Scoring Runs

After reading an article on ESPN by Jayson Stark (), something Greg Maddux said made me think. He tells Chris Young that only 18% of runners end up scoring, so he never worried about holding runners. Is that true? According to Baseball-Reference.com it is close. Their base runners scored percentages were all around 15-17%. I decided to try it long hand. The reasoning behind it is to determine whether good teams score at a higher percentage, allow scoring at a lower percentage, or create a greater difference between allowed and scored. I did the math for the American League. For those who are curious the math I did is:

Baserunners: H+BB+IBB+HBP-HR (subtracting HR's allows the math to be done for only runners who at some point were on base)

Baserunners scored: R-HR (subtracting HR's removes runs that weren't scored by a runner)

So, how did the playoff teams do?

BRS% BRSA%

Bos 31.15% 29.49%

CHW 30.98% 30.72%

LAA 31.69% 29.07%

TB 29.85% 28.31%

The Angels did remarkably well in this stat, the third best difference between scored and allowed after the Twins, who turned the highest number of runners into runs, and the Blue Jays, who allowed the fewest number of runners to become runs. The Rays, who were commended for a much improved defense, really rode that pitching and defense into the playoffs. I don't think this bodes well for the Rays this season. The pitching is bound to regress some so they'll need to convert more runners into runs. Of course, as young as their pitching is the regression may not happen, as pitchers improve instead. The White Sox were, according to this, fairly lucky to make the playoffs, as the Twins had a much better difference, more in line with the other playoff participants. And the Red Sox really followed the Rays defense and pitching mantra, being about average scoring runners (Avg 31.13%) and being well above average in preventing runs having the fifth best prevention percentage (average prevention percentage: 30.65%).

Top Five in scoring and prevention difference (with percentage being BRS%-BRSA%)

Twins (4.4%)

Blue Jays (3.43%)

Angels (2.62%)

Red Sox (1.67%)

Rays (1.54%)

That's it for now. I may or may not do the NL. Soon though, a post on contract reviews.