A Comparison
Offense
Seattle: .238/.311/.348, 1.6% PA/HR, 9.3% BB/PA, 29% XBH/H
San Diego: .241/.321/.360, 1.8% PA/HR, 9.7% BB/PA, 30% XBH/H
Defense
Seattle: 27 DRS, 7.6 UZR
San Diego: 35 DRS, 19.9 UZR
Rotation
Seattle: 3.78 ERA, 3.99 FIP, 4.39 xFIP
San Diego: 2.88 ERA, 3.66 FIP, 4.08 xFIP
Bullpen
Seattle: 3.70 ERA, 3.75 FIP, 4.27 xFIP
San Diego: 2.91 ERA, 3.14 FIP, 3.19 xFIP
Record
Seattle: 18-28
San Diego: 28-18
Okay, to the commentary.
No, I’m not saying Seattle and San Diego are equals. I do think Seattle will play better than they’ve played so far – which is to say better than one of the worst teams in baseball – and I think San Diego will play worse than they have so far – which is to say worse than one of the best teams in baseball – and I think most people would agree with that.
Seattle and San Diego are basically playing with the same blueprint: good-to-great defense, above-average pitching, and an offense that chronically struggles to scrap out a few runs per game. And it’s working beautifully for one and horribly for the other. Obviously, the comparison using raw statistics is imperfect. Safeco is tough on batters, but Petco is tougher. The Padres are without access to a designated hitter and that has the tendency to affect offensive statistics.
My point is, though, that Seattle’s paltry offensive efforts are well-publicized and mocked. San Diego’s efforts aren’t much better, and would do little to inspire that certain poultry staple of the area. Seattle has a number of struggling batters right now that seem unlikely to be this bad going forward. Jose Lopez, Milton Bradley, Casey Kotchman, and Chone Figgins, for starters, and maybe not all of them come around like we’d expect, but by the end of the year, Seattle should end up outhitting San Diego. That’s largely irrelevant though, since both are below average offenses.
Teams can compete without hitting for a lot of power or hitting a lot in general. Ask San Diego. They’re just doing what a lot of folks thought Seattle would do.
I’ve been waiting for an update about the #6 franchise in baseball. I think you touched on one point very well: bad luck (or at least banking on several high risk players.) But you really missed the other point which is that the Mariners have to play in the AL West. Not only is it the American League, but half of the teams in the division are over .500.
“Not only is it the American League, but half of the teams in the division are over .500” ? You seem to be implying that having 2 out of 4 teams above .500 is evidence of a difficult division. I mean…in any given season, roughly half of teams will end up above .500, roughly half below. Having exactly 2 teams above .500 is the most likely outcome in a four-team division.
Also, it makes a difference if you’ve got four teams that are .520/.515/.510/.350 (three teams above .500, but an average winning percentage of .474) or four teams who are .720/.490/.480/.475 (only one team above .500, but an average winning percentage of .541). The second example is a significantly better division despite having only one team above .500 rather than three.
The first part of your premise (being in the AL generally makes life a little tougher) – is generally true, although that effect may disappear entirely outside of the AL East.
So if the Mariners get credit for 2 of the 4 teams in their division being over .500 what sort of credit do the Padres get for 4 of the 5 teams in their division being over .500?
So we should forget about the fact that the NL west has 4 teams at least 2 games above .500? We probably should because HALF of the 4 teams in the AL west are over .500…
Good post. I think it’s interesting that you point out that the method that the Mariners were striving for can actually work. It leads me to 2 questions though:
1. Can a team with the makeup of the Padres or Mariners win a division or get to 91 wins with this? Wouldn’t they need luck (not a good strategy), above average pitching or average hitting? Or another way to put it, if the great defense can cancel out the bad offense, then shouldn’t average pitching leave you with an average team?
2. Do the flaws on the Mariners reflect a mistake from their GM, an oversight, or something he didn’t have the resiurces to properly address?
San Diego does have above average pitching so far this year, with a team FIP below 3.50 and an xFIP around 4.00. The ballpark helps, but the pitching has been very good even when park factors are accounted for.
The big difference I see between the two clubs isnt “on the field” but in the lockerroom/clubhouse. Seattle during the offseason stressed “team chemistry” when it justified the keeping of Sweeney and Griffey Jr. Those two, great in the clubhouse, but, on the field, are.. questionable to poor. Seattle is playing with a short bench as a result. Not saying that SD has a great bench, but keeping those two on the Seattle bench/team has really backfired.
San Diego has also been better on the basepaths offensively and defensively. 54 steals vs 35 and a 78% success rate vs. 71%. Defensively San Diego has given up 19 stolen bases and caught 18 batters. Seattle has given up 21 and only caught 4.
And San Diego is doing it all with a much lower payroll.
San Diego is also batting a pitcher 9th.
Seattle might be, too, but in theory they could stop if they wanted to.
Technically, Seattle is batting a “pitcher” clean-up.
No, actually they are batting all “pitchers” except for a few
I think SDP is playing much better than anyone thought(duh). But, I also think maybe SEA’s performance is more realistic than we may have thought in the pre-season. I think we might have gotten a little carried away with how good they could/would be.
