At the start of the first game today a brief discussion occurred regarding the balance of the teams. On paper the Havelock Ewes had the hitting advantage over the O'Connor Conmen. Better team average, on base pct, homeruns, extra base hits, RBIs and slugging percentage.
But baseball (i.e. softball) is not a game played on paper. Whatever that intangible quality is that bonds players together to rise above their statistical mean was with the Conmen who bunched hits and made the most of Ewes' defensive lapses to score runs. It serves as a reminder that as predictable as we all may be as individuals, as a team we can accomplish much more.
4 comments:
Apparently, after looking at the statistics (and these come AFTER the doubleheader), the differences are still worthy of discussion.
Removing low average outliers and the duplication from the posted comparison, team A's batting average is .410 while team B's is .386. One of team B's players is currently batting 140 points below his lifetime average (among qualified players) and another 50. Putting those players at their lifetime averages, Team B's average rises to .407.
When you compare slugging percentages, the discussions become more clear. Team A has slugged .556 while team B slugged .505. This does not make adjustments for the underperforming members of Team B. After the correction, the slugging percentage of Team B rises to .550.
Statistically, the teams were divided fairly. So why the uproar? The only reason I can think of would be defensive appearances, which we are unable to measure in our league.
Russ-- I didn't realize you were even more of a stats nerd than I am! Excellent! If I may add a few things to the discussion-- team A's offensive numbers are somewhat artificially inflated by its members active participation in winter ball, mine, Bill's, Alex's, and to a lesser degree Derek's. Here are my winter ball splits-- winter, 22-for-30, 5 HR. heckscher, 49-for-103, 4 HR. Still respectable, but definitely enough to tip a single-season analysis, right? Alex's splits are even more dramatic. On the other side, Zach and Freddy have significant winter ball at-bats too, though I think Freddy hits about the same everywhere.
Another factor would be that 3 of the players on team A had played a late show at Bar East the night before, which led to hangovers and mental errors such as me sending, calling back, and then sending Paul Geoghan again to turn an apparent sac fly into a really ugly double play.
Another thought-- totaling up these guys' statistics is of no value in a single game-- as in, Phil Ciccone's 38 at-bats should have equal weight to Freddy Melendez's 134 at-bats, because they will both bat, in one game, the same number of times.
And then Hav's team becomes .367/.394/.492, and Jim's team is .353/.384/.441. If you assume that Bob is really a .375 hitter, his team's average goes up 12 points to .365. Hav's team will still have an advantage in power, but in terms of average and OBP, these teams are actually evenly matched. Then consider who is slightly overrated due to winter ball... like me... and the outcome of these two games really isn't that surprising at all.
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