20+ Home Runs

A friend of mine brought this to my attention. Robinson Cano hit his twentieth home run of the season last night, making him the sixth Yankees hitter to reach that number in 2009. With one more 20 HR player, the Yankees will tie the record for most players with 20+ HR on one team. The current record holders:

• 1996 Baltimore Orioles
  Brady Anderson - 50
  Rafael Palmeiro - 39
  Bobby Bonilla - 28
  Cal Ripken, Jr. - 26
  Chris Hoiles - 25
  Roberto Alomar - 22
  B.J. Surhoff - 21
  
  
• 2000 Toronto Blue Jays
  Carlos Delgado - 41
  Tony Batista - 41
  Brad Fullmer - 32
  Jose Cruz, Jr. - 31
  Raul Mondesi - 24
  Shannon Stewart - 21
  Darrin Fletcher - 20
  
  
• 2005 Texas Rangers
  Mark Teixeira - 43
  Alfonso Soriano - 36
  David Dellucci - 29
  Kevin Mench - 25
  Hank Blalock - 25
  Michael Young - 24
  Rod Barajas - 21

The Yankees have two more players who may well end up with 20 home runs. Derek Jeter has 16 and Jorge Posada hit his 17th earlier tonight.

Fewest Team HR at a Position in 2009

Nearly two-thirds of the way through the season, Jason Kendall of the Brewers is hitting .239 and slugging .283. As you might guess, he doesn't have many extra base hits. He has twelve, to be exact, eleven doubles and one triple. He has started 86 of the Brewers 101 games and backup Mike Rivera also is homerless on the year, meaning the Brewers haven't had a single round-tripper from their backstops. What other teams have suffered a homer drought at one position on the diamond? I did not include NL DHs or pitchers.

Fewest Team HR at a Position in 2009
(through 7/28)

• Milwaukee Brewers, C - 0
• New York Mets, 2B - 0
• San Diego Padres, 2B - 1
• Baltimore Orioles, SS - 2
  
• Cincinnati Reds, CF - 2
  
• Florida Marlins, 3B - 2
• Kansas City Royals, SS - 2
  
• Minnesota Twins, 2B - 2
• Minnesota Twins, CF - 2
  
• New York Mets, SS - 2
• San Francisco Giants, SS - 2
• Washington Nationals, 2B - 2

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

Most Team Hits in a Loss

Reading the most recent "JoeChat" entry on Fire Joe Morgan, I was intrigued by this question: "When is the last time you saw a team get 18 hits (the Rays) and lose?" Well, it turns out the Rays are the only team to lose this year while collecting eighteen hits, but five teams pulled off the feat last season. In fact, a team has knocked out eighteen hits and lost 105 times since 1956. Looking all that up made me wonder what team holds the record for most hits in a loss. Again, this is a record that will be skewed by extra innings so I'll post separate lists for regular and extra-inning games.

