How Good Is Your Team’s Chemistry?
We’re back, with another one of these! Previous community polling topics have included front offices, ownerships, pitching coaches, general enthusiasm, and so on. Now I’m here to ask you about team chemistry. You know, that thing that’s impossible to measure, that thing that continues to be debated as if nothing has ever been settled, because nothing has ever been settled. That thing that exists — or doesn’t exist — mostly within a community that does not include yourself, because you yourself are not a major-league baseball player. How does your favorite baseball team get along? You don’t know. How do you think your favorite baseball team gets along?
I don’t know why I’m asking this now, exactly. It’s just coming out of curiosity, and I wouldn’t be any less curious tomorrow, or a week from now. But the timing, I suppose, isn’t bad — we’re deep enough into the season that teams should have personalities, but we’re not so deep everything will just be colored by wins and losses. Braves and Twins aside, everyone still gets to think they have a chance, so nothing has totally gone off the rails.
I do know I’ve been reading the Ben Lindbergh/Sam Miller book, and they’ve discussed chemistry prioritization and observation. I also read this post by Kate Preusser last week, and while that was specifically about the Mariners, it must’ve cemented the topic in my mind. I don’t want to talk about any particular team up front because I don’t want to bias any of the voting down below. But for something that gets talked about so often, I’m a little surprised we haven’t tried this before.
Don’t get me wrong — none of us actually know anything about team chemistry, for sure. I don’t think there’s even an agreed-upon definition. But we do get to observe how players interact, some of the time, and we get to read about more. So I think fans can get a certain sense of how the roster fits together. Whether there’s adequate leadership, whether there’s adequate support, whether there’s adequate interaction between all groups. What idea do you have about your favorite baseball team? Your idea might be wrong, but you might’ve also been wrong about the pitching coach, and I doubt that stopped you from voting back whenever that poll post went up. I’m just hunting for informed opinions. There’s information within informed opinions.
What I love about these poll posts is that they allow us to establish a context. Instead of saying, oh, this team seems to get along, or this team seems unhappy, we have an average, we have comparisons. It’s only by seeing the whole landscape that you can try to identify the standouts. This is why I could use your help! I sure as shoot couldn’t generate this data by myself. I need help from the community, so I can come back and analyze the voting a day or three from now.
You probably have a favorite team, or a couple favorite teams. You probably have some kind of mental definition of team chemistry. How good do you think is the chemistry of your favorite team? We can probably learn something from this. Even if we can’t, at least this is a few minutes you can distract yourself from thinking about the roiling sea of horrors that threatens to drown us all every day that we breathe.
To proceed directly to a specific team chemistry poll, click on the team’s name below.
Angels, Astros, Athletics, Blue Jays, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Giants, Indians, Mariners, Marlins, Mets, Nationals, Orioles, Padres, Phillies, Pirates, Rangers, Rays, Red Sox, Reds, Rockies, Royals, Tigers, Twins, White Sox, Yankees
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Angels
Astros
Athletics
Blue Jays
Braves
Brewers
Cardinals
Cubs
Diamondbacks
Dodgers
Giants
Indians
Mariners
Marlins
Mets
Nationals
Orioles
Padres
Phillies
Pirates
Rangers
Rays
Red Sox
Reds
Rockies
Royals
Tigers
Twins
White Sox
Yankees
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
The Met’s chemistry is great. My urine’s chemistry, not so much.
4+ WBC, 4+ RBC, Pos Protein, 4+ Glucose. Nah, I’ve seen worse.
Cue forthcoming article correlating chemistry with winning percentage.
Or after looking at the results so far, the positive difference between actual and expected winning percentage.
I predict an increasingly polarized feces-hurling ‘debate’ akin to the Behavioral/Conditioning scrum in psychology, i.e., “Stats vs. Stuff”, with any potential meaningful middle ground shouted down and out of existence. Shock the Monkey.
I predict a bunch of tedious comments like this that poison the well before the debate’s even started.
Hypothesis: Perceived chemistry correlated with team’s clutch.
My guess is that there will actually be a weak correlation, and that people will misinterpret the direction of the the causality.
I think the Red Sox Chemistry is great, but I also assume it’s mostly because they are winning. If they were in yet another plunge towards last place, I’d imagine it’d be the opposite.
That they are largely homegrown and have come through the same system probably helps too.
i always perceived them as having good chemistry, even while losing. That’s just a team where everyone always seems to be friends.
I was going to put “Pretty Bad” for my Braves, but then I remembered Jeff Francoeur is back. Ergo: Decent.
Team Chemistry is one thing but I think Team Astrological Compatibility is the new market inefficiency ripe for exploitation.
I highly recommend “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh” for anyone who would like to further delve.
Nice to see that all three Southern California teams are pretty weak in chemistry.
Nice to see GiantsFanJohn commenting on an article that’s not strictly about the Cubs. He seems to be maturing! High Fiver John!
Make that a High Sixer!
Huh what?
I comment a lot on other articles. I think probably you don’t read many articles which aren’t about the cubs.
Hypothesis: Teams that are higher in the standings will score better on chemistry than teams that are lower in the standings, but only because of our (re: fans) enthusiasm.
