Thursday, March 10, 2005

Baseball's Great Secret

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By Tyson Wirth

There was a time when baseball was a game of constants, a game you could rely on. The rules of the game were simple and universal: the Red Sox were cursed, Babe Ruth was without equal, and good pitching was superior to good hitting.

Recently, two of these pillars have shown signs of crumbling, if not collapsing. "The Idiots" miraculously overcame a 3-0 divisional lead by their nemesis Yankees in the ALCS, then swept the favored Cardinals to win the World Series. Barry Bonds continued his unfathomable production to the point that if he's proven steroid-free (stranger things have happened; see Red Sox example above), he will have a reasonable argument at being Babe Ruth's superior and the best player in baseball history. I still like Ruth for the fact that he was a phenomenal pitcher as well as batter, but the argument that Ruth never had to compete against the black athlete is relevant as well ... too complex a discussion to investigate here.

What will be investigated here, however, is baseball's third truth, that good pitching out-values good hitting. It's still a widely-held belief, but is it accurate? With the recent revelations of the Red Sox competence and the Bambino's endangered status as baseball's best, it's time to find out if the importance of good pitching is a myth or a must.

The most obvious way to compare the importance of hitting and pitching is to see which teams win more — those allowing fewer runs than a traveling Pepto-Bismol salesman, and those scoring more often than Charlie Sheen in the early days. The results might surprise you; the teams more prone to score win just as often as those who are pitching-strong. Last year, the top-10 teams in runs scored (the Red Sox, Yankees, White Sox, Rangers, Indians, Cardinals, Giants, Orioles, Phillies, and Angels) averaged 90.3 wins. The top-10 teams in runs allowed (the Cardinals, Cubs, Braves, Dodgers, Astros, Marlins, Padres, Twins, Mets, and Angels) averaged an almost identical 90.0 wins.

You might say that these numbers are irrelevant, that statistics including only runs scored and runs allowed don't take into account solely the pitcher-batter match up, but also how competent a team's defense is, which isn't at the heart of the question being posed. You'd be right. So to minimize the effect of a good or bad defense, and more accurately extract a conclusion, I compared last year's top-10 teams in OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging average; a reliable method for gauging offensive proficiency) versus last year's top-10 teams in ERA. The results didn't change much. The teams with the bats averaged 89 wins, while the teams with the arms averaged 89.9; an indication that neither prime pitching nor blessed batting is more valuable than the other.

However, it may be possible that the sport's brightest stage, the World Series, may elicit a winner in the eternal competition between pitchers and batters, even if a clear-cut choice cannot be determined during the regular season. To see if perhaps during the Fall Classic one side was routinely supreme (after all, the adage claims good pitching beats good hitting, not regular season pitching beats regular season hitting), I combed over the most modern evidence, the last five Series, and where the key to the winners' success lay. In reverse chronological order, here are the findings...

* The most memorable image from the 2004 Red Sox postseason scramble was of Curt Schilling's bloodied sock. Schilling, along with fellow pitchers Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, and Keith Foulke deserved their press clippings, as they were largely responsible for a 2.50 team ERA and a sweep of the powerful St. Louis Cardinals. However, even more paramount to the Sox success was their offense, which averaged six runs a game in the Series, and led the majors in runs scored (regular season) by over 50. The pitching staff was just 14th best in the majors in runs allowed. ADVANTAGE: Bats.

* The 2003 Florida Marlins are a curious case. They had Series' marks of just 2.8 runs a game, a paltry .232 batting average, and an anemic .601 OPS. They did have a fine 3.21 ERA, but the tough-luck Yanks had an even better 2.13 ERA, along with a superior .773 OPS. Florida's pitchers certainly out-performed their own position players, but it would be ludicrous to say that pitching was the key to the series, since the Yanks and their superior ERA won only two games. The difference was the Fish's ability to win in the clutch, as they won four games by a combined six runs. ADVANTAGE: Wash.

* In the 2002 Series, the Anaheim Angels churned out more hits than the Beatles and Beach Boys combined. They batted .310, with a .404 on base percentage, and an eyebrow-raising .869 OPS. The Angels' ERA was a less-than-stellar 5.75, including a 7.56 ERA from their starters, but for all intensive purposes, they could have lobbed a whiffle ball to the plate and the Giants wouldn't have out-hit them. ADVANTAGE: Bats.

* 2001 was the year of the Diamondbacks. With Series co-MVPs Schilling and Randy Johnson, it doesn't take a crystal ball to see where the advantage is going here. The pitching staff had a 1.94 team ERA, and struck out 63 pinstripes in 65 innings. Perhaps even more impressive was their .892 WHIP average (Walks + Hits per Inning Pitched). Or their .183 batting average against. Or the fact that the mighty Yankees squeaked out just 12 extra base hits in a seven game series. You get the picture. ADVANTAGE: Arms.

* Our final case study, the 2000 Yankees, weren't all that dissimilar from the '01 Diamondbacks. Aces Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte had a combined 1.25 ERA in the series, which anchored the Yanks team ERA at 2.68. The Yanks struck out 48 star-struck Mets in just 47 innings, and held their cross-town rivals to a meager .229 batting average against. The offense helped just enough to win, but not enough to be the primary reason for it. ADVANTAGE: Arms.

