I don’t know about you all, but I’m not bearing up too well these last few days, what with zero baseball to occupy my focus. In the absence of Orioles news over which to obsess, I decided to dig into some numbers in advance of the 2014 postseason, and what I’ve discovered MAY SHOCK YOU will hopefully serve as a semi-decent distraction from the barren emptiness of the baseball-free world we currently occupy.
First, some quick observations on the extreme degree to which baseball has course-corrected for the offensive largesse of the steroid era. Consider the following staggering realities:
Adrian Gonzalez led all of Major League Baseball in RBI this season with a total of just 116. The last season in which no single player drove in at least 120 runs was 1994, when Jeff Bagwell also plated 116.”But wait,” you’re saying to yourself, “that shouldn’t count, because 1994 was a strike-shortened season.”You’re absolutely correct, which means we have to go back even further, all the way to 1981, when Mike Schmidt drove in 91.”Again I must quibble,” I can hear you thinking, “for 1981 was also a strike-shortened season,” and once again, you have correctly identified a real issue of grave national import.
The fact is, my friends, the last FULL season during which no single player drove in at least 120 runs was 1973, when Willie Stargell paced the league with 119.
Our own Nelson Cruz led the majors with 40 home runs in 2014, making this the first season, strike-shortened or otherwise, when just one player in baseball hit 40 dingers since 1989, when Kevin Mitchell whacked 47.
Justin Morneau won the NL batting title this year (I know, right? Him?) with a .319 mark, which is the lowest winning figure since Terry Pendleton took the crown in 1991, when he also batted .319.
Marco Estrada and Hector Noesi led the majors in home runs allowed, with 29 and 28, respectively. The last full season that no pitcher gave up at least 30 homers? 1976, when Gary Nolan and Catfish Hunter served up 28 apiece.
Whew! Clearly baseball, like me, has been experiencing some serious pangs of nostalgia for simpler times.
Sadly, of course, we instead stand trembling on the brink of the most complex psychological stretch of the entire season. Assuming our motley crew of third basemen stops treating routine grounders (and our emotions) like rabid tarantulas, I think the Orioles have as good a shot as any of their fellow playoff-bound squads, each of which comes with a bit of intrigue of their own:
The St. Louis Cardinals scored fewer runs than any other playoff team: 619. I know, I know, you thought that honor would’ve gone to…
The Kansas City Royals, and who could blame you? After all, the Boys in Powder Blue are the only advancing team for which no single player hit 20 homers or drove in 80 runs. “Okay,” you’re thinking (kind of weird how well I can read your thoughts, eh?), “but if it’s not the Royals, I’d of sworn it would be…”
The Pittsburgh Pirates. You’d be wrong, however – in fact, the Pirates are the only playoff team to have nine players with ten or more home runs. Also, they led the league in Stolmy Pimentels for the second year in a row. Speaking of leading the league…
The Oakland Athletics did that for a while before the sabers fell off Billy Beane’s metrics down the stretch. Lots of folks have speculated as to the reasons for Oakland’s collapse, but some of it may have just been rotten luck: from September 2-13th, nine of their eleven games were decided by one run. They lost eight of them. Losing critical games down the stretch is obviously a high-wire act for contending teams – just ask…
The Detroit Tigers, whose bullpen is the glaring weakness on an otherwise terrifying squad. Detroit’s relief corps posted a 4.26 ERA in 2014, the fourth-worst mark in the majors, ahead of only the Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies, and Houston Astros. Surprisingly weak pitching is lurking in a number of playoff clubhouses this year, actually, particularly that of…
The San Francisco Giants, whose starting pitchers’ combined ERA stands at 3.74, the worst such mark of any playoff-bound team. Interestingly, five of the top ten teams in terms of starting pitcher ERA ended up missing the postseason: the Seattle Mariners, Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres, Tampa Bay Rays and Cincinnati Reds. This, of course, was hardly the case for…
The Washington Nationals, who boast a rotation in which the worst pitcher is Gio Gonzalez, whose bWAR of 2.3 is equal to that of the Orioles’ best pitcher by bWAR (Chris Tillman). If we’re going to talk about pitching, however, it’s impossible to avoid talking about the staff ace of…
The Los Angeles Dodgers, a raggedy-lookin’ type named Clayton Kershaw. It’s hard to overstate the potency of Kershaw’s effect on the Dodgers, but it’s also important to recognize his excellence in comparison to the rest of the league in its entirety. Consider this: Kershaw’s bWAR of 8.0 is higher than the entire Texas Rangers pitching staff combined (6.2). Los Angeles is a town defined by its stars, and the only one to burn as bright as Kershaw belongs to…
The Los Angeles Angels, for whom Mike Trout put up yet another ridiculously strong year at a ridiculously young age. Trout, as we’re well aware by now, is a certifiable monster, but a closer look at his 2014 numbers reveals some potentially negative trends. This season saw major reductions in Trout’s stolen base total (-17), batting average (-36), and on-base percentage (-55), coupled with a serious uptick in punchouts, where his total spiked sharply (+48). Trout actually posted the third-highest strikeout total in all of baseball, at 184, while walking 27 fewer times than 2013. The walk total is particularly concerning, until you consider the unfortunate realities of…
The Baltimore Orioles, who barely walked 27 times as a team. That’s obviously a bit of an exaggeration, but not as much as you might hope. The O’s had just four regulars walk 30 times or more, and one of them (Chris Davis) won’t be on the playoff roster.
Frankly, I don’t really know what to make of all this, except for the fact that thinking about it distracted me from my wayward career as an administrative assistant who subsists almost exclusively on tacos and red wine. I usually rely on baseball to distract me from these and other unfortunate facts about my life, so I’m pretty excited that it starts up again tonight.
