OT: Is Tigers' negative run margin cause for concern?
It's a slow day and these next couple of weeks are going to be huge for the Tigers, so I thought I would pose a question to get some discussion going: with the Tigers sitting at 59-52 and 3 games ahead of the second-place Indians, are you concerned at all by their -7 run differential?
If you're interested in my opinion, here it is: I'm not concerned. If you look at their season overall, they've been on the receiving end of some pretty lopsided blowouts, including a span of 3 games against the Mets and Giants where they were outscored by 29 runs (in 3 games!). Thankfully, they haven't made a trend of doing that, and with the acquisition of Fister we should hopefully have some more consistency in our starting rotation. I'd like to hear some other opinions though; what do the rest of you think?
Maybe if they were in any other division, but since EVERYONE in the Central has a negative run margin, it's probably not a big deal.
For now it's fine, but the negative run margin coupled with the high team batting average are symptoms of a problem of scoring as many runs as could/should be scored. This could be a problem in the playoffs against the Yankees or Red Sox.
As a Yankees fan, I'd say not to pay too much attention to the run margin. My team is +173 right now but I've seen them win one game 13-2 then lose the next 2-1. I would just concentrate on wins and your rotation, which is stronger or at least more consistent than ours right now.
As mentioned, everyone in the division is running negative. I'm much more concerned, and will be paying close attention to, Ubaldo's start in the Cleveland-Texas set this evening.
I agree with you that the run differential is somewhat misleading due to a few blowouts - especially the Mets - but still isn't substantial when you take those losses out. Having said that, my concern isn't with the run differential, it's simply with the bullpen. I don't know Pauley at all so maybe he brings something I'm not aware of. While Valverde has been on fire in save situations, we'll need that to continue.
Penny is cause for concern
Realistically, Penny hasn't performed that poorly for a 5th starter (the role which he was signed to fill). Now that we have shored up the rotation with Fister, as long as Penny can maintain/marginally improve we'll be okay. Also, in all likelihood, Penny would be moved to the bullpen come playoff time anyways, so nothing to worry about here, especially in the weak AL Central.
Penny was a concern when he wasn't our worst starter.
Now that he is, he is perfectly average given the standard of an AL fifth. Nobody has five lights out pitchers.
The Tigers don't have one game left against the Red Sox, Yankees, Angels, or Rangers. This schedule should get them to the playoffs regardless. Once the playoffs start, the Tigers are way overmatched anyway.
Just for the record, the Tigers have the easiest remaining scedule in the AL by average opponent record:
Tigers: 50-58
CHW: 52-57
CLE: 53-56
LAA: 53-55
NYY: 54-54
TEX: 55-54
BOS: 55-54
Including 6 of the next 9 against cellar dwellers and 3 against a reeling Cleveland team.
Detroit needs to take 2/3 against KC (realistically should take all 3 with the top 3 guys going for the Tigers).
2/3 against Cleveland would be nice for the Tigers, looking at a Thursday win and one of the other two (maybe Fister?).
Not in the AL Central. Simple as that. Negative run margin can win the division.
A negative run margin will win you the AL Central most years really......and then you get to the postseason, playing teams from divisions where negative run margins are the fate of those who were at or below .500.....
You might want to check those facts... I did a little digging, and since 2002 the only MLB team to win a division with a negative run margin was the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2007 (this obviously means that it has never happend in the AL Central). Believe it or not, the D-Backs actually had the best record in the NL that year and won the NLDS. In all honesty run differential is a useless statistic that doesn't really tell you anything about the performance of the team or how well they will perform in the playoffs.
"Run differential is a useless statistic that doesn't really tell you anything about the performance of the team"
But there's absolutely no way that's true.
With 12 games left against the Tribe, those are the games that I worry the most about. The Tigers otherwise have an easy schedule and play in a terrible division.
I agree with most of the posters that they will likely make the playoffs where anything goes, but they will likely be exposed. With arguably the best pitcher in baseball, there's always a chance that they get hot and steal a series.
