What kind of team would you like to see the Cubs field?

[Abe Frohman]

I think a good baseball team maintains a balance of strong starting pitching, strong defense, and hitters who can execute and move runners. There is a "Luck Factor" that always plays a part, but when you do things right, the luck happens naturally. A team can't hope for luck, or rely on it - it just happens when you do the little things and play the game right.

 

All three of these aspects work in each others favor: strong defense improves the pitching; putting up runs places the pitchers/fielders in the right position to defend the lead. The name of the game is scoring runs, and holding leads.

 

I think the 2006 Cubs, on paper, have all the tools to do the job. The defense is improved, the bullpen is improved, and the offense has been redefined. The pitching is still in question, but in better shape than more than half of the other NL teams. Anything is possible with the 2006 Cubs, but I think it all depends on the offenses ability to execute the little things to put the runs up, and the obvious health of the starting pitchers.

[cubweiser03]

Ill take #1 eight days a week.

[MeatampPotatoesMan]

#1

 

Oh, and I'd prefer a winning team, no matter how it happened.

[Tim]

Pitching is:

 

1) subject to more injury (don't we know it!)

2) more inconsistent even when healthy

3) still reliant upon a good defense

 

Of the three things listed, hitting alone makes up 50% of the game. The other two combined make up the other 50%. That makes it an easy choice for me.

[UK1679666180]

Balance is the key, I did a study a couple of years ago. Based on Runs Scored and Runs allowed, about 90% of the World Series teams over the last 5 years, have been extremely balanced offensively and pitchingwise.

[UK1679666180]

Here is the article from '03.

 

It has been a constant debate as whether a team benefits more from having a stronger offense, stronger pitching, or a balanced approach.

 

With numbers from 2003', I will attempt to determine the Wins Contributed (WC) by each team based on their Runs Scored for offense per game (RS) and Runs Allowed per game (RA) for pitching, given an average defense. Instead of basing it on actual wins totals for 03', I will use each team's pythagorean record (PR), which bases a team's W-L record based on RS and RA, which is ideal for this study.

 

Method:

 

Hitting: Using a method that is similar to calculate the team's PR and Offensive Winning % (OWP), I have squared RS and divided it by the sum of that team's RS and the RS for the League (LRS) (AL and NL are seperated), this is simply (RS²)/(RS² + LRS²) which will provide the win percentage of that team if that team had average pitching and defense based from their offensive production, I will call this (OWR). For example, if Boston had avg. pitching and defense, their overall winning % would have been 59.8% (.598). Next, we take that .598 and multiply it by 162 to see how many wins Boston would have had with avg. pitching and defense (OWR*162), which will give us 96.09 wins (TOW).

 

Pitching: Following a similar method as mentioned above, except we will use RA and the League Runs Allowed (LRA) the only changes will be that the numerator with will be the LRA instead of the team's RA and the denominator will remain the same (LRA²)/(RA² + LRA²), I will call this (PWP) . This will give us the win percentage of a team with an avg. offense and defense based from their pitching production. To use the Boston example again, if Boston had an avg. offense and defense, their overall winning % would have 48.6% (.486). Like above, we take that .486 and multiply it by 162 to see how many wins Boston would have had with an avg. offense and defense (PWP*162), which would give us .78.86 wins (POW).

 

Combining the two: Now that it has been determined each team's offensive and pitching win totals, we must apply it to the team's PR and then calculate what percentage of those wins were created by the offense and the pitching. This is done by adding up the wins created by the offense and the pitching (TOW+POW) & using the Boston example, it would be 96.09+78.86=174.95. Now that we have the combined win totals, we can now plug one of them to determine the winning % caused by each of them by taking the offensive win total divided by the offensive and pitching totals (TOW/ (TOW+POW)). With Boston, that would determine that the offense was responsible for 55.1% (.551) of the wins and the pitching was responsible for 44.9% (.449) of the wins in 2003'. Now using the pythagorean win total of Boston in 03' of 94 wins, we can take that .551 and multiply it by 94 to show that the Boston offense contributed to 55 wins and Boston's pitching contributed to 39 wins.

 

The final step will be to determine which teams were offensively dominated, pitching dominated, or balanced which will be done by assigning teams with a +.525 Offensive Wins Created % as offensive based, teams with a +.525 Pitching Wins Created % as pitching dominated, and teams within the .475-.525 range as balanced. Then, we will be able to compare which of those groups had the greater success for the 2003' season.