Most Team Hits in a Loss (10+ innings), 1956-2008

Team	Opponent	Score	Date	Hits	Opp. Hits	Innings
Cleveland Indians	Philadelphia Athletics	17-18	7/10/1932	33	25	18
Chicago Cubs	Philadelphia Phillies	22-23	5/17/1979	26	24	10
Kansas City Athletics	New York Yankees	9-10	7/27/1956	26	16	14
Montreal Expos	San Diego Padres	8-11	5/21/1977	25	13	21
Boston Red Sox	Seattle Mariners	7-8	9/3/1981	23	24	20
San Francisco Giants	San Diego Padres	16-17	5/23/1970	23	21	15
St. Louis Cardinals	Cincinnati Redlegs	15-19	7/1/1956	23	20	10
Atlanta Braves	Houston Astros	11-12	8/2/2007	22	11	14
Detroit Tigers	Chicago White Sox	16-17	9/14/1998	22	19	12
Minnesota Twins	Tampa Bay Devil Rays	12-13	4/13/1998	22	19	14
Pittsburgh Pirates	Los Angeles Dodgers	10-11	8/12/1995	22	17	11
Texas Rangers	Baltimore Orioles	11-14	5/14/1983	22	19	11
Boston Red Sox	Toronto Blue Jays	6-7	10/4/1980	22	17	17
Baltimore Orioles	Chicago White Sox	10-11	8/21/1976	22	15	12
Cincinnati Reds	San Diego Padres	9-12	5/25/2008	21	18	18
Seattle Mariners	Detroit Tigers	10-11	8/21/2004	21	15	11
Baltimore Orioles	Seattle Mariners	4-6	9/5/2003	21	14	13
Minnesota Twins	Oakland Athletics	11-12	4/24/1997	21	19	11
Chicago Cubs	Colorado Rockies	13-14	5/4/1993	21	17	11
Texas Rangers	Oakland Athletics	12-13	7/1/1979	21	29	15
Oakland Athletics	Baltimore Orioles	5-6	4/26/1974	21	10	15
Philadelphia Phillies	Cincinnati Reds	11-12	6/1/1958	21	16	13

Most Team Hits in a Loss (≤9 innings), 1956-2008

Team	Opponent	Score	Date	Hits	Opp. Hits	Innings
Baltimore Orioles	Tampa Bay Devil Rays	12-13	7/22/2006	22	17	9
Chicago Cubs	Cincinnati Reds	12-15	9/12/2002	22	17	9
Oakland Athletics	Minnesota Twins	11-20	4/27/1980	22	20	9
Detroit Tigers	Chicago White Sox	9-13	4/13/2006	21	17	9
Chicago Cubs	Montreal Expos	15-16	5/14/2000	21	16	9
Colorado Rockies	Chicago Cubs	7-9	5/14/1998	21	15	9
Seattle Mariners	Baltimore Orioles	13-14	5/17/1996	21	21	9
Chicago Cubs	Los Angeles Dodgers	12-14	5/5/1976	21	16	9
Philadelphia Phillies	Cincinnati Reds	17-19	8/3/1969	21	25	9
Milwaukee Brewers	Pittsburgh Pirates	10-17	8/24/2002	20	16	9
Cleveland Indians	Toronto Blue Jays	10-11	5/5/2000	20	13	9
Montreal Expos	Colorado Rockies	10-11	4/19/1999	20	11	9
New York Mets	Colorado Rockies	11-12	5/6/1997	20	14	9
San Diego Padres	Colorado Rockies	12-14	8/4/1995	20	12	9
Atlanta Braves	Montreal Expos	14-16	7/15/1990	20	14	9
Minnesota Twins	Texas Rangers	10-14	6/10/1986	20	17	9
Chicago Cubs	Montreal Expos	15-17	9/24/1985	20	17	9
Seattle Mariners	Cleveland Indians	11-17	8/30/1981	20	16	9
Pittsburgh Pirates	San Francisco Giants	11-13	5/30/1970	20	15	9
New York Mets	Atlanta Braves	10-15	7/26/1964	20	19	9
Boston Red Sox	Washington Senators	10-11	4/24/1960	20	13	9

Team PA in a Game

So it's been a week again since I've posted. I'm going to try and get back to a more regular posting schedule soon. Today I want to look at the number of plate appearances by a team in a single game. Obviously extra-inning games will be atop the list (often both teams are next to each other on the list) so I've included the number of innings in each game. The date links to the box score. TOB means Times on Base, or H + BB + HBP + times reached on errors.

