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MARCH 11, 2004
Beware The Ides Of March Baseball Madness
By Steve Lombardi, NetShrine.com

As a follow up to the last SOTS feature, which touched upon the recent pitching dominance of the Oakland A’s, the question came to mind “Which team last season was helped the most by their pitching staff?”  (Hey, I have to ponder something to kill the three-something weeks of basically idle "baseball news" time until Opening Day, no?)

At first blush, a concept like Neutral Wins¹ for a team, from a batting perspective, popped into my head.  Actually, it was less of a “pop” and more like a washing to the surface – similar to the answer coming into view in a Magic 8-Ball ^® - which just made the theory all the more fun.

To this end, I wondered “What if one were to take Pythagorean Winning Percentage² and plug in an average amount of runs allowed (to represent an “average pitching staff”) and then compare that result to the actual Pythagorean Winning Percentage results for a team?  The difference between the actual percentage and the adjusted percentage would serve as the measure/impact of the team’s pitching staff – by comparing the real results versus what an average pitching staff would have contributed.”

With the assistance of the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia and an Excel spreadsheet, working up the numbers for the 2003 season on this idea took about two minutes.  The results are as follows:

[Batting Runs = Runs scored by the team in 2003.  Pitching Runs = Runs allowed by the team in 2003.  PW% = Pythagorean Winning Percentage. Actual W% = A team’s actual winning percentage in 2003.  PN PW% = Pitching Neutral Pythagorean Winning Percentage.  Difference = PW% less PN PW%.]

For purposes of an “average pitching staff” (in terms of runs allowed) a team’s actual runs allowed was adjusted by their RSAA³ (courtesy of the SBE).  While this method does yield a small understatement of "average runs allowed" (as RSAA deals with earned runs only and not total runs) since this exercise is meant to be a "quick and dirty" calculation, this approach is sufficient.

It is clear that the Dodgers, Expos, and Diamondbacks, the top three teams on this list, and the only teams with a “Difference” equal or greater to .1, were the teams who benefited the most by having superior pitching.  This makes sense, as they each were in the “Top 6” for worst offense in 2003.  Their great pitching made up for their lousy batting.

The Tigers, Devil Rays, and Reds – three of the “Top 8” worst offensive teams in 2003 – were not helped at all by their pitchers.  This also makes sense, as their pitching staffs were below average in 2003.  Bad pitching is not going to make up for bad hitting.

The Braves, Red Sox, Cardinals and Yankees were among the best offensive teams in 2003.  Did their pitchers, according to this study, help or hurt their team?  It appears, on the above chart, that their solid pitching staffs helped the Yankees and Red Sox.  The Braves, whose pitching was close to average, are neutral.  The Cardinals were not helped at all by their bad pitching.

Pausing here, what do we have so far?

• Great pitching will make a poor hitting team better.
• Bad pitching will not help a poor hitting team.
• If you have good hitting, good pitching helps you and bad pitching hurts you.

The obvious reaction to these findings is a sarcastic “Duh!”  Most baseball fans, with a modicum or hardball expertise, could have yielded this conclusion without the need for a statistical study.  There is still not much here, in terms of findings, to make your jaw drop.  Oh, well, even though you know the world is not flat, it never hurts to (every once in a while) see a picture of it being round for absolute confirmation.

The next (and hopefully more fruitful) thought to follow after this ho-hum conclusion was how would “pitching neutral” wins (to be derived via the aforementioned adjusted Pythagorean Winning Percentage) and “hitting neutral” wins compare for each team in 2003?  So, we head back to the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia and Excel for some more fun.  The results are as follows: