The Stats That Matter Most (2005 Season Final)

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 2005's final numbers:

AMERICAN LEAGUE                      

Team

 R OR R DIFF G R/G OR/G DIFF/G PW% EXP W ACT W W DIFF
Baltimore Orioles 729 800 -71 162 4.50 4.94 -0.44 .454 73 74 1
Boston Red Sox 910 805 105 162 5.62 4.97 0.65 .561 91 95 4
Chicago White Sox 741 645 96 162 4.57 3.98 0.59 .569 92 99 7
Cleveland Indians 790 642 148 162 4.88 3.96 0.91 .602 98 93 -5
Detroit Tigers 723 787 -64 162 4.46 4.86 -0.40 .458 74 71 -3
Kansas City Royals 701 935 -234 162 4.33 5.77 -1.44 .360 58 56 -2
Los Angeles Angels 761 643 118 162 4.70 3.97 0.73 .583 95 95 0
Minnesota Twins 688 662 26 162 4.25 4.09 0.16 .519 84 83 -1
New York Yankees 886 789 97 162 5.47 4.87 0.60 .558 90 95 5
Oakland Athletics 772 658 114 162 4.77 4.06 0.70 .579 94 88 -6
Seattle Mariners 699 751 -52 162 4.31 4.64 -0.32 .464 75 69 -6
Tampa Bay Devil Rays 750 936 -186 162 4.63 5.78 -1.15 .391 63 67 4
Texas Rangers 865 858 7 162 5.34 5.30 0.04 .504 82 79 -3
Toronto Blue Jays 775 705 70 162 4.78 4.35 0.43 .547 89 80 -9
AL Totals 10790 10616 174 1134 4.76 4.68          
                     
NATIONAL LEAGUE                      
Team R OR R DIFF G R/G OR/G DIFF/G PW% EXP W ACT W W DIFF
Arizona Diamondbacks 696 856 -160 162 4.30 5.28 -0.99 .398 64 77 13
Atlanta Braves 769 674 95 162 4.75 4.16 0.59 .566 92 90 -2
Chicago Cubs 703 714 -11 162 4.34 4.41 -0.07 .492 80 79 -1
Cincinnati Reds 820 889 -69 163 5.03 5.45 -0.42 .460 75 73 -2
Colorado Rockies 740 862 -122 162 4.57 5.32 -0.75 .424 69 67 -2
Florida Marlins 717 732 -15 162 4.43 4.52 -0.09 .490 79 83 4
Houston Astros 693 609 84 163 4.25 3.74 0.52 .564 92 89 -3
Los Angeles Dodgers 685 755 -70 162 4.23 4.66 -0.43 .452 73 71 -2
Milwaukee Brewers 726 697 29 162 4.48 4.30 0.18 .520 84 81 -3
New York Mets 722 648 74 162 4.46 4.00 0.46 .554 90 83 -7
Philadelphia Phillies 807 726 81 162 4.98 4.48 0.50 .553 90 88 -2
Pittsburgh Pirates 680 769 -89 162 4.20 4.75 -0.55 .439 71 67 -4
San Diego Padres 684 726 -42 162 4.22 4.48 -0.26 .470 76 82 6
San Francisco Giants 649 745 -96 162 4.01 4.60 -0.59 .431 70 75 5
St. Louis Cardinals 805 634 171 162 4.97 3.91 1.06 .617 100 100 0
Washington Nationals 639 673 -34 162 3.94 4.15 -0.21 .474 77 81 4
NL Totals 11535 11709 -174 1297 4.45 4.51          

Orioles Comments:  Looking for positives in the Orioles' 2005 season is something of a putting-lipstick-on-a-pig exercise, so I won't bother trying to do so  in this particular venue.  The club's deteriorating play, which continued in each Stats That Matter Most segment as the season unfolded, finally bottomed out in late August and September.  Over the season's final 34 games, the Orioles were merely lousy--as they had been from the middle of June until the All-Star break--rather than horrific, as they had been from the break until late August (see table below).

