Gautam Mukunda wrote: Doug: My gut feeling is that an excellent defensive team with average offense beats an excellent offensive team with average defense (defense=fielding+pitching that is.)
Me: That seems to be the conventional wisdom in baseball, but I do think that the statistics don't really bear it out. Most strikingly, the number of teams that lead their league in scoring runs and won the WS is almost exactly equal to the number of teams that led their league in preventing runs scored. More interesting is James's Pythagorean formula, which I think I've talked about on the list before: WP=RS^2/(RS^2+RA^2) where WP=Winning Percentage, RS=Runs Scored, and RA=Runs allowed. That was James's derivation - Baseball Prospectus actually developed a slightly more accurate one that uses a floating exponent, but it's not worth added complexity here. Anyways, that formula suggests that scoring runs and preventing runs from being scored are essentially of exactly the same value. A team that scores 10 more runs will win exactly as many more games over the long run as a team that prevents 10 runs from being scored. It's stunningly accurate. It also suggests, btw, that Oakland underperformed last year (it should have won more games, based on its RS & RA) and Seattle overperformed, lending strength to your argument that Oakland will beat Seattle this year. Me: > This tendency to underrate defense is the main reason I picked Seattle over > Oakland in the AL West - Seattle's defense is excellent, Oakland's > atrocious. Doug: Really? Atrocious? Do you have a good source for comparing defensive stats? I couldn't find anything that enabled me to compare stats. The best I could find was at http//www.sportingnews.com Me: Sadly, no I don't. As I said, I don't think there _are_ good defensive statistics out there except for Win Shares, which I don't fully understand. But just watching the A's suggests that to me. There outfield is Terrence Long, David Justice, and the guy they took from Kansas City last year, right? I can't remember his name. Well, Long is in CF, and he's really better in right - everyone I've read suggests that Damon was much better. David Justice is, at best, a mediocre LF. And the RF will be recovering from a broken leg, which can't be conducive to his speed. The infield looks better - Chavez is error prone, but that means virtually nothing, and he's athletic enough that he should play decent defense. The same with Tejada. And Pena will almost certainly be an upgrade over Giambi. But I don't have much faith in Randy Velarde's defense, although I do think he is a good 2B. Atrocious was probably too strong a word, in retrospect. I do think their OF defense is quite bad, and that this will be a real problem for them - not as bad as in the Ben Grieve days, but not as good as last year's either. I may be underrating their infield defense. Doug Gautam