Most Team PA in a Game, 1956-2007

Team	Opponent	Date	PA	TOB	Innings
Chicago White Sox	Milwaukee Brewers	5/8/1984	104	32	25
New York Mets	St. Louis Cardinals	9/11/1974	103	29	25
St. Louis Cardinals	New York Mets	9/11/1974	99	29	25
New York Yankees	Detroit Tigers	6/24/1962	96	30	22
Detroit Tigers	New York Yankees	6/24/1962	95	33	22
Montreal Expos	San Diego Padres	5/21/1977	94	34	21
Milwaukee Brewers	Chicago White Sox	5/8/1984	94	31	25
San Francisco Giants	New York Mets	5/31/1964	93	28	23
Washington Senators	Cleveland Indians	9/14/1971	93	34	20
New York Mets	Atlanta Braves	7/4/1985	93	40	19
Minnesota Twins	Milwaukee Brewers	5/12/1972	92	30	22
New York Mets	San Francisco Giants	5/31/1964	91	26	23
Atlanta Braves	Philadelphia Phillies	5/4/1973	91	33	20
Seattle Mariners	Boston Red Sox	9/3/1981	90	33	20
New York Mets	Houston Astros	4/15/1968	88	16	24
Minnesota Twins	Seattle Pilots	7/19/1969	88	35	18
Los Angeles Dodgers	Houston Astros	6/3/1989	88	25	22
Houston Astros	Los Angeles Dodgers	6/3/1989	88	27	22
Houston Astros	New York Mets	4/15/1968	87	19	24
San Diego Padres	Montreal Expos	5/21/1977	87	28	21
Atlanta Braves	New York Mets	7/4/1985	87	32	19
Florida Marlins	St. Louis Cardinals	4/27/2003	87	31	20

Team Scoreless Streaks and SHO%

Last weekend, regular reader Ken alerted me to the fact the Royals hadn't scored in 26 innings (they scored in the first inning the next day). He noted that he didn't think this was a record for them but thought it might be an interesting topic for a post. I thought that was a good idea and looked up the Royals record (32 innings from July 5 through July 9, 2004). Unfortunately, the numbers for other teams were harder to figure out, at least the way I was approaching the task, so I decided to look up a couple other shutout-related team numbers.

First up is the longest streak of consecutive games in which each MLB team has been shut out since 1956. I've also noted the frequency of that number of consecutive games for each team and the dates of the most recent such stretch of games.

Consecutive Games Shut Out For Each MLB Team, 1956-2007

Team	Games	Frequency	Start	End
Arizona Diamondbacks	2	4	5/29/2004	5/30/2004
Atlanta Braves	4	1	5/8/1985	5/12/1985
Baltimore Orioles	3	1	7/29/1957	7/31/1957
Boston Red Sox	3	3	4/27/1981	4/29/1981
Chicago Cubs	4	2	4/27/1992	5/1/1992
Chicago White Sox	3	4	7/21/1968	7/24/1968
Cincinnati Reds	3	1	4/18/1989	4/21/1989
Cleveland Indians	3	5	6/12/1991	6/14/1991
Colorado Rockies	2	4	7/21/2007	7/22/2007
Detroit Tigers	3	4	9/29/1995	10/1/1995
Florida Marlins	2	6	6/21/2005	6/22/2005
Houston Astros	4	2	9/9/1966	9/11/1966
Kansas City Royals	3	1	7/5/2004	7/7/2004
Los Angeles Angels	3	1	6/24/1978	6/26/1978
Los Angeles Dodgers	3	3	8/5/2007	8/8/2007
Milwaukee Brewers	3	1	5/3/1972	5/6/1972
Minnesota Twins	4	1	9/19/1958	9/22/1958
New York Mets	3	3	7/25/1992	7/27/1992
New York Yankees	3	3	7/27/1975	7/28/1975
Oakland Athletics	3	4	9/9/1979	9/12/1979
Philadelphia Phillies	3	7	5/20/1983	5/24/1983
Pittsburgh Pirates	3	3	8/28/1968	8/30/1968
San Diego Padres	3	3	7/5/1976	7/7/1976
San Francisco Giants	3	3	6/23/1992	6/25/1992
Seattle Mariners	2	23	7/21/2007	7/22/2007
St. Louis Cardinals	3	2	10/2/1976	10/3/1976
Tampa Bay Rays	2	4	4/28/2004	4/29/2004
Texas Rangers	4	1	9/1/1964	9/5/1964
Toronto Blue Jays	3	2	8/24/1990	8/26/1990
Washington Nationals	3	3	4/13/2004	4/15/2004

That table might not have been particularly thrilling. I do think it's interesting how the Mariners have hit two games in a row so often but never quite made it to three in a row. While I was looking up shutout data, I decided to check out the number of times shut out and total games played for each franchise since 1956. Obviously expansion teams have played fewer games and many have the advantage of playing in more run-friendly era for most of their existence, but it should be interesting nonetheless.

