Baseball By The Numbers By Michael Salfino

August 18, 2006
How Much of Winning is Pitching?

The Oakland A’s are doing the best to prove the maxim their old skipper Connie Mack made famous back when they hailed from Philadelphia. “Pitching is 75 percent of (winning) baseball,” said Mack.

Oakland’s near the bottom of the league in runs scored, yet comfortably leading its division, presumably due to pitching (only three teams have allowed less runs). More proof of Mack’s theorem, right?

Not exactly. While better-than-average pitching does consistently correlate to winning more closely than better-than-average hitting, the difference is slight. As for the 2006 A’s, records can be deceiving. Oakland’s 2006 record is entirely attributable to success against one team, the Mariners, who it’s beaten 15 straight times.

Looking at the 10 best teams in baseball, we see that eight have scored more than the league average total of runs. (Joining Oakland is St. Louis, which scores about one percent less than the league average.) The average differential of all 10 teams is plus-5.6 percent, or about 32 more runs scored than the average team.

The pitching/defense numbers of these 10-best teams would be slightly better in a typical year. And they indeed are in ’06. Only one has allowed more runs than average (the Red Sox, and just 1.3 percent more). The average differential is 6.8 percent or about 39 less runs allowed than average.

The best pitching team is the Tigers, allowing 19.5 percent less runs. Their division rivals, the White Sox, are the best hitting team, scoring 15.9 percent more than average. They’ve matched up a dozen times, with hitting (Chicago) besting pitching (Detroit) on nine occasions.

There have been various studies of winning teams dating back to 1969. Economist Cyril Morong concluded in 1989 that hitting was actually more important than pitching to division winners, but he focused only on road stats because he sought to eliminate advantages that were due more to park environment than skill. More recent work has affirmed the conclusion (slightly more pitching importance) that one would draw from ‘06.

Many years ago (but long after Connie Mack’s heyday), James Skipper surveyed general managers, managers and broadcasters on what was most important to winning baseball. The average of the three groups was 59.5 percent pitching, 14.6 percent fielding, 21.6 percent hitting and assorted factors for the rest.

So, that 75 percent pitching/defense number seems firmly entrenched as baseball dogma. Nevertheless, it’s plainly wrong. Good teams are balanced, typically significantly better than average at both scoring runs and preventing them.

Even more silly is how fielding gets separated from pitching. Let’s look at the teams that are best and worst at allowing hits on balls put in play and make some pitching recommendations for the balance of 2006.

Buy

Matt Cain, Giants: His ERA should be in the low fours. Not only does he generate a lot of Ks, but the Giants have one of the best defenses in baseball, turning just under 71 percent of balls in play into outs (league average is 69, but that’s 20 points of batting average).

Javier Vazquez, White Sox: Three times as many Ks as walks and a defense behind him that’s significantly better than average, yet his ERA is still about one run higher than it would be with even average defense. Expect his bad luck to end.

Hold

John Maine, Mets: He’ll regress but still have value. Maine generates decent strikeouts with his low-90s heater and sweeping curve. Plus, the Mets’ defense is third-most efficient at turning balls-in-play into outs (71 percent).

Zach Miner, Tigers: Miner’s ERA with average luck/defense on balls in play would only be about a quarter run higher (4.50). The Tigers have turned the highest percentage of balls in play into outs (71.1 percent).

Sell

Jeremy Sowers, Indians: Cleveland has gone from the top to the bottom in defensive efficiency in one year. Is defense luck? Were the plays generally routine in ’05? Regardless, Sowers is too defensive reliant (less than four Ks per nine innings) to continue allowing under one hit per inning.