Defense wins championships (in strat-o-matic)

[1crazycanuk]

That's some interesting work, thank you for sharing that. I'm just asking...shouldn't 2B and SS get more than one X-roll in a game? Doesn't the ball get hit to them a lot more than once?

[durantjerry]

I have to disagree. Your calculations are too complicated for me, but my experience tells me that a good defense helps, but it definitely doesn't "win championships." I had a Helton, Castillo, Rolen, Molina & Rollins IF(Yankee), which is great defensively and pretty potent offensively and was lucky to finish 81-81 in the 2nd round of the Jaser D Tourney. I also had the second best ATG defensive team ever go out in the semi's. Those are specific examples, but I've seen many average to mediocre teams have success.

[bjs73]

Just to keep it brief and to get the thought processes together, here this is what I see. I play the 80s game exclusively so I'm going to use Doyle Alexander's card against righties as an example.

[b:9330231947]Doyle Alexander[/b:9330231947] has his only 2bX roll located at 4-7 on his 1977 Card.

That being said the probability per plate appearance is 2.78% that the exact combination that "4-7" will be rolled. A "1" at 2B guarantees that you can't give up a basehit on that 2.78% chance. But what does it look like for the other ranges?

This is what I see for a "2" range 2B: .0278 * .1 = .00278. The .1 represents 2 out of 20 or 10%: the opportunity that exists for a basehit on a 1d20 roll. (Single*)

The basehit opportunity event is totally dependent on the 4-7 event occuring first making it a multiplicative calculation.

.00278 * 36 Plate Appearances/Game = .10008 (single*) will be given up by your "2" range 2B per game. Take that out to 162 games played and you end up with:

16.21296 basehits allowed per season more than a "1" range or 16.2 more total bases allowed per season.

Using the "3" range approach at 2b under the same conditions yields this:

.0278 * .2 (all basehits are still singles for a 3 at 2B but there is now 4 chances out of 20.)

.0278 * .2 = .00556 * 36 PA/G = .20016 (singles)/G * 162 games = 32 more total bases allowed per season. I realize that there are both 2* and 1* basehits here and you can figure out a weighting if you like. Thing is with the bases empty a 2* is the same as a 1*.

Anyhow, this is a little longer than what I wanted to do for a start. I'm willing to keep a dialogue going if you want to explore more of the possibilities?

If you agree with my calculations then you could proceed with how those additional total bases equates to runs per season if you like?

bjs73

[Roscodog]

In any sport I don't think defense wins championships, but it can certainly cost you them.

[childsmwc]

Some things to consider:

1) I don't think your PA's are correct, to get a league average of .340 OBP you need about 41 PA's if you assume your base is 27 outs (on a season it actually works out to less outs per game). 41 PA's breaks down to 27 outs, 14 on base chances (14/41=.341).

2) For every hit or error a defender gives up you now have an additional plate appearance and a .340 chance that the additional batter will get on. So lets assume your defender allows 10 additional baserunners. We now must replace that with 10 outs (still have to make 27 outs a game). At a .340 clip, it will take approximately 15 more batters to create 10 more outs. So in reality every hit or error on the defensive chart generates 1.5 base runners during the season if your league OBP is .340. When you start talking Runs created. Those additional 15 PA's bring with it the league slugging average as well, so defensive miscues really start to add up.

Bbrool

[bjs73]

[quote:bb83cb1231]The equates to the 11 runs I had listed.[/quote:bb83cb1231]

16 total bases (single*) is broken down to 11 additional runs allowed per season? Can you show your work for this or post a link so that I can see the equation?

I can't see how that works itself out in your original post.

[quote:bb83cb1231]They calculated them in actual seasons as well as simulations, and the r-squared correlation is very, very high. So, I am inclined to agree with them.[/quote:bb83cb1231]

Is there a link for this also?