Thursday, April 24, 2008

How to win a baseball game

Every Major League Baseball team has the same goal: win the world series. To do this, they must win most of their games during the regular season and the playoffs. There is a simple formula which must be followed to achieve this:

RS > RA

RS represents runs scored by your team in a game, and RA is the number of runs scored by the other team in a game. As long as you can follow this formula, you will win the ballgame, every time.

The Phillies are touted as one of the top offensive teams in the major leagues. And for good reason - the Phillies scored the most runs in the National League in 2007 (892) and more than any team except the New York Yankees (968). And hey, we won our division.

This year, the Phillies lost center fielder Aaron Rowand, who was one of the cornerstones of their offense, but so far, they have been able to pick up the slack. As of their 22nd game last year (April 27, 2007) they had 110 runs scored (RS). As of their 22nd game this year (April 23, 2007) they have 111 RS. Even with the loss of Rowand, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino on the DL, and Ryan Howard hitting a meager .181 with 4 HR and 9 RBI, they have kept up with last year's RS total. Through their 22nd game last year, the Phillies' record was 10-12. This year, they are one game better, with a record of 11-11.

However, the offense has been lacking consistency so far. In their first five games, the Phillies' scores were:
  • 6 - 11 (loss)
  • 0 - 1 (loss)
  • 8 - 7 (win)
  • 8 - 4 (win)
  • 4 - 3 (loss)
This is an illustration of erratic run production from the Phil's offense, which has made it tough to stay above .500.

Here are some more statistics:

Phillies' average score in ballgames they win: 6.73 runs
Opponents' average score in Phillies win: 3.64 runs
Phillies' average score in losses: 2.91 runs
Opponents' average score in Phillies loss: 5.27 runs
Phillies' average margin of victory: 3.09 runs
Phillies' average margin of defeat: 2.45 runs
Phillies' wins by one run: 1 game
Phillies losses by one run: 6 games

All of this data clearly shows that if our offense could push across one or two more runs per game, our record would improve drastically. That seems like a tall order: how can an offense which is already third in the National League in RS up their average from 4.74 R per G to 6.74? Well, if you look at the left on base (LOB) numbers, I think you can tell that we have had no shortage of base runners, and therefore, potential runs.

So far this year, the Phillies have had 173 LOB, or 7.52 per game. More importantly, of those 173 runners, 84 of them were stranded in games when the Phils lost. That's 7.64 per loss. As we saw earlier, the Phillies score, on average, 2.91 runs per loss. They leave, on average, 7.64 base runners on base per loss. The average margin of defeat is 2.45 runs. Also, six of our losses have come by one run. If our offense could push one or two of those seven or eight runners across the plate, we could turn a lot of losses into wins.

Even if we only won one extra game per month, it would make a difference. One extra game per month would mean six extra wins a year. As you can see below, this would have been more than enough to push the Phillies into the playoffs for the last few years:

  • 2001: Finished in second place, 2 games behind the Braves in the NL East
  • 2003: Finished in third place, 5 games behind the Marlins in the NL Wild Card
  • 2004: Finished in fifth place, 6 games behind the Astros in the NL Wild Card
  • 2005: Finished in second place, 1 game behind the Astros in the NL Wild Card
  • 2005: Finished in second place, 2 games behind the Braves in the NL East
  • 2006: Finished in second place, 3 games behind the Dodgers and Padres in the NL Wild Card

You can see that six extra wins a year could be the difference between a long offseason and a world championship.

I believe that Phillies have a good chance of winning the division if they can eliminate some of the one-run losses, and raise their average score in a loss to 4.5 or so.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

um, you are more than obsessed...

Dan said...

I can't think of a better thing to be obsessed about, except RW and God...

Anonymous said...

I think sometimes we get too caught up in AL type play where we just wait for Utley Burrell and Howard to hit HRs. We have lots of hits and baserunners, we need to be willing to play more small ball at times. Especially in close games, bunt the runner over, do hit and runs, sac flys. Charlie Manuel is annoying, and I can't WAIT for Rollins to come back, Utley finally went hitless last night (I blame you, because you were there). :(

Dan said...

I guess that you can blame me for our series win at PNC then, since I was there tonight.

I completely agree that we rely on the home run ball too much, but on the other hand, so many of our hitters are power hitters, we face a dilemma: do you use a guy like Geoff Jenkins to bunt a runner over, or do you hope for the double he has a good chance of providing?