Baseball Articles — Team Efficiency
How to Measure Team Efficiency
Measuring team efficiency 
By Tom Tippett
December 5, 2002
It goes without saying that wins and losses are the most important things to consider when judging a team's performance. They are, after all, what the game is all about and what determines who gets to keep playing until there's only one winner left.
The next most important things are runs scored and runs allowed. You win games by outscoring your opponents, so the connection between runs and wins is very strong. It's not perfect, though, and every season produces a few teams that win more or less than you'd expect given their run differential.
If runs are one step removed from wins, then the baseball events that produce runs are two steps removed from wins. You score runs by putting together singles and walks and doubles and steals and homers, and you prevent runs by holding the other team to a minimum of those things.
In most cases, there's a very direct relationship between wins and runs and the underlying events that produce runs. But that's not always the case, and in this review of the 2002 season, we'll identify teams where those relationships didn't hold up. If the past is any guide, this will give us some very strong hints about what is likely to happen with those teams in the future.
To explore the relationship between runs and wins, we'll use the pythagorean method that was developed by Bill James. To explore the relationship between offensive events and runs, I'll introduce a new statistic that I'll call the run efficiency average. This number will tell us which teams were unusually good at turning offensive events into runs and unusually good at keeping the other team from doing the same.
We'll end up with three measures for each team -- one for offensive efficiency, one for defensive efficiency, and one for pythagorean efficiency -- that will tell us which teams squeezed more wins out of the hits and walks and homers and other events that occurred during their games. And which teams squandered their output to the greatest degree.
And we'll take a look at some history. We'll see that teams that are unusually efficient (or ineffecient) have exhibited a very strong tendency to revert back to the norm the next year. In other words, if your team was especially inefficient in 2002, there is every reason to believe things will be better next year. And the opposite is true, too. If your team was very efficient this year, don't count on a repeat performance next year.
That's good news for the Cubs, Brewers, Devil Rays and Tigers. And bad news for the Angels, Braves, and Twins. It's way too early to start predicting what's going to happen in 2003, and all thirty teams are quite capable of improving or regressing based on their off-season moves and the development of their younger players and prospects. But we can say that these seven teams (and a few others to a lesser degree) go into the offseason in better or worse condition than it might seem based solely on their 2002 win-loss records.
Converting runs into wins
Others, notably Rob Neyer and the Baseball Prospectus crew, have written extensively on ESPN.com about the Bill James pythagorean method, a well-established formula that says that a team's winning percentage is tightly coupled with runs scored and runs allowed. The expanded standings on ESPN.com include run margins and expected win-loss records that are derived using this formula, and Rob's home page showed pythagorean standings every day. So I'm not going to go over that ground again.
I will, however, try to put the 2002 results into historical context. For instance, the Red Sox and Cubs won 8 fewer games than their run margin would normally produce, while three teams (Minnesota +7, Oakland +6, and Detroit +6) won at least six more than expected. How unusual is this? And what tends to happen to teams that stray from their expected win totals?
I started by computing the expected and actual win totals for every team since 1962, the first year the 162-game schedule was used in both leagues. The more games you play, the larger the differences between expected and actual wins, so I didn't want to mix seasons with different schedules. For that reason, I left out the strike-shortened 1972, 1981, 1994, and 1995 campaigns, leaving a total of 72 league-seasons.
In those 72 league-seasons, the average team "missed" its pythagorean projection by only 3.2 games, indicating that there is indeed a very strong relationship between runs and wins. How does 2002 compare? This year, AL teams were off by an average of 4.1 games while their NL counterparts missed by an average of 3.0 games. Overall, the 30 teams had an average difference of 3.5 games, slightly higher than the historical average but well within the normal year-to-year fluctuations.
The wackiest season, in the pythagorean sense, was the 1978 National League, whose teams missed their projections by an average of 5.3 games. In the NL West that year, the Dodgers led the league in both scoring and fewest runs allowed, outscoring their opponents by 154 runs, while the Reds were only +22 on run differential. But Cincinnati won nine more games than expected and the Dodgers five fewer, turning what could have been a runaway win by the Dodgers into a close battle that saw LA win by 2-1/2 games. In the NL East, the story was much the same, as the Phillies (-6) edged the Pirates (+2) by two games in a race that was much closer than it could have been. That same year, the Expos matched the Reds with a run margin of +22, but Cincinnati (+9) won 92 games and Montreal (-8) only 76. (The Expos run margin foreshadowed their improvement; they went on to win 95 games in 1979.)
In contrast, the 1991 American League was closest to pythagorean form, with an average difference of only 1.8 wins.
What tends to happen to teams with large pythagorean differences? Here's a list of the 22 teams that have exceeded their projected win total by at least 8 games, along with their differences in the next year:
Team Diff Next --------------- ---- ---- 1974 Padres +12 + 7 1984 Mets +12 + 1 1970 Reds +11 - 3 1963 Astros +10 + 4 1997 Giants +10 - 3 1998 Royals +10 -11 1970 Phillies + 9 + 3 1977 Orioles + 9 + 6 1978 Reds + 9 - 1 1978 Athletics + 9 + 4 2001 Mets + 9 - 4 1971 Braves + 8 + 5 1973 Tigers + 8 + 8 1974 Tigers + 8 + 2 1976 Cubs + 8 + 5 1977 Mariners + 8 0 1979 Astros + 8 + 5 1982 Giants + 8 - 1 1987 Expos + 8 - 5 1989 Astros + 8 + 5 1992 Astros + 8 - 6 1997 Reds + 8 - 3
As you can see, only a few teams came close to matching their pythagorean differences in the next season. In fact, these 22 teams were collectively 18 wins above their projection the year after, an average of less than one win per team.
(Just to be clear, these next-year numbers don't represent the change in actual win-loss record from the year before, so they don't measure the team's tendency to get better or worse. They represent the difference between actual and pythagorean wins the next season. In other words, they measure the tendency to consistently win more or fewer games than the run margin suggests, not the tendency to produce a better or worse run margin in the first place.)
On the flip side, here are the teams with the biggest negative differences since 1962:
Team Diff Next --------------- ---- ---- 1962 Mets - 8 + 3 1968 Pirates - 8 - 2 1974 Angels - 8 + 3 1975 Dodgers - 8 + 2 1978 Expos - 8 0 1983 Cubs - 8 + 4 1983 Rangers - 8 - 5 1985 Indians - 8 + 4 1986 Giants - 8 - 4 2000 Astros - 8 + 4 1962 Cardinals - 9 - 2 1963 Twins - 9 - 9 1964 Twins - 9 + 1 1966 Yankees - 9 + 5 1974 Athletics - 9 - 1 1975 Yankees - 9 - 1 1980 Brewers - 9 + 4 1984 Astros - 9 0 1985 Red Sox - 9 + 4 1990 Mets - 9 - 3 1980 Cardinals -10 + 3 (103 games in 1981) 1993 Padres -10 - 5 1997 Astros -10 - 6 2001 Rockies -10 + 4 1970 Cubs -10 + 3 1975 Astros -11 + 3 1999 Royals -11 + 1 1967 Orioles -12 - 2 1984 Pirates -13 - 6 1986 Pirates -13 + 1 1993 Mets -14 + 1
These 31 teams were collectively 4 wins above their projection the year after, about as close to zero wins per team as you can get.
These extreme teams do leave us with a few unanswered questions. Why are there more NL teams than AL teams on these lists? Why do the Astros show up as often as they do? How miserable must the mid-1980s Pirates fans have been when their team posted a three-year pythagorean difference of -32 wins from 1984 to 1986? These answers, if they exist, will have to wait for another day.
I'm not going to suggest that I have proven this beyond a reasonable doubt, but I believe luck plays a large part. If you wanted to argue that the over-achievers had big pluses because their manager was especially astute or their roster was full of clutch players, it would be a tough case to make based on the next-year records of these teams. And looking at the under-achievers, it would be even tougher to argue that their manager and players are fundamentally flawed based on their next-year results.
But teams change from year to year, and the under-achievers are much more likely to fire their managers and turn over half their rosters. Perhaps those changes were responsible for bringing them back to pythagorean normalcy. Even though I don't believe this argument would hold up under closer examination, it muddies the water a little.
Still, if managerial skill and clutch performance were the biggest piece of this puzzle, why wouldn't the over-achievers, the teams that would not be making many changes from year to year, be able to maintain their performance to a much greater extent?
Converting offensive events into runs
In the previous section, we took one step back from wins and losses to examine runs. In this section, we'll take another step back and look at the offensive events -- the hits and walks that lead to the runs that generate the wins -- that were produced and allowed by each team.
Just as there is a strong relationship between runs and wins, it's almost always true that the more hits and walks you produce, the more runs you'll score. Sometimes a productive team comes up short on the scoreboard because they didn't hit in the clutch or just because they happened to hit line drives right at people in key situations. Or the opposite could be true. But this relationship holds up most of the time.
To shed some light on this relationship, we need a way to take batting stats and turn them into a measure of overall offensive production. There are several good options here, including Runs Created (Bill James), Batting Runs (Pete Palmer), Equivalent Average (Clay Davenport), and OPS (on-base average plus slugging average). But many of them require a computer, and although we do computer analysis all the time, we also like to use simpler measures that anyone can use whenever they have a page of stats in front of them. The best of these simple methods give up very little accuracy in return for a big gain in usability.
For this exercise, I'll use the sum of total bases and walks, or TBW for short. TBW is not a perfect measure, but it does have a few things going for it. It captures the most important things a team does to produce runs -- singles, extra-base hits, and walks. It's easy to figure without a computer. In the past, I've used both TBW and OPS for this type of analysis, and the results are almost exactly the same, so the accuracy is more than acceptable.
And sometimes it just seems to tell a story more clearly. For instance, the 2002 Yankees had a team OPS of .809 compared to the .769 mark of the Mariners. Even though I've been working with OPS figures for a number of years, I still need to stop and think about what a 40-point advantage means. But if you tell me that the Yankees produced 224 more total bases and walks than the Mariners, that's something I can grasp right away.
