In a game thread, or maybe somewhere else, I posted about the OPS disparity between the Red Sox and the good offensive teams in MLB. I posted a caveat to the effect that OPS is not the be all and end all of offensive prowess, but afterwards, I decided to take a look at home important (predictive?) it is. Here are the OPS season ranks of the 10 playoff teams:
1. Houston
2. Cleveland
3. NYY
4. Washington
5. Colorado
6. Chi Cubs
7. Arizona
8. Dodgers
9. Minnesota
22. Boston
That was pretty dramatic. Other power numbers are not nearly as predictive. The Rays and the Orioles hit a ton of home runs, etc. But it got me thinking, how did this team get to 93 wins. It has to be on the pitching side. So, I decided to look at opponent OPS. Boston ranks very well there, but not better than the Yankees, for example, or even the Rays – which are good comps given they are in the same division. Here are the rankings:
1. Dodgers
2. Cleveland
3. NYY
4. Washington
5. Arizona
6. Tampa Bay
7. Boston
No ballpark adjustments, obviously, so it’s a very rough indicator. But I also looked at several other pitching indicators, and they all show a very good pitching team – runs against stats come in around 5th in most categories (not advanced or adjusted, but a rough sense). But certainly not a generational pitching staff or anything.
Lots of stuff gets thrown around on this board about this phenomenon in one way or another – we’re “lucky,” we’re “great in extra inning games,” our “bullpen” – and some of this is clearly the Yankees dramatically underperforming their pythag. These strike me as a bit too simple, and there is something nagging at me that I cannot put my finger on. Those OPS numbers are staggering. This offense is not commensurate with having the third best win total in the league and 5th best in baseball. The question really is whether there is some market inefficiency baked in somewhere. Does this team’s dedication to unreasonably aggressive baserunning demonstrate something? Is there some defensive metric related to three fantastic outfielders that is undervalued?
And last, a point that I know would be quite controversial, but do managing decisions, especially pitching and pinch hitting, have any effect over 162 games? My hunch – emphasis hunch – has always been that it’s negligible. To the extent managing can impact wins, from where I sit there is at least some evidence to suggest that Farrell et al. may have had a positive impact, not a negative one as seems to be the conventional wisdom.
1. Houston
2. Cleveland
3. NYY
4. Washington
5. Colorado
6. Chi Cubs
7. Arizona
8. Dodgers
9. Minnesota
22. Boston
That was pretty dramatic. Other power numbers are not nearly as predictive. The Rays and the Orioles hit a ton of home runs, etc. But it got me thinking, how did this team get to 93 wins. It has to be on the pitching side. So, I decided to look at opponent OPS. Boston ranks very well there, but not better than the Yankees, for example, or even the Rays – which are good comps given they are in the same division. Here are the rankings:
1. Dodgers
2. Cleveland
3. NYY
4. Washington
5. Arizona
6. Tampa Bay
7. Boston
No ballpark adjustments, obviously, so it’s a very rough indicator. But I also looked at several other pitching indicators, and they all show a very good pitching team – runs against stats come in around 5th in most categories (not advanced or adjusted, but a rough sense). But certainly not a generational pitching staff or anything.
Lots of stuff gets thrown around on this board about this phenomenon in one way or another – we’re “lucky,” we’re “great in extra inning games,” our “bullpen” – and some of this is clearly the Yankees dramatically underperforming their pythag. These strike me as a bit too simple, and there is something nagging at me that I cannot put my finger on. Those OPS numbers are staggering. This offense is not commensurate with having the third best win total in the league and 5th best in baseball. The question really is whether there is some market inefficiency baked in somewhere. Does this team’s dedication to unreasonably aggressive baserunning demonstrate something? Is there some defensive metric related to three fantastic outfielders that is undervalued?
And last, a point that I know would be quite controversial, but do managing decisions, especially pitching and pinch hitting, have any effect over 162 games? My hunch – emphasis hunch – has always been that it’s negligible. To the extent managing can impact wins, from where I sit there is at least some evidence to suggest that Farrell et al. may have had a positive impact, not a negative one as seems to be the conventional wisdom.