Pitch’ Counts, Of Another Nature
Posted by Steve Lombardi on January 11, 2008
Via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Team Pitching Gamelog Finder - Most wins by teams in 2007 where they used 4 pitchers or less in the game.
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games +---+----+-----+-------------------------+ LAA 2007 82 Ind. Games CLE 2007 81 Ind. Games BOS 2007 76 Ind. Games TOR 2007 69 Ind. Games NYY 2007 66 Ind. Games NYM 2007 66 Ind. Games CHC 2007 64 Ind. Games ARI 2007 63 Ind. Games SEA 2007 61 Ind. Games SDP 2007 61 Ind. Games DET 2007 61 Ind. Games PHI 2007 60 Ind. Games LAD 2007 60 Ind. Games MIN 2007 59 Ind. Games COL 2007 58 Ind. Games OAK 2007 57 Ind. Games MIL 2007 54 Ind. Games ATL 2007 53 Ind. Games HOU 2007 49 Ind. Games CHW 2007 48 Ind. Games STL 2007 47 Ind. Games TEX 2007 46 Ind. Games TBD 2007 46 Ind. Games SFG 2007 46 Ind. Games CIN 2007 46 Ind. Games KCR 2007 45 Ind. Games BAL 2007 43 Ind. Games PIT 2007 42 Ind. Games WSN 2007 34 Ind. Games FLA 2007 30 Ind. Games
And, on the flip-side, here's the most wins by a team, last year, in games where they used 5 pitchers or more:
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games +---+----+-----+-------------------------+ FLA 2007 41 Ind. Games WSN 2007 39 Ind. Games COL 2007 32 Ind. Games STL 2007 31 Ind. Games ATL 2007 31 Ind. Games TEX 2007 29 Ind. Games PHI 2007 29 Ind. Games MIL 2007 29 Ind. Games SDP 2007 28 Ind. Games NYY 2007 28 Ind. Games SEA 2007 27 Ind. Games DET 2007 27 Ind. Games ARI 2007 27 Ind. Games PIT 2007 26 Ind. Games CIN 2007 26 Ind. Games BAL 2007 26 Ind. Games SFG 2007 25 Ind. Games KCR 2007 24 Ind. Games HOU 2007 24 Ind. Games CHW 2007 24 Ind. Games NYM 2007 22 Ind. Games LAD 2007 22 Ind. Games CHC 2007 21 Ind. Games TBD 2007 20 Ind. Games MIN 2007 20 Ind. Games BOS 2007 20 Ind. Games OAK 2007 19 Ind. Games CLE 2007 15 Ind. Games TOR 2007 14 Ind. Games LAA 2007 12 Ind. Games
It's pretty clear that the Angels, Indians, Red Sox and Blue Jays got most of their wins in games where they used 4 pitchers or less. And, it's pretty clear that the Marlins and Nationals got more of their wins in games where they used 5 pitchers or more.
Of course, this does not take into account each team's offense.
Still, it's an interesting slice of data.
Take a team like the Red Sox - just because they're low on the second list doesn't mean they had a bad pen last year. They're low on the second list because they're so high on the first list.
However, a team that's low on the first list and high on the second list may be there because they have a deep and effective pen.
If anyone has some thoughts on the value that can be taken from lists like these, please do share them. Thanks in advance.
January 12th, 2008 at 7:17 am
I discussed some similar stuff a while back, although it didn't have 2007 numbers:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/sotd/archives/178
and
http://www.baseball-reference.com/sotd/archives/190
What that first post shows is basically that if a team in 2006 used 3 or fewer pitchers, it was more likely to win. As soon as it used a 4th pitcher, it became much more likely to lose, and teams using 5 or more pitchers were more likely to lose.
January 12th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Thanks Andy - I had forgotten about your look at this too.