The Stats That Matter Most (June 15, 2005)
Many moons ago, trendsetting sabermetrician Bill James demonstrated a relationship between runs scored, runs allowed and wins which, because of the necessity of squaring the elements, he dubbed the Pythagorean Theorem (of baseball). The formula is that the square of runs scored divided by the sum of the square of runs scored and the square of runs allowed equals a team's expected winning percentage. From there, you simply multiply the winning percentage and games played and you have a projected win total. The measure works remarkably well, and, obviously, the more games a team plays, the better the relationship ordinarily is.
Here are the numbers through games of June 14, 2005:
| AMERICAN LEAGUE | |||||||||||
| Team | R | OR | R DIFF | G | R/G | OR/G | DIFF/G | PW% | EXP W | ACT W | W DIFF |
| Baltimore Orioles | 339 | 291 | 48 | 64 | 5.30 | 4.55 | 0.75 | .576 | 37 | 38 | 1 |
| Boston Red Sox | 350 | 320 | 30 | 64 | 5.47 | 5.00 | 0.47 | .545 | 35 | 35 | 0 |
| Chicago White Sox | 296 | 249 | 47 | 64 | 4.63 | 3.89 | 0.73 | .586 | 37 | 42 | 5 |
| Cleveland Indians | 263 | 243 | 20 | 62 | 4.24 | 3.92 | 0.32 | .539 | 33 | 32 | -1 |
| Detroit Tigers | 270 | 274 | -4 | 61 | 4.43 | 4.49 | -0.07 | .493 | 30 | 29 | -1 |
| Kansas City Royals | 280 | 354 | -74 | 63 | 4.44 | 5.62 | -1.17 | .385 | 24 | 22 | -2 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 305 | 254 | 51 | 64 | 4.77 | 3.97 | 0.80 | .590 | 38 | 37 | -1 |
| Minnesota Twins | 292 | 234 | 58 | 62 | 4.71 | 3.77 | 0.94 | .609 | 38 | 37 | -1 |
| New York Yankees | 325 | 313 | 12 | 63 | 5.16 | 4.97 | 0.19 | .519 | 33 | 31 | -2 |
| Oakland Athletics | 267 | 307 | -40 | 63 | 4.24 | 4.87 | -0.63 | .431 | 27 | 26 | -1 |
| Seattle Mariners | 258 | 282 | -24 | 62 | 4.16 | 4.55 | -0.39 | .456 | 28 | 27 | -1 |
| Tampa Bay Devil Rays | 302 | 405 | -103 | 65 | 4.65 | 6.23 | -1.58 | .357 | 23 | 22 | -1 |
| Texas Rangers | 349 | 299 | 50 | 63 | 5.54 | 4.75 | 0.79 | .577 | 36 | 34 | -2 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 289 | 278 | 11 | 65 | 4.45 | 4.28 | 0.17 | .519 | 34 | 32 | -2 |
| 4185 | 4103 | 82 | 443 | 4.73 | 4.64 | ||||||
| NATIONAL LEAGUE | |||||||||||
| Team | R | OR | R DIFF | G | R/G | OR/G | DIFF/G | PW% | EXP W | ACT W | W DIFF |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 309 | 348 | -39 | 66 | 4.68 | 5.27 | -0.59 | .441 | 29 | 35 | 6 |
| Atlanta Braves | 286 | 254 | 32 | 64 | 4.47 | 3.97 | 0.50 | .559 | 36 | 33 | -3 |
| Chicago Cubs | 298 | 260 | 38 | 63 | 4.73 | 4.13 | 0.60 | .568 | 36 | 34 | -2 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 322 | 370 | -48 | 64 | 5.03 | 5.78 | -0.75 | .431 | 28 | 26 | -2 |
| Colorado Rockies | 288 | 369 | -81 | 62 | 4.65 | 5.95 | -1.31 | .379 | 23 | 21 | -2 |
| Florida Marlins | 273 | 259 | 14 | 62 | 4.40 | 4.18 | 0.23 | .526 | 33 | 32 | -1 |
| Houston Astros | 231 | 273 | -42 | 63 | 3.67 | 4.33 | -0.67 | .417 | 26 | 26 | 0 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 301 | 304 | -3 | 63 | 4.78 | 4.83 | -0.05 | .495 | 31 | 33 | 2 |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 270 | 261 | 9 | 64 | 4.22 | 4.08 | 0.14 | .517 | 33 | 29 | -4 |
| New York Mets | 278 | 268 | 10 | 64 | 4.34 | 4.19 | 0.16 | .518 | 33 | 32 | -1 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 319 | 309 | 10 | 65 | 4.91 | 4.75 | 0.15 | .516 | 34 | 36 | 2 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 266 | 265 | 1 | 62 | 4.29 | 4.27 | 0.02 | .502 | 31 | 30 | -1 |
| San Diego Padres | 295 | 280 | 15 | 64 | 4.61 | 4.38 | 0.23 | .526 | 34 | 36 | 2 |
| San Francisco Giants | 265 | 335 | -70 | 62 | 4.27 | 5.40 | -1.13 | .385 | 24 | 25 | 1 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 331 | 257 | 74 | 64 | 5.17 | 4.02 | 1.16 | .624 | 40 | 41 | 1 |
| Washington Nationals | 267 | 269 | -2 | 65 | 4.11 | 4.14 | -0.03 | .496 | 32 | 38 | 6 |
| 4599 | 4681 | -82 | 509 | 4.52 | 4.60 |
