by 216 Stitches » Sun Jan 08, 2012 1:46 pm
[quote:22e9d5348f="nexrad"]As long as you win by scoring more runs than you give up, it probably doesn't matter whether the runs are earned or not.
[/quote:22e9d5348f]
I agree, but if your team is underperforming, its helpful to look for
indicators that separate bad strategy from bad luck. And one of
the easiest places to look for bad luck is errors and unearned runs
because the numbers are easy to find. Also, errors can and do
vary from season to season a great deal.
From a practical stand point, if a team starts slow, do you react
or do you stand pat? Its best to act if you can identify a weakness,
its best to stand pat if you identify bad luck. And if you can't do
either, wait it out, read the threads, etc., etc.
Teams with decent gloves generally give up 5-10% unearned runs
over the course of a season. Its rare to see a team with under 5%
unearned runs and possible to see the same defenders get twice
that in another season. Above 10% is bad luck, or you have a lot
of error ratings for your defender (if the sum of your error rating
of your defenders is above 120, then you are in danger of giving
up higher earned runs,... OF errors are generally worse than IF
errors).
A variation on this to look at the unearned runs/error the team
allows. If its around 0.5-0.75 unearned runs/error is a "good"
range to be in ("good" meaning not unlucky). In some cases,
especially early in the season, teams can be giving up 1 or
more unearned/error. Thats just bad luck.
Again, the point of looking at this stat is to see if a luck
factor outside your control is causing you problems. Don't beat
yourself up if you are having an unlucky streak.