While the Sox came into Tuesday night's game against Oakland with a 22-19 record, their Pythagorean won loss record is the exact opposite at 19-22. The Sox have been outscored 168-182 despite their winning record.
If you break it down by innings it looks like the Sox have started games slow and ended them worse:
Runs Scored/Allowed
Innings 1-3: 41-57
Innings 4-6: 69-50
Innings 7-9: 54-71
Now Jenks has actually pitched pretty well this year, so most of that damage has been done in the seventh and eighth. In those two innings the Sox have been outscored 55-39.
The Sox did blow a couple of late inning leads against the Cubs, but most of this damage was done by letting a couple games they were already losing get out of hand.
Middle relief is still a problem, but I think it is one of the easier ones a team can fix. The Sox have internal options and can always make a deal if things don't improve.
I think the quickest way to make the bullpen better would be to send Sisco down to the minors. His mechanics look horrible, he can't throw strikes, and he has one of the more pathetic change-up deliveries I have ever seen. He actually slows his arm motion down to throw the change as if he was a little leaguer believing a change-up just means throwing the ball slow.
He has a strong arm, but I doubt he ever gets his act together to become an effective pitcher.
Showing posts with label Stats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stats. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
AL Central 2006 Run Distributions
2006 was a pretty strange year in the AL Central. Cleveland had good hitting and solid pitching yet still managed to finish below 500 at 78-84. Detroit was the most consistent team all year but lost the division on the last day of the season after being swept by the Royals. Minnesota had the privilege of being outscored by more than two runs per game and April then turning around and doing the same to their opponents in June.
Below is where the teams stood according to their win distributions. RS eW is each teams expected amount of wins if you combined their daily offensive output and matched it with league average pitching (example: teams that score six runs win about 60% of the time - if a team scored six runs 20 times, that would give them 12 expected wins).
RA eW is the exact same thing done with runs allowed.
As you can see, the Sox had the best offense and the fourth best pitching in the league which was good enough for 90 wins. Yet the Indians had the second best offense and third best pitching and finished with only 78 wins.
From May to July Cleveland outscored their opponents 409-398 while posting a record of 32-47! If I were an Indians fan I would sit here and try to figure out what happened. But since I'm not, I'll just give a Nelson Muntz laugh and move on.
According to the run distributions, Detroit was better than Minnesota in both offense and pitching. But the the distributions don't quite tell the whole story. If you could somehow combine your low scoring games with your bad pitching games you could in essence "save your runs" for times when they are most needed. Now, you can't do this intentionally, but this is in fact how the Twins season played out.
As you can see, April was the Twins worst hitting and worst pitching month. They scored 4.04 runs per game but gave up 6.17. If you took a half a run out of August and added it to their offensinve output in April, they probably still would have gone 6-15. Yet that half a run probably won them four games in August.
Now there were very good reasons the Twins got better after April. Their pitching shook off an early season slump, Liriano replaced Silva in the rotation, and Castro and Bautista were dropped for better offensive players (actually the replacements were better defenders too).
So while Detroit finished with better overall numbers, I don't think they were the better team at the end of the year.
I thought it was interesting to see that the Royals offense wasn't all that bad last year. They finished just a bit below average on offense, but the staff only pitched well enough to win 67 games. It makes overpaying for Gil Meche a bit more understandable.
As for the Sox, it is time to close the book on 2006. Lets just hope the monthly trends shown below don't extend into 2007.
Below is where the teams stood according to their win distributions. RS eW is each teams expected amount of wins if you combined their daily offensive output and matched it with league average pitching (example: teams that score six runs win about 60% of the time - if a team scored six runs 20 times, that would give them 12 expected wins).
RA eW is the exact same thing done with runs allowed.
| Team | RS eW | RA eW |
| CHI | 88.6 | 82.0 |
| CLE | 86.8 | 84.2 |
| DET | 84.4 | 93.8 |
| MIN | 82.5 | 92.6 |
| KC | 79.0 | 67.1 |
As you can see, the Sox had the best offense and the fourth best pitching in the league which was good enough for 90 wins. Yet the Indians had the second best offense and third best pitching and finished with only 78 wins.
From May to July Cleveland outscored their opponents 409-398 while posting a record of 32-47! If I were an Indians fan I would sit here and try to figure out what happened. But since I'm not, I'll just give a Nelson Muntz laugh and move on.
According to the run distributions, Detroit was better than Minnesota in both offense and pitching. But the the distributions don't quite tell the whole story. If you could somehow combine your low scoring games with your bad pitching games you could in essence "save your runs" for times when they are most needed. Now, you can't do this intentionally, but this is in fact how the Twins season played out.
As you can see, April was the Twins worst hitting and worst pitching month. They scored 4.04 runs per game but gave up 6.17. If you took a half a run out of August and added it to their offensinve output in April, they probably still would have gone 6-15. Yet that half a run probably won them four games in August.