I would say that a big key to the Giants’ chemistry is they don’t have hot dogs/prima donnas although they do have players who would get irritated if they did. Losing Sandoval was a big plus.
They don’t have anyone good enough to be a prima donna other than MadBum and he’s not the most pleasant guy in the world.
That Buster Posey guy is OK.
I googled “Buster Posey asswipe” and found nothing… I must amend my comment.
The Giants have two guys good enough to be a prima donna, and one of them isn’t the most pleasant guy in the world… but yeah, their mostly plebian team has pretty good chemistry.
Even if you google a widely known asswipe, will the term ever appear directly after their name? As in “David Geffen asswipe” or “Jon Jones asswipe”? Or would it be more informative to search “Jon Jones” + asswipe?
(I know I could test this hypothesis in about eleven seconds while this took twice that long to type out…)
I admit it wasn’t a very scientific search. Mostly I was apologising about forgetting Buster 😉
Puig seems to screw up the Dodgers’ chemistry pretty well (enough to be a factor in Greinke choosing to go elsewhere, so I’ve heard) without being that great. And my comment about not having prima donnas was to a large extent about Bumgarner, he doesn’t like it at all. In fact apparently Posey couldn’t deal with Sandoval at all although he doesn’t show things like that on the field like Bumgarner does. In general the Giants are a white-bread shut-your-mouth team with a few Hispanics who are either very quiet (Casilla, Lopez, Blanco) or charming (Romo, Cueto, Pagan). And Hunter Pence will help any team’s chemistry.
So I guess you didn’t see that they signed the second-best (who now looks like the best) SP FA in the offseason, while they also have the best catcher in the game by far, the best NL SS, a top-10 RF, a top-10 1B, and a HOF manager. Yup, they don’t have anybody good… LOL!!
If you’re talking about Shark, he’s a well known asswipe… unless he had a personality transplant since leaving Chicago. Pence is another guy… mostly due to that hair… that I’m a little “eh” about. But the rest of them, fine fellows…
BTW… you may want to take another look, but Crawford is certainly *NOT* the best NL SS… he’s rated 4th in WAR and there’s nobody outside of NoCal that would take him over Addison Russell who’s proving to be the actual best NL SS.
I think pretty much any Giant fan would say that Pence is the player on the team who has the best effect on team chemistry. The guy is just lovable. When Sandoval made a lot of bitter statements about the team after he left, even he made a point to say something positive about Pence. And I don’t know what Samardzija was like in Chicago in terms of personality, but so far he looks like a great guy who fits in very well with the Giants, all smiles and enthusiasm.
Um, you do know that Crawford won both the Golden Glove AND the Silver Slugger awards last year, don’t you? Seems to me that if you’re the best defensive shortshop and the best hitting shortstop, probably you’re the best shortstop, no?
I was teasing you about the Giants… I have nothing against them. They seem to be a very well coached organization who gets the most out of players.
Shark is an interesting case… he didn’t understand the rebuild even though Theo was very clear and transparent… and was also the guy to give Jeff a chance at starting after failing as a reliever. The Cubs offered him a contract extension, and he then ripped the Cubs who traded him after he turned it down. The White Sox brought him back to the city last season, and he wouldn’t shut up about the Cubs. He’s your basic, outspoken meathead.
As for Russell vs Crawford… those awards are subjective. More importantly, they were last year and have nothing to do with who’s better *now*. Russell was an outstanding fielder last year, good enough to win the GG, but was a 20 year old rookie and played half the season at 2B. This year his hitting is starting to match his fielding. I”m pretty sure nobody beside Giants fans would take Crawford over Russell.
How much did the cubs offer shark? A lot of giants fans were surprised at how much they offered him although so far he certainly looks worth it. I think he feels appreciated on the giants and that helps a lot. Plus he seems to fit well on the team, he and bumgarner seem to have it off well which is good because bumgarner’s approval means a lot.
About the shortstops there are a number of guys who are up there with crawford and russell, in terms of war they’re about the same this year and diaz and seager are a little ahead if both of them but this is 1/4 season of data, let’s not get carried away.
Shark: “he feels appreciated on the giants”… that was the problem with him in Chicago… the Cubs totally took care of him and he was too dumb/meatheaded to realize it. He came off as a dumb jock who didn’t get what the Cubs are building, despite Epstein repeating the plan over and over again. He was just too stubborn. The Giants seem a bit more old school, so I am not surprised he’s been happy so far. He’s a football player. When things go wrong, he tries harder. With the Cubs he didn’t understand that they had to take a step back before they could move forward. And then after being traded he kept popping off about the Cubs… basically similar to Sandoval on his way out.
SS: basically the position in general (in all of baseball) is in transition, especially since Tulo was traded out of the NL and not performing to prior levels. There are a lot of talented SS establishing themselves right now, so when you talk about the best, do you say Crawford because no one else has played long enough? Or do you take one of the many more talented players that have only been playing for a season or less? In Russell’s case, he was a top 5 prospect entering last season. Played half the season at 2nd and then moved back to SS and played great defense at both. This year his bat is catching up to his defense and he’s still one of the youngest players in the league. He’s got the pedigree to be the best in the NL. When you say let’s not get carried away, that’s how I feel about Crawford.
except that Sandoval was supposedly a great chemistry guy when he was actually on the team.
