Manufactured Runs

I just received my copy of The Bill James Handbook today. It’s the first baseball annual I receive each off season and I recommend it to anybody who wants a hard copy version of all the 2006 statistics before Thanksgiving. It includes all the usual statistics and some less common ones such as win shares, runs created, component ERA, range factor and lefty/righty splits for each player. One of the best features is a unique leader board section - pitchers with the highest average fastball, batters with the highest swing and miss percentage, etc.

There is a new section in this year's book on manufactured runs where they count the number of manufactured runs for each team in 2006. They give a complex 12 part definition of the manufactured run which I will not repeat here. Basically, a manufactured run is a run which is scored as the result of something other than "station to station" baseball. It is generally a run which is scored because runners advanced to bases due to something other than an outfield hit or a walk. Some examples of manufactured runs are:

• Walk, single (runner goes to 3rd), sacrifice fly
• Single, single(runner goes to third), ground out
• single, stolen base,sac bunt, ground out
  

Some examples of non-manufatctured runs are:

• solo home run
• single, single (runner advances to third), single
• double, stolen base, double

It is probably not a huge surprise that the Tigers manufactured fewer runs (124) than any team in baseball. The Twins finished first with 224. I can't give you any more details (you'll have to buy the book for that) except to say that only 2 teams in the top 13 made the playoffs. It's only one year of data but that might say something about the importance of manufacturing runs.