they score and give up. Elementary, my dear Watson. We are interested, as always, in the teams that don't match up to their Pythagorean expectation. There are two, and only two, reasons this can happen: a) an unusual level of performance in close games in general, one-run games in particular or b) an unusual record in blowouts. The right combination of unusual performance in both of these areas can produce some very, very strange results indeed. What makes this especially interesting is that these two explanations say completely different things about the ball club affected. If a team has an exceptionally good or bad record in one-run games, they've just had a run of strange luck, one way or the other. That is all. The results of one-run games really are as random as a roll of the dice.

 
In a close game, the impact of random chance is sufficient to overwhelm the impact of overall quality.


My favourite example of that, by the way, comes from 2003. You remember that awful Detroit Tigers team, who went 43-119? They had a better record in one-run games (19-18) than the mighty Atlanta Braves, who finished first and won 101 games that year. Those Braves went just 17-25 in one-run games. That sort of thing happens all the time, and this season was no exception.

Blowouts, however, actually tell us something about a team's quality. You don't lose games by six runs because you keep catching a bad break. It takes genuine ability to make a habit of beating the other team senseless.

Something else I want to cast an eye on. You may recall (and if you don't, you could always pretend) that about a year ago, I introduced a brand new phrase to the Baseball Lexicon: the Pythagorean Swing. Well, it caught on like wildfire, and there's probably no need to explain it to this crowd. But let us take no chances, and save one or two of you the trouble of looking up the explanation from last year. Suppose Team A underperformed it's Pythagorean expectation in 2008 by 3 games. Let us further suppose that this very same team then went out and over-performed its Pythagorean expectation in 2009 by 9 games. That's a 12 game swing to the good, right there without the team doing anything different on the field. And in fact, this particular team really didn't do anything different on the field. Not even a little bit. They scored 1 - yes, one - more run than they had scored in 2008. They allowed 5 more than they had allowed in 2008. Yet their record went from 63-99 to 75-87. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 2009 San Diego Padres.

So let's have a look at 2010:

        PYTHAGORAS SAYS                            REAL WORLD                        Difference From            
                                                                                    Pythag. Expectation Pythagorean
Team    G    Ex W  Ex L  Pyth Ex  RS    RA  Run Diff |    W   L    PCT    RS   RA  |  2010  2009  |      SWING
 
MIN    162    93    69    .575    781  671    110    |   94   68   .580  781  671  |    1    0    |        1
CHI    162    86    76    .532    751  704     47    |   88   74   .543  751  704  |    2   -1    |        3
DET    162    82    80    .505    751  743      8    |   81   81   .500  751  743  |   -1    5    |       -6
CLE    162    69    93    .425    646  752   -106    |   69   93   .426  646  752  |    0   -7    |        7
KC     162    63    99    .390    676  845   -169    |   67   95   .414  676  845  |    4    0    |        3
                                               
TB     162    98    64    .604    802  649    153    |   96   66   .593  802  649  |   -2   -2    |        0
NYY    162    98    64    .606    859  693    166    |   95   67   .586  859  693  |   -3    6    |      -10
BOS    162    89    73    .547    818  744     74    |   89   73   .549  818  744  |    0    0    |        0
TOR    162    84    78    .518    755  728     27    |   85   77   .525  755  728  |    1   -9    |       10
BAL    162    61    101   .379    613  785   -172    |   66   96   .407  613  785  |    5   -4    |        8
                                         
TEX    162    92    70    .568    787  687    100    |   90   72   .556  787  687  |   -2    1    |       -3
OAK    162    86    76    .529    663  626     37    |   81   81   .500  663  626  |   -5   -6    |        1
LAA    162    79    83    .485    681  702    -21    |   80   82   .494  681  702  |    1    4    |       -3
SEA    162    57    105   .351    513  698   -185    |   61  101   .377  513  698  |    4   10    |       -6
                                     
