2008 LOB Data, Six Weeks to Go

Two posts in one day? What's up with that? Either way, on to the post.

I don't update this nearly as often as I should or would like, but I've got a Google spreadsheet with information about 2008 team left on base numbers. It's basically a lot of numbers, but it contains a lot of interesting information, like how every team plates between 37 and 48% of their runners in scoring position. Every team also leaves between 54 and 64% of their baserunners on base at the end of innings. What's interesting is that driving those runners in doesn't seem to match up very well with the total runs scored by each team, at least in the National League.

For example, here are the LOB percentages (the number of baserunners is total times on base minus home runs - I only wanted to count guys who actually spent time on the basepaths) for each team in both leagues, with their league rank in runs scored per game in parentheses.

2008 National League, LOB% by Team
(through 8/17/08)

1. Los Angeles, 58.20% (13)
   
2. Chicago, 58.65% (1)
   
3. Houston, 59.05% (11)
   
4. Arizona, 59.15% (9)
   
5. Colorado, 59.77% (5)
   
6. Pittsburgh, 60.10% (7)
   
7. San Francisco, 60.15% (15)
   
8. New York, 60.43% (2)
   
9. NL AVERAGE, 60.67%
   
10. St. Louis, 60.74% (4)
    
11. Atlanta, 60.96% (10)
    
12. Milwaukee, 61.57% (6)
    
13. Washington, 61.64% (16)
    
14. Philadelphia, 61.94% (3)
    
15. Florida, 62.21% (8)
    
16. Cincinnati, 62.36% (12)
    
17. San Diego, 64.34% (14)
    

2008 American League, LOB% by Team
(through 8/17/08)

1. Minnesota, 54.59% (4)
   
2. Los Angeles, 55.99% (8)
   
3. Baltimore, 56.94% (3)
   
4. Chicago, 57.04% (5)
   
5. New York, 57.73% (7)
   
6. Texas, 57.99% (1)
   
7. Boston, 57.99% (2)
   
8. Kansas City, 58.29% (13)
   
9. AL AVERAGE, 58.38%
10. Toronto, 58.90% (11)
    
11. Detroit, 59.07% (6)
    
12. Tampa Bay, 60.19% (10)
    
13. Cleveland, 60.28% (9)
    
14. Seattle, 60.57% (12)
    
15. Oakland, 62.12% (14)
    

I guess having the pitcher bat must level the playing field in the senior circuit. Here are the numbers for each team expressed in percentage of runners in scoring position scored, again with runs per game in parentheses.

2008 National League, RISP Scored % by Team
(through 8/17/08)

1. Chicago, 44.23% (1)
2. Arizona, 42.79% (9)
3. Los Angeles, 42.57% (13)
4. Pittsburgh, 42.51% (7)
5. Houston, 41.53% (11)
   
6. New York, 41.33% (2)
7. San Francisco, 40.64% (15)
8. NL AVERAGE, 40.50%
9. St. Louis, 40.41% (4)
10. Colorado, 40.31% (5)
11. Atlanta, 39.74% (10)
12. Philadelphia, 39.48% (3)
13. Cincinnati, 38.99% (12)
14. Milwaukee, 38.90% (6)
15. Florida, 38.33% (8)
16. Washington, 37.65% (16)
    
17. San Diego, 36.98% (14)
    

2008 American League, RISP Scored % by Team
(through 8/17/08)

1. Minnesota, 48.38% (4)
2. Baltimore, 45.55% (3)
3. Los Angeles, 45.02% (8)
   
4. Texas, 43.97% (1)
5. Chicago, 43.49% (5)
6. AL AVERAGE, 42.89%
7. New York, 42.83% (7)
   
8. Boston, 42.78% (2)
   
9. Detroit, 42.41% (6)
10. Kansas City, 41.84% (13)
    
11. Cleveland, 41.42% (9)
12. Seattle, 41.21% (12)
13. Toronto, 40.94% (11)
    
14. Tampa Bay, 40.16% (10)
    
15. Oakland, 39.70% (14)

The Twins really bring the AL average up. Again, it's interesting to see how mixed up the National League teams are in terms of runs per game compared to their AL counterparts. Like I said above, maybe having the extra hitter in the lineup helps even things in the American League, but perhaps NL teams are more reliant on home runs (the average NL team has five more homers than the average AL team) and thus they don't get as many other base hits that drive runners in.

I guess the moral of the story is that leaving men on base and driving in runners in scoring position is important in scoring runs, but it's not the whole story. It's annoying when you've watched your favorite team fail at hitting with RISP yet again, but that doesn't mean they necessarily have a dysfunctional offense.

