One big reason why the Indians are doing so well
Posted by Andy on May 25, 2011
Check out the teams with the most players having at least 21 RBI (through Monday's games):
| Rk | Year | Tm | Lg | #Matching | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2011 | Cleveland Indians | AL | 7 | Michael Brantley / Asdrubal Cabrera / Orlando Cabrera / Shin-Soo Choo / Travis Hafner / Matt LaPorta / Carlos Santana |
| 2 | 2011 | New York Yankees | AL | 5 | Robinson Cano / Curtis Granderson / Russell Martin / Alex Rodriguez / Mark Teixeira |
| 3 | 2011 | Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim | AL | 4 | Bobby Abreu / Alberto Callaspo / Torii Hunter / Mark Trumbo |
| 4 | 2011 | Arizona Diamondbacks | NL | 4 | Stephen Drew / Ryan Roberts / Justin Upton / Chris Young |
| 5 | 2011 | Boston Red Sox | AL | 4 | Jacoby Ellsbury / Adrian Gonzalez / David Ortiz / Kevin Youkilis |
| 6 | 2011 | Chicago White Sox | AL | 4 | Adam Dunn / Paul Konerko / Carlos Quentin / Alexei Ramirez |
| 7 | 2011 | Detroit Tigers | AL | 4 | Alex Avila / Miguel Cabrera / Victor Martinez / Jhonny Peralta |
| 8 | 2011 | Kansas City Royals | AL | 4 | Mike Aviles / Melky Cabrera / Jeff Francoeur / Alex Gordon |
| 9 | 2011 | St. Louis Cardinals | NL | 4 | Lance Berkman / Matt Holliday / Yadier Molina / Albert Pujols |
| 10 | 2011 | Tampa Bay Rays | AL | 4 | Johnny Damon / Matthew Joyce / B.J. Upton / Ben Zobrist |
The Indians have scored a lot of runs and that helps them on this list, but the bottom line is they have amazing distribution across their offense. They aren't getting major contributions from just a few players--they're getting contributions from just about everyone. Even 3B Jack Hannahan has 17 RBI.
There are a lot of reasons to like what Cleveland has done so far this year. I've listed a few more below, but this excellent and even distribution of their offense is a big one.
I also like:
- Their run-scoring differential of 1.5 runs is by far the best in the majors.
- Their actual record is only 1 win better than their Pythagorean projection.
- They have a good record (9-4) against left-handed starters.
- They have a good record (13-6) against winning teams.
- They have played only .500 on the road, as opposed to a really good road winning percentage (like Tampa Bay, .625) that would be difficult to maintain for a whole season.
- Their 1-run game record of 11-7 is a bit lucky but not extraordinary.
May 25th, 2011 at 8:49 am
They also have seven position players with 1.0+ WAR, the most in the majors.
May 25th, 2011 at 9:28 am
Maybe this is Karmic payback to Cleveland for LeBron's "Decision", or heck, even for Herb Score's tragic career. Or for Modell's stealing the Browns away , even though he'd sold out the games for years and had lost money only in non-Browns business failings.
All that, along with Rust-Belt job woes, has maybe earned those fans some good news.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:13 am
Well there are a quite a few things going very well for the Indians. A. Cabrera is having an MVP caliber season.
A. Cabrera has 10 HR with a 158 ops+
T. Hafner has a 176 ops+
Grady Sizemore has a 176 ops+
Choo & Brantly give then great Defense and all around good play.
Masterson has an era+ of 144
Tomlin has an era+ of 149
And they've gotten great pitching from their bullpen:
Sipp-275 era+
Pestano-235 era+
Perez-346 era+
Talbot-253 era+
Sizemore is still on the DL and it's unlikely they continue to get that kind of production from A. Cabrera and Hafner. It's also unlikely the bullpen continues to perform as they have. It's also unlikely that Masterson and Tomlin continue to perform at such a high level.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:29 am
I was just looking at the career of Austin Kearns and wondering why he still has a regular job in the big leagues, after posting a sub-100 OPS+ over the last 4+ years. I was surprised to see that dWAR rates him as a very good outfielder -- 7.0 dWAR for his career, 0.5 dWAR so far this year.
Pretty unusual to see an OF of his type with career dWAR relatively close to career oWAR (9.2) -- though I suppose that should make me rethink what his "type" really is.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:37 am
The 2 fielding metrics shown on B-R have wildly divergent takes on Cleveland:
-- 2nd best in Total Zone Fielding Runs Above Average; but
-- 2nd worst in BIS Defense Runs Saved Above Average.
Which means it's probably too early to draw any conclusions about the role defense has played in their great start. They do have the 2nd-fewest errors in the AL (23), but that's only 6 fewer than average.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:41 am
Are we sure that an even distribution such as this correlates with a high winning percentage? Common sense would seem to dictate so, but I feel like we should be able to figure out how meaningful such an offensive attack is. And, with what we know about RsBI, my hunch is that they have high BA/OBP across the board, leading to lots of RsBI for lots of guys.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:44 am
I have a theory, but never attempted to prove, that deviations from predicted wins (by Pythag) somewhat correlate to "evenness" of offense, in the sense that teams with just one or two big run-producers can fall a bit short of their predicted win total whereas teams with more balanced lineups can sometimes win a couple extra games. My theory is based on nothing more than anecdotal observation and therefore may well be subject to massive error and sample bias.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:48 am
Cleveland leads the AL in BA (.263), is 3rd in OBP (.334), and is 2nd in SLUG (.423). Five regulars are above .340 in OBP, with 3 "bench" players contributing at .333 are better (I put bench in quotes because they list Sizemore as a bench player for some reason). Only one player has above a .400 OBP (Hafner). Of the guys with 22+ RsBI, all but Orlando Cabrera has an OBP of at least .323.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:51 am
Interesting, Andy. But, for what it's worth, Cleveland's record matches up perfectly with their Pythag. Cleveland is overachieving with regards to pre-season expectations but their record matches up to their on-field performance.
