Monday, October 13, 2008

Defensive runs created in 2008

In my previous post, I showed that the Tigers scored about as many runs as they theoretically created given their number of singles, doubles, triples, homers, walks, etc in 2007. I wanted to see if the same was true about runs allowed by the defense (pitching and fielding combined). I applied the same runs created formula as I did for batting stats to pitching stats. The team results are listed in Tables 1 and 2 below for the American and National Leagues respectively.

You will notice that the number of runs allowed by each American League team was within 5 percent of their defensive runs created. So, the agreement between runs allowed and defense runs created was even stronger than it was for offense. In the National League, there were three teams that fell outside the 5% range.

Table 1 shows that the Tigers defense allowed 857 runs which is just six more than the 851 runs they theoretically created in 2008. So, their pitching was neither lucky nor unlucky. It was just bad. Both their pitching and hitting were sabermetrically correct.

The team that was best (luckiest?) at preventing hits and walks from becoming runs was you guessed it - the Twins. They allowed 27 fewer runs than their pitchers and fielders theoretically created. The most unlucky American League team was the Rangers who allowed 4.4% more than they created.

There were three National League teams who allowed at least 5% fewer runs than they should have - the Phillies (8.0%), Cardinals (7%) and Reds (5.1%). The unluckiest team was the Diamondbacks who allowed 3.5% more than they created.

Table 1: Runs Allowed Versus Defense Runs Created in American League in 2008

Team

Runs allowed

Runs Created

difference

% difference

MIN

745

772

-27

-3.5

LAA

697

721

-24

-3.4

TOR

610

630

-20

-3.2

SEA

811

837

-26

-3.1

BAL

869

882

-13

-1.5

TB

671

679

-8

-1.2

CHA

729

734

-5

-0.7

CLE

761

765

-4

-0.5

NYA

727

723

4

0.5

BOS

694

690

4

0.5

DET

857

851

6

0.7

OAK

690

684

6

0.9

KC

781

753

28

3.8

TEX

967

926

41

4.4


Table 1: Runs Allowed Versus Defense Runs Created in National League in 2008

Team

Runs allowed

Runs Created

difference

% difference

PHI

680

739

-59

-8.0

STL

725

780

-55

-7.0

CIN

800

843

-43

-5.1

HOU

743

766

-23

-3.0

PIT

884

911

-27

-3.0

MIL

689

709

-20

-2.8

NYN

715

729

-14

-2.0

CHN

671

679

-8

-1.2

SF

759

756

3

0.3

LAN

648

645

3

0.4

SD

764

758

6

0.7

COL

822

816

6

0.8

WAS

825

814

11

1.3

ATL

778

761

17

2.3

FLA

767

745

22

3.0

ARI

706

682

24

3.5

2 comments:

  1. This is an interesting chart of data that conforms to some of my own private stats. I have concluded from my own calculations that the Tigers' pitchers performed reasonably well in relation to the high number of runs they gave up. In other words, my findings show that the Tigers got a little more "unlucky" than their fair share given how the pitchers performed. And they happened to have some "unlucky" batting performances in the wrong spots as well, resulting in the overall rough season.

    ---TSE

    ReplyDelete
  2. Based on the stats, Robertson, Verlander and Rogers pitched better than their ERAs. Galarraga, on the other hand, pitched worse than his ERA. I'll be getting more into that later.

    Lee

    ReplyDelete

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