The following table shows the offensive and defensive TBW figures for the American League, along with the difference between these two figures and each team's league rank based on those differences. It also shows runs for and against, the run differential, and the rankings based on run differential. Finally, because we're trying to trace a path from TBW to runs to wins, it also lists the team's win total for the year.
---------- TBW ---------- ------- Runs -------- AL Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank W NY 3187 2629 +558 1 897 697 +200 2 103 Bos 3050 2532 +518 2 859 665 +194 3 93 Tor 2921 2995 - 74 8 813 828 - 15 8 78 Bal 2665 2981 -316 11 667 773 -106 11 67 Tam 2640 3219 -579 13 673 918 -245 13 55 Min 2911 2789 +122 7 768 712 + 56 7 94 Chi 3028 2839 +189 6 856 798 + 58 6 81 Cle 2774 2930 -156 10 739 837 - 98 10 74 KC 2728 3189 -461 12 737 891 -154 12 62 Det 2414 3006 -592 14 575 864 -289 14 55 Oak 3009 2595 +414 3 800 654 +146 4 103 Ana 2918 2647 +271 4 851 644 +207 1 99 Sea 2963 2710 +253 5 814 699 +115 5 93 Tex 3112 3205 - 93 9 843 882 - 39 9 72
As you can see, the team rankings using TBW and those using run differentials are very similar. In fact, they're identical except for Anaheim's move from fourth in TBW to first in run margin. The Angels were very efficient on both sides of the ball, finishing 4th in scoring (and only 8 runs out of second) despite trailing six other teams in TBW, and leading the league in fewest runs allowed even though three other teams gave up fewer TBW. (That efficiency didn't carry over to the relationship of runs to wins, however, as they led the league in run margin but were only third in wins.)
In terms of raw production, the Red Sox nearly matched the Yankees, but still managed to come up ten short in the win column. (The same thing happened in 2001.) This comes as no surprise to the long-suffering Boston fans or the incredibly smug New Yorkers who just knew the Sox would find a way to lose despite all their talent.
It's interesting to note that the White Sox were a match for the Twins in production even though Minnesota ran away with the division. For all the talk about the Twins superior pitching and defense and the problems the White Sox had in those areas, Chicago gave up only 50 more TBW, roughly one base every three games.
And we see yet another example of how strong the AL West was this year, with three teams in the league's top five in TBW and run differentials and the Rangers only a little below the league average. Oakland was a clear winner in TBW but trailed the amazing Angels in run margin, and it took an excellent 32-14 record in one-run games to keep the A's in first place.
Let's take a quick look at the National League before pausing to put these TBW numbers in historical context.
---------- TBW ---------- ------- Runs -------- NL Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank W Atl 2808 2529 +279 3 708 565 +143 3 101 Mon 2865 2857 + 8 9 735 718 + 17 7 83 Phi 2970 2769 +201 5 710 724 - 14 9 80 Flo 2810 2927 -117 12 699 763 - 64 11 79 NY 2657 2758 -101 10 690 703 - 13 8 75 StL 2879 2630 +249 4 787 648 +139 4 97 Hou 2886 2793 + 93 6 749 695 + 54 6 84 Cin 2815 2928 -113 11 709 774 - 65 12 78 Pit 2566 2860 -294 13 641 730 - 89 13 72 Chi 2853 2814 + 39 8 706 759 - 53 10 67 Mil 2613 3086 -473 16 627 821 -194 16 56 Ari 2974 2608 +366 2 819 674 +145 2 98 SF 3045 2524 +521 1 783 616 +167 1 95 LA 2701 2653 + 48 7 713 643 + 70 5 92 Col 2826 3195 -369 14 778 898 -120 14 73 SD 2649 3040 -391 15 662 815 -153 15 66
While it's clear that Atlanta was the division's top team, their TBW differential wasn't much better than that of the Phillies, who somehow managed to turn a big edge in raw production into a negative run differential and a losing season. Most of the problem was on offense, where the Phils were 3rd in TBW but only 8th in runs scored. (Before the season, our computer simulations had the Phillies finishing a close second behind the Braves. In the real season, they were a very close second statistically, but that didn't translate into the things that really matter, runs and wins.)
The biggest surprise in the Central division was the Cubs. In fact, most of what I just wrote about Philly applies here, too. Our preseason simulations put Chicago third with a .500 record, and the real Cubs put up TBW numbers that were entirely consistent with being a .500 team. But they ranked a few places lower in runs than in TBW on both sides of the ball and they couldn't win the close games (18-36 in contests decided by one run). By the way, the 2001 Cubs were the division's best team statistically (+175 TBW) but failed to win the pennant; with two straight seasons like this, it's no surprise that a managerial change was made, regardless of whether the manager was to blame.
In the West, San Francisco outproduced Arizona but came up a little short in the standings. Both teams were very strong across the board, however, and the Giants showed during the second season that they really were the best team in the league. Statistically speaking, Los Angeles was much closer to a .500 team than their 92-70 record suggests. In fact, the Dodgers were the anti-Phillies, turning a 12th-place ranking in offensive TBW into a 7th-place finish in scoring. (Warning to LA fans: the Padres had the most efficient offense in baseball in 2001 -- 13th in OPS, 6th in runs -- and look what happened to them in 2002.)
A little TBW history
I've been putting these tables together for a few years now, and I can tell you that TBW differentials are usually in the plus or minus 300 range. With eight teams more than 400 from the midpoint this year, I wondered how these figures stacked up against other teams from the past. Thanks to Retrosheet's database of play-by-play accounts, I ran the numbers for all seasons back to 1974. (It would be nice to go back further, but the official stats don't include doubles and triples allowed by pitchers.)
Here are the top twenty teams from that 29-year period:
Team Net TBW Comment ---------------- ------- -------------------------------- 1998 Braves + 664 1998 Yankees + 662 Won WS 2001 Mariners + 603 1997 Braves + 568 2002 Yankees + 558 1976 Reds + 550 Won WS 1995 Indians + 536 144-game schedule (+603 per 162) 2001 Athletics + 534 1984 Tigers + 530 Won WS 1988 Mets + 524 2002 Giants + 521 2002 Red Sox + 518 Failed to qualify for postseason 1974 Dodgers + 509 1978 Brewers + 493 1996 Indians + 471 1986 Mets + 466 Won WS 1999 Yankees + 454 Won WS 1996 Braves + 449 1977 Dodgers + 448 1979 Orioles + 448
Notes: Only one of these strong teams, the 2002 Red Sox, failed to make the postseason ... only five won the World Series, a reminder that surviving the expanded postseason format is very tough ... could have been a great 1998 World Series if the Braves hadn't lost to the Padres ... the 1978 Brewers also had the best run margin in the AL that year, so this could have been one of the great three-way pennant races in history.
And the bottom twenty teams:
Team Net TBW Comment ---------------- ------- -------------------------------- 1996 Tigers - 727 1979 Athletics - 683 1998 Marlins - 676 Defending WS champs 1974 Padres - 630 Expansion 2002 Tigers - 592 1978 Blue Jays - 590 Expansion 1979 Blue Jays - 586 Expansion 2002 Devil Rays - 579 Expansion 1977 Braves - 539 1977 Mariners - 528 Expansion 1980 Mariners - 522 Expansion 1977 Blue Jays - 507 Expansion 1993 Rockies - 487 Expansion 1978 Mariners - 486 Expansion 1999 Twins - 484 2001 Devil Rays - 475 Expansion 2002 Brewers - 473 2002 Royals - 461 1989 Tigers - 447 1982 Athletics - 443
Notes: Eleven of these twenty teams were expansion franchises in the first seven years of their existence ... four 2002 teams made this list ... maybe two rounds of expansion since 1993 is the reason so many recent teams made both lists ... Billy Martin took over as manager of the A's after their disastrous 1979 season, led them to a winning record in both 1980 and 1981, then made this list again in 1982 before being fired ... the Twins have come a long way since 1999 ... in 1982, Bill James wrote that the Blue Jays might be the worst expansion team in history, but they got better in a hurry after that, so maybe there's reason for Devil Rays fans to have some hope as their young prospects move up.
Run Efficiency Average
Earlier in this article, when discussing the relationship between runs and wins, we saw that teams sometimes win quite a few more or less games than their run margin would normally produce. And that those differences don't tend to repeat the next year. It's very rare for a team to over-achieve (or fall short) two years in a row, and there's a very strong tendency to revert to a normal runs-to-wins relationship. Is this also true of TBW and runs?
To identify teams with particularly efficient or inefficient offenses, ones that produce more or less than the expected number of runs given the TBW they produced, I divided runs by TBW to get something I'll call the run efficiency average (REA). As you can see in the following chart, which plots TBW versus runs scored for every full team season since 1974, there's a very strong straight-line relationship between TBW and runs. In other words, we can predict runs scored from TBW with a high degree of accuracy.
It turns out that run efficiency averages look an awful lot like team batting averages. From 1974 to 2002, team batting averages ranged from a low of .229 to a high of .294 with a midpoint of .261. Baseball fans know from experience that a team batting average of .280 or higher is very good, and one below the .245 mark is woeful.
In this time period, run efficiency averages have ranged from .225 to .305 with a midpoint of .264. The midpoint and the spread are slightly higher than for team batting averages, but the benchmarks are basically the same. Anything over .280 indicates a very efficient offense, while anything under .245 indicates a team that squandered a lot of its chances.
Like team batting averages, run efficiency averages tend to be higher in the American League (because pitchers don't bat) and rise and fall by a few points from season to season. (They also appear to be higher in good hitters parks, but I'm leaving park effects out of the equation for the time being. I'll be looking at both offense and defense, so the park effects should cancel out when we subtract one from the other.)