Oh, one final note. When the Cubs were getting everyone and their brother on base all the time earlier this year, they were on pace to set a new record for team left on base in a season by virtue of having a bazillion baserunners. Unfortunately (I guess?), they've fallen off that pace and now are just ahead of the Braves in LOB per game (the difference is 2 runners left on over 124 games). Of course, when you have the best offense in the league, you don't really care about such things.

MLB LOB Data Through the All-Star Break

Back in May I wrote about team left on base numbers for the National League. That post explains how I derived the numbers and percentages. Now that it's the all-star break, I thought it'd be a good time to crunch the numbers for both leagues and see which teams are the best at bringing runners around to score.

First up are the left on base percentages for each league. Remember that each team's total baserunners are found by total times on base (through hits, walks, reaching on errors, etc.) minus home runs

2008 NL Team LOB%
(through 7/15/08)

1. Los Angeles, 58.64%
2. Pittsburgh, 59.22%
3. San Francisco, 59.56%
4. Chicago, 59.72%
5. Arizona, 60.16%
6. New York, 60.28%
7. Houston, 60.61%
8. Colorado, 60.75%
9. St. Louis, 60.94%
10. NL AVERAGE, 60.96%
11. Milwaukee, 61.20%
12. Florida, 61.65%
13. Philadelphia, 61.67%
14. Washington, 62.04%
15. Atlanta, 62.09%
16. Cincinnati, 62.50%
17. San Diego, 64.62%

2008 AL Team LOB%
(through 7/15/08)

1. Minnesota, 55.40%
2. Chicago, 57.52%
3. Kansas City, 57.60%
4. Los Angeles, 57.88%
5. Baltimore, 58.08%
6. Texas, 58.22%
7. Boston, 58.43%
8. AL AVERAGE, 58.77%
   
9. New York, 58.78%
10. Toronto, 59.18%
11. Cleveland, 59.54%
12. Detroit, 59.63%
13. Tampa Bay, 59.95%
14. Oakland, 61.02%
15. Seattle, 61.86%

You can find the numbers behind these percentages online here. I've also got information on the percentage of runners in scoring position each team has scored.

One last item of note: so far this season the Cubs have stranded 765 runners on base through 95 games. This puts them on pace to leave 1305 runners on base this season. According to baseball-almanac.com, the record number of runners left on base by an NL team in a season is 1328 by the 1976 Reds. That's one negative record a team probably wouldn't mind setting: after all, you have to get on base (and presumably score) a lot to get a chance to break it.

Most Times on Base, 0 Left on Base

It's always frustrating when your favorite team leaves runners on base. Today I want to look at the opposite of that situation: leaving no one on base. I looked up the teams with the most times reached base without leaving a runner on in a single game. There's plenty of ways to make sure you don't leave a runner on base. They range from scoring everyone who reaches base (always popular) to getting all your guys picked off or caught stealing (always frustrating). Either way, there have only been 223 games since 1956 that saw a team leave nobody on base. Obviously perfect games qualify, but so do some high-scoring affairs.

As a reminder, Times on Base is determined by summing hits, times reached on errors, bases on balls, hit by pitches, and catcher's interferences. Basically, any way you can get on base.

Most Times On Base, 0 Left on Base, 1956-2008
(Losses in Red)

Team	Opponent	Date	Score	Times on Base
Chicago White Sox	Minnesota Twins	4/19/1962	10-3	13
Chicago White Sox	Boston Red Sox	5/29/1987	8-6	11
Cleveland Indians	Texas Rangers	6/5/1974	9-3	11
Baltimore Orioles	Boston Red Sox	7/7/1957	8-4	11
Boston Red Sox	Minnesota Twins	7/6/2000	8-7	10
Detroit Tigers	Baltimore Orioles	7/28/1998	5-6	10
Houston Astros	Philadelphia Phillies	6/4/1982	8-3	10
Cincinnati Reds	San Francisco Giants	8/25/1963	8-7	10
Baltimore Orioles	Minnesota Twins	9/28/1962	5-11	10
Cleveland Indians	Minnesota Twins	4/8/2002	9-5	9
Cincinnati Reds	Philadelphia Phillies	8/22/2000	4-5	9
San Diego Padres	St. Louis Cardinals	4/10/1984	7-3	9
Pittsburgh Pirates	Philadelphia Phillies	4/26/1975	7-3	9
St. Louis Cardinals	Pittsburgh Pirates	4/22/1966	7-5	9
Pittsburgh Pirates	New York Mets	9/19/2004	6-1	8
Atlanta Braves	Florida Marlins	4/16/2004	5-4	8
Houston Astros	Arizona Diamondbacks	6/27/2002	7-4	8
Houston Astros	Florida Marlins	8/21/1999	5-4	8
Anaheim Angels	Milwaukee Brewers	5/18/1997	5-4	8
Pittsburgh Pirates	San Francisco Giants	5/1/1987	4-2	8
Baltimore Orioles	New York Yankees	4/23/1980	5-6	8
Cincinnati Reds	St. Louis Cardinals	7/20/1970	4-0	8
Minnesota Twins	Kansas City Royals	7/2/1970	5-2	8
Cincinnati Reds	Chicago Cubs	7/28/1966	7-5	8
Milwaukee Braves	Philadelphia Phillies	5/7/1964	6-9	8
Los Angeles Dodgers	New York Mets	5/30/1962	6-5	8