It's a good predictor of the true level of the team, so yeah, it probably means they're not going to do so hot if they make the playoffs and have to play the Yankees/Red Sox, but winning the AL Central this year is a tallest midget contest. And if you get in the playoffs, sometimes a team just gets hot at the right time.
Is there a body of work that suggests it's a good predictor to a team's "true level" or are you just talking?
It means nothing to me and it's extremely affected by outliers. The Tigers scored 19 runs in THREE DIFFERENT GAMES in '08, greatly helping out their run margin through the first half of the season that year. They finished in last place.
For run differential to be a better measure of quality, one would probably want to truncate the top 3 and bottom 3 games (in terms of run differential).
run differential is an excellent stat to determine the quality of the team. try and give me better stat, other than Ws and Ls themselves.
it's easy to pluck a given team in a given year; or even a few games in a given year. however, baseball is 162 games. that provides more data than any other sport in a given year.
does it mean the team with the best run differential is going to win the WS? No. but, in general, that's the team I would bet on. having a great top 3 in the rotation can tilt the scales in a short series.
also, in 2008, you said the Tigers had 3 games that they won by > 10 runs before the all star break.. They also lost 3 games by > 10 runs.
There are many that believe in the pathagorean theorem for runs-for/run-against for record predictor. doing that for the tigers in 2008 yields 77 wins. they actually had 74. I don't consider that a big difference.
I've never heard of using the path. theorem with runs for/against to predict wins. Can you explain the thinking behind that?
i don't know the history behind it, but it's fairly accurate.
win% formula: (runs-for)-squared / (runs-for plus runs-against)-squared. take this % and multiply by 162 to get predicted wins.
this is actually a good tool to compare actual wins vs. predicted wins using this formula. it can give you an idea of which teams over/under achieved (ie. losing or winning a lot of close games).
i could argue that the tigers are overachieving a bit right now because valverde is perfect in saves. the typical reliever would have blown 4-5. that could be easily be the reason why they are over .500 right now.
not that you care, but i used to mess around with baseball stats and ratings formulas back at UM before it was in vogue today - explains my less than stellar gpa. i actually came up with my own fantasy baseball rating formulas before all these magazines came out. my league started back in 1984. we actually have a kid of one of our original players in our league.
i also came up with a rating formula for historical player seasons, kind of like what SABR does. my college roomates and i would talk baseball stats all the time. we talked OPS before anyone really talked OPS. I actually advocated OTS (on base avg times slugging). i think that is a better predictor of a player's worth...
A: Three games is a big difference
B: WTF are you talking about with the Pythagorean Theorem?
3 games is a big difference? that's less than a 2% error over 162 games; or less than 4% over those 77 wins. i just hope you are more accurate than that in your day-to-day life.
Yeah, that's almost certainly within the margin-of-error territory. It's akin to predicting an NFL record within 0.3 wins.
Not sure where I saw this, but earlier this week someone showed the run differential for when our top 4 starters pitch and we are like plus 20 something. When the fifth goes, we are terrible. Hopefully adding Fister will shore this issue up. Also, I do not see how the Tigers don't have a great shot in the postseason. No team wants to face Verlander twice in a five game series, and Scherzer and Porcello as well as Fister match up as well with any of the possible rotations looking to the postseason. And we all know the offense can catch fire with anyone either. Lets hope for an exciting fall! A conference championship on the football field and a pennant race on the diamond!
A good indicator of our rotation's performace lies in the WAR (Wins Above Replacement) that the team can expect from the players' performace. For the first time all season, the Tigers finally have a rotation that is positive and contributing... For example:
JV: 6.2 WAR
Scherzer: 1.8 WAR
Penny: .7 WAR
Porcello: .6 WAR
Fister: .2 WAR (This will definitely improve since he's only had one start for the team, but had a 2.8 WAR with Seattle, despite a 3-12 record)
And for some comparison, here are some other starters that the team has played around with this season...
Oliver: 0 WAR
Furbush: 0 WAR
Below: -.2 WAR
Coke: -.3 WAR
For the reasons you already metioned. I'm worried about infield defense and relief pitching.