So the best way to evaluate teams is to compare their run efficiency averages to the norm for their league that season and to rank them based on those differences. Here are the offenses that were most efficient in the 1974 to 2002 period, relative to their leagues, and what they did the following year:
Team REA Diff Next ------------------ ---- ------ ------ 2000 Rockies .305 + .035 + .019 1996 Rockies .303 + .032 + .020 1977 Twins .298 + .032 - .010 1987 Cardinals .293 + .030 - .008 1975 Reds .287 + .029 + .019 1985 Cardinals .281 + .026 + .002 1982 Brewers .288 + .026 + .005 1992 Brewers .287 + .025 + .008 1976 Phillies .282 + .025 + .017 2000 White Sox .301 + .025 - .003 2001 Mariners .295 + .024 + .005 1999 Indians .299 + .024 + .006 1998 Yankees .297 + .023 + .003 1974 Dodgers .283 + .023 - .008 1993 Rangers .292 + .022 + .003 1991 Brewers .287 + .022 + .025 2000 Royals .299 + .022 - .002 1981 Brewers .280 + .022 + .026 1981 Phillies .273 + .021 + .001 2002 Angels .292 + .021 ???
A majority of these teams were above average again the next year, but all but one made a move back toward the middle of the pack. On average, they lost 19 points relative to the league. On a base of 2800 TBW, that's a loss of 53 runs, enough to cost a team five to six wins.
Here are the least efficient offenses of this period:
Team REA Diff Next ------------------ ---- ------ ------ 1988 Orioles .226 - .038 + .003 1998 Devil Rays .238 - .036 - .003 2002 Tigers .238 - .032 ??? 1983 Mariners .234 - .032 - .005 1982 Reds .228 - .031 - .007 1981 Blue Jays .227 - .031 - .006 1974 Padres .230 - .029 - .020 1978 Athletics .231 - .028 - .026 1981 Mets .225 - .027 - .004 1996 Phillies .244 - .027 - .010 1978 Athletics .246 - .026 - .005 1985 Rangers .240 - .026 + .002 1993 Marlins .243 - .025 - .019 1976 Expos .233 - .025 - .019 1980 Blue Jays .242 - .024 - .031 2001 Mets .242 - .023 + .003 1996 Angels .256 - .023 + .011 1980 White Sox .243 - .023 + .019 1995 Blue Jays .252 - .023 - .013 1989 Indians .242 - .022 + .021
Again, all but one team moved up the next year, with an average improvement of 22 points. It's abundantly clear that extreme REA values don't repeat themselves; no matter what the environment, and no matter how good or bad the team, the REA tends to make a big move toward the norm the next year.
This is good news for teams that were the most inefficient this year. Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Tampa Bay can expect to improve their efficiency in 2003. Of course, it's bad news for this year's over-achievers, namely Anaheim, Arizona, Colorado, St. Louis, and the White Sox.
I won't take the space to show top-20 lists for pitching efficiency, but I can tell you that the same pattern held on the other side of the ball. The twenty most efficient pitching staffs moved an average of 21 points toward the norm the next year, while the least efficient improved by 22 points. Not a single team on either list moved further away.
The five most efficient pitching staffs this year, and the five most likely to struggle to match that performance, were Atlanta (which had the lowest run efficiency average in this 29-year period), Anaheim, Oakland, Minnesota, and Los Angeles. On the other hand, improvement is bound to be in store for Colorado, Detroit, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and the Cubs.
By the way, Detroit was very inefficient on both offense and defense this year, and while their park might have something to do with that, I don't think it's a major factor. If the Tigers move 20 points toward the norm on both sides of the ball, they're looking at a favorable swing of 108 runs, or about 11 wins, even if nothing else changes. (Of course, moving from 54 wins to 65 wins isn't anything to write home about. They need to do even better than that.)
In contrast, Anaheim was on both top-five lists for 2002, and they stand to move back toward the pack offensively and defensively in 2003. That could take a 99-win team and bring them back to the high 80s.
Converting efficiency into wins
Let's try to wrap all of this up into one neat package. We started by showing that runs scored and runs allowed are an accurate predictor of wins and losses. Teams that deviate from this prediction usually revert to form the next year.
Then we showed that offensive production (as measured by total bases plus walks) is an accurate predictor of runs scored. Likewise for defensive production and runs allowed. For both offense and defense, teams that deviate from the predicted number of runs tend to move significantly toward the norm the next year.
In other words, these three forms of efficiency -- which I'll call pythagorean efficiency (turning runs into wins), offensive efficiency (turning TBW into runs scored), and defensive efficiency (limiting runs allowed per TBW allowed) -- can have a major impact on the standings in any one season. But that effect isn't likely to carry over to the next year.
Pythagorean efficiency is already expressed in wins and losses. I'll translate offensive and defensive efficiency into wins by taking the surplus or deficit in runs and dividing by nine. Why nine? According to the pythagorean method, that's the number of runs it takes to add one win in a league where the average team scores about 750 runs. By converting all three types of efficiency to wins, we can add them up to see which teams gained or lost the most due to efficiency in 2002. Here are the figures for all thirty teams:
Actual ----- Efficiency ----- Adj
Wins Pyth Off Def Tot Win
New York 103 +3 +4 +1 + 8 95
Boston 93 -8 +4 +2 - 2 95
Toronto 78 -2 +3 -2 - 1 79
Baltimore 66 -2 -6 +4 - 4 70
Tampa Bay 55 -1 -4 -5 -10 65
Minnesota 94 +7 -2 +5 +10 84
Chicago 81 -6 +4 -3 - 5 86
Cleveland 74 +3 -1 -5 - 3 77
Kansas City 62 -4 0 -3 - 7 69
Detroit 55 +6 -9 -6 - 9 64
Oakland 103 +6 -2 +5 + 9 94
Anaheim 99 -4 +7 +8 +11 88
Seattle 93 0 +2 +4 + 6 87
Texas 72 -5 0 -2 - 7 79
Atlanta 101 +3 -1 +9 +11 90
Montreal 83 0 0 +2 + 2 81
Philadelphia 80 +1 -6 -2 - 7 87
Florida 79 +5 -2 -1 + 2 77
New York 75 -4 +1 0 - 3 78
St. Louis 97 0 +5 +3 + 8 89
Houston 84 -3 +1 +2 0 84
Cincinnati 78 +4 -1 -3 0 78
Pittsburgh 72 +2 -2 0 0 72
Chicago 67 -8 -3 -4 -15 82
Milwaukee 56 -4 -5 -3 -12 68
Arizona 98 +1 +6 -1 + 6 92
San Francisco 95 -4 0 +3 - 1 96
Los Angeles 92 +3 +2 +4 + 9 83
Colorado 73 +4 +6 -9 + 1 72
San Diego 66 +2 -2 -4 - 4 70
Let's work through a few examples to make sure it's clear what we're trying to say with this table:
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Oakland won 103 games ... six more games than the pythagorean method says is normal for a team that scored 800 runs and allowed 654, mainly by posting an extraordinary 32-14 record on one-run games ... offensive inefficiency (REA of .266 versus a league average of .270) cost them two wins ... efficient pitching and defense (REA of .252) added five wins ... overall efficiency adds up to nine wins ... a team with Oakland's offensive and defensive stats with average efficiency would therefore be expected to win only 94 games.
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Anaheim won 99 games ... with the best run differential in the AL, they should have won more games than anyone, but they fell four games short of their pythagorean projection ... but they had the most efficient offense in the majors, picking up seven extra wins (63 runs) because their offensive REA was .292, twenty-two points above the norm for the league ... they also had the majors second most efficient pitching/defense (REA of .243, saving 71 runs), good for another eight wins ... overall, their efficiency on offense and defense overtook their pythagorean inefficiency for a net gain of 11 wins ... an 88-win season would have been more in line with their offensive and defensive stats.
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Philadelphia won 80 games ... one more than normal for a team that was outscored by 14 runs ... the offense was the third least efficient in the majors (REA of .239 versus a league average of .256), costing them 51 runs and 6 wins ... defensive efficiency was also a problem (REA of .261), robbing them of two more wins ... total impact was a loss of seven wins for a team that was the league's fifth-best statistically ... with normal efficiency, they should have won 87 games.
- the Cubs won 67 games ... eight fewer than normal for a team that was outscored by only 53 runs ... offensive inefficiency (REA of .247 versus a league average of .256) cost them another three games ... defensive efficiency (REA of .270) lowered their win total by another four wins ... this triple whammy of inefficiency cost them 15 wins ... with average efficiency in all three areas, they win 82 games and finish a respectable third in the division.
Before leaving this topic, I want to emphasize that I'm not trying to diminish what the Angels accomplished this year by pointing out that their offensive and defensive stats are more consistent with those of an 88-win team. They did win 99 games in a very tough division by doing all the little things that count: putting the ball in play so even their outs were able to move runners over, hitting in the clutch, playing great defense, getting key outs when they needed them, and so on. They did all that again in the post season, when time after time they got themselves into a hole against very good teams and found a way to get the job done when it mattered most. It was a great run by a team that was awfully fun to watch.
The Angels remind me a lot of the New England Patriots. Both were expected to do very little before the start of the season. Both got off to slow starts and reached the playoffs by putting together winning streaks late in the year. Both were more impressive on the scoreboard than in the statistical leaderboards. Both were intelligent, fundamentally sound teams that had to scrap for everything they got and came up with big play after big play when things looked bleak. And because of all that, both teams were a lot of fun to watch and served as great examples of why championships are decided on the field, not on paper.
Summing up
I could have used a more sophisticated statistic like Runs Created to measure the efficiency of each team's offense and defense, thereby factoring in things like stolen bases, hit batsmen, and a few other stats that contribute to success. But I'm partial to simpler measures like TBW that are easy to figure, easy to interpret, and tell essentially the same story as the more complicated stats. I especially like the fact that runs divided by TBW, what I'm calling the run efficiency average, produces a figure that looks a lot like a batting average, a happy coincidence that makes it easier to get a feel for what's good, what's normal, and what's bad.
It was also very interesting to discover the strong tendency of teams that are highly efficient or inefficient in these three areas to move significantly toward the norm the following season. It's very rare for teams to excel (or fall short) in this way two years in a row. That's a good thing for team executives to know as they plan for next season.
I recall being very impressed with the Houston Astros, who refused to panic after a disappointing 2000 season that saw them fall 8 games short of their pythagorean projection. Many teams would have fired the manager and turned over half the roster in a futile attempt to blame someone for their poor showing. Instead, they chalked it up to one of those years when things just didn't go right and were rewarded with a tie for the division title in 2001. (Of course, after the 2001 season, they fired the manager for failing to win in the postseason, but that's a topic for another day.)
