Wednesday, May 30, 2012

A Tale of Two Leagues

It was the best of leagues, it was the worst of leagues, it was the age of pitching, it was the age of hitting, it was the epoch of the longball, it was the epoch of smallball. . . . In short, we have two very different leagues.

At some point, some will argue which is better, and for a season at a time at least, we'll settle it during the all-star game and relive it in the league championships. Either way, though, the Roberto Clemente and Thurmon Munson Leagues are already as divergent as many of the teams within it.

In case you haven't had a chance to take notice, let's take a look at some statistics.

Lorenzo Rodriguez
The Roberto Clemente League is the slugging league. Teams in the RCL are averaging 5.2 runs, almost a half-run more than the Thurmon Munson League, and their OPS is 45 points higher. They're led in hitting by Lorenzo "Z-Rod" Rodriguez, a 23 year old .394/.476./.891! masher who's crushed 20 HR already this season and leads the ABL.

Interestingly, the top four hitters in the RCL in OPS are currently under the age of 25. If these hitters can keep doing what they are doing now and stay healthy, teams in the RCL could find it difficult to sign free agent pitchers.

Nick Hawkins
If the RCL has the bats, the TML has the arms. The league average ERA is 4.01, a full .8 lower than the RCL. If that isn't staggering enough, consider that only one team in the RCL has an ERA lower than the TML league average, and that's Dallas. The TML is led by a group of five pitchers with an ERA below two. Nick Hawkins, of Eureka, leads the way with a .96 ERA. Hawkins is interesting in that he's made starts and appearances out of the bullpen. Though it looks like he's been moved back to the bullpen recently, he still has enough starts to qualify.

This of course leads to two questions. First, are these stats products of the league alone? Are pitchers in the RCL suffering from great hitting, or is great hitting benefitting from poor pitching? Or is the opposite true of the TML where pitching could be benefitting from weak hitting? And overall, which is better, the TML hitting or the RCL pitching?

At first glance, it would seem that the RCL hitters, dominant in every hitting category, would surely knock around the TML pitchers just as they have the RCL pitchers.

While there's no definitive answer yet, and there are certainly a ton of variables in play, GMs in the RCL may be disappointed by early results.

Evidence so far point to the fact that pitching, at least in the TML, is the more dominant than the hitters in both leagues. Take a look at a couple of numbers:

  • RCL Average Runs Scored: 5.2. Average Runs Against: 5.3
  • TML Average Runs Scored: 4.8. Average Runs Against: 4.6

What do these numbers tell us? Well, if teams within each league only played each other, these numbers would be equal. The difference in the numbers is accounted for by interleague play. From eyeballing it, It would appear that hitters in the TML are better against RCL teams than their own TML (which is to be expected if TML pitching is better) but that RCL hitters are actually much worse against TML pitching than their own league.

There's no real way to be sure without a lot more digging into the statistics, but it turns out that the TML pitching could be, at least currently, better than RCL hitting. It's also very early in the life of the league, so those numbers may change.

We'll see if that holds true, and we'll have a great chance to put it to the test when the inaugural season All-Star Game comes around.
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8 comments:

  1. UnknownMay 30, 2012 at 1:30 PM

    Absolutely agree on the hitting vs. pitching difference between the two leagues.

    When looking at interleague play, I wonder if another factor might also be in play. It seems to me that the RCL has a few teams that are especially weak this season—and they're weak by design, being heavily skewed towards young players and building for the future. Nottinghamshire is the most extreme example, but So Cal and Greenville fit this description as well. Did the TML teams just run up the score on the weak teams? Or are their pitchers really better than RCL bats?

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  2. Steve M.May 30, 2012 at 2:00 PM

    Well written and informative. I hadn't looked at the stats that closely. This is unconfirmed but I heard that Lorenzo posted it on the board in the Barn Owl locker room.

    But seriously, I think it has become obvious to all of us just how much information there is in our league and I can't see the well ever running dry. Biggest challenge???....Trying to keep up with all these nice articles and stories everyone is writing.

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  3. AlexMay 30, 2012 at 2:17 PM

    I'd agree that match-ups can definitely skew things like that, so it will take a bit before the numbers play out a bit more. One could point out, though, that same reason could explain our hitting numbers in the RCL are so inflated.

    One thing that I think shows their pitching is so much better, though is the team ERA, where I mentioned all but one of our teams would be in the top half of the TML, and even they'd be behind several teams.

    If you flip the offense, three or four of TML teams could slot in pretty easily into the top half of the RCL in terms of runs scored and OPS, and that's having played most of their games against better pitching.

    You're still right, though, in that it's not perfect due to a variety of variables. It will be fun to keep track of, though, as more teams are matched up. In some cases, interleague games might be throwing the balance off for some teams more than I'd expect, which is a factor that will balance out more as the season progresses.

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    Replies
    1. UnknownMay 30, 2012 at 2:40 PM

      Good points, especially the one about the asymmetry of the TML's best hitting teams being better than the RCL's best pitching teams.

      I like that the leagues worked out like this. It gives them each more of a personality.

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    2. AlexMay 30, 2012 at 2:42 PM

      I agree. We don't have the DH difference, not that I mind, but I think this is even better.

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  4. FunnelmasterMay 31, 2012 at 5:37 AM

    Good read. And the comments were helpful to advance the story.

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  5. BillAttsMay 31, 2012 at 6:14 AM

    There is actually a much easier explaination for the difference in the leagues. The key factor here is ballparks. The RCL averages 1.021 in batting average and .982 in HR factor. These could be viewed as fairly neutral in impacting the pitchers or hitters characteristics.

    However, the TML has an average batting average factor of .946 and an average HR factor of .865. These would clearly give the pitchers some tremendous advantages.

    This would indicate that in interleague trades, the pitchers will fair worse going from the TML to the RCL and conversely any pitcher movinf to the TML would look like he is improving. The reverse would be the case for hitters.

    This also would indicate that this is going to be a more permanent trend and a seasonal difference.

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  6. AlexMay 31, 2012 at 7:08 AM

    Great point, William! Something that shoul definitely be taken into account.

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