Times Shut Out and Games Played, 1956-2007

Team	Times Shut Out	Total Games Played	SHO%
New York Mets	530	7320	7.24
San Diego Padres	447	6194	7.22
Washington Nationals	437	6188	7.06
Los Angeles Angels	523	7487	6.99
Houston Astros	502	7329	6.85
Chicago Cubs	548	8257	6.64
Philadelphia Phillies	543	8253	6.58
Texas Rangers	487	7473	6.52
Pittsburgh Pirates	532	8248	6.45
Minnesota Twins	520	8254	6.30
Atlanta Braves	518	8248	6.28
Los Angeles Dodgers	516	8258	6.25
Oakland Athletics	511	8256	6.19
Tampa Bay Rays	100	1617	6.18
Baltimore Orioles	505	8239	6.13
St. Louis Cardinals	505	8251	6.12
Kansas City Royals	376	6181	6.08
Cleveland Indians	501	8238	6.08
San Francisco Giants	496	8257	6.01
Chicago White Sox	486	8254	5.89
Detroit Tigers	482	8257	5.84
Florida Marlins	136	2363	5.76
Milwaukee Brewers	355	6189	5.74
New York Yankees	469	8252	5.68
Seattle Mariners	277	4899	5.65
Arizona Diamondbacks	90	1620	5.56
Toronto Blue Jays	271	4900	5.53
Cincinnati Reds	452	8253	5.48
Boston Red Sox	444	8251	5.38
Colorado Rockies	114	2368	4.81

Facing Young Starters

File this under frivolous.

I'm pretty sure every fan is mad when a rookie starting pitcher throws a good game against his or her favorite team. After all, the reasoning goes, these guys should crack under the pressure and take their lumps during their first go-round in the league. Even worse is when some teams seem to struggle habitually against young starters. To see if that's true, I decided to take a look at recent performances by young starters (note: I use young as a general term: Tom Shearn debuted at 30, which is not young in baseball terms, but I think he's the exception, not the rule) against each team.

I looked at starts by pitchers in the first ten games of their career against each team since 2000. I don't think there's anything special about a pitcher's tenth career game as opposed to his eleventh career game, but it's a round number and generally only a short way into the pitcher's career. I looked at the final result of the game (win or loss), as well as the average runs scored off the young pitchers against the average runs scored per game by each team from 2000-2007. The results are below.