A number of this year's most inefficient teams have changed managers in recent weeks, and some of those managers are going to look like geniuses when their clubs make big gains in the win column next year. I wouldn't mind being Dusty Baker right now, assuming the front office doesn't destroy the team with ill-advised personnel moves this winter. The Cubs are the team most likely to get a large efficiency-related bounce, and with one of baseball's best-regarded farm systems, they are poised for a strong run in the NL Central.
- Tags: Team Efficiency
2012 Team Efficiency
Are you smarter than Buck Showalter?
Measuring 2012 Team Efficiency
By Jim Wheeler
December 10, 2012
Several years ago, Tom Tippett would regularly pen an article discussing the most recently concluded MLB season aimed at discovering which team was the most efficient in scoring and preventing runs along with creating wins. This is my attempt to resurrect these articles. Most of the thought and boilerplate of this article belongs to Tom Tippett and not myself. I am merely trying to keep the flame lit.
Every few seasons it seems like a special team comes from out of nowhere to rocket into the playoffs. In 2006, it was the Arizona Diamondbacks zooming into the NL playoff picture. In 2012, it was the Buck Showalter led Baltimore Orioles who won an amazing 93 games as opposed to a Pythagorean prediction of 82 wins. The Orioles were scintillating in one run games, going 29 and 9, a factor that no doubt helped them reach the American League playoffs. So the million dollar question then becomes; do you think that you can manage the Orioles with equal skill as Buck Showalter did in 2012? Can you replay the "El Birdos" 2012 season and maneuver them into the top of the AL pack? As explained below, doing so will be a real challenge. So as a famous man once said, "Do you feel lucky, punk? Well do you?"
What do we mean by team efficiency?
In a nutshell, you win games by outscoring your opponents, so the connection between runs and wins is very strong, even though every season produces a few teams that win more or less than you'd expect given their run differential. To explore the relationship between runs and wins, we'll use the Pythagorean method that was developed by Bill James.
You score runs by putting together hits, walks, steals, and other offensive events, and you prevent runs by holding the other team to a minimum of those things. In most cases, there's a direct relationship between runs and the underlying events that produce runs.
We use the term efficiency to represent the ability to turn events into runs and runs into wins. An efficient team is one that produces more wins than expected given its run margin, produces more runs than expected given its offensive events, or allows fewer runs than expected given the hits and walks produced by their opponents.
In the 2002 edition of this article, we showed that teams that are unusually efficient (or inefficient) have exhibited a very strong tendency to revert back to the norm the next year. That's good news for some teams and bad news for others. If you'd like to find out who falls into which category, read on.
Converting runs into wins
The Bill James Pythagorean method, a well-established formula based on the idea that a team's winning percentage is tightly coupled with runs scored and runs allowed. Bill's formula is quite simple ... take the square of runs scored and divide it by the sum of the squares of runs scored and runs allowed (RF = runs for, RA = runs allowed):
RF ** 2
Projected winning pct = -----------------
RF ** 2 + RA ** 2
In 2012, for instance, 21 of 30 teams finished with win-loss records within three games of their projected records, and 26 of 30 teams finished within five games. In 2010 and 2011, 27 of 30 teams finished within five games of their Pythagorean projection.
We had a very big exception this year. The Orioles won 11 more games than normal for a team with a run margin of +7. On a run-margin basis, they were 29-9 and they surprised everyone by finishing second in the AL East with 93 victories. Since 1962, when the 162-game schedule was first used in both leagues, no team had ever been more than 12 games better than their Pythagorean projection, so the Orioles came very close to tying this record which is also held by several teams.
But 50 years of baseball history tells us that such large deviations are unusual and tend not to be repeated the following year. In other words, the Orioles must dramatically improve their run margin in 2013 if they are to come close to matching this year's win total. The same is true of the Cincinnati Reds, who finished 6 wins to the good.
The teams that most underperformed their Pythagorean records were the Rays, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Red Sox, and Rockies all with (-5) Pythagorean wins.
Converting offensive events into runs
Just as there is a strong relationship between runs and wins, it's almost always true that the more hits and walks you produce, the more runs you'll score. Sometimes, of course, a productive team comes up short on the scoreboard because they didn't hit in the clutch, didn't run the bases well, or hit line drives right at people in key situations. But this relationship holds up most of the time.
To shed some light on this relationship, we need a way to take batting stats and turn them into a measure of overall offensive production. There are several good options here, including Runs Created (Bill James), Batting Runs (Pete Palmer), Equivalent Average (Clay Davenport), OPS (on-base average plus slugging average), and Base Runs (David Smyth).
For this exercise, we'll use the sum of total bases and walks, or TBW for short. TBW is not a perfect measure, but it does have a few things going for it. It captures the most important things a team does to produce runs -- singles, extra-base hits, and walks -- and it's easy to figure without a computer.
As with other statistics, a team's TBW total can be significantly influenced by its home park. For that reason, we focus on the difference between the TBW produced by a team's hitters and the TBW allowed by its pitchers. This effectively removes the park from the equation and helps us identify teams that out produced their opponents.
The following table shows the offensive and defensive TBW figures for the 2012 American League, along with the difference between these two figures and each team's league rank based on those differences. It also shows runs for and against, the run differential, and the rankings based on run differential. Finally, because we're trying to trace a path from TBW to runs to wins, it lists the team's win total and league rank for the year.
The 2012 American League:
TBW Runs Wins Team Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank Num Rank New York (A) 3068 2753 315 2 804 668 136 1 95 1 Baltimore 2799 2769 30 8 712 705 7 8 93 3t Tampa Bay 2699 2374 325 1 697 577 120 2 90 5 Toronto 2704 2989 -285 13 716 784 -68 10 73 10 Boston 2753 2894 -141 10 734 806 -72 12 69 12 Detroit 2824 2645 179 5 726 670 56 7 88 7 Chicago (A) 2789 2718 71 7 748 676 72 5 85 8 Kansas City 2658 2899 -241 11 676 746 -70 11 72 11 Cleveland 2662 2951 -289 14 667 845 -178 14 68 13 Minnesota 2676 2942 -266 12 701 832 -131 13 66 14 Oakland 2781 2555 226 4 713 614 99 4 94 2 Texas 2971 2696 275 3 808 707 101 3 93 3t Los Angeles (A) 2845 2674 171 6 767 699 68 6 89 6 Seattle 2493 2608 -115 9 619 651 -32 9 75 9
The AL East produced some very intriguing results. The Yankees finished first in Runs Differential (RD) and as expected, won 95 games. Of course we have already discussed the Orioles. With a Runs Differential of 8, they ranked 8th in the American League. Their TBW differential also was a positive 30 which also placed them in 8th place in the AL. Neither stat bodes well for Orioles fans in 2013. The Rays proved to be the biggest losers in the 2012 race. With a Runs differential of 120 (2nd place) and TBW of plus 325 (1st place), you would have expected them to win more than 90 games.
Bringing up the AL East rear was the Blue Jays and Red Sox. Adding to the Red Sox misery is that they finished even worse than their Pythagorean with 5 less victories.
In the AL Central, the White Sox should have won 89 games and the division. But instead, the Tigers went 8-2 in their last 10 games while the White Sox were 4-6 and consequently the Tigers took the division by 3 games. The Tigers had an RD of +56 Runs and the White Sox +72. But Detroit was more efficient in TBW with a +108 advantage over the White Sox.
The remainder of the AL Central, KC, Cleveland and Minnesota were nothing specular. Despite the Indians lack of offense (-289 TBW), they managed to squeeze out 6 more victories than expected. KC, finished with the 11th ranked TBW team, the 11th ranked RD team and finally the 11th ranked team in wins. A trifecta of sorts!
Over in the AL West, the Rangers finished 3rd in TBW, 3rd in RD and tied for 3rd best in AL wins. Yet it was not enough to best the A’s who converted 4th place in both TBW and RD into a division winning 94 wins. Incidentally, those 94 wins represent the 2nd best total in the AL. The Angels never seemed to get rolling in 2012. Their +171 TBW and +68 in RD rated 6th best in the AL and they parlayed this into 89 victories, 1 win better than their expected win total.
The 2012 National League:
TBW Runs Wins Team Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank Num Rank Washington 2880 2537 343 1 731 594 137 1 98 1 Atlanta 2678 2502 176 3 700 600 100 3 94 3t Philadelphia 2669 2656 13 9 684 680 4 9 81 9 New York (N) 2605 2673 -68 11 650 709 -59 11 74 12 Miami 2561 2692 -131 13 609 724 -115 13 69 13 Cincinnati 2730 2571 159 4 669 588 81 4 97 2 St. Louis 2900 2594 306 2 765 648 117 2 88 5 Milwaukee 2892 2842 50 6 776 733 43 7 83 7 Pittsburgh 2582 2616 -34 10 651 674 -23 10 79 10 Chicago (N) 2492 2864 -372 15 613 759 -146 15 61 15 Houston 2471 2906 -435 16 583 794 -211 16 55 16 San Francisco 2688 2646 42 7 718 649 69 5 94 3t Los Angeles (N) 2513 2495 18 8 637 597 40 8 86 6 Arizona 2823 2696 127 5 734 688 46 6 81 8 San Diego 2599 2716 -117 12 651 710 -59 12 76 11 Colorado 2884 3216 -332 14 758 890 -132 14 64 14
The old saying used to be, "Washington, First in war, First in Peace and last in the American League." Well guess what, Washington in now in the National League and in First place! The Nationals led all of baseball in 2012 with 98 wins, ranked 1st in DR (+137), and 1st in TBW differential (+343). Yet, the Cardinals who managed to under-perform by 6 Pythagorean wins (88 wins as opposed to 94 projected wins) were victorious in the play-offs over the Nationals. Which leads to one of the great questions of the 2012 season? Had Steven Stasburg been available for the play-offs rather than games in April and May, would the Nationals have done better in the playoffs? Well now you replay managers have your chance to see how history could have been altered with Strasburg in the Nationals playoff rotation.