Nice to see that they have not fallen apart after the all star break and that they shored up the bottom 3rd of the lineup and the starting rotation.
Don't see anyone in our division getting past NY or Boston in the AL playoffs, however.
Of the 4 major pro team sports, I think the baseball playoffs are the closest to a coin flip in each series and is the least likely to crown the best team as the champion. The shortened rotations and off days during the playoffs make it completely different from the regular season.
The best regular seaon team doesn't make it to the World Series as often as they did prior to the expansion of the playoffs obviously. In short, the regular season doesn't matter once the playoffs begin.
If a goalie gets hot it doesn't matter who the teams are.
i'm not sure about your first sentence (opinion), but i agree with everything else you posted. your reasoning is my biggest reason why the braves didn't win more WS. they had a great deep rotation all those years. but they lost the advantage of those 4-5 starters in the playoffs.
be afraid of mediocre teams with a solid 1-3 in starting pitchers. think Arizona (Schilling and the Big Unit) or even SF last year.
hmm. i like the tigers 1-3 better than the yankees; kinda like 2006.
is also part due to lots and lots of runs allowed by pitchers not on our 25 man roster. People like Oliver, Gonzalez, Thomas, Perry, ect. This is probably true for all teams. It shows a flaw in the stat. I'd be more interested in the WAR (value, basically) of the current 25 men, especially the ones who get used a lot. Also, the trends such as how the most used guys are performing recently.
Finally, that stat does not take into account Doug Fister.
The sum of the WAR for the offense is 15.3, for Pitching, 9, for a total of 24.3. These numbers even include those who are not currently on the team, but have played this season.
It's a little worrisome, but we should consider that that stat was recorded almost entirely without Guillen in the lineup and without Fister in the rotation. I think they'll end up on the positive side if they continue to play as they have lately.
does cause for concern, but the tigers division is awful it shouldn't hurt us too bad.
IIRC, every team in the division has a negative run margin - the Tigers third order winning % is the highest.
I would say the Red Sox and Yankees are cause for concern, because the Tigers aren't going to beat them. And they have a very positive run margin. So yeah...
i wouldn't count out the tigers against the yankees. what if verlander matches up against sabathia twice in a short series. JV could beat CC twice. that would put the yankees in deep doo doo.
Don't know if you've noticed but CC's also having a banner year, and Tigers offense first has to score against the Yankees. Assuming the pitchers are close to equal or Verlander is even slightly better, the Yankees simply have a much better offense. I don't think it's impossible but definitely not probable.
i just think the tigers have a chance if JV matches against CC. i'm sure leyland would do his best to make that happen. girardi should do his best to avoid it.
I'm a little concerned by it, but then again not.
Reason why I am? The offense should be better. But some of that is coming around. Keep in mind how many games Ordonez, Martinez, and Guillen missed between them. Plus Jackson started out horrible. Realize that his season BA is 70 points higher than what he hit for the month of April.
Also, the pitching should have been better. But that, too, is turning around. Can't be upset about anything Verlander has done, and Scherzer is still developing, but Porcello has bounced back from a bad year last year, already topping last year's win total in 7 fewer starts. The ERA is still higher than you would like but again, it's his 3rd year in the majors. The biggest change is Fister replacing the revolving door gas can.
Pure and simple, the entire division gives up more runs than it scores so it's winnable, and the fact that the team isn't starting anymore games with Coke on the hill and Inge and Raburn behind him is reason to believe it will get better.
In 1960, the Yankees scored 55 runs in the World Series, while the Pirates scored 27. Guess who won...
The highlight footage of Mazeroski's homerun is a dead giveaway, right?
WELL not making an excuse, but if you take into consideration we had a six game stretch during interleague play when we were outscored 54-32 (-22) by the Giants/Mets..not really a cause for concern to me. 5th in the MLB in runs scored, obviously just need consistent pitching from Scherzer and Porcello..Hopefully Fister becomes a great tradeoff from what we previously had, while hoping for 5+runs whenever Penny takes the mound. I'll leave the bullpen alone for now