3+ HR games
Posted by Andy on November 26, 2007
Here are the totals for each 2007 team in terms of number of games with at least 3 HR hit:
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games +---+----+-----+-------------------------+ CHW 2007 25 Ind. Games MIL 2007 24 Ind. Games NYY 2007 23 Ind. Games CIN 2007 22 Ind. Games FLA 2007 21 Ind. Games PHI 2007 20 Ind. Games TEX 2007 19 Ind. Games SDP 2007 19 Ind. Games COL 2007 19 Ind. Games TOR 2007 18 Ind. Games NYM 2007 17 Ind. Games BOS 2007 17 Ind. Games TBD 2007 16 Ind. Games ATL 2007 16 Ind. Games DET 2007 15 Ind. Games CHC 2007 15 Ind. Games ARI 2007 15 Ind. Games STL 2007 14 Ind. Games OAK 2007 14 Ind. Games HOU 2007 14 Ind. Games PIT 2007 13 Ind. Games CLE 2007 11 Ind. Games SFG 2007 10 Ind. Games MIN 2007 10 Ind. Games WSN 2007 9 Ind. Games SEA 2007 8 Ind. Games BAL 2007 8 Ind. Games LAA 2007 7 Ind. Games KCR 2007 7 Ind. Games LAD 2007 5 Ind. Games
I'm surprised by the discrepancy between first place (25 such games for the White Sox) and last place (5 such games for the Trolley Dodgers.) LA was way down on the overall team-by-team homer list, with just 129 in the entire season. Averaging fewer than 1 HR per game, it's not so surprising I guess that they managed 3 in a game just 5 times.
Now here are the games in which team pitching allowed 3+ HR in 2007:
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games +---+----+-----+-------------------------+ HOU 2007 25 Ind. Games TBD 2007 22 Ind. Games PHI 2007 21 Ind. Games CIN 2007 21 Ind. Games MIN 2007 19 Ind. Games ATL 2007 18 Ind. Games TOR 2007 17 Ind. Games STL 2007 17 Ind. Games PIT 2007 17 Ind. Games LAA 2007 17 Ind. Games KCR 2007 17 Ind. Games FLA 2007 17 Ind. Games CLE 2007 17 Ind. Games NYM 2007 16 Ind. Games WSN 2007 15 Ind. Games MIL 2007 15 Ind. Games DET 2007 15 Ind. Games LAD 2007 14 Ind. Games CHC 2007 14 Ind. Games NYY 2007 13 Ind. Games ARI 2007 13 Ind. Games TEX 2007 12 Ind. Games SEA 2007 12 Ind. Games CHW 2007 12 Ind. Games BAL 2007 12 Ind. Games SFG 2007 11 Ind. Games COL 2007 10 Ind. Games OAK 2007 8 Ind. Games BOS 2007 8 Ind. Games SDP 2007 6 Ind. Games
Now, the data looks pretty similar, in the sense that the highs and lows are nearly identical, and of course the overall number of 3+ HR games is the same for batting and pitching (451, in 2007.) But of course the numberof games must be the same since every batting 3+ HR game was pitched by one team or another. If we dig just a bit deeper, though, we can learn more. With 451 such games, that means that each team averaged hitting 15.033 such games, as well as pitching 15.033 such games. Look at Detroit: they hit 15 3-HR games, and pitched 15 3-HR games. They were perfectly average in these regards. But by calculating the standard deviation of each feat, we can see that giving up 3+ Hr was more evenly spread.
For batting games with 3+ HR, the standard deviation in 2007 was 5.4. If you're not familiar with standard deviation, it gives a good numerical indicator of how far out the data is spread from the average. The higher the standard the deviation, the more spread out it is. For pitching games with 3+ HR, the standard deviation was just 4.3. This tells you that teams were closer to the average.
A less mathematical way to look at this is if you simply count the number of teams that were within 2 HR of the average (meaning between 13 and 17.) For batting, 11 out of 30 teams were in this central range near the average. For pitching, though, 15 out of 30 teams were in the central range.
What does this mean in terms of actual baseball? It means that there is a bigger variation among teams for hitting a bunch of homers in games than there is for pitching. Or stated more plainly, it means that pitching staffs are more even across MLB, at least in terms of giving up 3+ HR in a game. I would guess (although the data above does absolutely nothing to show this) that the data translates all the way to individual players. Some teams have 40+ or 50+ HR hitters that contribute greatly to their team hitting 3+ HR in a game, whereas other teams don't have 40+ or 50+ HR hitters. But when it comes to pitching, the HR totals and frequencies tend to be more averaged out.
I went back and calculated the 3+ HR game data for 2006, too. There were 540 3+ HR games, an average of exactly 18 per team. The batting 3+ HR games had a standard deviation of 6.0, whereas the pitching 3+ HR games had a standard deviation of just 5.4. On the larger basis of 540 HR (instead of 451), these numbers are just about identical.
November 26th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Off Topic- This list highlights an inconsistency in PI. The batting games tell you the location adding an @ before the opponent for road games. It doesn't do this in the pitching list. Maybe its worth fixing.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
OK, so the obvious question...what are the highest and lowest 3+HR game counts for a team in a season?
November 26th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Since 1957, the most is here:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/fsK2
The 1997 Mariners had 43 such games enroute to a 90-win season and a division series loss.
Since 1957, there have been 29 teams to have just 1 such game:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/tUJt
However these are not the fewest, as all the teams that did it zero times don't show up at all. If a team hits fewer than 100 HR in a season, it's fairly unlikely to have 3 or more in one game.
November 26th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
If I set up my spreadsheet correctly, in 2007 there were 22 games in which both teams hit 3+ homeruns.
November 26th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Following up on OscarAzocars comment...I attended a game in June 2006 in PetCo Park of all places, where Seattle and San Diego hit 4 HR EACH.
Is there an easy wat to tell how rare that is?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SDN/SDN200606240.shtml
November 26th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Andy we can figure out how many teams have zero 3+ games in a year.
There are 1261 teams that have had at least one game of 3+ homeruns in a season since 1957.
There have been 1270 team season from 1957 - 2007. That leaves 9 teams who have gone an entire season without a 3+ game. 3 of those teams are from 1981.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Spartanbill, I can't tell you how common it is (I could but I would have to spend a week cutting and pasting). However, (again if I set my spreadsheet up correctly) I think it happened only once in '07, but 8 times in '06
4/7/2006 TBD @TOR
4/14/2006 LAA @BAL
4/21/2006 TOR BOS
5/25/2006 DET @KCR
6/24/2006 SDP SEA
7/2/2006 CHW @CHC
9/24/2006 PHI FLA
9/24/2006 SEA @CHW
5/13/2007 LAA @TEX
November 27th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Thanks OscarA