Segment Games Runs R/G R/G Rank Opp. Runs OR/G OR/G Rank
O.D.-5/5 27 151 5.59 1 121 4.48 7
5/6-6/14  36 182 5.06 5 169 4.69 8
6/15-7/10 24 98 4.08 12 119 4.96 10
7/11-8/27 41 147 3.59 14 215 5.24 9
8/28-10/2 34 157 4.44 8 176 5.18 11
YTD 128 729 4.50 10 800 4.94 10

The Orioles finished with the third worst run differential (-71) in the American League, bettering only Kansas City and Tampa Bay (both of whom, it should be noted, were far worse).  Detroit (-64) wasn't much better, but that's faint praise indeed.  The Birds ranked 10th in both runs and runs allowed per game, a predictably lethal combination of sub-mediocrity.  If you're into trends, however, this really understates the depths of the club's position.  From the middle of June until the end of the season, a span of 99 Orioles games, the performance of the team is much worse:

Segment Games Runs R/G R/G Rank Opp. Runs OR/G OR/G Rank
6/15-10/2 99 396 4.00 13 510 5.15 11

There's no way to view the above as anything but solidly bad, all the way around.  (The average team in the AL scored roughly 4.75 runs per game during this stretch.)  The only team to score at a lower rate than the Orioles was Minnesota (3.96).  The three teams to allow more runs per game during this period were Tampa Bay (5.46), Texas (5.66) and Kansas City (5.83).  So, the pitching was poor and the hitting was abysmal.  The -114 RDIFF during this 99-game stretch equates to a Pythagorean Winning Percentage of .376.

As I said, there's very little positive to report.

Major League comments:  This is one of the screwiest final Pythagorean data sets that I've ever seen.  Let's begin with the American League where six teams finished with WDIFFs at least five wins off the expected total.  

In the East, the New York Yankees went from +1 to +5 in WDIFF in the final segment of the season, the function of a rash of one-run wins and several extremely lopsided losses (including two nine-run losses in the final six games of the season).  Still, you shouldn't feel too badly for the Boston Red Sox who finished at +4 themselves.  The two teams used more or less the same formula (strong offenses, subpar pitching) to reach the postseason; the Red Sox had the better offense (tops in the league in R/G; the Yankees were second, only 24 runs behind), but the worse pitching (finishing 11th in the league in OR/G; the Yankees were 9th).  Toronto (-9 WDIFF) was the biggest underachiever in either league, qualifying as a legitimate outlier in historical terms.  At +70 RDIFF, the Blue Jays "should" have been pushing the Yankees and Red Sox for the division title, but were left in the dust.  Given their ability to sustain the substantial positive run differential without Roy Halladay for the second half of the season, this is a team to keep an eye on in 2006.  Tampa Bay's offense (8th in the league in R/G) was on the margins of capable, but the pitching is so bad (last in the league in OR/G, worse than even the Royals) that it's still hard to take them seriously.  It's never a good sign when you overachieve your way to 67 wins, which is what the Devil Rays did.

In the Central, the Cleveland Indians actually sported what was easily the league's best RDIFF.  The team's projected win total of 98 "should" have had them winning the division fairly easily, but a -5 WDIFF coupled with a +6 by the Chicago White Sox did them in.  Cleveland allowed the fewest runs per game in the league (ever so slightly better than the Angels and White Sox) while sporting the #4 offense in the AL.  Cleveland is one or two tweaks away from being a potentially dominant club.  The White Sox overachieved, period.  Their pitching is as good as advertised, and the offense is as spotty as most observers believe (9th in the league in R/G).  Things drop off dramatically from that point in the division.  The Minnesota Twins finished pretty much where they should have, slightly above .500; that's a function of having the league's worst offense coupled with significantly better than average pitching.  The Detroit Tigers were pretty close to being the Orioles this year (11th in R/G, 8th in OR/G, comparable RDIFF).  The Kansas City Royals were the worst team in baseball, finishing 12th in the league in R/G (they outscored 14th-ranked Minnesota by 13 runs) and 13th in OR/G (they allowed one less run than Tampa Bay).

Out West, the Los Angeles Angels were the best team (second in OR/G, 7th in R/G), but just barely, despite the easy divisional win.  The Oakland Athletics underachieved significantly (-6).  The Pythagorean projection implies that they should have been neck-and-neck with the Angels and "should" have won the wildcard.  Only the Indians and Angels had better run differentials than the A's, so two of the top three AL teams in PW% missed the playoffs.  The Texas Rangers were third from the top in the league in R/G, but were third from the bottom in OR/G.  The Seattle Mainers were another club with a large negative WDIFF (-6), which doesn't mean that they were good...just not as bad as their real life record.  The Mariners were second from the bottom in R/G, ahead of only the Twins, which was their undoing.

The National League didn't have as many significant WDIFF clubs as the AL, but it did have one of the largest of all time.  We'll get to that in a moment.

