Archive for the 'Splits' Category

These days, each team throws an average of 146 pitches per game, up about 11 pitches per game from 20 years ago. Click through for data and discussion.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Home Run Derby, played the day before the All-Star game, has become a favorite event for many baseball fans, especially younger ones. Even I enjoyed it the first year or two. In recent years, however, there has been significant speculation that the players who participate in the event face the possibility of negative impact on their home run production in the second half. Allegedly, the swing typically used in the Derby, an all-out uppercut, is so different from the swing typically used in real games that some players see a second-half power dip due to their swing getting off-kilter.

Let's take a look into the stats and see if this is true...

Read the rest of this entry »

On Fox's national telecast of the Twins/Rays games, future HOFer Bert Blyleven mentioned that Francisco Liriano has been allowing a lot of first inning runs this year. Let's take a look.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a look at all-time K/9 and BB/9 rates broken out in the NL vs. the AL.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check out NL relief pitching (through Friday):

They have an average number of games in relief, but check out their inherited runner stats. They have inherited a pretty small number of runners (which may be due to the strength of their starting pitching as well as how the relievers are used) but the have allowed a tiny percentage, just 15% to score. That's incredible.

For some more conventional numbers check out the regular splits by pitching role for relievers:

So the Padres bullpen has:

• the best ERA, by a lot
• the fewest walks (tied with Colorado)
• the most strikeouts
• the best K/BB ratio by a country mile

Excellent stuff. Given that their starting staff is also very good and is about average in terms of innings pitched per start, the bullpen hasn't been overworked so far and might just hold up through the rest of the season.

I wanted to check how the offensive levels this season compare with past years, but to do it right I extracted the April and May numbers from each season.

This plot shows a few things:

• The rise starting in 1993 is apparent although it's interesting that numbers that year didn't get quite a bit higher until later in the year. 1994 was the first full season with elevated offensive levels.
• The peak of the recent offensive era was in 2000.
• In 2001 (when anonymous drug testing started) the offense dropped dramatically.
• 2010 is the lowest (or tied for lowest) in both OBP and SLG since 1993.

I did some calculations to figure out the impact on a game for the difference in OBP and SLG between 2000 and 2010:

• The SLG difference of 47 points translates to about 1.5 fewer total bases per game per team. Think about it this way: in 2000, a double was replaced by a homer 3 out of every 4 games. Or, every 2 games, 3 singles turn into doubles. Big difference.
• The OBP difference of 19 points translates to about 1.5 fewer walks plus hits. So far in 2010, each game has an average of about 12.2 walks plus hits but it was 13.7 in 2010.

This season the  Oakland A's and New York Mets have taken home field advantage to the extreme. Both teams sport impressive 18-9 records at home and embarrassing 6-14 records on the road. This is obviously something that will even out over the course of the season. However, they both currently sit atop the leader board for the biggest difference in home winning percentage vs. road winning percentage.  Here are the all time leaders:

On the opposite end of the spectrum are Milwaukee and Tampa who have played much better on the road than at home. For the time being, both sit 1-2 atop the leader board for the biggest difference in road winning percentage vs. home winning percentage. Here are the all-time leaders:

Resources:  Home and road records are readily available using the PI Situational Records tool.

David Wells was part of the broadcast team for yesterday's TBS coverage of the Twins-Yankees game. He's mentioned a couple of times about how much difficulty he had facing the Red Sox and specifically Mo Vaughn.

I looked up his splits. Here are his career totals against all teams against whom he pitched at least 100 innings:

Wells said specifically that he felt he always found a way to lose. The stats seem to bear that out. His ERA against Boston was pretty bad but his record was really awful, as Boston is the only team against which he lost 20 games in his career.

Wells also mentioned that pitching as a visitor in Fenway Park was particularly difficult for him. Check out Wells' starts in Fenway (excludes starts in Fenway when he played for the Red Sox):

What an interesting progression. As you can see from the "App,Dec" column, he lost his first 6 starts in Fenway and was 0-7 in his first 8 starts there. In the 6 starts that followed, he alternated wins and losses. Over his final 9 starts there as a visitor he went 5-0. So maybe he learned something along the way.

As for Mo Vaughn, all I can say is HECK YES he killed Davis Wells:

That's 9 homers and a 1.390 OPS in 76 plate appearances.

Who are these two players?

Player A, 2010

Player B, 2010

Click through for the answers.

Read the rest of this entry »

The production that the  Giants have received from the 8th spot in their lineup this season has been remarkable. Here are the numbers for the 8th spot in each team's line-up heading into today.

An astonishing .438/.508/.686. Their 1.194  is the highest OPS for any team batting slot this season. (The White Sox #4 hitters are second at 1.132). How have they done it?  Here's the breakdown for the team's #8 hitters this season.

A lot of players over-performing when they happen to hit 8th. As you would expect, these players have not hit nearly as well at other spots in the line-up. This convergence of luck and randomness is sure to dissipate over the course of the season, but it is certainly fun to look at now.

How does this rate historically? PI does not offer us an easy way of determining that, but I can provide you with one stat.
Here are the leaders (1920-1939,1952-2010) for the teams with the most games in their first 31, in which their starter from the 8th spot had at least one hit.

Only the 1925 Pirates had more than this year's Giants.