I thought it was Melky.
After he left it turned out that that wasn’t the case.
I would expect there to be more hot dogs remaining now that Sandoval is not around.
Just curious if somebody is willing to explain their vote for the Cubs as decent. I’m obviously not saying you’re wrong since we have no way of knowing but imho I’m not sure if I’ve seen a team that appears to get along better than they have the past two years. Just wondering if anybody has seen/read something I’ve missed?
Meant to say decent/very bad. Sorry for the double post.
Anthony Rizzo will be your nation’s president one day.
But no, it’s an extremely young team, and Maddon seems to have a way of keeping it both loose and efficient at the same time. Moves like sliding Bryant into LF seem to encounter barely a ripple of discord.
Orioles”: http://www.camdenchat.com/2016/5/17/11686454/manny-machado-jonathan-schoop-friends-orioles. nuff said
something something Torii Hunter…
I only got through the first half of the teams thus far, but taking the current results and weighting them 1 to 5, I get a 0.84 correlation between perceived chemistry and winning percent.
I do think it’s probably too early for this topic. Bad chemistry tends to build up, unless it’s carryover from the season before.
The rest didn’t change it much; 0.64 R2.
So without even trying anything with weighting the buckets, I can already get to 64% of what fans perceive as chemistry essentially being win percent.
Building an expected value from win% based on the trend-line formula, I get the Royals, by far, with more perceived chemistry than their record would suggest; Astros, Pirates and Giants are runners up.
On the other end, the Nationals and Marlins distance themselves from the pack with the Rockies, Padres, White Sox, Dodgers, Cubs and Angels in the next tier.
I agree with your premise of fan voting.
However, I would have said the Mets’ chemistry was Pretty Good or better since they were a sub-.500 team a 3-4 years ago. They just didn’t have enough talent. I give the Chemistry credit to Granderson, for non-stop smiling, and before that to Collins and Wright keeping the team together despite being mediocre at best for years.
Yeah, but see, Papelbon and Harper are friends now. Everything’s fine. Team. Etc.
The Dodgers, right now, seem to have little perceptible chemistry. The conspicuousness of its absence, coupled with the fact they are underperforming, and keeping in mind some of the things written recently about this team that I never would have guessed from watching, makes me assume this team probably has below-average chemistry, and therefore I vote “Pretty bad.”
Didn’t hear about this? http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/dodgers-puig-greinke-involved-in-altercations-according-to-new-book-063015
I gave the Rangers “Very Good Chemistry” based solely on my knowledge of Andrus and Beltre, so….
I mean how good can these results be?
I really have no idea how to evaluate how good the Yankee’s chemistry is. There should be a “no idea” option in the poll. Forcing people to choose an answer to participate is a serious flaw in design.
“Forcing people to choose an answer to participate is a serious flaw in design.”
How are you forced? You can opt to vote in some, any, all or none of the 30 polls.
No one’s forcing anybody to vote, but I do agree with the original post. I used to have the same frustration with ESPN surveys. They never had a spot for “other” or the ability to write in an answer. They always led you in a certain direction, even if your actual opinion was something different.
Yeah, but skipping a poll affects the data in this case, since the people skipping aren’t chosen at random from the people who see the poll. (Not that these are scientific, anyway.)
Put it this way. If a poll asked whether your favorite color is red or blue, and the responses come in 50% for red and 50% for blue, that doesn’t mean that 50% of people like red or blue.
“They always led you in a certain direction, even if your actual opinion was something different.”
OK, so in this case, what would some write-in options be? “very very bad”? Assuming they get 1000s of votes per team, unlikely that spending the time to try and weight the write-ins relative to the framework they’ve already set up would have much of an impact.
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“Put it this way. If a poll asked whether your favorite color is red or blue, and the responses come in 50% for red and 50% for blue, that doesn’t mean that 50% of people like red or blue.”
But, that is because the choices covered a small percentage of the spectrum. I read this polls options as:
80th+ percentile
60th-80th percentile
40th-60th percentile
20th-40th percentile
under the 20th percentile
So, the only gaps are basically “I don’t know or care enough about this team to have an opinion”, while your example question has huge gaps. Per the link below, Red or Blue as a favorite color covers about 46% of the population, while my interpretation is that this one includes 100%.
Now- if Fangraphs is recording IPs or login IDs with ballots, they could pretty easily determine the approximate number of unique voters to get the number of voters abstaining from each. If they feel it adds value to the analysis they can include it, if they feel there is no added value, they can ignore.
Probably signing a guy who was just arrested for domestic violence and shooting off a gun in his house would suggest something about a team’s chemistry.
As someone noted, pretty sure winning is a proxy for “chemistry”.
I suspect (W – L) + (RS – RA)/10 will correlate > .8 with chemistry scores.
Don’t even need to get that complicated… just win% gets you there.