A Case Study in Rankings

How are the best teams built?

Case study #1.

After the second block of games, Detroit has the best record, sitting at 19-5 atop the AL Central division. And while batting .262 and scoring the 5th most runs up to this point is remarkable, what is impressive is his league leading 1.65 ERA. The .83 run differential between Detroit and the second best ERA, is over twice as great as the difference between the second and third best ERA’s. And, not surprisingly, he’s given up the fewest home runs and 4th fewest walks.

Case study #2.

Pitching doesn’t seem to be single defining aspect of a winning team. Take Milwaukee. (No, please, take him…..) Milwaukee is tied with Detroit with the most wins, though they have three more losses on the season. And while they own the 7th best ERA, they have easily scored the most runs with 146, and as with Detroit, they have a hefty lead over the second in line. Milwaukee has scored 18 more runs than the second place teams, a tie between Texas and Boston at 122, who are only a mere 6 ahead of Colorado.

Case Study #3.

Boston has the second fewest errors on the season, 8 in 25 games. They also sit on top of their division at 18-7, the second best winning percentage in the league.

Baltimore has the fewest errors, 7 in 26 games, yet they are at 11-15, 7.5 games back of Boston.

Milwaukee has 9 errors in 27 games, and is pretty good, as was noted above.

So perhaps Baltimore is the outlier. Except that Minnesota has one more error then Milwaukee at 10, and owns the third worst winning percentage at 7-17.

Conclusions.

Looking at the top five teams, winning 17-19 games each thus far, there’s not a lot of commonalities.

Texas has a ton of errors, ranked 20th overall, but can seemingly overcome the deficit his defense puts him in by being the 3rd best offense.

Boston has the fewest errors in the league, and 3rd best offense, and 6th best pitching, arguably the most well rounded team based on these criteria.

Seattle is driven by excellent pitching, but only slightly above average hitting and fielding.

So, really, there’s not a lot patterns emerging just yet, and with a limited sample size up to this point, we can’t definitively say what makes a good team.

But after two months………………