The National League Central Division produced two teams that were among the leaders in baseball at being efficient and also inefficient. The Reds finished 1st in the division with 97 victories which is 6 better than their Pythagorean expectation. But the Reds were very efficient in producing wins despite rating 4th in the NL in RD (+81) and TWB (+159). Meanwhile, last year’s darlings the Cardinals should have run away with the pennant. The Redbirds had a very potent offense (+306) TWB plus a stingy defense and pitching staff, had a +117 in RD, both good enough for 2nd place in the National League. But when it came to converting these two positives into victories, the Cardinals were -6 games worse than their expected win total. The NL Central pennant race should have been much tighter than it was. It is worth noting that the Reds bested the Cardinals in one-run games going 31-21 compared to the Cardinals 21-26. Perhaps the difference comes down to the performance of "The Cuban Missile" Aroldis Chapman?
Once again the Pirates played well for the first 4 months of the season and then tailed off to finish up with 79 wins, one less than expected. But the Pirates did perform to the level that the stats predict: -34 TBW, -23 RD were both good enough for a 10th place rank amongst the National League. And their final win total was also in sync with their 79 wins. The Brewers were pretty much a mediocre team. They should have won 86 games but their lack of efficiency in TWB and RD doomed them to winning three fewer games and close the season with just 83 wins. The Cubs and Astros were nothing short of horrific in 2012. The Cubs allowed 146 more runs to score than their offense while the Astros had the worst RD in baseball with a -211 RD. Will the AL West be any easier for them in 2013?
The National League West mirrored the Central division in that the Giants won 5 more games than expected while the Diamondbacks lost 5 more games than expected. In fact, the Giants tied the Braves with the 3rd most wins in the NL at 94 and their expected wins total of 89 would still have been the best in the division. But neither the Dodgers nor the Diamondbacks could translate their positive TBW and RD into enough victories to give the Giants much of a challenge. Finishing on the two bottom rungs of the division as projected were the Padres and Rockies.
Looking ahead
As we've pointed out, it's unusual for teams that are especially efficient or inefficient to sustain those levels the next year. Instead, they tend to revert to the normal relationships between TBW and runs and between runs and wins. That means we can identify teams that are likely to improve or fall back even if they don't make moves that change their talent level significantly.
For that reason, the Rays have some reason for optimism going into 2013. With Baltimore overachieving and the Yankees losing players to injury and free agency, the Rays are in prime position to improve on their 90 wins. The Blue Jays had added some new interesting players but have a huge gap to make up to reach the top of the division. Hopefully, with a new, less controversial manager at the helm, the Red Sox can produce a much better season in 2013.
The Royals have added some much needed pitching but will it be enough to topple the Tigers with Cabrera, Fielder, and Verlander? Royals RD of -70 could be quickly made up by the new arms of Shields and Davis. In the AL West, Oakland and Texas ran neck and neck in TBW and RD. The unknown status of the Rangers’ Josh Hamilton makes this race too close to call based on their 2012 performances.
Expect the Nationals to again dominate in the National League. If Strasburg has no innings pitched limit, the Nationals may be unstoppable. The NL Central looks like a two team race between the Reds and Cardinals. The Dodgers signing of Greinke has to put them in the early driver’s seat. However, the Giants and Diamondbacks are still close to striking distance and any swing towards their expected win totals of 89 and 86 will make this division race quite interesting.
Wrapping Up
A lot of things will change between now and Opening Day. This process of looking at TBW differentials and run margins doesn't tell us how the 2013 season will unfold, but it can identify some teams that might have more or less work to do this winter than you may have thought.
I think it's safe to say that the Rays, Rangers, and Cardinals are among the good teams most likely to add to their win totals next season, even without major roster changes. The Braves, Brewers and Diamondbacks are also in line for small efficiency-related bounces.
On the flip side, it will be fascinating to see whether the Orioles and Yankees can sustain their recent successes. Perhaps they were a little lucky. Or perhaps they've figured out how to maximize the impact of the things that don't show up in these measures of expected runs, things such as base running, timely pitching (including a strong bullpen), and the judicious use of one-run strategies.
- Tags: Team Efficiency
2007 Team efficiency
Measuring team efficiency
By Charles Wolfson and Tom Tippett
December 10, 2007
In the mid-to-late 1990’s, Tom started writing an annual essay about teams whose win-loss records were out of synch with their underlying stats. In the early years, these essays were largely unknown to the baseball community, because they were available only as part of the annual Diamond Mind Season Disk. That changed in 2002, when he wrote an article on the subject for ESPN.com, and they’ve been published on ESPN.com and/or the Diamond Mind website ever since.
The central idea is simple. Baseball analysts have developed a variety of methods for translating (a) hits and walks and other events into runs, and (b) runs into wins. One can use these methods to identify teams that scored more or fewer runs than they "should have," teams that allowed more or fewer runs than they "should have," and teams that won or lost more games than they "should have," given the runs they actually scored and allowed.
In the years since our Team Efficiency article first appeared on ESPN.com, others have picked up the ball and run with it. The folks at Baseball Prospectus created a team standings page, updated daily during the season, which shows the actual standings and the standings as they would appear if every team had "normal" relationships between events and runs and wins. Bill James is now providing information of this type for the annual Bill James Baseball Handbooks. And The Hardball Times Baseball Annual has included a chapter on this subject.
What do we mean by team efficiency?
In a nutshell, you win games by outscoring your opponents, so the connection between runs and wins is very strong, even though every season produces a few teams that win more or less than you'd expect given their run differential. To explore the relationship between runs and wins, we use the pythagorean method that was developed by Bill James.
You score runs by putting together hits, walks, steals, and other offensive events, and you prevent runs by holding the other team to a minimum of those things. In most cases, there's a direct relationship between runs and the underlying events that produce runs.
We use the term efficiency to represent the ability to turn events into runs and runs into wins. An efficient team is one that produces more wins than expected given its run margin, produces more runs than expected given its offensive events, and/or allows fewer runs than expected given the hits and walks produced by their opponents.
In the 2002 edition of this article, we showed that what goes around, comes around: teams that are unusually efficient (or inefficient) have exhibited a very strong tendency to revert back to the norm the next year. That's good news for some teams and bad news for others. If you'd like to find out who falls into which category, read on.
Converting runs into wins
The Bill James pythagorean method is a well-established formula based on the idea that a team's winning percentage is tightly coupled with runs scored and runs allowed. Bill's formula is quite simple ... take the square of runs scored and divide it by the sum of the squares of runs scored and runs allowed (RS = runs scored, RA = runs allowed):
RF^2
Projected winning pct = ------------
RF^2 + RA^2
The 2007 season was unusual in that just 15 of 30 teams finished with win-loss records within three games, and just 23 of 30 within five games, of their projected record, compared to 18 of 30 and 25 of 30, respectively, in 2006. From 2003 to 2005, 75 of 90 teams finished within five games of their pythagorean projection.
The great outlier in 2006 was the Indians, who won 12 less games than normal for a team with their +88 run differential. No team approached that level of frustration in 2007, but the Diamondbacks overachieved by nearly as big a margin, winning 11 more games than normal for a team outscored by 20 runs, a margin topped by just four teams since 1974. The Mariners were nearly as fortunate, winning 9 more games than their -19 run deficit warranted.
The Red Sox registered an unusual reversal of fortunes. In 2007 they won a major league best 96 games, despite underperforming their projecting win total by seven games, compared to the disappointing 2006 season in which they managed only 86 wins, but exceeded their projected win total by six.
Baseball history tells us that large deviations are unusual and tend not to be repeated the following year. In our 2006 article, we suggested that the Indians could well see a big improvement in their win-loss record in 2007, even without major roster changes; for the same reason, fans of the Diamondbacks and Mariners may have reason to view the upcoming 2008 season with some trepidation.
Converting offensive events into runs
Just as there is a strong relationship between runs and wins, it's almost always true that the more hits and walks you produce, the more runs you'll score. Sometimes, of course, a productive team comes up short on the scoreboard because they didn't hit in the clutch, didn't run the bases well, or hit line drives right at people in key situations. But this relationship holds up most of the time.
To shed some light on this relationship, we need a way to take batting stats and turn them into a measure of overall offensive production. There are several good options here, including Runs Created (Bill James), Batting Runs (Pete Palmer), Equivalent Average (Clay Davenport), OPS (on-base average plus slugging average), and Base Runs (David Smyth).
For this exercise, we'll use the sum of total bases and walks, or TBW for short. TBW is not a perfect measure, but it does have a few things going for it. It captures the most important things a team does to produce runs -- singles, extra-base hits, and walks -- and it's easy to figure without a computer.
As with other statistics, a team's TBW total can be significantly influenced by its home park. For that reason, we focus on the difference between the TBW produced by a team's hitters and the TBW allowed by its pitchers. This effectively removes the park from the equation and helps us identify teams that outproduced their opponents.
The following table shows the offensive and defensive TBW figures for the 2007 American League, along with the difference between these two figures and each team's league rank based on those differences. It also shows runs for and against, the run differential, and the rankings based on run differential. Finally, because we're trying to trace a path from TBW to runs to wins, it lists the team's win total and league rank for the year.
---------- TBW ---------- ------- Runs -------- - Wins - AL Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank Num Rank BOS 3170 2620 550 1 867 657 210 1 96 1t
NYA 3286 2907 379 2 968 777 191 2 94 3t TOR 2854 2633 221 4 753 699 54 6 83 7
BAL 2821 2987 -166 11 756 868 -112 12 69 12t
TBA 2969 3224 -255 13 782 944 -162 14 66 14
CLE 2987 2717 270 3 811 704 107 3 96 1t
DET 3109 2966 143 6 887 797 90 5 88 5t
MIN 2671 2831 -160 10 718 725 -7 7 79 8
CHA 2732 2946 -214 12 693 839 -146 13 72 11
KCA 2573 3011 -438 14 706 778 -72 11 69 12t
LAA 2824 2767 57 7 822 731 91 4 94 3t
SEA 2805 2964 -159 9 794 813 -19 9 88 5t
OAK 2934 2784 150 5 741 758 -17 8 76 9
TEX 2870 3022 -152 8 816 844 -28 10 75 10
In 2007 just seven of 14 AL teams had positive TBW differentials and just six outscored their opponents, compared to ten and nine, respectively, in 2006. The AL did not get quite as big a boost from interleague play in 2007, slipping from 154-98 overall vs. the NL in 2006 to 137-115 last season.