CIN    162    92    70    .571    790  685    105    |   91   71   .562  790  685  |   -1    3    |       -4
STL    162    92    70    .569    736  641     95    |   86   76   .531  736  641  |   -6   -1    |       -6
MIL    162    75    87    .465    750  804    -54    |   77   85   .475  750  804  |    2    2    |       -1
CHC    162    72    90    .444    685  767    -82    |   75   87   .463  685  767  |    3   -2    |        5
HOU    162    67    95    .413    611  729   -118    |   76   86   .469  611  729  |    9    7    |        2
PIT    162    51    111   .315    587  866   -279    |   57  105   .352  587  866  |    6   -3    |        9
                                           
PHI    162    96    66    .593    772  640    132    |   97   65   .599  772  640  |    1    0    |        1
ATL    162    94    68    .579    738  629    109    |   91   71   .562  738  629  |   -3   -6    |        3
FLA    162    81    81    .501    719  717      2    |   80   82   .494  719  717  |   -1    5    |       -7
NYM    162    81    81    .503    656  652      4    |   79   83   .488  656  652  |   -2   -1    |       -1
WSN    162    71    91    .438    655  742    -87    |   69   93   .426  655  742  |   -2   -5    |        3
                                             
SF     162    95    67    .588    697  583    114    |   92   70   .568  697  583  |   -3    1    |       -4
SD     162    92    70    .567    665  581     84    |   90   72   .556  665  581  |   -2    9    |      -11
COL    162    87    75    .536    770  717     53    |   83   79   .512  770  717  |   -4    2    |       -5
LAD    162    78    84    .482    667  692    -25    |   80   82   .494  667  692  |    2   -5    |        7
ARI    162    68    94    .421    713  836   -123    |   65   97   .401  713  836  |   -3   -4    |        1
As you can see, almost everyone this year was quite close to their Pythagorean Expectation. What a pleasant surprise!  And the teams that were farthest from their projections tended to be teams at the bottom of the standings, who actually got pretty7 lucky in the close games and posted better records than we would expect from them - Baltimore, for example. Only one team in the AL was off by more than 5 games - that would be the Oakland A's, who could have reasonably been expected to win about 5 more games than they actually did. As Oakland did just fine in one-run games (23-20), this indicates that they wasted a few runs piling on the other team in blowout wins. On the other hand, we have the Houston Astros, who won 9 more games than they might have been expected to win. The Astros went 21-18 in one-run games, which means they were beaten senseless quite a few times. That's not a good sign. The biggest under-achiever - indeed, the only significant under-achiever - this season was St.Louis. The Cardinals were 6 games under their expectation - they were a slightly disappointing 20-22 in one-run games, which suggests that they, like Oakland, wasted a bunch of runs beating the other team to a pulp.

Now, let's play Snakes and Ladders.

Snakes and Ladders is a board game from my distant youth, which was roughly about when I heard Mott the Hoople use it as a metaphor for their own ups and downs ("In '72 we were born to lose/ we slipped down snakes into yesterday's news..."). I use it to identify those teams that improved by 10 games (climbing the ladder) or declined by 10 (slipping down the snakes.) This was a very normal season in the majors: three teams slipped down the snakes, while four of them were climbing the ladders. That's what I've grown accustomed to, having tracked this back for the last couple of decades. The utter insanity of 2009 (eight teams climbed the ladders, ten teams slipped down the snakes) is all behind us, an aberration, a blip, perhaps never to be seen again in our lifetimes

Snakes


Seattle -24
The biggest dropoff in the majors, from an organization that has been badly run for some time now. The Mariners have made an art of fooling themselves. It's what they do. Pythagoras has been messing with them, of course, and they've been unable to see through it. A run of good luck in 2007 and again in 2009 helped them  win far more games than they had any right to expect. When their luck returned to normal, as in 2008 and in 2010, they seemed surprised and disappointed. That said, they were legitimately a lot worse this time around. Much of the dropoff in 2008 was simply Pythagoras righting the ship - they had a big Pythagorean Swing of 14 games in 2008 (they overachieved by 9 games in 2007 and underachieved by 5 games in 2008.) But not this time, buddy. There actually wasn't a big Pythagorean Swing at work at all in 2010 - just 6 games in fact. They were 18 games worse on merit, thanks to the most pathetic offense the AL has seen since the first DH strode up to home plate.

