Friday, June 05, 2009

Better Late Than Never
(The Return)
Edited: corrected May runs allowed column

Time consuming and more trouble than its worth. Nevertheless, I'm pushing on with the next installment of Perusing the Stats. How useful are stats that are now four days old? Not very. But I still want to keep just a general tab on the progress of the season at monthly intervals. If you're looking for a "real" post, that should be coming by tomorrow morning.

Perusing the Stats v. 2.1
May 2009 Round-up

All totals are through May 31, 2009
American League Offense
Runs Scored Total
294 Tampa Bay
283 New York
274 Cleveland
271 Texas
270 Toronto

Runs Scored - May
184 Tampa Bay
168 Minnesota (were 12th in the A.L. in the month of April)
157 Cleveland
155 New York
148 Texas

How much of a difference did Joe Mauer's return make to Minnesota's line-up? After averaging 4.2 R/G this first month of the season, they were up to 5.6 R/G in May.

Runs Scored - Bottom 5 - Total
197 Seattle
205 Oakland
209 Kansas City
212 Chicago
233 Los Angeles

Run Scored - Bottom 5 - May
104 Seattle
112 Kansas City
115 Chicago
126 Oakland
128 Toronto & Los Angeles

Toronto's numbers in April: 142 runs (1st in the A.L.), .292/.366.472
Toronto's numbers in May: 128 runs, .275/.321/.388

Team OBP - Season to Date
.357 Cleveland
.356 Boston
.355 New York
.354 Tampa Bay
.350 Toronto

Team OBP - May
.362 Tampa Bay
.360 Minnesota
.356 Cleveland
.350 Boston
.349 New York

Worst Team OBP - Season to Date
.311 Seattle
.316 Oakland
.324 Chicago
.325 Kanas City
.321 Texas

The "Which Team Doesn't Belong on this List?" has to be the Rangers. Through May they were 4th in the league in runs scored, so it's hard to figure how they're fifth from the bottom in getting on base. With their SLG numbers both in May and overall, you can see that just with a couple more timely baserunners, their run total could be even better.

Worst Team OBP - May
.311 Seattle
.315 Chicago
.319 Oakland
.321 Kansas City
.322 Baltimore

Team SLG - Season to Date
.489 Texas
.486 New York
.457 Boston
.452 Tampa Bay
.441 Baltimore

Team SLG - May
.497 New York
.483 Texas
.461 Minnesota
.455 Tampa Bay
.454 Baltimore

If you had told me a year ago that on this date Manny Ramirez would be gone and Big Papi was sitting on a 186/.282/.284 line, and yet the Red Sox would still be one of the top offenses in the American League, I would've been scratching my head a bit. The Sox continue to get on base, and they ranked 6th in SLG in May and are 3rd in SLG overall.

Worst SLG - Season to Date
Oakland
Seattle
Chicago
Kansas City
Los Angeles

Worst SLG - May
.378 Oakland
.388 Kansas City
.390 Chicago
.394 Los Angeles
.398 Seattle

OPS, RISP - Season to Date
.866 Baltimore
.865 Detroit
.849 Boston
.841 New York
.806 Tampa Bay

This is kind of my "doing damage when it counts" stat, and it shouldn't go unnoticed that four of the top 5 spots here are teams from the A.L. East. And Toronto is #6 in this category. On the flip side the three worst teams in this category are all from the A.L. West.

Of course, the Orioles are the team that jumps off the page here. The forgotten team in the best division in baseball, Baltimore had a very strong ending to the month of May, winning 7 of their last 10.

Worst OPS, RISP - Season to Date
.709 Seattle
.723 Los Angeles
.734 Oakland
.740 Chicago
.761 Kansas City

Maybe it's kind of a quirky stat, but these have been the five worst offensive teams in the A.L. so far this year.

(AL pitching numbers and NL numbers to follow soon.)

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