Orioles Comments: The Orioles are third in the league in R/G (roughly halfway between the second place Red Sox and fourth place Yankees--the Rangers are the league leaders in runs). At the time of the last report, the O's were leading the league in scoring at just under 5.6 runs per game, so there has been significant attrition since early May. In the 37 games they've played since May 6, the Orioles have scored 5.08 runs per game--a drop of roughly a half a run per contest since the first segment of the season and not a big surprise given the club's injuries. In the season's second segment, the average AL team has scored just under 4.7 runs per game, so despite the fall off the Orioles have still been well above the league average in scoring runs.
The Orioles are now seventh in OR/G, a fraction of a percentage point ahead of the 8th place Mariners. That's exactly the same spot at which the Orioles found themselves at the time of the first Stats That Matter Most installment in early May. At that time, the O's were allowing 4.48 runs per game; they are presently at a virtually unchanged 4.55.
The team's WDIFF is now a negligible +1. It was +2 at the time of the first installment.
American League: There are still very few outliers in the AL. The Chicago White Sox (+5 WDIFF) are the only team of note. I don't thinks it's surprise for anyone to see hard evidence that the White Sox aren't as good as their record, but they are still second in the league in OR/G. They're ninth in the league in R/G.
No one else in the AL has a WDIFF greater/less than +-/-2. Thus far this season, everyone is playing pretty much at their level of Pythagorean expectation.
It's fairly obvious that no one has seized control as the best team in the American League. The top RDIFF mark right now is held by the Minnesota Twins (+58). No one in the league is substantially better than average in R/G and OR/G. In fact, only two teams (the Orioles and Angels) have better than average marks in both categories. The Orioles rank third in R/G and seventh in OR/G and the Angels are fourth in OR/G and fifth in R/G.
The Devil Rays have been the worst team in the league, largely because they're allowing a staggering 6.23 runs per game, worst mark in all of Major League Baseball. Tampa Bay has been essentially an average offensive club, ranking seventh in the AL in R/G.
Overall, a sense of parity reins; the league is wide open in a manner we haven't seen in years.
National League: The NL is much more interesting. You've got two clubs that are markedly out of kilter in terms of WDIFF: both the Diamondbacks and Nationals are playing well over their heads (+6 WDIFF). It's unlikely--not impossible--that they'll be able to sustain this kind of winning percentage with this kind of play. (It has happened before. The 1987 Twins won the World Series despite being outscored during the regular season. The 1997 Giants won 90 games and a division title despite being outscored. But these are exceptions to the rule.)
The influence of RFK Stadium on the Nats numbers is obvious; Washington ranks second to last (15th) in the NL in R/G and fifth in the circuit in OR/G. Obviously RFK is a pitcher's park, but the Nats still aren't quite dominating the league in the runs allowed department. The Diamondbacks are 13th in the NL in OR/G and sixth in the league in R/G. Both clubs have been outscored on the season (despite two consecutive Arizona blowout wins). There's simply no reason to expect these two teams to keep winning at the current rate unless they start to play better.
The Milwaukee Brewers have the biggest negative WDIFF (-4). The Brewers are on the plus side in run differential, despite ranking 14th in the league in R/G. The Brewers are third in the league in OR/G behind only the Braves and Cardinals.
St. Louis has been clearly the best team in the league. The Cardinals are +74 in RDIFF. The next best mark is +38 (the Cubs, much of it on the strength of a 14-0 whipping of the Marlins last night).
Colorado and San Francisco are battling for the league's worst RDIFF. The Rockies, despite the offensive advantage of playing in Coors Field half the time, rank only seventh in the league in R/G--an indication of what a horrid hitting team this really is. Colorado does, of course, rank last in all of baseball in the league in OR/G.