A New, User-Friendly Way to Evaluate MLB Offenses
Simple Framework. Simple Components. Paints an Accurate Picture
I’ve been playing around with something for the past month. Ready to unveil it now. Not any sort of scientific breakthrough. But, a tool that might be helpful to baseball fans, particularly those who like to bet recreationally.
My first draft delayed the unveiling until after the explanation. I think it works better showing you the finished product first. Imagine THIS is a Power Rating scale for MLB offenses. Right now. Most of you know what Power Ratings scales look like. MLB offenses…
20: Baltimore
19: LA Dodgers
18: NY Yankees, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Cincinnati at home
17: Boston, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, Colorado at home
16: Cleveland, Minnesota, Texas, LA Angels
15: Kansas City, NY Mets, Washington, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis, Arizona
14: Toronto, Oakland, Miami, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco
13: Chicago White Sox, Seattle, Cincinnati on the road, Colorado on the road
12: Tampa Bay
Is that a good scale for offenses? You likely have some quibbles. But, big picture it’s in the ballpark. Let me explain how I ended up with those. I’m not arbitrarily assigning numbers to teams. Those numbers are something REAL that emphasize quality and consistency.
Focus is team offense. There are already some very good stats out there. Probably my favorite is “weighted runs created.” Does a great job of telling you who’s good and who isn’t. Some people like OPS (combining on-base percentage with slugging percentage). All sorts of options.
Let me ask you this. Whatever stat you like…what does it mean for you on a “game-by-game” basis? Weighted runs created is on a percentage scale. As I write this, best is 132…worst is 71. What’s that mean in a nine-inning game? You know the great offense is 32% better than average, the lousy offense 29% worse? How does that help you predict a scoreboard without significant stat gymnastics?
Here's what I wanted to focus on…
*Total Bases Plus Walks: you long time readers know I like this stat. Basically “offensive bases earned from the plate.” Easy to figure for one game by looking at a box score. (Actually, very helpful for spotting when the “wrong” team stole a victory.). And, convenient for visualization because it takes four bases to score a run. This sounds impossibly simple…but, at the MLB or team level, if you take total bases plus walks…add them up…divide by four…you get runs something fractionally close to runs scored. If only everything in life were this simple.
It takes four bases to score a run. A team with 20 total bases plus walks “should” score about five runs in a game (and usually will over a large sampling of results). A team with 12 total bases plus walks will score around 3.
*Medians Instead of Averages: you long-timers also know I like looking at midpoints in a sample rather than averages. Outlier results can warp averages over small or medium sample sizes. The first run-through of this effort is going to be based on the median performance from everyone’s first 31 games. (Teams reached that late last week…then the Shingles vaccine knocked me on my butt for a couple of days, delaying the writing of this article).
*Listing Numbers on a “Power Rating” type scale because so many bettors are already instinctively used to that for football and basketball. It’s always been much harder to do for baseball because scoreboard results aren’t based on a “point” system that has some variance to it. And, baseball betting involves money lines rather than point differential anyway. Amazingly, the medians for all 30 teams clustered themselves in a way that aesthetically hits the eye like a Power Ratings scale.
That’s the wind-up. Here’s the pitch. This time I’ll break them into hunks so you can absorb them more readily. Offensive Rankings through everybody’s first 31 games based on their median “Total Bases Plus Walks” count in each outing. I had to split Colorado and Cincinnati into home/road differentials (for now, less than 31 in those categories because it’s so early in the season). Here’s what it looks like…
20: Baltimore
19: LA Dodgers
18: NY Yankees, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Cincinnati at home
17: Boston, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, Colorado at home
I think everyone would agree those are good offenses. Or, at least, the Reds and Rockies perform at home like good offenses because of favorable offensive conditions. You’ll have to make some mental adjustments for their opponents when they come to visit those favorable scoring conditions. You would have blind-guessed the Dodgers, Orioles, Braves, and Yankees in the elite.
16: Cleveland, Minnesota, Texas, LA Angels
15: Kansas City, NY Mets, Washington, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis, Arizona
That’s essentially the middle-third. They mix good games with bad ones. Can light up poor pitching, but can be overpowered by good pitching. If any of those was facing the Braves or Dodgers, you’d already know they had the lesser offense. If any were facing Miami or CWS, you’d know they were better. Middle of the pack.
14: Toronto, Oakland, Miami, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco
13: Chicago White Sox, Seattle, Cincinnati on the road, Colorado on the road
12: Tampa Bay
Bottom third. Cincinnati and Colorado have really been anemic on the road. For the Reds, much worse than people realize I think. So much hype about the young phenom at short. He’s doing most of his damage in home games. Whole team is struggling away from Cincinnati.