Now there were very good reasons the Twins got better after April. Their pitching shook off an early season slump, Liriano replaced Silva in the rotation, and Castro and Bautista were dropped for better offensive players (actually the replacements were better defenders too).
So while Detroit finished with better overall numbers, I don't think they were the better team at the end of the year.
I thought it was interesting to see that the Royals offense wasn't all that bad last year. They finished just a bit below average on offense, but the staff only pitched well enough to win 67 games. It makes overpaying for Gil Meche a bit more understandable.
As for the Sox, it is time to close the book on 2006. Lets just hope the monthly trends shown below don't extend into 2007.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
White Sox Runs Scored Allowed Compared to AL
Here are the charts for runs allowed last season. As you can see below, the Sox pitching ended up right around league average. I guess it only seemed worse. Actually, it started out fine but got worse as the season went along. I plan on looking at that in more depth in a future post. For now, I'll just say that the pitching was below average after April and May and you can't see that in the chart.
Overall, the Sox pitching staff would have been expected to win 82 games if combined with a league average offense.
Runs Allowed Distribution
As we saw in the last post, the Sox offense was much better than league average, which is why they won 90 games and not 82. The chart belows shows that they outpaced the league average in winning percentage for just about every run distribution point.
Winning Percentage
Now I need to add the Sox play in a pitchers park, so you might want to adjust these numbers accordingly. However, the Sox actually gave more runs on the road, so the park didn't seem to play that large of a role.
It seems a bit odd that the Sox would give up more on the road than at home, especially considering the AL Central has a few pitcher's parks in Cleveland, Detroit and Kansas City (and I remember a low scoring series in Fenway, a hitters park). Just another of baseball's many mysteries.
Overall, the Sox pitching staff would have been expected to win 82 games if combined with a league average offense.
Runs Allowed Distribution
As we saw in the last post, the Sox offense was much better than league average, which is why they won 90 games and not 82. The chart belows shows that they outpaced the league average in winning percentage for just about every run distribution point.
Winning Percentage
Now I need to add the Sox play in a pitchers park, so you might want to adjust these numbers accordingly. However, the Sox actually gave more runs on the road, so the park didn't seem to play that large of a role.
It seems a bit odd that the Sox would give up more on the road than at home, especially considering the AL Central has a few pitcher's parks in Cleveland, Detroit and Kansas City (and I remember a low scoring series in Fenway, a hitters park). Just another of baseball's many mysteries.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
White Sox Runs Scored Compared to AL
Well, I procrastinated a bit posting the run distributions. It wasn't all laziness. The numbers didn't really show anything that we didn't already know, so I wasn't motivated to put the charts together. Hmm, I guess that would still qualify as laziness.
Anyway, on to the charts.
Runs Scored Distribution
As you can see, the Sox offense did better than the league average in putting runs across the board. For some reason, they had trouble scoring five runs as they only had 14 such games compared to the league average of 18.5. As we saw previously, the 2005 Sox has 28 such games.
Nevertheless, the Sox did have one of the better offenses in the American League last year. With league average pitching, the Sox offense would have been expected to win 88.6 games according to their runs scored distribution.
The Sox ended up with 90 wins, so 1.4 wins could be chalked up to pitching, defense, coaching and luck. Since I watched a lot of Sox baseball last year, I'll go with luck.
Winning Percentage
The win % chart highlights another fact we already knew: the Sox could not win low scoring games last year. The made up for it by winning more than their share of four and five run games. I'm not sure what to make of it, if anything. Your theories are welcome.
I'll post the runs allowed distributions tomorrow.
Anyway, on to the charts.
Runs Scored Distribution
As you can see, the Sox offense did better than the league average in putting runs across the board. For some reason, they had trouble scoring five runs as they only had 14 such games compared to the league average of 18.5. As we saw previously, the 2005 Sox has 28 such games.
Nevertheless, the Sox did have one of the better offenses in the American League last year. With league average pitching, the Sox offense would have been expected to win 88.6 games according to their runs scored distribution.
The Sox ended up with 90 wins, so 1.4 wins could be chalked up to pitching, defense, coaching and luck. Since I watched a lot of Sox baseball last year, I'll go with luck.
Winning Percentage
The win % chart highlights another fact we already knew: the Sox could not win low scoring games last year. The made up for it by winning more than their share of four and five run games. I'm not sure what to make of it, if anything. Your theories are welcome.
I'll post the runs allowed distributions tomorrow.
Friday, February 16, 2007
2006 Run Distribution v. 2005 Run Distribution
I plan on posting the 2006 run distributions in three phases: against the 2005 team; against the AL average; and against the rest of the AL East.
Run Scored Distribution - % of Games
I posted these charts at the end of August but wanted to post the final numbers. Obviously, the 2006 did a much better job scoring runs. The 2005 squad was able to score fives and six runs many more times than the 2006 team. While that was often good enough for the 2005 team, the offensive output of the 2006 was still superior.