LA Angels -17
The Angels had won at least 92 games and the AL West title in five of the last 6 years, and they went 89-73 in the one year they missed out. This year's disaster was mostly on the offense; while offense was down pretty significantly in the AL (about 8 percent, which is a big dropoff), the Angels scored 202 runs fewer than they did the year before. That's a dropoff of more than 20 percent, and that's way too much offense to lose unless the pitchers do likewise to the opposition. That didn't happen (the Angels reduced their Runs Allowed by about 8 percent, roughly the same as the league overall) As for the bats, Torii Hunter and Bobby Abreu held the line, and Hideki Matsui was actually an upgrade on the Vlad Guerrero who played for the Angels. Alas, those three worthies were surrounded by a group of hitters who collectively pulled up to the cliff, looked over the edge, and decided to jump. Obviously, the Kendry Morales injury was a major blow, and losing him in such a stupid fashion may have messed with the team's psyche.

LA Dodgers -15
The Dodgers came by their badness the old-fashioned way: they earned it. They were significantly worse on both sides of the ball this past season. The offensive fall-off was mostly because of big dropoffs from Matt Kemp and Casey Blake, although Manny missing about 90 games was worse than Manny missing about 60. On the mound, the bullpen (which had been simply fabulous in 2009) was very shaky indeed in 2010 (with the exception of Hong-Chi Kuo, who was sensational. He was the only one.)

Ladders

Washington +10
The Nationals and Mets went into the final day of the season, each having won 9 more games than they did in 2009, and facing one another to see which of the two would get honoured with a Snakes and Ladders shout-out. There could be only one. With so much at stake the teams battled on, past nine innings, into the tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth, the thirteenth... at which point, Jerry Manuel thought - what the hell, they're going to fire my ass tomorrow win or lose - and brought in Oliver Perez. One hit batter and three consecutive walks later, the Nationals had the lead, and Miguel Batista closed it out.

Toronto +10
The Blue Jays climbing the ladder in 2010 had very little to do with the team improving - this was almost entirely a Pythagorean swing. The Jays scored and allowed 43 fewer runs than they did in 2009. In 2009, they underperformed their Pythagorean expectation by 9 games - their 75-87 record was one of the worst records in major league history by a team that scored more runs than it gave up (only seven such teams, in more than 100 years, have had a worse record than the 2009 Jays.) In 2010, their W-L record was an accurate reflection of the runs they scored and gave up. That is all.

Cincinnati +13
The Cincinnati story is essentially a mirror image of the Angels - the Reds posted the biggest offensive improvement in the majors in 2010. With offense down in both leagues, and most teams scoring fewer runs than they year before, the Reds improved their offense by a whopping 117 runs. No one else was even remotely close. The pitching was a little better as well. The Reds had actually had a negative Pythagorean Swing to contend with, but Joey Votto and company were up to the job.

San Diego +15
No team improved their W-L record more than the Padres, but alas- when you spend five the first months of the season leading your division, it still feels like a crushing disappointment when you don't get to play in October. No matter how far you had to come. The Padres 75-87 record in 2009 flattered them, so their improvement this year was even greater than the additional 15 wins suggests. Like the Reds, they have a negative Pythagorean Swing to contend with - they 9 games better than expected in 2009, and this year they were actually 2 games worse. It's the biggest Pythagorean Swing in the majors this year. Most of this improvement came on the pitcher's mound, as the Padres gave up 188 fewer runs than they had in 2009. This was not a product of Petco Field. The park didn't suppress offense nearly as much as it has in the past, although it was still one of the best pitcher's parks in the league. The Padres pitchers allowed 262 runs at home, best in the league (the Giants gave up 274) and 319 on the road, second-best in the league (the Giants led the way with just 309 runs against on the road.)
 