I've got a theory that total PA correlates with winning percentage, because a team with a high number of PA is putting a lot of guys on base and producing relatively few DPs. This would be somewhat mitigated by a team with many home wins sacrificing their PAs in the bottom of the ninth. Unfortunately, BR does not rank teams by PA, at least not in a way that I've found. I realize that looking at PA may be no different or slightly worse than looking at OBP, but I'd be curious to see.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:52 am
Just saw your note at the bottom about their record in relation to Pythag (team page has them matching perfectly). Whoops!
May 25th, 2011 at 11:04 am
My note was written before yesterday's result, so today they are even.
May 25th, 2011 at 11:07 am
You can rank teams by PA here. (CLE is actually last, but they've played the fewest games.)
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2011-standard-batting.shtml#teams_standard_batting::5
Anyway, I wasn't sure if you were kidding. Obviously teams that get more people on base will have more PA. More PA is a result of playing well, not the other way around.
As for whether a balanced lineup is better.....I guess it makes sense in theory. If someone gets hurt or slumps, the team is not as reliant on his production. But I'm sure plenty of the best offenses in history had wildly uneven RBI distributions. I guess it depends what you are testing: Will a balanced lineup project better going forward? Does a balanced lineup maximize wins compared to its runs scored?
May 25th, 2011 at 11:29 am
Andy, re: "They have played only .500 on the road, as opposed to a really good road winning percentage ... that would be difficult to maintain for a whole season."
Two questions:
(1) Wouldn't you agree that their 19-5 home record would be impossible to maintain for a whole season?
(2) Don't you think that being well above average in both home and away W% is a better mark of a very good team than being skewed towards either home or away?
I don't mean to compare the Indians to a historically great team, but just taking a quick look at the home/away W% for some of the biggest winners:
-- 2001 Mariners: .704 home, .728 away
-- 1998 Yankees: .765 home, .642 away
-- 1954 Cleveland: .766 home, .675 away
-- 1906 Cubs: .727 home, .800 away
-- 1927 Yankees: .750 home, .679 away
-- 1939 Yankees: .675 home, .730 away
-- 1931 A's: .800 home, .610 away
-- 1986 Mets: .679 home, .654 away
May 25th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
The last time a team led the AL with a batting average of .263 or less was in 1972.
All of the comments thus far are about the Indian offense. I'd like to point out that the Indian pitching staff ain't too shabby, either!
May 25th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
As resident cynical Indians fan, I feel obligated to point out the reason I don't think this will last:
1. As JA mentioned above, their 19-5 home record (about to be 19-6) is ridiculously high and won't last all season, while there's no reason to think their .500 away record will improve.
2. 74 of 224 RBIs have come with 2 outs, that's about 1/3. Certainly not the highest in the league, but not likely they can keep up that kind of 2-out production all season.
3. All of these come from behind wins and wins in the last at-bat are great, but over the course of the season a lot of those will turn into losses.
4. 13-6 record against .500+ teams is good, but they're also 1-6 combined against CHI and MIN, the current bottom-feeders of the division
5. It's Cleveland...something will go wrong
This team reminds me a lot of the 2007 team. Lots of talent, but considered 1-2 years away from putting it together and picked to finish at the bottom. Came out of the gate hot, fell apart at the end of the season, limped into the playoffs, got very lucky against the Yankees and fell to the Red Sox because they couldn't score runs on the road. Then what happened the next season with the same lineup when they should have been a strong contender? 81-81 record.
May 25th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
74 of 224 RBIs have come with 2 outs, that's about 1/3.
35% of runs in the AL this season score with 2 outs.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/split.cgi?lg=AL&year=2011&t=b#outs
May 25th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
And that's actually low -- the last few seasons it's been like 37-39%. I wouldn't think that would vary so much. Wonder if there's a correlation to overall run scoring.
May 25th, 2011 at 7:00 pm
JT-
That seems strange to me. I would assume it'd be lower because you lose the possibility of scoring a run on an out. Am I missing something? I'm not denying the stat... I'm just trying to make sense of it.
May 25th, 2011 at 9:03 pm
Well that's what I get for going on intuition instead of doing my research
May 25th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
BSK, won't you have more runners on base as the inning goes on? And won't they also on average have moved farther around the bases? I would also think that these factors would more than make up for losing the ability to score on an out.
May 26th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Kds-
That is the only explanation I could think of. And you are likely right. I guess I'd like to see some data only because it is so different from what my initial hunch would have been (which says more about my hunching abilities than the reality of the situation).
May 26th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Using the the event finder, I found that in 2011, 41% of PA with runners on base occur with 2 outs, 36% with 1 out, and 23% with 0 outs. Also, 57% of PA with 2 outs occur with runners on base, 48% of PA with 1 out, and 29% of PA with 0 out.