Run Scored Distribution - Win %
The winning percentages of the 2005 team in low scoring games was phenomenal and not repeated in 2006. As you can see in the chart above, the Sox just needed to score 3 runs in 2005 to achieve at least a .600 winning percentage and they didn't do too shabby when they only scored two runs. The reason they had so much succes in low scoring games in 2005 was because the pitching was much better.
If we look at how many games each team would be predicted to win with league average pitching (run distribution X league winning percentage at that run level)* the 2006 Sox come out ahead 88.6 to 80.4, a full 8 games better.
Run Allowed Distribution - % of Games
You can see why the Sox won so many of those low scoring games last year. The pitching staff yielded 3 runs or less in 49.38% of their games last year compared to 35.42% in 2006. As for the high scoring games, the Sox gave up 7 or more runs in 32 games last year. In 2006 that number was to 46.
Run Allowed Distribution - Win %
This chart shows how the 2006 Sox were able to win some games even when the pitching gave up runs. In 2005, the Sox only won 7 out of 45 games (15.6%) in which they gave up more than 6 runs. In contrast the 2006 Sox won 14 out of 61 (23%).
Overall, the expected wins by the 2005 pitching staff with a league average offense would have been 92.11 games compared to 82.04 for the 2006 team, a full 10 wins better.
What I found interesting however, is the fact the 2005 team actually had a better winning percentage than the 2006 Sox in games where they allowed either 4 or 5 runs. This should not be the case as the 2006 team had a much better offense. I'm not sure if the discrepancy can be fully explained. I would chalk it up to the small sample size (42 games in 2005, 37 in 2006), lucky bounces (or clutchness if you believe in such things), and a lockdown bullpen. In 2005, it always seemed that the Sox played with the lead and did enough to hold on for nine innings. In 2006, it always seemed, the Sox were digging out of holes created by their starters.
Like I said, I don't think it can be fully explained. Yet, at the same time it doesn't really surprise me that the 2005 squad had a better record when they allowed between 4 or 5 runs. I always expected the 2005 team to pull out the close ones and felt the exact opposite watching last year's squad.
* for example, AL teams won 59.1% of their games when they scored 5 runs. The Sox played 14 of these games and would be expected to win 8.27 games (14 x 59.1%). Adding up all their games would give their offense 88.6 wins.
Run Scored Distribution - % of Games
I posted these charts at the end of August but wanted to post the final numbers. Obviously, the 2006 did a much better job scoring runs. The 2005 squad was able to score fives and six runs many more times than the 2006 team. While that was often good enough for the 2005 team, the offensive output of the 2006 was still superior.
Run Scored Distribution - Win %
The winning percentages of the 2005 team in low scoring games was phenomenal and not repeated in 2006. As you can see in the chart above, the Sox just needed to score 3 runs in 2005 to achieve at least a .600 winning percentage and they didn't do too shabby when they only scored two runs. The reason they had so much succes in low scoring games in 2005 was because the pitching was much better.
If we look at how many games each team would be predicted to win with league average pitching (run distribution X league winning percentage at that run level)* the 2006 Sox come out ahead 88.6 to 80.4, a full 8 games better.
Run Allowed Distribution - % of Games
You can see why the Sox won so many of those low scoring games last year. The pitching staff yielded 3 runs or less in 49.38% of their games last year compared to 35.42% in 2006. As for the high scoring games, the Sox gave up 7 or more runs in 32 games last year. In 2006 that number was to 46.
Run Allowed Distribution - Win %
This chart shows how the 2006 Sox were able to win some games even when the pitching gave up runs. In 2005, the Sox only won 7 out of 45 games (15.6%) in which they gave up more than 6 runs. In contrast the 2006 Sox won 14 out of 61 (23%).
Overall, the expected wins by the 2005 pitching staff with a league average offense would have been 92.11 games compared to 82.04 for the 2006 team, a full 10 wins better.
What I found interesting however, is the fact the 2005 team actually had a better winning percentage than the 2006 Sox in games where they allowed either 4 or 5 runs. This should not be the case as the 2006 team had a much better offense. I'm not sure if the discrepancy can be fully explained. I would chalk it up to the small sample size (42 games in 2005, 37 in 2006), lucky bounces (or clutchness if you believe in such things), and a lockdown bullpen. In 2005, it always seemed that the Sox played with the lead and did enough to hold on for nine innings. In 2006, it always seemed, the Sox were digging out of holes created by their starters.
Like I said, I don't think it can be fully explained. Yet, at the same time it doesn't really surprise me that the 2005 squad had a better record when they allowed between 4 or 5 runs. I always expected the 2005 team to pull out the close ones and felt the exact opposite watching last year's squad.
* for example, AL teams won 59.1% of their games when they scored 5 runs. The Sox played 14 of these games and would be expected to win 8.27 games (14 x 59.1%). Adding up all their games would give their offense 88.6 wins.
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