Finally, a bunch of general observations...

As you probably noticed, offense was down quite a bit in the AL this season. AL teams scored 4.45 runs per game in 2010; they scored 4.82 runs per game in 2009. Doesn't seem like much? Well, offense was at just 92.4% of the 2010 level. And if we look at this in historical terms, we learn to describe offense falling that much as plummeting. It's a great big thing. We simply don't see that big a drop from one year to the next very often at all. Only four times in the DH era have we had a bigger drop in AL offense, and those four years are themselves pretty instructive regarding the circumstances that go along with this type of offensive... collapse. They are:

1981   (the strike year);
1988   (1987 had been the biggest offensive season in the AL in almost 40 years);
1997   (1996, along with...)
2001   (... 2000 were the two highest scoring years in the AL since the 1930s.)

To sum up - besides the fluke of the strike year, we normally only see this size of offensive falloff after a historically great year for the hitters. But 2009 was not a historically great year, not at all - it was a little better than 2008, and not as good as 2006 or 2007. Offensive production plummeted anyway.

Offense was off in the NL as well, just not nearly as much. However, offense has indeed been falling steadily in the NL over the last few years - each year the teams score 97-98% as many runs as they scored the year before.

The quality gap between the two leagues also seems to be narrowing sharply - the NL was just 6 games under .500 this season (1288-1304). If this year's rookie crop is any indication - this year's NL rookie crop was deep, wide and wonderful - it may actually reverse in the next year or two. The NL is no longer the AAAA league. Those days are gone.

NL teams with winning records against the AL: Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Colorado, San Diego.

AL teams with winning records against the NL: Boston, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Texas

The AL team that improved its offense the most in 2010 were the Chicago White Sox, and that was nothing to write home about - the White Sox scored 27 more runs this year than they did in 2009. Detroit and Texas made single digit improvements. Everyone else scored fewer runs.

The most impressive offensive upgrade in the majors in 2010, by a comfortable mile, came in Cincinnati where Dusty Baker's men scored 117 runs more than they did in 2009. The Giants improved by 40 runs, the Cubs by 27. St. Louis and Atlanta made single digit improvements. Everyone else was down. Some of them were a long way down. Six teams lost more than 90 runs of offense in 2010. Leading the pack into the Abyss of Frustration were the LA Angels, of course - as already noted, they had 202 runs of offense vanish into air, into thin air.  Yes, they lost more than Seattle (-127) or Baltimore (-128) - the Angels did have a lot more to lose, of course. Cleveland (-127) and Oakland (-96) were the other big losers in the AL. The Dodgers (-113) had the biggest dropoff in the NL.

All this means the pitchers were allowing fewer runs, of course. Naturally this wasn't spread out evenly across the majors. Why would it be? The staff that reduced their runs allowed by the greatest amount were the San Diego Padres, who shaved off a remarkable 188 runs - better than a run per game. Only two NL teams in the last 40 years have made a bigger step forward in reducing runs allowed. Second best in the NL? Surprise - it was the Washington Nationals. There was plenty of room for improvement, of course, but allowing 132 fewer runs constitutes pretty impressive improvement nonetheless. And after them came the New York Mets (-105 runs.)  Best in the AL was Oakland (-135 runs), followed by Cleveland (-113) and Tampa (-105). The Nats and Mets represent bad teams getting a little better, which is easier to accomplish than what the Rays or the Twins achieved.

There was one team in the majors who reduced their runs scored and runs allowed by the exact same amount - that would be your Toronto Blue Jays, ladies and gentlemen. In 2009, they scored 798 runs and allowed 771. Reduce each figure by 43 and you have this year's numbers. That dropoff is not as big as the overall AL rate - the Jays offense was a little better relative to the league, the pitching a little worse. Actually, the most significant thing that happened to Toronto is that Pythagoras finally stopped picking on them...