 

Results:

 

NL:

 

Offense Created Wins

Atlanta-52

St. Louis-49

Houston-47

Colorado-45

Philadelphia-45

San Francisco-44

Florida-42

Pittsburgh-40

Chicago-40

Arizona-39

Montreal-38

Milwaukee-35

Cincinnati-33

San Diego-33

New York-31

Los Angeles-30

 

Pitching Created Wins

Los Angeles-53

San Francisco-49

Houston-47

Philadelphia-45

Florida-45

Chicago-45

Arizona-45

Atlanta-44

Montreal-42

St. Louis-39

New York-37

Pittsburgh-36

San Diego-33

Colorado-33

Milwaukee-31

Cincinnati-30

 

Offensive Created Win %

Colorado-.576

St. Louis-.556

Atlanta-.541

Milwaukee-.530

Cincinnati-.527

San Diego-.503

Philadelphia-.497

Houston-.494

Florida-.483

Montreal-.477

Chicago-.471

San Francisco-.469

Arizona-.469

New York-.465

Los Angeles-.365

 

Pitching Created Win % (this is just the reversal of the Offense Created Win %)

Los Angeles-.635

New York-.535

Arizona-.531

San Francisco-.531

Chicago-.529

Montreal-.523

Florida-.517

Houston-.506

Philadelphia-.503

San Diego-.497

Cincinnati-.473

Milwaukee-.470

Atlanta-.459

St. Louis-.444

Colorado-.424

 

AL:

 

Offensive Wins Created

Boston-55

New York- 48

Toronto-47

Seattle-44

Kansas City-42

Minnesota-42

Chicago-42

Oakland-42

Texas-39

Anaheim-37

Baltimore-36

Tampa Bay-34

Cleveland-34

Detroit-23

 

Pitching Wins Created

Seattle-53

Oakland-52

New York-48

Chicago-46

Minnesota-43

Anaheim-43

Toronto-40

Boston-39

Cleveland-39

Baltimore-38

Kansas City-36

Tampa Bay-34

Texas-30

Detroit-26

 

Offensive Wins Created %

Texas-.569

Boston-.551

Toronto-.542

Kansas City-.540

New York-.500

Minnesota-.495

Tampa Bay-.495

Baltimore-.492

Chicago-.478

Anaheim-.468

Cleveland-.465

Detroit-.463

Seattle-.455

Oakland-.448

 

Pitching Wins Contributed %

Oakland-.552

Seattle-.545

Detroit-.537

Cleveland-.535

Anaheim-.532

Chicago-.522

Baltimore-.508

Tampa Bay-.505

Minnesota-.505

New York-.500

Kansas City-.460

Toronto-.458

Boston-.449

Texas-.431

 

Offense dominated NL teams:

Colorado-78 wins

St. Louis-88 wins

Atlanta-96 wins

Milwaukee-66 wins

Cincinnati-63

 

Total Wins:391

Avg. Win Total per Team:78.2

 

Balanced NL teams:

San Diego-66 wins

Philadelphia-88 wins

Houston-94 wins

Florida-88 wins

Pittsburgh-76 wins

Montreal-80 wins

 

Total Wins:492

Avg. Win Total per Team:82

 

Pitching dominated NL Teams:

Chicago-85 wins

San Francisco-93 wins

Arizona-84 wins

New York-69 wins

Los Angeles-83 wins

 

Total Wins:494

Avg. win Total per Team:82.8

 

Offense dominated AL Teams:

Boston-94 wins

Toronto-87 wins

Texas-69 wins

Kansas City-78

 

Total Wins:328

Avg. win Total per Team:82

 

Balanced AL Teams:

New York-96 wins

Minnesota-85 wins

Baltimore-74 wins

Tampa Bay-68 wins

Chicago-88 wins

 

Total Wins:411

Avg. win Total per Team:82.2

 

Pitching dom. AL Teams:

Seattle-97 wins

Oakland-96 wins

Anaheim-80 wins

Cleveland-73 wins

Detroit-49 wins

 

Total Wins:483

Avg. win Total per Team:79

 

NL and AL combined:

 

Offense dom. Teams:

Colorado-78 wins

Boston-94 wins

St. Louis-88 wins

Toronto-87 wins

Atlanta-96 wins

Texas-69 wins

Milwaukee-66 wins

Kansas City-78 wins

Cincinnati-63 wins

 

Total Wins:719

Avg. Wins per Team:79.88

 

Balanced Teams:

San Diego-66 wins

New York (AL)-96 wins

Philadelphia-90 wins

Minnesota-85 wins

Houston-94 wins

Baltimore-74 wins

Florida-87 wins

Tampa Bay-68 wins

Pittsburgh-76 wins

Chicago (AL)-88 wins

Montreal-80 wins

 

Total wins:904

Avg. Total per Team:82.18

 

Pitching dom. Teams:

Seattle-97 wins

Chicago (NL)-85 wins

Oakland-94 wins

San Francisco-93 wins

Arizona-84 wins

Anaheim-80 wins

Los Angeles-83 wins

Cleveland-73 wins

New York (NL)-69 wins

Detroit-49 wins

 

Total Wins:807

Avg. Wins per Team:80.7

 

Conclusion:

 

There is a small win total variance between teams, but pitching dominated teams had a slightly greater chance of reaching .500. The offensive dominated teams had 4 of the 9 teams above .500, the balanced teams had 6 of the 11 teams above .500, and the pitching dominated teams had 6 of the 10 teams above .500. The balanced teams had a higher Win Total per team, followed by pitching dominated teams, and then by the offense dominated teams. Of the 8 playoff teams, 2 were offensive teams, 3 were balanced, and 3 were pitching dominated. Overall, the balanced teams had the better record per team and have shown the most success in the post-season the past 5 years. Of the last 10 teams to have played in the World Series 9 of them have been balanced, including the last 8. The last team that has played in the World Series that was not balanced was Atlanta in 99'.