Again with that group…mostly who you’d expect. San Diego is an odd duck…grading out well in weighted runs created without actually accumulating a lot of bases. Otherwise, we’re just kinda stating the obvious on a new scale.
Why is THIS scale BETTER than others for the purposes of fans and bettors? To me, you can eyeball a game projection very quickly just by dividing the sum by four. A team at 20 should score about 5 runs. A team at 16 around 4 runs. Worst offenses listed aren’t quite getting to four very often.
Sure, you could just use run-per-game medians. I used to play around with something like that. But, anything on a run scale ends up being too tight. With medians…you end up with a bunch of teams at “4” even though they’re not truly equal. Using TB+W at least sets up some visual differences.
What I like best…it HITS YOU IN THE FACE that the difference between great offenses and horrible offenses in a nine-inning sprint is only a few bases. Recreational bettors tend to imagine blowouts in games they’re handicapping more often than is justified. “They’re gonna kill ‘em” means something like 7-2 or whatever. Easier to lay -175, -200, or -220 if you think it’s going to be a rout. And, laying -1.5 runs to “lower the juice” feels like a STEAL if you’re imaging a 7-2 game.
But, if you’re looking at offensive differences like 20-16, or 17-14…well, those wouldn’t suggest laying -175, or -220, or -1.5. runs. A 17-14 edge isn’t even a full run! Laying -1.5 runs means 6 bases is just break even. I think bettors will become much more cautious with the types of wagers they’ve typically lost (or gone broke with) because they’re forced to accept how tightly packed MLB offenses actually are within a 9 inning sprint.
Fantastic vs. lousy really shows up over a month, or a full 162 game season. Nine innings? Often, not enough time for that to be expressed by more than a few bases.
Another advantage, I think, is that once you have this scale (which you already have), you can just treat it like actual Power Ratings and tweak along the way. Let that stathead Fogle keep counting up TB+W every game on his own. You can just lift teams one rung if they start producing better, get healthy, whatever. Trout goes out for the Angels? Knock the Halos down a rung or two. Judge starts hitting again after an awful first month? Lift the Yankees a rung or two.
YOU have time to do THAT!
As I said in the prior baseball article. I didn’t discover a planet or invent ice cream. But, I think using this scale to evaluate baseball offenses will help you be less aggressive with favorites that are probably overpriced. It will be tougher to justify laying -1.5 runs. You’ll be forced to pay closer attention to which offenses are actually producing, and which offenses are quiet too often.
To keep you from scrolling back and forth, let me run the scale one last time…
20: Baltimore
19: LA Dodgers
18: NY Yankees, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Cincinnati at home
17: Boston, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, Colorado at home
16: Cleveland, Minnesota, Texas, LA Angels
15: Kansas City, NY Mets, Washington, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis, Arizona
14: Toronto, Oakland, Miami, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco
13: Chicago White Sox, Seattle, Cincinnati on the road, Colorado on the road
12: Tampa Bay
Cut-and-paste that into your Funk and Wagnalls (shout out to “Laugh-in” fans). Hits the eye well. Tells the story. Maybe a larger sampling will shrink the range. Maybe something like 14 is the real floor (or 15) because no offense will stay lousy THAT long. Personnel changes would be made. Maybe warmer weather (or a ball not made of lead) will lift the ceiling to 21 or 22. Who knows? We’ll watch and see what happens.
But, when handicapping a game, start with THOSE…then adjust for the quality of the opposing starting pitcher…the opposing bullpen, and any game conditions that may influence scoring. This season in particular, get away days, or any early starting time in glare may be an automatic subtractor. Pay attention.
Many of you are already doing stuff like that with OPS, weighted runs created, and so on. But, this very quickly takes you to run visualization in a way those don’t. It could turn out that I’m the only one who likes it! But, I wanted to present it just in case anyone else found the scale helpful, or the idea helpful.
NBA Playoff coverage begins again tomorrow. If you’d like to become a paid subscriber to get ALL articles…including sharps reports for the NBA Playoffs (and, down the road, major college football conferences, all NFL games, all the baseball playoffs, and all of March Madness)…game stat recaps for the NBA Playoffs (and, down the road, yada-yada)…plus anything else that percolates onto these pages…
$20 for a calendar month
$75 for a calendar year
You can also become a “free” subscriber to get periodic free articles and some free previews on the busiest basketball days. If you’re currently on the free list, be aware that some of those for the NBA playoffs will be trimmed back a little now that the schedule has shrunk. Not fair to paid subscribers to give one game a night free when there are only two games a night. I might switch to something where sharps reports are pay only, but some of the stat recaps are free. We’ll see.
Thanks for reading. If you’re already a paid subscriber, perpetual thanks for that. If you’d like to become one…make a few clicks and get on board before the next NBA playoff game starts.
See you again soon.