Best place for offense in 2010? That would be Coors Field, of course. Where else? It was a pretty bad year for the humidor. The Rockies scored and allowed 858 runs at home, just 629 on the road, which is an Offensive Factor of 1.36 - Coors also led the majors in 2009 (naturally), but at 1.25.  The humidor has done something - back in 2007, when I did my big historical study of Home Field Advantage and historical ballpark effects on scoring, Coors Field came in with an Offensive Factor of 1.45, making it - surprise! -  the highest scoring environment ever. I should update that - the last few seasons may have pushed Coors into second place (behind Mile High Stadium, where else.)

The best place to score runs in the AL was Yankee Stadium, which I have at 1.18 - the Yankees scored and allowed 839 runs at home, 713 on the road. The new Toilet just edged out US Cellular in Chicago. This probably doesn't surprise you all that much, but it surprises me quite a bit. First of all, despite all the talk about the ball flying out of the yard, the Yankees actually scored and allowed more runs on the road than they did at home in 2009. And US Cellular, despite being a great home run park, has actually reduced offense overall since it opened for business. Things were strange in the AL in 2010...

How strange? Well, the toughest place to score runs in all of baseball was an American League park. Yes, Petco Field was open for business as usual in San Diego. It has been the toughest place to score runs of any ball park in the history of the game, but this past year it wasn't even the toughest place to score runs in the NL (Offensive Factor of just 0.88, which is still very high for Petco.) But this year, Enron Memorial in Houston had an Offensive Factor of 0.86 to edge out Petco. And that was nothing - the Trop in Tampa Bay had an Offensive Factor of 0.80. The Rays scored and allowed just 645 runs at home, 806 on the road. And this too is downright bizarre - historically, the Trop has actually been the most neutral park in the majors when it comes to effect on runs scoring.

         Runs 
  Scored & Allowed Offensive
      Home   Road   Factor
COL    858    629    1.36
NYY    839    713    1.18
CHC    783    669    1.17
CHI    774    681    1.14
BAL    736    662    1.11
TEX    769    705    1.09
BOS    812    750    1.08
TOR    735    748    1.06
ARI    793    756    1.05
FLA    733    703    1.04
PIT    736    717    1.03
ATL    686    681    1.01
CIN    740    735    1.01
MIL    779    775    1.01
PHI    729    683    0.99
DET    740    754    0.98
WSN    686    711    0.96
MIN    712    740    0.96
OAK    630    659    0.96
KC     763    805    0.95
CLE    680    718    0.95
SF     621    659    0.94
LAD    658    701    0.94
STL    666    711    0.94
NYM    616    692    0.89
SD     584    662    0.88
LAA    641    742    0.86
HOU    621    719    0.86
SEA    543    668    0.81
TB     645    806    0.80

Well, yes, all this is very strange but true - but it's also just weird and random. Bear in mind that 81 games is a very small sample in the life of a ball park.

Anything else I wanted to touch on? Yes - home-road splits.

Normally, the home team wins 54% of the team. That means the normal home field advantage is .080 (.540 as opposed to .460). As it happens, 2010 was a pretty good year for the home team, which was winning about 56 % of the team in both leagues. I wanted to find the biggest split between the home and road record. I normally find it in Denver, home of the greatest Home Field Advantage in major league history - and as usual the Rockies had an enormous Home Field Advantage (they played .642 at home, .383 on the road). But the Rockies did not have the biggest Home Field Advantage in 2010. That distinction goes to the Detroit Tigers in the AL and the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL, who each had Home Field Advantages of .284. The Tigers went a nicely symmetrical 52-29 at home, 29-52 on the road. The Pirates didn't even have to play .500 ball at home to post their enormous split, because they happened to be the worst road  team in baseball (17-64). Tampa Bay was the best (47-34)

Atlanta was the toughest team to beat in their own house (56-25), while it was always fun to visit Safeco and Wrigley, where the home team went just 35-46. The Cubs were the only team in the majors who had a better record on the road than at home; the Padres had an identical 45-36 record at home and away.