Facing Starters in the First 10 Games of Their Careers, 2000-2007

Team	W	L	%	RA vs. Rookies	Avg R/G by Team	Difference
San Francisco Giants	40	29	.580	6.29	4.78	1.51
Texas Rangers	55	43	.561	6.63	5.23	1.40
New York Mets	48	38	.558	5.69	4.50	1.19
Tampa Bay Rays	37	46	.446	5.56	4.43	1.13
Kansas City Royals	42	47	.472	5.79	4.68	1.11
Cincinnati Reds	45	58	.437	5.76	4.67	1.09
Pittsburgh Pirates	39	45	.464	5.43	4.34	1.09
Boston Red Sox	42	27	.609	6.41	5.35	1.06
Los Angeles Angels	48	36	.571	5.93	4.88	1.05
Florida Marlins	46	34	.575	5.60	4.56	1.04
Milwaukee Brewers	45	47	.489	5.28	4.41	0.87
Baltimore Orioles	53	43	.552	5.47	4.62	0.86
Washington Nationals	45	45	.500	5.07	4.28	0.79
Houston Astros	48	37	.565	5.62	4.85	0.77
Cleveland Indians	55	46	.545	5.86	5.10	0.76
Minnesota Twins	52	37	.584	5.40	4.69	0.71
Toronto Blue Jays	55	39	.585	5.63	4.94	0.70
Detroit Tigers	42	46	.477	5.30	4.61	0.69
Atlanta Braves	57	42	.576	5.62	4.93	0.69
Seattle Mariners	58	42	.580	5.61	4.93	0.68
Chicago White Sox	61	35	.635	5.76	5.08	0.67
Philadelphia Phillies	44	38	.537	5.58	4.91	0.67
Chicago Cubs	43	40	.518	5.24	4.58	0.66
Oakland Athletics	55	32	.632	5.54	5.00	0.54
Los Angeles Dodgers	46	38	.548	4.94	4.51	0.43
St. Louis Cardinals	55	30	.647	5.44	5.04	0.40
New York Yankees	45	29	.608	5.79	5.51	0.28
Colorado Rockies	33	42	.440	5.33	5.22	0.12
San Diego Padres	38	38	.500	4.44	4.48	-0.04
Arizona Diamondbacks	46	33	.582	4.51	4.58	-0.08

Apparent basic arithmetic errors in the final column (see the last row) can be explained by rounding.

I sorted the list by the final column because I thought it was more telling than winning percentage in relevant games. The teams that lost more than half their games against young pitchers are also the teams that lost more than half their games anyway. It doesn't seem to make much sense to penalize or favor a certain team for the quality of their pitching staff. Rather, it makes sense to evaluate a team's performance against young pitchers based on the offense they generate against them. As I said above, I used run average based on the sums of innings pitched and runs allowed by the young pitchers and compared it to the average runs scored against all pitchers by each team in the past eight seasons. I thought it was interesting that the Padres and Diamondbacks actually scored less against young pitchers and that the teams near the top of the list actually aren't that great.

This doesn't tell you much in the grand scheme of things, but now you have something to point to when complaining about how your team's hitters always get beaten by young starters.

2007 NL LOB/RISP Data

I thought it'd be interesting to look at the numbers of baserunners (a guy that hits a home run doesn't count as a baserunner for this) left on base and in scoring position by each team in the National League. To do that, I'm going to use a table to show raw numbers for all of the teams and then a number of lists for some further percentages.

In the following table, LOB, as usual, stands for Left On Base, RISP stands for Runners In Scoring Position, RLISP is Runners Left In Scoring Position, and RISPR is Runners In Scoring Position Runs, my lingo for runs scored by guys who began the run-scoring play in scoring position. You'll note RLISP and RISPR values don't always add up to RISP values. This is because teams make outs on the basepaths - runners picked off second or third or thrown out at third or home plate may have started the play in scoring position but may not have made the final out of the inning. If they did make the final out of the inning, I considered them runners left in scoring position. Perhaps that's not the right way to interpret the term but I figure in most cases they could have pulled up a base short and not been thrown out or gotten picked off; either way, the risk they took hurt their team and I wanted to reflect this in the numbers. What's the difference between a guy absentmindedly being picked off third base and a guy who's too busy swinging for the fences to make contact with RISP and two outs in the long run?

2007 NL Raw Numbers for Baserunners

Team	Baserunners	LOB	RISP	RLISP	RISPR
Colorado	2156	1251	1292	716	556
Philadelphia	2151	1295	1296	722	546
Atlanta	2035	1205	1221	667	525
New York	2032	1196	1221	672	519
Los Angeles	2019	1200	1209	666	508
St. Louis	1996	1167	1157	639	494
Chicago	1993	1190	1194	661	494
Florida	1970	1196	1140	644	465
Cincinnati	1961	1170	1124	645	452
Houston	1950	1181	1133	653	455
Washington	1921	1163	1093	629	441
Pittsburgh	1903	1119	1123	611	484
San Francisco	1901	1141	1099	612	453
San Diego	1889	1152	1098	604	472
Milwaukee	1863	1117	1084	614	442
Arizona	1826	1090	1058	592	437
NL Sums	31566	18833	18542	10347	7743
NL Averages	1973	1177	1159	647	484

You can see every team was within 330 baserunners of each other; that's a little over two per game. Alone, these numbers don't say much: so what if Arizona left the fewest runners on base, they had the fewest opportunities to leave guys out there. With that in mind, here's the list of teams ranked by lowest to highest LOB%:

1. Colorado, 58.02% of baserunners left on base
2. St. Louis, 58.47%
3. Pittsburgh, 58.80%
4. New York, 58.86%
5. Atlanta, 59.21%
6. Los Angeles, 59.44%
7. NL Average, 59.66%
   
8. Cincinnati, 59.66%
9. Arizona, 59.69%
10. Chicago, 59.71%
11. Milwaukee, 59.96%
12. San Francisco, 60.02%
13. Philadelphia, 60.20%
14. Washington, 60.54%
15. Houston, 60.56%
16. Florida, 60.71%
17. San Diego, 60.98%

The fact playoff contenders and non-contenders are all jumbled up is a pretty good clue that LOB numbers don't have much bearing on a team's overall success. The fact all teams are within 3 percentage points of each other is another -- given the league average number of baserunners, 3% is 59 baserunners. That's about 1 every three games; hardly a huge number.

If you get on base, your ultimate destination is home plate. It's much easier for your teammates to bring you home if you are on second or third base--they only need to hit a single in most cases--so I want to look at which teams had the highest percentage of baserunners who got into scoring position.

1. Philadelphia, 60.25% of baserunners got into scoring position
2. New York, 60.09%
3. Atlanta, 60.00%
4. Colorado, 59.93%
5. Chicago, 59.91%
6. Los Angeles, 59.88%
7. Pittsburgh, 59.01%
8. NL Average, 58.74%
9. Milwaukee, 58.19%
10. San Diego, 58.13%
11. Houston, 58.10%
12. St. Louis, 57.97%
13. Arizona, 57.94%
14. Florida, 57.87%
15. San Francisco, 57.81%
16. Cincinnati, 57.32%
17. Washington, 56.90%

Good and bad teams are still jumbled up, though perhaps not as much as before. It's kind of intuitive that if you get more runners into scoring position, you'll likely have a better offense anyway. One other thing to note: teams that knock out a bunch of extra base hits don't need runners in scoring position as much. If you're hitting home runs a lot, you can score runners from first just fine.

So, of all those guys to get into scoring position, which team was best at not stranding them there?

1. Pittsburgh, 54.41% of RISP stranded
2. Atlanta, 54.63%
3. San Diego, 55.01%
4. New York, 55.04%
5. Los Angeles, 55.09%
6. St. Louis, 55.23%
7. Chicago, 55.36%
8. Colorado, 55.42%
9. San Francisco, 55.69%
10. Philadelphia, 55.71%
11. NL Average, 55.80%
12. Arizona, 55.95%
13. Florida, 56.49%
14. Milwaukee, 56.64%
15. Cincinnati, 57.38%
16. Washington, 57.55%
17. Houston, 57.63%

If you thought Pittsburgh was the best at not leaving runners in scoring position, congratulations. The fact the league average is below ten teams underscores just how out of whack the five bottom teams were. Of course, and I don't know if this is true, it's possible those were the most conservative teams - if you don't try and take extra bases with less than two outs, you can't get thrown out doing it. Similarly, maybe teams near the top were more reckless than others.

Finally, which teams were the best at bringing their RISP around to score?