2008 NL LOB Data, 1/4 of the Way In

The 2008 MLB season is a little over a quarter finished, with the average major league team having played 45 games to this point. I thought it'd be a good time to look at how all the teams are doing in terms of runners left on base and bringing runners in scoring position around to score.

For starters, I want to make clear what I consider baserunners. Baseball-Reference.com allows you to find the number of players to reach base in each game for each team (Times on Base), and I use that number minus the team's home runs hit to find the number of baserunners for that team. That way only players who actually spent time on the basepaths are included rather than rewarding teams that hit a lot of home runs (especially solo home runs). That's not to say hitting home runs are a bad thing (far from it), but I'm looking more at how teams bring players on the bases around to score. To that end, I've also only looked at the number of runs scored by those baserunners. I find this number by taking total runs scored minus home runs. Thus runs scored by players driven in by homers are counted, but not the run scored by the player who actually hit the home run. All this means I'm looking at how well each team has brought players who reached base around to score.

I haven't finished the American League numbers yet, but I have the National League numbers complete. First up is the list of National League teams sorted by the percentage of baserunners left on base. This is pretty easy to find. I simply add up the Left on Base number on Baseball-Reference.com for each team, and divide by the sum of the Times on Base for each game played by each team minus that team's home runs. It looks like this: LOB/(TOB-HR).

2008 NL LOB Data, Sorted by LOB%
Through 5/19/2008

• Los Angeles Dodgers, 54.96%
• Arizona Diamondbacks, 56.40%
• Houston Astros, 57.52%
• Pittsburgh Pirates, 57.84%
• New York Mets, 58.76%
• Chicago Cubs, 58.97%
• Atlanta Braves, 60.18%
• NL AVERAGE, 60.37%
• Washington Nationals, 60.66%
• Colorado Rockies, 60.85%
• San Francisco Giants, 61.13%
• Cincinnati Reds, 61.52%
• Florida Marlins, 62.04%
• Milwaukee Brewers, 62.40%
• Philadelphia Phillies, 63.04%
• St. Louis Cardinals, 63.07%
• San Diego Padres, 67.25%

San Diego is having a hard time bringing runners around to score, it seems. I do think it's interesting there's a pretty good mix of teams at or near the top of their division at the top of the list (Los Angeles, New York, etc.) and at the bottom of the list (Florida, Philadelphia, St. Louis).

It's my own theory that baseball fans don't tend to get very worked up about high numbers of runners left on first base at the end of an inning. What really gets fans mad is when a team can't seem to score runners from second and/or third. Fans, broadcasters, and journalists talking about leaving too many runners in scoring position is usually a good sign that a team is losing. With that in mind, I've looked at the percentage of runners who reach scoring position who actually score, no matter what way they do it.

2008 NL RISP Scored Data, Sorted by RISP Scored %
Through 5/19/2008

• Los Angeles Dodgers, 47.76%
• Pittsburgh Pirates, 47.40%
• Arizona Diamondbacks, 44.54%
• Chicago Cubs, 44.47%
• Houston Astros, 43.71%
• New York Mets, 43.66%
• NL AVERAGE, 40.99%
• Atlanta Braves, 40.42%
• Washington Nationals, 39.88%
• Milwaukee Brewers, 39.49%
• Cincinnati Reds, 39.48%
  
• Florida Marlins, 39.44%
• Colorado Rockies, 38.46%
• Philadelphia Phillies, 38.24%
• St. Louis Cardinals, 37.79%
• San Francisco Giants, 35.87%
• San Diego Padres, 33.90%

San Diego's numbers are ghastly in this category as well. Winning and losing teams are jumbled in this list as well, but the obvious conclusion that teams plating a higher number of runners in scoring position will win more seems to be borne out pretty well despite Pittsburgh's best efforts.

For the actual raw numbers that generate these percentages, click here to look at a spreadsheet I've put up on Google Docs with percentages for a variety of related categories, including RISP Scored split by outs. I'm going to try and keep that spreadsheet updated regularly throughout the season and I hope to add the American League numbers soon.