Assorted Team Notes for 2005
With a look ahead to 2006
By Keith Glab,
It’s amazing, the things you
can notice just by browsing the Baseball Evolution Standings
Page. Here are some statistical
observations for a dozen teams:
AL East
New Yorkers everywhere bemoaned the Yankee pitching
staff this year, citing it as the main reason for their poor start and nearly
costing them the AL East crown for the first time since 1997. Yes, their pitching really wasn’t all that
good, but it may surprise some people to know that these 2005 Yankees allowed
19 fewer runs than their 2004 counterparts.
Perhaps that’s why experts believe that
AL Central
Sox fans new and old celebrated this week as Jim Thome joined Paul Konerko to
create a lefty/righty tandem capable of matching the
production of the David Ortiz /Manny Ramirez duo in
For the first time since 2001, the Minnesota Twins
failed to win the AL Central Division, and they need look no further than their
offense to determine why. The Tampa Bay
Devil Rays, who were so disappointing last year that Lou Pinella walked out on
them, scored 62 more runs last year than the Minnesota Twins did. That explains the Twins’ trade for Luis
Castillo, who, if he even approaches his .391 OBP of last year, would be the
best leadoff hitter the team has had since Chuck Knoblauch
in 1996. The Twins are also rumored to
be interested in Frank Thomas.
The Royals are really bad, averaging 57 wins over the
past two seasons. But has anyone noticed
just how bad they are on the road? About
ten games worse per season. They’re
47-116 over the past two seasons, which makes for a .288 winning percentage
over a 163-game spread. There’s not much
help on the horizon, either, as ESPN’s Peter Gammons reports that GM Allen
Baird has no intention of trading young Zach Greinke
for even Austin Kearns-level talent.
Yes, he meant the Zach Greinke who went 5-17,
5.80 and allowed 233 hits in 183 innings last year.
AL West
Whether it’s Zito/Mulder/Redman,
or Zito/Harden/Kennedy, the A’s are often identified
by having some of the best left-handed starters in the league. In fact, the rest of the lefty starters in
baseball don’t impress the A’s one bit, since the team went 26-13 (.667)
against them last year. The rest of the
AL West had to face
Last offseason, The Mariners
added sluggers Richie Sexson
and Adrian Beltre after having swapped Freddy Garcia
for two exciting young hitters (Miguel Olivo and
Jeremy Reed) during that summer. So
nearly everybody thought, “Hey, these Mariners are going to score some
runs! I just hope their pitching can
hold up.”
Of course what happened is that their offense scored just
one more run than it had in 2004, while their pitching staff improved
dramatically, allowing 72 fewer runs than their 2004 counterparts. It will be interesting to see whether
NL East
In Billy Wagner’s two statistically dominant seasons
with the Phillies,
So are the Wagnerless Phils in trouble for 2006?
Not necessarily. Firstly, if the
38-year old risk Flash Olden can’t cut the cornbread, then Ryan “Mad Max” Madson can certainly step in to help. He’s just 25, and a career 15-8, 3.25 134/44
type of reliever. He’s mad, he’s
mad! But the Phillies
are glad… that they have him. Secondly, the
Phillies are just one game over (54-53 .505) in
one-run games during Wagner’s tenure, so the aggregate bullpen still had room
for improvement.
The Mets are ostensibly the most improved team of the offseason so far, and they will be picked by many to win
the NL East (though not me, since I decided last year that I was sick of
picking against the Braves and losing).
One thing that Yankees’ brass always worries about when they acquire a
new player is, “how will this guy fare under the pressure of playing in
NL Central
I wrote a lot about both the White Sox and the Astros during the postseason. But I never noticed the thing that the teams
most have in common. As I noted for the
White Sox earlier, the Astros are a right hand-heavy
lineup which inexplicably fares better against right-handed pitchers. In 2005, they went 70-51 (.579) versus righties and 19-22 (.463) against lefties.
Contrastingly, the Brewers fared much better against
the southpaws (22-16 .579) than their right-handed counterparts (59-66 .472)
despite three of their four top players in OPS (Geoff Jenkins .888, Russell Branyan .868, and Lyle Overbay
.816) are lefties themselves. By the
way, if you think that Carlos Lee was the other top OPS Brewer, think
again. Infielder Bill Hall (.837) beat
him pretty soundly (.811). Also, in
Carlos’ career, he’s slugged 56 points better against righties. Weird stuff.
NL West
The Arizona Diamondbacks finished second in the NL
West despite posting a sub-.400 Pythagorean Winning % (.395). This has never happened before in the
three-division format. I doubt that it
has ever happened in the history of the game, but if you can find such a
season, please let us
know about it.
These D’Backs also have the
distinction of having a road record off 41-40 (.506) as compared to their home
record of 36-45 (.444). This means that
their road record was better than that of the Blue Jays, Twins, Rangers, Mets,
Marlins, Nationals, Astros, Brewers, Padres, and tied
with the Red Sox. Only seven of the 17
teams who finished with a better record than
The Giants have historically been better against lefty
pitchers (The went 32-18 .640 against them in 2004 vs.
59-53 .527 against righties) because Barry Bonds
could still hit lefties really well (1.000 career OPS against them) and they
had a right-hand dominant lineup otherwise.
In 2005, despite having Barry for just 14 games, the eteam
failed to find another left-handed threat in their lineup, and it showed in the
standings. The Giants went two games
over .500 against southpaw starters (19-17 .528) but finished just 56-70 (.444)
against righties.
Maybe management should spring for another left-handed insurance bat for
’06, that is, if they have any money left what with the ridiculous amounts
still owed to the likes of Mike Matheny, Omar Vizquel,
and Moises Alou.
Learn more fun facts about your favorite teams when we
premiere our 2006 Team Previews this spring.
View our 2005
Previews and see how on-target we were.