1. Pittsburgh, 43.10% of RISP scored
2. Colorado, 43.03%
3. Atlanta, 43.00%
4. San Diego, 42.99%
5. St. Louis, 42.70%
6. New York, 42.51%
7. Philadelphia, 42.13%
8. Los Angeles, 42.02%
9. NL Average, 41.76%
10. Chicago, 41.37%
11. Arizona, 41.30%
12. San Francisco, 41.22%
13. Florida, 40.79%
14. Milwaukee, 40.77%
15. Washington, 40.35%
16. Cincinnati, 40.21%
17. Houston, 40.16%

I guess Pittsburgh wasn't reckless after all; I didn't realize they scored the highest percentage of runners in scoring position. Be that as it may, again there's about a 3% difference between the top and bottom teams. Given the league average number of runners in scoring position for a team, that's about 35 runs per season, or one every four games. Teams near the bottom of this can mitigate their lack of RISP conversion by hitting a lot of home runs; you'd be hard pressed to say Milwaukee and Cincinnati didn't have good offenses last season.

Losing with a Walk Differential of >= 9

The Chicago Cubs lost 5-4 in extra innings to the Houston Astros last night. I was reading a Cubs blog this morning and came across an interesting question: "What about having a walk differential of +9 and losing a game? How often does that occur?"

The inspiration for that query, of course, was the fact the Cubs had ten walks in the game and the Astros had one (given up to the batter who eventually scored the winning run). Given my compulsion to look up answers to strange questions like that, I tracked down what I think is the most recent such game.

On April 26, 2006, the New York Yankees were defeated by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 10 innings, amassing six hits and fourteen walks while only giving up seven hits and five walks of their own. I find it interesting that with twenty baserunners throughout the game and only two double plays recorded by Tampa Bay, the Yankees only managed to plate two runners (on a home run, no less). They left sixteen baserunners stranded.

Also notable: since 1957, it has only happened fifty-four times that a team has had at least twenty baserunners and two or fewer runs scored in the same game. It was only the fourth time since 2000 it happened.

NOTE: That's what I found looking through the B-R PI's Team Batting and Team Pitching Game Finders with walks set to different numbers. If you find a more recent example, let me know!

LA Chicks Dig the Small Ball...

or, A Difcufsion of the Home run in 2007 Baseball offenfes, As of Auguft 16.

I've seen the Milwaukee Brewers criticized for relying too much on the home run to power their offense, resulting in weaker numbers overall. Let's look at the data.



Alright, that table is sorted by the percentage of runs scored on home runs. The Brewers are atop the list and the Reds are the only team anywhere close. Surprisingly, the team with the second-fewest runs in all of major league baseball is third in relying on the home run to provide what runs they do get. Conversely, it's interesting that the Dodgers, Angels, and Royals are all so far below the rest of the teams. I guess small ball is en vogue in Los Angeles.

To underscore how it doesn't really matter how a team scores runs as long as they do score runs, let's look at a scatter plot of total runs scored vs. HR runs %:



Click to enlarge in new window.

There is no correlation between HR R % and total runs scored.

You'll notice the final column in the table is R/HR. Interestingly, while the NL relies more on home runs for runs than the AL does, they also score less per home run. The best team in the majors at hitting home runs with runners on is Baltimore, by a fairly large margin (1.78 to Washington's 1.72). The worst teams are Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh with 1.46 and 1.45, respectively. Knowing that, it would behoove us to presume there's not much correlation between R/HR and total runs scored, but let's get a chart to make sure.


Click to enlarge in new window.

Once again, there's no correlation between runs scored and runs per home run.

So what does this mean? Basically, as long as your team scores, it doesn't matter how they do it. So the Angels have scored 600 runs on only 84 home runs; they wouldn't be any better (or worse) off if they'd taken Atlanta's approach and hit 124 home runs. Similarly, if the Brewers bunted guys over and used all the other small ball tactics to amass their 571 runs, they wouldn't have used any better of an approach than what they have actually done.

The next time you want to berate your favorite team for failing to play small ball, keep in mind they might just be playing to their strengths rather than limiting themselves.