               Home                              Away
        W    L    Pct   RS   RA          W    L     Pct    RS    RA    Split
DET    52    29  .642  411  329    |    29    52   .358    340  414    .284
PIT    40    41  .494  333  403    |    17    64   .210    254  463    .284
ATL    56    25  .691  391  295    |    35    46   .432    347  334    .259
COL    52    29  .642  479  379    |    31    50   .383    291  338    .259
STL    52    29  .642  386  280    |    34    47   .420    350  361    .222
NYM    47    34  .580  334  282    |    32    49   .395    322  370    .185
ARI    40    41  .494  384  409    |    25    56   .309    329  427    .185
OAK    47    34  .580  354  276    |    34    47   .420    309  350    .160
WSN    41    40  .506  327  359    |    28    53   .346    328  383    .160
TEX    51    30  .630  430  339    |    39    42   .481    357  348    .148
MIN    53    28  .654  399  313    |    41    40   .506    382  358    .148
LAD    45    36  .556  322  336    |    35    46   .432    345  356    .123
KC     38    43  .469  360  403    |    28    53   .346    333  472    .123
SEA    35    46  .432  239  304    |    26    55   .321    274  394    .111
NYY    52    29  .642  473  366    |    43    38   .531    386  327    .111
TOR    45    33  .577  387  348    |    40    44   .476    368  380    .101
BAL    37    44  .457  322  414    |    29    52   .358    291  371    .099
HOU    42    39  .519  297  324    |    34    47   .420    314  405    .099
PHI    54    30  .643  410  319    |    43    35   .551    362  321    .092
CIN    49    32  .605  399  341    |    42    39   .519    391  344    .086
CLE    38    43  .469  326  354    |    31    50   .383    320  398    .086
LAA    43    38  .531  319  322    |    37    44   .457    362  380    .074
SF     49    32  .605  347  274    |    43    38   .531    350  309    .074
MIL    40    41  .494  365  414    |    37    44   .457    385  390    .037
BOS    46    35  .568  419  393    |    43    38   .531    399  351    .037
FLA    41    40  .506  365  368    |    39    42   .481    354  349    .025
CHI    45    36  .556  403  371    |    43    38   .531    348  333    .025
TB     49    32  .605  351  294    |    47    34   .580    451  355    .025
SD     45    36  .556  322  262    |    45    36   .556    343  319    .000
CHC    35    46  .432  352  431    |    40    41   .494    333  336   -.062

Finally - one-run games, my ancient obsession. (Hopefully this off-season I can actually put together my Big Historical Study of them.) As I've explained many, many times, who wins and who loses a game decided by a single run is largely a matter of Dumb, Random luck. A team that loses 90 games can quite easily have a better record in one run games than a team that wins 90 games. It happens all the time, and this year was no exception. Who had the best record in one-run games in 2010?

Uh.... well... okay, it was the Philadelphia Phillies, who won more games than anyone. They were brilliant in the close games (29-17, .630) and really good in the rest of them (68-48, .586) This is still an unusual result, and hardly devoid of interest,  because of the very nature of one-run games. You see, one-run games are one of the mechanisms enforcing the Law of Competitive Balance, dragging all teams towards the .500 mark, elevating the bad ones and pulling down on the good ones.  This is a Law, and I'm still looking for a snappy name to give it - the Weaver Tangent, the Durocher Paradox.... Anyway, It is very unusual to find a team that plays .700 ball in one-run games - you are three times as likely likely to find teams that play .700 ball in games decided by more than one run. The same phenomenon exists at the other end of the scale - they have been more teams (more than twice as many) play below .300 in games decided by more than one-run than there have been play that badly in one-run games. The 2010 Phillies, although they fell short of .700 ball in their one-run games, were bucking one of the basic tides of the game...