Boston dominated the rankings, leading the league in TBW differential, run margin, and wins. Indeed, their +550 TBW was the ninth best out of 928 team seasons since 1974. The Yankees were a solid second in both categories, and were slightly more efficient than the Red Sox in converting their +379 TBW into +191 runs.
As bad as things were for the bottom-ranked teams, for some they could have been even worse. Kansas City managed to better three other AL teams in run differential, despite a major league worst -438 TBW. The White Sox were a comparatively modest -214 TBW, but their -146 run differential was more than double that of the Royals. Nevertheless, Chicago won three more games than the Royals and six more than their second-worst-in-the-majors run differential predicted.
As already noted, Seattle turned in a remarkable performance in 2007, winning 88 games despite ranking ninth in the league in both TBW and run differential. Since 1974, no other team has managed at least 88 wins with a worse TBW than Seattle’s -159. In fact, only eight teams have managed the feat with a TBW in the red at all.
Minnesota and Los Angeles were notable overachievers, each ranking three spots higher in run differential than TBW. The Angels actually had a higher run differential (+91) than TBW (+57), the only team in 2007 to achieve that feat. Whether this run efficiency is a tribute to their “small ball” proficiency, or further obscures the true urgency of their need to boost their offenses, the 2008 season may reveal.
Oakland’s decline in the standings in 2007 was reflected in their inefficiency. The A’s ranked fifth in the league with a +150 TBW, but just eighth with their -17 run differential. Should the Angels do no more than add Torii Hunter, the Mariners come back down to earth, and the A’s keep their pitching corps intact, they may not be as far from contending in the AL West as the 2007 standings might otherwise suggest.
Moving on to the National League:
---------- TBW ---------- ------- Runs -------- - Wins - NL Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank Num Rank PHI 3246 3104 142 5 892 821 71 4 89 3t
NYN 2971 2842 129 7 804 750 54 6 88 5
ATL 3006 2845 161 3 810 733 77 2 84 7
WAS 2679 2997 -318 16 673 783 -110 15 73 11t
FLO 3044 3170 -126 11 790 891 -101 13 71 14t
CHN 2879 2746 133 6 752 690 62 5 85 6
MIL 3033 2876 157 4 801 776 25 7 83 8
SLN 2747 2922 -175 13 725 829 -104 14 78 10
HOU 2858 3113 -255 14 723 813 -90 12 73 11t
CIN 2983 3078 -95 9 783 853 -70 11 72 13
PIT 2754 3046 -292 15 724 846 -122 16 68 16
ARI 2761 2860 -99 10 712 732 -20 9 90 1t
COL 3111 2881 230 2 860 758 102 1 90 1t
SDN 2862 2583 279 1 741 666 75 3 89 3t
LAN 2788 2722 66 8 735 727 8 8 82 9
SFN 2673 2836 -163 12 683 720 -37 10 71 14t
The NL champion Rockies ranked second in TBW and first in run differential. The team they defeated in the one-game playoff for the wild card, the Padres, did almost as well, ranking first in TBW and third in run differential.
The Diamondbacks, however, were the biggest story, winning 90 games despite a -99 TBW and a -20 run differential. Since 1974, the only other teams to manage 90 wins with a negative TBW were the 1984 Mets (-24) and the 1997 Giants (-9).
In 2006, the Cardinals eked out a division title and a World Series championship, despite a -23 TBW and +19 run differential. We gave them something of a “pass” that year on the basis of lengthy injuries to numerous key players. In 2007, however, the team slipped precipitously to -175 TBW and -104 runs. The fact that they managed to win eight more games than that performance warranted should not mislead anyone into thinking that this is not a team in need of a significant overhaul.
Atlanta was reasonably efficient in converting a +161 TBW (ranked third) into +77 runs (ranked second), but not in turning that positive run differential into wins (ranked seventh). Milwaukee was the league’s most inefficient team, ranking fourth with a +157 TBW but just seventh with +25 runs, a testament, perhaps, to their particularly inept defense.
Looking ahead
As we've pointed out, it's unusual for teams that are especially efficient or inefficient to sustain those levels the next year. Instead, they tend to revert to the normal relationships between TBW and runs and between runs and wins. That means we can identify teams that are likely to improve or fall back even if they don't make moves that change their talent level significantly.
For that reason, the A’s could be a sleeper team in the comparatively weak AL West, with underlying numbers in 2007 comparable to the Angels and overachieving Mariners. And based on their 2007 figures, Red Sox Nation can expect their team to be at least as tough again in 2008.
In the NL, 2008 could be the year the Braves return to the top of the East Division. It’s improbable for any team to put together a run like Colorado did last fall, but there is nothing in the numbers to suggest that the Rockies cannot carry last season’s improvement into 2008. The Diamondbacks, on the other hand, could be making a mistake if they choose to stand pat this winter. And a rebound by the Cardinals, even in the mediocre NL Central, appears unlikely without significant reinforcements.
- Tags: Team Efficiency
2006 Team Efficiency
Measuring team efficiency
By Tom Tippett
December 11, 2006
In the mid-to-late 1990s, I started writing an annual essay about teams whose win-loss records were out of synch with their underlying stats. In the early years, these essays were largely unknown to the baseball community because they were available only as part of our annual Season Disk. That changed in 2002 when I wrote an article on this subject for ESPN.com, and we've been publishing them on ESPN.com and/or the Diamond Mind web site ever since.
The central idea is simple. Baseball analysts have developed a variety of methods for translating (a) hits and walks and other events into runs and (b) runs into wins. One can use these methods to identify teams that scored more or fewer runs than they "should have", teams that allowed more or fewer runs than they "should have", and teams that won or lost more games than they "should have" given the runs they actually scored and allowed.
In the years since our Team Efficiency article first appeared on ESPN.com, others have picked up the ball and run with it. The folks at Baseball Prospectus created a team standings page, updated daily during the season, that shows the actual standings and the standings as they would appear if every team had "normal" relationships between events and runs and wins. Bill James is now providing information of this type for the annual Bill James Baseball Handbooks. And The Hardball Times Baseball Annual has included a chapter on this subject.
What do we mean by team efficiency?
In a nutshell, you win games by outscoring your opponents, so the connection between runs and wins is very strong, even though every season produces a few teams that win more or less than you'd expect given their run differential. To explore the relationship between runs and wins, we use the pythagorean method that was developed by Bill James.
You score runs by putting together hits, walks, steals, and other offensive events, and you prevent runs by holding the other team to a minimum of those things. In most cases, there's a direct relationship between runs and the underlying events that produce runs.
We use the term efficiency to represent the ability to turn events into runs and runs into wins. An efficient team is one that produces more wins than expected given its run margin, produces more runs than expected given its offensive events, and/or allows fewer runs than expected given the hits and walks produced by their opponents.
In the 2002 edition of this article, we showed that teams that are unusually efficient (or inefficient) have exhibited a very strong tendency to revert back to the norm the next year. That's good news for some teams and bad news for others. If you'd like to find out who falls into which category, read on.
Converting runs into wins
The Bill James pythagorean method, a well-established formula based on the idea that a team's winning percentage is tightly coupled with runs scored and runs allowed. Bill's formula is quite simple ... take the square of runs scored and divide it by the sum of the squares of runs scored and runs allowed (RF = runs for, RA = runs allowed):
RF ** 2
Projected winning pct = -----------------
RF ** 2 + RA ** 2
In 2006, for instance, 18 of 30 teams finished with win-loss records within three games of their projected records, and 25 of 30 teams finished within five games. From 2003 to 2005, 75 of 90 teams finished within five games of their pythagorean projection.
We had a very big exception this year. The Indians won 12 fewer games than normal for a team with a run margin of +88. On a run-margin basis, they were more like an 90-win team that should have been in the thick of the division race to the end. Since 1962, when the 162-game schedule was first used in both leagues, only five teams have been at least 12 games worse than their pythagorean projection, so the 2006 Indians have assumed a dubious place in modern baseball history.
In a reversal of their 2005 season, Oakland won 93 games despite a +44 run margin that would normally produce an 86-win season. The year before, their real win-loss record fell short of their pythagorean mark by 6 games, enough to cost them the division title that year.
The Mets, Brewers and Red Sox each won 5 more games than their run margin supported. The Rangers and Braves each fell short by 6 games, while the Rockies came up short by 5 wins.
But 44 years of baseball history tells us that large deviations are unusual and tend not to be repeated the following year. In other words, the Indians could easily see a big improvement their win-loss record in 2006 even if they don't make major changes to the roster.
Converting offensive events into runs
Just as there is a strong relationship between runs and wins, it's almost always true that the more hits and walks you produce, the more runs you'll score. Sometimes, of course, a productive team comes up short on the scoreboard because they didn't hit in the clutch, didn't run the bases well, or hit line drives right at people in key situations. But this relationship holds up most of the time.
To shed some light on this relationship, we need a way to take batting stats and turn them into a measure of overall offensive production. There are several good options here, including Runs Created (Bill James), Batting Runs (Pete Palmer), Equivalent Average (Clay Davenport), OPS (on-base average plus slugging average), and Base Runs (David Smyth).
For this exercise, we'll use the sum of total bases and walks, or TBW for short. TBW is not a perfect measure, but it does have a few things going for it. It captures the most important things a team does to produce runs -- singles, extra-base hits, and walks -- and it's easy to figure without a computer.
As with other statistics, a team's TBW total can be significantly influenced by its home park. For that reason, we focus on the difference between the TBW produced by a team's hitters and the TBW allowed by its pitchers. This effectively removes the park from the equation and helps us identify teams that outproduced their opponents.
The following table shows the offensive and defensive TBW figures for the 2006 American League, along with the difference between these two figures and each team's league rank based on those differences. It also shows runs for and against, the run differential, and the rankings based on run differential. Finally, because we're trying to trace a path from TBW to runs to wins, it lists the team's win total and league rank for the year.
---------- TBW ---------- ------- Runs -------- - Wins - AL Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank Num Rank NY 3256 2807 449 1 930 767 163 1 97 1
Tor 3104 2839 265 3 809 754 55 6 87 7 Bos 3117 3026 91 9 820 825 -5 10 86 8
Bal 2850 3182 -332 12 768 899 -131 12 70 12
TB 2739 3134 -395 13 689 856 -167 13 61 14
Min 2870 2718 152 8 801 683 118 3 96 2
Det 2961 2728 233 4 822 675 147 2 95 3
Chi 3127 2925 202 5 868 794 74 5 90 5
Cle 3125 2849 276 2 870 782 88 4 78 10t
KC 2770 3319 -549 14 757 971 -214 14 62 13
Oak 2914 2897 17 10 771 727 44 8 93 4
LA 2869 2701 168 6 766 732 34 9 89 6
Tex 3028 2873 155 7 835 784 51 7 80 9
Sea 2810 2982 -172 11 756 792 -36 11 78 10t
Largely because the AL dominated the NL to such a great degree in inter-league play, it was an unusual year. Ten out of fourteen AL teams were above water in TBW differential and nine had positive run margins. Boston, Minnesota, Detroit, Chicago and Seattle dominated their inter-league series, each winning at least 14 of 18 contests against the weaker league.
The Yankees were strong across the board, leading the league in TBW differential, run margin, and wins. The bottom three teams were rotten in every way. In between, things didn't exactly go according to form.
We've already talked about the Indians, who were second in TBW differential, fourth in run margin, and tied for tenth in wins. That's not easy to do. Cleveland's TBW differential of +276 is in the top 12% of all teams in the past third of a century. Fully 90% of those teams won at least 90 games, and the 2006 Indians are only the third team in that group to lose more games than they won. The 1979 Dodgers went 79-83 with a +282 TBW differential in an aberrational year that was sandwiched between two seasons of at least 92 wins. And the 1984 Phillies finished at .500 despite a differential of +333 bases. Unlike the Dodgers, the Phils did not bounce back the next year, sliding to 76 wins in 1985.
The Blue Jays also underachieved, almost entirely on offense, scoring about 70 runs less than the Runs Created formula predicts based on their underlying stats. With the league's third-best TBW differential, they're positioned to make a postseason run in 2007 if they can overcome their offensive efficiency problems.
Minnesota's TBW differential of +152 was only 8th in the league and normally wouldn't be enough to put a team in playoff contention. But the Twins turned that into the league's third-best run margin and second-best record to grab the division title on the season's final day.
In 2005, Oakland was vastly better than Los Angeles statistically but fell seven games short in the standings. This year saw an almost complete reversal, with LA having a big lead in TBW differential, being roughly even in run margin, and finishing four games behind Oakland in the standings. Combine the two years and you've got parity across the board, so one division title each is about right, even if each team stole one from the other.
Moving on to the National League:
---------- TBW ---------- ------- Runs -------- - Wins - NL Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank Num Rank NY 3021 2779 242 1 834 731 103 1 97 1
Phi 3168 3121 47 4 865 812 53 3 85 4
Atl 3066 3026 40 5 849 805 44 5 79 8
Flo 2890 2947 -57 10 758 772 -14 9 78 9
Was 2889 3087 -198 14 746 872 -126 16 71 14
SL 2913 2936 -23 7 781 762 19 6 83 5
Hou 2843 2828 15 6 735 719 16 7 82 6
Cin 2999 3057 -58 11 749 801 -52 12 80 7
Mil 2783 2918 -135 13 730 833 -103 13 75 13
Pit 2664 2995 -331 16 691 797 -106 14 67 15
Chi 2752 3053 -301 15 716 834 -118 15 66 16
SD 2886 2715 171 3 731 679 52 4 88 2t
LA 3035 2855 180 2 820 751 69 2 88 2t
Col 2969 3008 -39 8 813 812 1 8 76 10t
SF 2802 2846 -44 9 746 790 -44 11 76 10t
Ari 2897 2966 -69 12 773 788 -15 10 76 10t
Just like their AL counterparts, the Mets topped the league in TBW differential, run differential, and wins, all by a very comfortable margin, yet failed to make it to the World Series. The rest of the NL East went according to form, with strong relationships between batting events, runs, and wins.
The mediocrity of the Cardinals season is clear from these numbers. Despite being outproduced by 23 bases, St. Louis eked out a run margin of +19 and a winning record by a few games. Some have taken this as an indication that the Cardinals weren't worthy of their World Series title. I don't agree.
Their regular-season stats and record were far worse than they should have been because they lost Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen, David Eckstein, Mark Mulder, and Jason Isringhausen to injuries for long stretches. By the time October rolled around, four of those guys were back, so the postseason Cardinals were more like the team that we projected for the best record in the NL. I still thought the Tigers were the better team, but it's just not fair to say the Cards were undeserving.
The Reds have been defying the odds in recent years, posting an actual record that was at least four games better than their pythagorean record in four of the past five seasons. (The exception was 2005, and the high-water mark was a +10 in 2004.) Still, their stats supported a third-place finish, and that's where they wound up after contending for the top spot almost all year.
In the West, a chasm opened between the top two teams and the rest of the pack. The Padres and Dodgers posted strong numbers across the board, while the other three teams were clustered together, all of them a little below average. Based on their TBW differentials, you'd expect the top two teams to finish in a tie and the bottom three to be within a game of each other, and that's exactly what happened.
Except for the Braves, who fell a few games short, and the Reds, who picked up a few unexpected wins, it was a case of what-you-see-is-what-you-get, with everyone in the NL posting a win-loss record that matched their underlying stats.
Looking ahead
As we've pointed out, it's unusual for teams that are especially efficient or inefficient to sustain those levels the next year. Instead, they tend to revert to the normal relationships between TBW and runs and between runs and wins. That means we can identify teams that are likely to improve or fall back even if they don't make moves that change their talent level significantly.
For that reason, the Blue Jays and Indians have some reason for optimism going into 2006. Both put up impressive underlying numbers but didn't get the payoff in runs and/or wins this past season. If their offseason moves are talent-neutral or better, both teams can be expected to contend for at least a wild card next year.
Three teams would be making a mistake if they focus too much on their actual 2006 win-loss records. Boston was more like a .500 team than an 86-win team, Minnesota was quite good but not 96-win good, and Oakland was a little fortunate to win the division.
Judging by the money they're spending this winter, Boston understands that they need to put a much better team on the field in order to contend in 2007. Oakland's front office always seems to understand what they need and find a creative way to get it. Minnesota has yet to make any major moves, but they don't need to do much to remain a contender in what has become a very tough division.
- Tags: Team Efficiency
2005 Team Efficiency
Measuring team efficiency
By Tom Tippett
December 12, 2005
This idea is catching on.
In the mid-to-late 1990s, I started writing an annual essay about teams whose win-loss records were out of synch with their underlying stats. In the early years, these essays were largely unknown to the baseball community because they weren't published anywhere other than as part of our annual Season Disk. That changed in 2002 when I wrote an article on this subject for ESPN.com, and we've been publishing them on ESPN.com and/or the Diamond Mind web site ever since.
The central idea is simple. Baseball analysts have developed a variety of methods for translating (a) hits and walks and other events into runs and (b) runs into wins. One can use these methods to identify teams that scored more or fewer runs than they "should have", teams that allowed more or fewer runs than they "should have", and teams that won or lost more games than they "should have" given the runs they actually scored and allowed.
In the three years since our Team Efficiency article first appeared on ESPN.com, others have picked up the ball and run with it. The folks at Baseball Prospectus created a team standings page, updated daily during the season, that shows the actual standings and the standings as they would appear if every team had "normal" relationships between events and runs and wins. Bill James wrote similar essays for the 2005 and 2006 Bill James Baseball Handbooks. And a recent book, The Hardball Times Baseball Annual, includes a chapter by Dan Fox on this subject.
With so many people now writing about this subject, I'm not sure it makes sense for me to continue this series of articles. I have a hard time getting excited about spending time on topics that others are already covering quite well. It's a lot more interesting to spend time on subjects that are not getting enough attention.
So I'll weigh in on the 2005 season, but this may be the last time. If other writers continue to serve the baseball community well in this area, there won't be much left for me to say, and I'll direct my time and energy elsewhere.
What do we mean by team efficiency?
In a nutshell, you win games by outscoring your opponents, so the connection between runs and wins is very strong, even though every season produces a few teams that win more or less than you'd expect given their run differential. To explore the relationship between runs and wins, we'll use the pythagorean method that was developed by Bill James.
You score runs by putting together hits, walks, steals, and other offensive events, and you prevent runs by holding the other team to a minimum of those things. In most cases, there's a direct relationship between runs and the underlying events that produce runs.
We use the term efficiency to represent the ability to turn events into runs and runs into wins. An efficient team is one that produces more wins than expected given its run margin, produces more runs than expected given its offensive events, or allows fewer runs than expected given the hits and walks produced by their opponents.
In the 2002 edition of this article, we showed that teams that are unusually efficient (or inefficient) have exhibited a very strong tendency to revert back to the norm the next year. That's good news for some teams and bad news for others. If you'd like to find out who falls into which category, read on.
Converting runs into wins
The Bill James pythagorean method, a well-established formula based on the idea that a team's winning percentage is tightly coupled with runs scored and runs allowed. Bill's formula is quite simple ... take the square of runs scored and divide it by the sum of the squares of runs scored and runs allowed (RF = runs for, RA = runs allowed):
RF ** 2
Projected winning pct = -----------------
RF ** 2 + RA ** 2
In 2005, for instance, 14 of 30 teams finished with win-loss records within three games of their projected records, and 23 of 30 teams finished within five games. In 2003 and 2004, 26 of 30 teams finished within five games of their pythagorean projection.
We had a very big exception this year. The Diamondbacks won 13 more games than normal for a team with a run margin of -160. On a run-margin basis, they were more like an 64-win team than the squad that surprised everyone by finishing second in the NL West with 77 victories. Since 1962, when the 162-game schedule was first used in both leagues, no team had ever been more than 12 games better than their pythagorean projection, so this is a modern record.