Our conclusion is every bit as decidedly indecisive as our first attempt to find a pattern. Two Series won by bats, two Series won by arms, and one outlier Series won by neither indicate results similar to our comparison of winning teams; both hitting and pitching seem to be equally important. True, this was a study of only five World Series, but it is the most modern evidence available, and is not grossly misrepresentative of the World Series' history. The value of pitching, it seems thus far, is not superior to hitting.

Value, however, is not solely defined in wins. Baseball is a business as well as a sport, and it would be relevant to find out if GMs are paying more for the big boppers or the 20 game winners. This winter, nine of the top ten richest free-agent contracts went to position players. The next tier of contracts, the 11th richest through the 20th richest, was saturated by pitchers, as only one belonged to a position player. Clearly owners today are paying more for offense than they are for pitching, despite our findings that both are equally important to helping a club win. It’s not as if there were an unusual abundance of outstanding free agent batters, either. The top hitters had easily as many questions surrounding them as the top pitchers. Want evidence? Magglio Ordonez (second richest contract) received a five year, $75 million dollar deal. That’s the same Magglio Ordonez who hit single digit homeruns last year while playing just 52 games, and who is no longer a threat on the base pads (he’s averaged just five stolen bases the last three years). Adrian Beltre (third richest) signed for $64 million over five years, but many people rightly wonder whether he wasn’t a one year superstar. J.D. Drew, fourth on the list with a five year $55 million deal, is a great player when healthy. Problem is, he rarely meets that prerequisite. The point is, this year’s market wasn’t exactly set by players like Bonds, Guerrero, or A-Rod.

One reasonable view of why pitchers generally received less money, however, is GM’s reluctance to give them long term deals. Only three pitchers (Pedro Martinez, Carl Pavano, and Russ Ortiz) received more than three year deals, and some people even muttered about four years being too much for those guys. There’s a general feeling, whether deserved or not, that pitchers break down more easily than position guys, and it’s a very reasonable view if one subscribes to the idea that throwing a baseball is an unnatural motion for the human arm.

Still, even if pitchers don’t receive as many years in their contracts, their yearly average salary compared to position players should reflect who baseball’s GMs truly value most. Of the top twenty (ten batters, ten pitchers) richest contracts signed this off-season, position players received a combined $572 million over 46 years, which averages out to $12.43 million per season. (This number may seem high because deferred money is figured into a player’s length of contract for a truer per capita comparison. So although Carlos Beltran will be receiving payments from the Mets for 14 years, because his contract only lasts seven, his total contract is divided among seven years.) Using the same formula pitchers received $287 million over 33 years, for an average of $8.70 million per season. This means that position players will be receiving an astronomical 43% more than pitchers per season, despite the fact that the best hitting teams win no more often than the best pitching ones!

What might explain this staggering disparity? Logically speaking, the fans. There will always be the diehard fans who go to every game sleet or shine, team brilliant or beastly, ballpark sparkling or shabby. But a lot of fans want to be entertained at a ball game, and that means an increased emphasis on offense. While a 2-1 pitcher’s duel can be exhilarating for a dedicated fan, the casual fan would probably rather see a 10-8 who-can-reach-the-upper-decks slugfest. That’s why offense is overpaid for in free agency; that money comes right back to the ball clubs in the form of higher attendance! Bud Selig is fond of saying baseball is experiencing a Renaissance, with higher attendance almost across the board last year. So if owners and managers are normally willing to do anything to get more butts in the seats, imagine how much they’re willing to overspend in this new found era of baseball rejuvenation!

To back up my point on homerun hitters putting more seats in a ballpark than All-Star relief men, consider that the top ten teams in ERA last year filled ballparks to the tune of 70.1% capacity on average. The top ten OPS teams averaged 73.4%. Is a 3.3% difference really anything to write home about? Absolutely, if you consider the huge number of games and national popularity of our pastime. Average attendance over the season for MLB’s 30 teams last year was around 2,417,000. A 3.3% increase for that average team, the difference it would likely benefit from being good and/or exciting on offense, translates to 70,840 extra tickets sold in a year for one ball club. On the very modest estimation that the average ticket price will be $25, that 3.3% increase suddenly becomes an additional $1.77 million pocketed! If that 3.3% increase is carried over to revenue harvesters such as TV rights and jersey sales, that $1.77 million may be just scratching the surface. When one considers the fact that good hitting is perceived to breed good hitting (lineup protection), and definitely breeds good ticket receipts, it’s no wonder that many normally shrewd general managers offer so many inflated contracts to position players.

As 300 game-winner Tom Seaver once said, “If you dwell on statistics, you get shortsighted. If you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end.” The big picture is what we’re after, so let’s take a step out of the batter’s box and review. First, neither pitching-strong clubs nor offense-oriented teams have an advantage over each other in the win column. This is true, in modern day, throughout the regular season and in the World Series, where the pressure is greatest and the biggest stars tend to step up. Second, teams spend far more on hitters, upon average, than on pitchers, both in total money and cash per year. Third, this disproportionate spending may be justified due to the increased revenue of offensive-oriented ball clubs, but obviously there will be individual contracts that are still just plain stupid (Seriously, Beltre had a great season, but one year makes him worth $64 million in a new league?).

So the answer to the original question, whether good pitching is still superior to good hitting, is simply and surprisingly, no. While there’s no question it’s still important, in no instance of baseball as a sport, an industry, or as entertainment does pitching exceed the value of batting. That, my friends, is baseball’s great secret.