Relationship between team's hitting and pitching

[nyy26wc]

From another thread, on a different topic--

Having to pitch a near shutout, almost every game, tends to wear on a staff.........

I disagree.

That's fine in theory. It's certainly part of baseball lore. But, I find it to be lacking in a factual basis.

Implicit in that idea would be a team's pitching will suffer by the strain of a lack of offense. But, we see all of the time teams with good pitching, with poor hitting and vise versa.

In 2003, 1/3 of the teams in the majors had at least a difference of 100 betwen their RCAA and RSAA.

I had Excel compute the correlation between team RCAA and RSAA. It came up with a figure of -0.000846843, which has to be about to close to a figure of 0 that we'll ever see.

To see whether 2003 is just a fluke, I looked at the past 5 and 10 years--

Correlation--Just .09 over the past 5, just .06 over the past 10. That's pretty much a zero.

RCAA/RSAA difference of 100+: 35% over the past 5, 36% over the past 10

[Wolf Hopper]

Outside the numbers, speaking for myself, if I'm standing on the mound in the 2nd inning, and I have a ten run lead, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable than I would if you told me that my team will only score, or does only score, 2 runs in 8 innings.

For example, with a runner on 3rd and no outs in a 0-0 game, I'm trying to make the perfect pitch not to allow that runner to score. But, if the score is 10-0, all I care about is avoiding the big inning - - I can still make a good pitch - but it does not have to be my best - and take the flyball for the out, and allow that meaningless run to score.

It's a human game and humans feel pressure.

[Wolf Hopper]

Another thought - more numbers driven. Every year, year in and out, we always hear about how "Joe Pitcher" has had it "easy" because of his run support. If runs and pitching were not related, why even bother to track Run Support?

[sweaver]

I think a better way to test the idea would be this: separate into first and second half, and see if the trend brings low run scored/low runs allowed teams back to the mean.

Unfortunately, the natural tendency of the numbers will foul any such study a bit.

[nyy26wc]

Outside the numbers, speaking for myself, if I'm standing on the mound in the 2nd inning, and I have a ten run lead, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable than I would if you told me that my team will only score, or does only score, 2 runs in 8 innings.

For example, with a runner on 3rd and no outs in a 0-0 game, I'm trying to make the perfect pitch not to allow that runner to score. But, if the score is 10-0, all I care about is avoiding the big inning - - I can still make a good pitch - but it does not have to be my best - and take the flyball for the out, and allow that meaningless run to score.

It's a human game and humans feel pressure.

Except for the fact that these pressure felt humans aren't actually giving up more or less runs because of their offense is doing.

Since it doesn't correlate into the scoreboard, it really doesn't matter whether those humans are feeling pressure or, for the PG version of the post, just feeling the caps on their heads.

[nyy26wc]

Another thought - more numbers driven. Every year, year in and out, we always hear about how "Joe Pitcher" has had it "easy" because of his run support. If runs and pitching were not related, why even bother to track Run Support?

Runs scored and pitching runs allowed aren't related.

But, run support is a vital component of the stupid stats entitled "W" and "L" and can tracked for that purpose.

[Skip]

But, run support is a vital component of the stupid stats entitled "W" and "L" and can tracked for that purpose.And does anyone think it is a coincidence that you can find both 'W' and 'L' in "Wolf"? Hmmmmm! :p

Of course, you can find 'pro' and 'hero' in Hopper, so what do I know? :cool:

[Rajah]

But when you have a team like the A's who have great pitching 1 through 5, and the makings of a top flight bullpen, will the opposing team not feel pressured to score at every opportunity? Will the opposing pitcher not feel that he has to throw a shut out in order to win? Pressure works both ways. Billy's building a team that gets on base a lot and plays great defense. I expect them to do very well, and I will pick them to win the West.

[Wolf Hopper]

Bottom line, they only person (or persons) who can answer the question of whether or not "Having to pitch a near shutout, almost every game, tends to wear on" them are pitchers. There is not a number that will prove it or disprove it.

I understand that some may want to make the case "whether it effects their emotions or not is moot because as long as they do not give up runs, the end means it did not effect them" - - but, who is to say that they would not have given us less runs than they actually did without the pressure.

It probably goes pitcher to pitcher. One pitcher may try to pitch a SO every time, regardless of the score - while another may not care about his ERA - - only getting the team a win. But, again, until we hear from an actual professional pitcher on his opinion, there's not going to be a right or wrong here.

[Joseph]

Outside the numbers, speaking for myself, if I'm standing on the mound in the 2nd inning, and I have a ten run lead, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable than I would if you told me that my team will only score, or does only score, 2 runs in 8 innings.

For example, with a runner on 3rd and no outs in a 0-0 game, I'm trying to make the perfect pitch not to allow that runner to score. But, if the score is 10-0, all I care about is avoiding the big inning - - I can still make a good pitch - but it does not have to be my best - and take the flyball for the out, and allow that meaningless run to score.

It's a human game and humans feel pressure.


FWIW, Curt Schilling said something very similar somewhere in that Q&A thread posted here: http://www.netshrine.com/vbulletin2/showpost.php?p=168352&postcount=25

[satchel]

I don't think that "10 run lead in the second" scenario is of much relevance to Lee's point, as it is an unusual situation. Even a pitcher with the league-leading offense behind him is only rarely going to have that kind of comfort zone. It's far more likely that there will be, say, three runs or fewer separating the two teams for most of the time that the pitcher is working.

I also agree with Lee that Run Support is only needed because it's necessary to make something useful out of wins and losses. Remember, the argument that "Pitcher A has it easier than Pitcher B because Pitcher A has great run support" is not usually used to explain why Pitcher A has a lower ERA; in fact, quite the opposite - it is used to explain why Pitcher A has a better W-L record despite having an equal or worse ERA compared to Pitcher B.