Ah.  But who was the best team in the AL in one-run games?

The Baltimore Orioles. Who else? They played .580 ball in one-run games (29-21). It's a good thing they did, because they played .330 ball (37-75) in the rest of their games. They were pretty lucky to come away with 66 wins. The Texas Rangers were also very good in one-run games, and actually won more of them than anyone else (30-23, .566.) The worst team in the majors in the one-run games were the Detroit Tigers (16-26) .

    ONE-RUN GAMES            
        W     L    Pct   
PHI    29    17    .630   
BAL    29    21    .580   
CHI    28    21    .571   
TEX    30    23    .566   
SD     28    22    .560   
MIN    24    20    .545   
HOU    21    18    .538   
SF     28    24    .538   
OAK    23    20    .535   
MIL    26    23    .531   
CLE    23    21    .523   
LAD    26    24    .520   
TB     29    27    .518   
NYY    20    19    .513   
ATL    23    22    .511   
CIN    27    27    .500   
LAA    24    25    .490   
COL    28    30    .483   
STL    20    22    .476   
KC     27    30    .474   
TOR    24    28    .462   
BOS    22    26    .458   
NYM    25    30    .455   
PIT    20    24    .455   
ARI    19    23    .452   
FLA    23    28    .451   
SEA    21    28    .429   
WSN    20    28    .417   
CHC    22    32    .407   
DET    16    26    .381   

I think that's all for now...
The Year in Review: Snakes, Ladders, Desert Sages | 19 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Mylegacy - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 01:24 AM EDT (#223606) #
Magpie - well done you tiny bit of string and shiny rock collector - bravo!
Mick Doherty - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 10:33 AM EDT (#223618) #
Interesting and engaging. But I am still flummoxed by the early random Mottt the Hoople reference. Wasn't he the greengrocer on Sesame Street? :-)
bpoz - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:04 AM EDT (#223620) #
Could a team with a bad closer be a strong factor in one run games?
The closer comes in with a 3 run lead and gives up 2 runs so its a 1 run win. Closer comes in and blows the save making it a 1 run loss. Maybe I don't understand this dimension completely, it would increase both columns W&L and so the differential is the same. But in both my examples the closer was not that good.
WOW you can really play with this. Hill's 1-0 win and Zeps 2-1 win.
A team that relies on the HR can score at least 1 run with 1 swing of the bat, where as a small ball team has to do more than 1 thing.

This is a fantastic piece of work !!!
Gerry - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:07 AM EDT (#223621) #

Does anyone have any theories as to why offense was down this year?  When you read Magpie's discussion of teams like Anaheim and the Mariners it seems as though the hitters had off years or just were not as good as we thought they were.

Another threory is that teams have been careful with their pitchers over the last several years and it has paid off with better pitchers being available to pitch.  There are probably injury databases out there on the internet somewhere but I am not sure where they are or what they say.

The PED argument is always out there but I am not sure if I believe it, other than maybe the juicers are reaching retiring age.

bpoz - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:12 AM EDT (#223622) #
Speaking of closers and 1 run games. I can't get this image out of my head.
93WS,Mitch,Curt & Towel.
Kasi - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:29 AM EDT (#223625) #
We probably will have to wait til next year to see if it is the beginning of a trend or an aberration. Then again the Mariner's season was so bad that we could probably just blame them for it.
Magpie - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:35 AM EDT (#223628) #
Could a team with a bad closer be a strong factor in one run games?

You would think, but there's no connection. Teams with lousy bullpens are just as likely to do well in these games as teams with good bullpens. The crucial thing to know is that one-run games drag everybody towards .500....
Mike Green - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:37 AM EDT (#223629) #
Offence has been on a steady downward pattern.  One big item is league average HR/fly rates.  These rates historically are in the 10.5-11.5 range over a season, at least since 2002 and probably since 1994.    The rate was down to 9.5 in 2010 (with the Blue Jays being an anomaly).  Whether this results from PED testing, changes to the ball, or something else is a good question.
Magpie - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:40 AM EDT (#223630) #
Does anyone have any theories as to why offense was down this year?

One factor is replacing a good offensive park (the HubieDome, historical Offensive Factor of 1.06) with a tough one (Target Field played at 0.96 in its inaugural year.) And the Mariners fielding a team of AAA hitters probably contributed as well. But I would hardly think that's enough...
China fan - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:45 AM EDT (#223631) #

....flummoxed by the early random Mottt the Hoople reference....

But he -- or, rather, they -- are fondly remembered by All the Old Dudes....

Magpie - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:55 AM EDT (#223632) #
All the Old Dudes....

Word. Ian Hunter is now 71 years old (which hasn't stopped him from continuing to make interesting recordings.) More sadly (and much more alarmingly), last year, when the band finally thought - what the hell, let's do a reunion gig - original drummer Dale Griffin couldn't participate fully as he's developed early stage Alzheimer's.
Dewey - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 02:20 PM EDT (#223642) #
Just the other day, eavesdropping on the girls at the supermarket, I heard them chattering about The Pythagorean Swing.  I thought it must be some new dance craze.  Silly me:  it was our very own Magpie that had them all abuzz.  I should have known.

BTW, I think you should get yourself a second external hard-drive for the Honker itself.  Too much at risk there.  A fine read.

Jdog - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 03:51 PM EDT (#223660) #
Nice article Magpie

So Jason Frasor ended up a type A free agent. Is he going to get offered arbitration? Will he accept? If he doesn't does anybody sign him?
Thomas - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 05:55 PM EDT (#223676) #
Since I have nowhere else to post it, I'll post this stat here: The difference in home runs between the Blue Jays and the second-place Boston Red Sox was 46 (257 and 211, respectively), which was the largest gap in the majors since 1968, when Detroit had a 52 homer advantage over the Orioles (185-133).
James W - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 06:19 PM EDT (#223679) #

Magpie said: "The staff that reduced their runs allowed by the greatest amount were the San Diego Padres, who shaved off an astonishing 188 runs - better than two runs per game."

I'm willing to bet you had home/road on your mind, but 188/162 is about 1.16 runs per game.

Flex - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 07:15 PM EDT (#223686) #
I seem to recall that earlier in the year Toronto was on pace to do much better than usual in 1-run games and away games, being well above .500 in both, and then it all went sideways. Or upsidedown ways. Shame. Anyway, thanks for a great analysis, Magpie.

Magpie - Wednesday, October 06 2010 @ 12:06 AM EDT (#223699) #
I'm willing to bet you had home/road on your mind

Yeah. Yeah, that's the ticket.
vw_fan17 - Wednesday, October 06 2010 @ 07:17 PM EDT (#223758) #
BTW, I think you should get yourself a second external hard-drive for the Honker itself.  Too much at risk there.  A fine read.

That, or at least get a gmail or yahoo account and email yourself the spreadsheet (password encrypted, of course) regularly so you have an "in the cloud" backup. If it's too large for a regular attachment (10 mb or so), contact me, and I'll back it up for you on my RAID setup and another offsite machine if you'd like...

bpoz - Saturday, November 06 2010 @ 02:25 PM EDT (#225066) #
Great work.

I am sure many questions were asked and answers given. But I missed them. So much data and detail is hard to comprehend for me.

2 conclusions are 1) Great success in 1 run games means you were very lucky. 2) Getting hammered often means that you were quite bad. I would think a bad record that Pyth agrees with confirms that you were bad.
So Balt was very lucky and very bad, thats not good. Wash & Sea were v bad but were also v unlucky. At least Sea will get the 2nd draft pick, not so for Wash.


The Year in Review: Snakes, Ladders, Desert Sages | 19 comments | Create New Account
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