But 43 years of baseball history tells us that such large deviations are unusual and tend not to be repeated the following year. In other words, the Diamondbacks must dramatically improve their run margin in 2006 if they are to come close to matching this year's win total. The same is true of the White Sox, who finished 7 wins to the good.
The teams that most underperformed their pythagorean records were the Mets (-7), Athletics (-6), and Mariners (-6).
Converting offensive events into runs
Just as there is a strong relationship between runs and wins, it's almost always true that the more hits and walks you produce, the more runs you'll score. Sometimes, of course, a productive team comes up short on the scoreboard because they didn't hit in the clutch, didn't run the bases well, or hit line drives right at people in key situations. But this relationship holds up most of the time.
To shed some light on this relationship, we need a way to take batting stats and turn them into a measure of overall offensive production. There are several good options here, including Runs Created (Bill James), Batting Runs (Pete Palmer), Equivalent Average (Clay Davenport), OPS (on-base average plus slugging average), and Base Runs (David Smyth).
For this exercise, we'll use the sum of total bases and walks, or TBW for short. TBW is not a perfect measure, but it does have a few things going for it. It captures the most important things a team does to produce runs -- singles, extra-base hits, and walks -- and it's easy to figure without a computer.
As with other statistics, a team's TBW total can be significantly influenced by its home park. For that reason, we focus on the difference between the TBW produced by a team's hitters and the TBW allowed by its pitchers. This effectively removes the park from the equation and helps us identify teams that outproduced their opponents.
The following table shows the offensive and defensive TBW figures for the 2005 American League, along with the difference between these two figures and each team's league rank based on those differences. It also shows runs for and against, the run differential, and the rankings based on run differential. Finally, because we're trying to trace a path from TBW to runs to wins, it lists the team's win total and league rank for the year.
---------- TBW ---------- ------- Runs -------- - Wins - AL Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank Num Rank NY 3165 2807 +358 2 886 789 + 97 5 95 2t Bos 3209 2916 +293 3 910 805 +105 4 95 2t Tor 2759 2777 - 18 9 775 705 + 70 7 80 8 Bal 2856 2881 - 25 10 729 800 - 71 12 74 10 Tam 2772 3164 -392 13 750 936 -186 13 67 13 Chi 2784 2676 +108 6 741 645 + 96 6 99 1 Cle 3043 2546 +497 1 790 642 +148 1 93 5 Min 2661 2625 + 36 8 688 662 + 26 8 83 7 Det 2782 2872 - 90 11 723 787 - 64 11 71 11 KC 2604 3186 -582 14 701 935 -234 14 56 14 LAA 2745 2684 + 61 7 761 643 +118 2 95 2t Oak 2826 2584 +242 4 772 658 +114 3 88 6 Tex 3172 2961 +211 5 865 858 + 7 9 79 9 Sea 2621 2826 -205 12 699 751 - 52 10 69 12
The AL East went pretty much according to form. The Yankees and Red Sox ran away with the TBW lead and finished tied at the top of the division. Both teams, however, were fortunate to win 95 games, as a run differential of +100 usually produces only about 90 wins. The Sox were the more fortunate of the two. If they had allowed as many runs as they "should" have, their runs allowed total would have been higher.
Toronto was a mixed bag of efficiencies and inefficiencies. The offense produced more runs than expected, while the pitching allowed many fewer runs than expected. That level of efficiency could have produced a strong win-loss record, but they gave all of that back by falling nine games short of their pythagorean record. In the end, their TBW stats were right in synch with their 80 wins.
By now, you know the story of the AL Central. Chicago was a bit below average offensively, no matter how you look at it. The pitching was very good, but they were highly efficient, too. Three teams allowed fewer TBW, and a fourth was right with them, but the White Sox still managed to finish in a virtual tie for the league lead in fewest runs allowed. In addition, Chicago won 7 more games than their run margin would normally support thanks to a 35-19 record in one-run contests.
Cleveland was just the opposite. Their TBW differential of +497 was good enough to put them among the twenty best teams from the last 32 seasons. Think about that for a second. In more than three decades, a team has been this good statistically only about once every two seasons, and the Indians still managed to miss the playoffs. Why? Their offense was inefficient and they fell four games short of their pythagorean projection in large part because they were 22-36 in one-run games.
Cleveland outproduced Chicago by 259 TBW but outscored the Sox by only 49 runs. They allowed 130 fewer TBW, but topped Chicago by only 3 runs allowed. Even with these inefficiencies, they managed to post a run margin that was 51 better than Chicago's. Still, the Indians finished six games back.
The story in the AL West was almost identical to the one we told in 2004. Once again, Oakland had a big edge statistically, failed to turn that advantage into a better run differential, and fell short in the standings. The Angels are getting very good at this. Three times in four years, they've been among the game's most efficient teams.
Moving on to the National League:
---------- TBW ---------- ------- Runs -------- - Wins - NL Off Def Diff Rank Off Def Diff Rank Num Rank Atl 2920 2771 +149 5 769 674 + 95 2 90 2 Phi 2985 2807 +178 2 807 726 + 81 4 88 4 NY 2775 2604 +171 3 722 648 + 74 5 83 5t Flo 2766 2766 0 8 717 732 - 15 8 83 5t Was 2583 2736 -153 11 639 673 - 34 9 81 8t StL 2877 2610 +267 1 805 634 +171 1 100 1 Hou 2709 2554 +155 4 693 609 + 84 3 89 3 Mil 2833 2818 + 15 7 726 697 + 29 6 81 8t Chi 2876 2787 + 89 6 703 714 - 11 7 79 10 Cin 3094 3248 -154 12 820 889 - 69 11 73 13 Pit 2700 2931 -231 14 680 769 - 89 13 67 15t SD 2753 2795 - 42 9 684 726 - 42 10 82 7 Ari 2943 3119 -176 13 696 856 -160 16 77 11 SF 2592 2869 -277 15 649 745 - 96 14 75 12 LA 2689 2808 -119 10 685 755 - 70 12 71 14 Col 2783 3149 -366 16 740 862 -122 15 67 15t
St. Louis ran the table for the second straight year, ranking first in TBW differential, run differential, and wins, all by a very comfortable margin.
The most interesting division was the NL East, where the Mets were right with the division leaders in TBW differential and run margin but failed to keep pace in the standings. As I noted earlier in this article, New York had the worst pythagorean differential (-7) in the majors. What could have been a great three-team race turned out to be a fairly comfortable win for the Braves.
In the Central, Houston was a solid number two behind the Cardinals. The Cubs, preseason favorites in the eyes of many, had a TBW differential that would normally support a third-place finish, but a massive inefficiency on offense dropped them behind the Brewers. Chicago produced only one fewer TBW than did the Cardinals, yet St. Louis outscored the Cubs by 102 runs.
The NL West was full of interesting situations, but they had little impact on the pennant race in 2005. For example, Arizona was fascinating in much the same way as the Blue Jays were. At first glance, you'd be tempted to say that they were incredibly lucky, winning 77 games and finishing second despite the league's worst run margin. But it looks like the run margin was as much of an anomaly as the win-loss record.
In particular, Arizona's offense wasn't all that bad. The club was in the middle of the pack in both on-base and slugging, and its walk and homerun totals were third in the league. Their strikeout to walk ratio was fifth-best. Despite these accomplishments, Arizona scored 25 fewer runs than the league average. The Runs Created formula predicts a total of 787 runs, 91 more than they actually scored.
At the same time, the Dodgers were a little unlucky to finish fourth. Their TBW differential and run margin, while wholly unimpressive, were still good enough for a second-place finish in a very weak division. Instead, because three of their rivals posted large positive pythagorean differentials (Arizona +13, San Diego +6, San Francisco +5), they were only one rung from the basement.
Looking ahead
As we've pointed out, it's unusual for teams that are especially efficient or inefficient to sustain those levels the next year. Instead, they tend to revert to the normal relationships between TBW and runs and between runs and wins. That means we can identify teams that are likely to improve or fall back even if they don't make moves that change their talent level significantly.
For that reason, the Blue Jays have some reason for optimism going into 2005. Not only did the Yankees and Red Sox overachieve in 2005, neither of these perennial powerhouses has improved so far this offseason. New York still has a lot of questions in its pitching staff, and Boston's roster is still unsettled due to injury risks, trade demands, and potential free agency losses. Meanwhile, Toronto should get more innings out of Roy Halliday and has added three good players in AJ Burnett, BJ Ryan, and Lyle Overbay.
In the AL Central, it will be interesting to see whether Chicago can build on its 2005 successes or whether Cleveland's statistical edge will carry the day in 2006. Similarly, Oakland must try to find a way to convert its superior TBW differential into more wins than the Angels after falling short twice in a row.
Given that the Mets were right there with the Braves and Phillies in TBW differential and run margin in 2005, their recent additions (mainly Carlos Delgado, Billy Wagner, and Paul LoDuca) make them the early favorites to unseat the Braves for the first time in eons.
In the other NL divisions, it's hard to see anyone making a serious run at the Cardinals. Houston may not have Roger Clemens this time around -- he may retire, and because they didn't offer him arbitration, he can't be signed until May 1 -- and they have a lot of ground to make up. It'll be interesting to see whether Milwaukee's young talent will begin to emerge in a big way.
Who knows what will happen in the NL West? All five teams were under water in TBW and runs in 2005, so they've all got some serious work to do.
Wrapping Up
A lot of things will change between now and opening day. This process of looking at TBW differentials and run margins doesn't tell us how the 2006 season will unfold, but it can identify some teams that might have more or less work to this winter than you may have thought.
I think it's safe to say that the Indians, Athletics, and Mets are among the good teams most likely to add to their win totals next season, even without major roster changes. The Rangers, Cubs and Dodgers are also in line for small efficiency-related bounces.
On the flip side, it will be fascinating to see whether the Angels and White Sox can sustain their recent successes. Perhaps they were a little lucky. Or perhaps they've figured out how to maximize the impact of the things that don't show up in these measures of expected runs, things such as baserunning, timely pitching (including a strong bullpen), and the judicious use of one-run strategies.
- Tags: Team Efficiency