I think they miss Russel Branyan.
One thing to remember about early season W-L records is that it can also be a reflection of the strength of schedule.
But, I think the stats served an unintended purpose, rather than show how SDP and SEA are similar, except for losses, I think it shows how abyssmal SEA is (as the stated differences between AL/NL).
The reader’s comment showing how SDP is taking extra bases (Steals, etc) and how they are removing oppossing baserunners is a MAJOR deal, and I would like to see more stats like that in the main article. Without showing some of the big differences between the teams, I felt that I’m being shown cherry-picked stats to reach a conclusion that may not be accurate.
we do not miss russel branyan.
I agree about them maybe being a tad overhyped because of the flashier moves they made with the trading for Lee and signing of Figgins and trading for Bradley But those moves still had some questions marks well not Lee he he really didn’t but Figgins and Bradley did.
Last year Figgins posted a higher WAR than he did in the previous 3 years combined and he is 32 years old. Did he genuinely get that much better or was it a fluke?
On the flip side last year Bradley posted one of his worst seasons while playing in a worse league and easier hitting ballpark and he is 32 as well. Was that just a fluke too and you should expect a huge rebound to his 07 or 08 numbers or is he getting worse with age? Who really knows. Then of course there’s his whole personality/club house problem, personally I don’t put alot of stock in that but there maybe something to that.
Another thing that some people forget is that they got 4 months worth of Washburn and his mid 2s ERA. I know his FIP was alot higher and it showed that he was lucky but the bottom line is that’s what he gave them on the field. Whether you posted a 2.50 ERA because you were lucky or because you were good it has the same impact on the team.
Then as you mentioned they lost Branyan who gave them a legit power threat in that order which hurt there offense.
They went with a great pitching and great defense formula to win and sacrificed the offense. Now how good is that actual formula? Unless I missed something in the last 10 years no team in baseball has made the playoffs scoring less than 700 runs and the fewest total in the AL has been 741. The Mariners scored 640 last year and are on pace to score fewer than that this year. So recent history has showed that it is hard to win consistently in the regular season without a capable offense. Yet people were banking on the M’s doing just that.
So the fact it they had alot of question marks and it seemed like many of the experts(not necessarily talking about here or the saber community but the general media) and ignored those a little bit and just looked at their record last year and looked at the names they added and just assumed they would be that much better. Kinda like they did with the 08 Tigers which turned out to be a disaster.
As similar as the stats look, I’m not really sure they are. The differences are (with the exception of relief pitching) small, but SDP leads in every single category and they tend to multiply.
Average the defensive metrics and call it 10 runs. 10 points of wOBA is worth another 12 runs so far.
Rounded to 270 innings roughly for the starters, going by xFIP that’s another 10 runs. Round to 135 (15 games) for the relievers so I can do the math in my head and that’s another 16 or so. That’s almost a 50 run swing – not as much as the difference in their record, but clearly not a comparison of two teams with nearly equal performance. Especially since a run is worth more to these teams than most given their pitcher friendly home ballparks.
Exactly. By BtB’s latest power rankings, which is basically WAR using xFIP, the Padres have a .571 expected winning percentage and the Mariners have a .431 winning percentage. Over ~50 games, that’s a difference of 7 wins.
Here is the link
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2010/5/26/1489215/btb-power-rankings-week-8#comments
yeah plus you add in the clear baserunning advantage a poster above mentioned and it gets even bigger. I understand that the story wasnt saying the teams are exactly the same but i think that gap is actually quite large.
That’s a great point. A lot of little things add up to a big differnce.
I loved my 80s Cardinals who “speed & defensed” their way to 3 WS in the decade (1 winner).
The thing is that their defense and speed were far ahead of other teams (collectively). So it wasn’t just a slight edge plus a slight edge resulting in a slight lead.
I think for SEA to play how most thought they would, they basically need Figgins to play like he did in 09, and that’s not going to happen annually.
SEA has also given away lots of outs offensively and defensively. Beyond throwing out runners, catcher defense has been abysmal (passed balls, wild pitches, dropped third strikes, interferance). Offensively, there seem to be a lot of runners picked off or thrown out at the plate, failed bunts, failure to get runners in from third with less than two outs, …. Are such “small ball” stats available?
Well, Seattle was nominally aiming to contend, and San Diego was nominally rebuilding, so the difference in goals plays a large part in the perceptions as well.
So the point of this post is to demonstrate that the formula of “good-to-great defense, above-average pitching, and an offense that chronically struggles to scrap out a few runs per game” can work? Is this really news to anyone? BTW you could also add the Giants to this comparison, if you wanted to split the difference and show a team using the same formula to play near .500 baseball. My guess is that all 3 teams will wind up the year somewhere around .500. Because while you can win despite a lousy offense, it’s not easy. Even if everything else goes exactly to plan.
It presumably would be news to the many commenters who like to point to Seattle as conclusive proof it doesn’t, and can’t.
The flip side is that Seattle and San Diego provide a stark contrast of how well it can work when guys nominally produce, and how badly it can fail when it doesn’t.