Update + Pitching Stuff

I haven't updated in a while for the following reasons:

1. I am on Spring Break right now. I find myself on the computer at school more often than when I am at home for various reasons.
2. I traveled on Tuesday and Wednesday.
3. I've been working on something.

The "something" was inspired by the question: what was the best pitching staff of all-time? (This idea was getting thrown around on the Baseball group on LiveJournal.) I'm not answering that question. I decided, however, to take some pitching figures from the last 25 years and make some lists, so the following data is applicable from 1980-2004. Some questions I wanted to answer.

1. Which pitching staff had the best ERA+ (I chose this b/c it's normalized to park and league)?
2. Which one had the worst?

More questions will be answered in future installments.

The questions really have no bearing on anything except for the fact that I was curious and that I'm still having loads of fun with Excel's "Text to Columns" feature. I've just been C/Ping stuff in from Baseball-Reference.com and sorting.

Best ERA+, 1980-2004

1. 1997 Atlanta Braves - 132
2. 2002 Atlanta Braves - 131
3. 1998 Atlanta Braves - 130
4. 1993 Atlanta Braves - 129
5. 2003 Los Angeles Dodgers - 128
6. 1985 Toronto Blue Jays - 128
7. 1999 Boston Red Sox - 127
8. 2002 Oakland Athletics - 126
9. 1996 Atlanta Braves - 124
10. 2003 Montreal Expos - 124

Worst ERA+, 1980-2004

1. 2004 Cincinnati Reds - 77
2. 2001 Texas Rangers - 78
3. 1997 San Diego Padres - 78
4. 1996 Detroit Tigers - 79
5. 1998 Florida Marlins - 79
6. 1984 San Francisco Giants - 80
7. 2003 Detroit Tigers - 81
8. 2000 Chicago Cubs - 81
9. 2003 San Diego Padres - 81
10. 1994 St. Louis Cardinals - 81

Best ERA (unadjusted): 1981 Houston Astros - 2.66
Worst ERA (unadjusted): 1996 Detroit Tigers - 6.38

You can see the value in adjusting the numbers simply by looking at the team with the best ERA. Houston's ERA then was a 3.01, but 1981 was a fluke year for statistics (I think this had something to do with a labor problem). The NL's ERA was a 3.49 as a whole....it's probably good to just discard 1981's seasonal results from the typical trends of baseball. It was a weird season.

I was quite surprised to see Cincy's 2004 top the worst pitching staffs. People are actually picking this team to go to the playoffs this year (rarely, but I have seen it) in some circles. So on that note, what team had the worst ERA+ in one season who made the playoffs the next? And, perhaps more interesting, what team had the worst ERA+ to make the playoffs at all?

The answer to the first question is the 1991 Oakland A's. They had an ERA+ of 84 in 1991, then responded with a big year in 1992, losing to the Blue Jays in the ALCS. (In 1992, they had an ERA+ of 101.)

The worst ERA+ team to make the playoffs was the 1997 San Francisco Giants. They lost to the Marlins in the NLDS, and the ERA+ was 93.

From 1980-2004 (excluding 1981), 12 teams have made it to the playoffs with an ERA+ below average. This is 12 out of 132 teams. Quite simply, it is very, very difficult to make the playoffs with below average pitching; that's a frequency of 9.09%. This isn't groundbreaking.

Anyway, getting back to the original issue, using the ERA+ standard, I would say that the best pitching staff in at least recent memory is one of the Braves' staffs of the '90s. Original? No, but it's a tough argument to beat.

The next step would be to normalize other things to the league, like strikeouts, walks, homers allowed, and then look into calculating some more DIPS-type stuff (I'll use FIP b/c of convenience). Normalization is necessary here because the top 4 in K/9 were the last four Cubs' pitching staffs. While it may be true, that's an immediate eye-opener, so I will adjust the figures. It's a lot more work, so that'll take some time. I'll play around with the rankings that way at some point.