In the East, the Atlanta Braves "deserved" their 14th straight division title, moderately outplaying the Philadelphia Philllies.  The Phillies battled for the wildcard, right down to the final day, with the Houston Astros, and the Pythagorean Theorem suggests that was entirely appropriate as well.  The New York Mets, on the other hand, "should" have been fighting with the Braves and Phils, but significantly underachieved (-7 WDIFF).  Only the Astros and Cardinals allowed fewer runs than the Mets, who scored at roughly the league average rate.  The Florida Marlins and Washington Nationals both overachieved (+4 WDIFF).  Despite the reputation for great pitching, the Marlins finished a desultory 10th in the league in OR/G.  The Nationals finished fourth in OR/G, helped immeasurably by pitcher-friendly RFK Stadium.  But what the ballpark giveth, the ballpark taketh away; the Nats were dead last in the league in offense.  Washington was the only team in either league in 2005 to score fewer than four runs per game (3.91).  

The St. Louis Cardinals were not only the best team in the Central Division, they were the best team in all of baseball, at least in terms of run differential (+171).  The Cardinals were second in R/G, behind only Cincinnati, and second in OR/G, trailing only Houston.  The Astros used their #1 position in runs allowed to propel themselves to the NL wildcard slot.  The 609 runs the Astros allowed were 25 fewer than the #2 Cardinals, but Houston ranked only 11th in the 16-team league in R/G.  The Milwaukee Brewers "should" have had their first winning season in a dog's age, but finished at .500 due to the -3 WDIFF.  The Brewers were a solid 6th in both R/G and OR/G, giving legitimate reasons for hope in Milwaukee for the first time in years.  The Chicago Cubs had a disappointing season, finishing below .500 despite pre-season expectations of a postseason spot.  For a team supposedly built on pitching, the club's seventh place finish in the NL (and fourth in the Central) in OR/G was subpar.  The 8th place finish in R/G was more or less to be expected.  The Cincinnati Reds led the league in R/G (helped in no small part by the hitter friendly Great American Ballpark), but were 16th--dead last--in OR/G.  The 5.45 runs per game allowed by the Reds would have placed them second from the bottom in the American League, even though Cincinnati pitchers didn't have to face designated hitters (except in a small number of interleague games played in AL parks).  The Pittsburgh Pirates were just lousy--14th in R/G, 13th in OR/G.

The 2005 National League West has to be the worst division in Major League Baseball history.  (Divisional play began in 1969.)  There have been mediocre divisions before, but there wasn't even a single legitimately mediocre team in the West.  San Diego was the best of the worst, finishing with a RDIFF of -42 and the Padres were lucky to win 82 games (projected total:  76).  The San Francisco Giants actually had the third worst RDIFF in the entire league and projected to win only 65 games (but won 70 due to a +5 WDIFF).  When you're lucky to lose 92 games, you've got problems.  The Los Angeles Dodgers (-70 RDIFF) really weren't any better.  None of these teams could score to save their lives; the Padres were 13th in the league in R/G, the Giants were 15th and the Dodgers were 12th.  Of the three, only San Diego allowed fewer than the NL average of 4.51 per game (and only barely; the Pads allowed 4.48 per game).  The rest of the division was even worse.  The Colorado Rockies finished dead last, finishing fifth in the league in R/G (4.57) despite playing half their games in Coors Field.  (The league averaged 4.45 runs per game.)  Only Cincinnati allowed more runs than the Rockies.  But, sabermetrically speaking, the worst team in the entire National League wasn't the Rockies.  It was the Arizona Diamondbacks, who finished -160 in RDIFF, by far the worst mark in the league.  And yet Arizona, despite finishing 10th in R/G and 14th in OR/G, sported a second place finish in the division, winning 77 times.  This was entirely a function of a colossal +13 WDIFF.  A team projected to lose 98 games managed to drop "only" 85.  This is the second largest positive WDIFF in modern (post-1900) major league history.  Only the 1905 Detroit Tigers (+15) have a larger WDIFF.  It will be very interesting to see what happens in Phoenix next year.  The Diamondbacks finished 2004 51-111, so they improved by 26 wins.  That, of course, is a massive overestimate of the improvement (realistically it was more like 13 wins).  The franchise invested heavily in the free agent market and is probably tempted to think that the investment was highly successful.  This, however, is still a truly bad team; one can only wonder if the club recognizes just how far from mediocrity they remain.

 

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