Baseball's Battle of the Stats

I enjoy Baseball Prospectus and think they do a really good job at pushing the envelope by challenging conventional wisdom.

However, the one frustrating thing about their fine work is that it's not easy to explain to people who are not stat and math savvy. When doing the baseball column, I used Net OPS as a way to convey to readers which teams are playing better or worse than W-L records indicate. I thought it worked nicely. When I told my friends there, they were sour on the idea on OPS as a stat.

I'm reminded of my friend Gary who often likes a group until they get popular and then he's off them and on to something else. I think there's a little of that going on here. We need the stat people, the economists, to strive for perfection. But reporters need stats that work while being easily understood (my clients have no space for footnotes). While I agree that it's likely that their "Third Order Pythaganport" standing might spot outliers with slightly greater accuracy, try telling your dad and his friends about it at the local watering hole. On-base plus slugging percentage is mainstream now. And everyone understands the simple concept of subtracting what a team's pitchers allow from what the hitters gain. So, I wondered, how much different would the almost-end-of-season BP third-order pythag standings be from how the teams generally rank in Net OPS?

Again, BP actually recalculates a win total to decimal points. I have not figured out a way to convert net-OPS to a W-L record because I don't care about that (okay, I'm not smart enough). I'm just looking for a quick, simple way to eyeball who should have done better and who should have done worse. This isn't usefull just for slamming or glorifying managers, but for figuring out how much a team needs to improve in the offseason.

So, without further ado, the BP Third Order Pythag standings through Friday followed by the net OPS standings, with the net and win totals in parentheses (the net OPS number seem ridiculously small, but .1 translates to 100 points of OPS, which we all understand to be significant):

TO Pythag AL East:

Yankees (93 wins)
Red Sox (91)
Blue Jays (80)
Orioles (80)
Devil Rays (72)

Net OPS AL East:

Yankees (.053)
Red Sox (.037)
O's (.008)
Blue Jays (-.004)
Devil Rays (-.057)

TO Pythag AL Central

Indians (97)
White Sox (85)
Twins (83)
Tigers (77)
Royals (60)

Net OPS AL Central

Indians (.1, major league best)
White Sox (.039)
Twins (-.002)
Tigers (-.017)
Royals (-.11)

TO Pythag AL West

A's (91)
Angels (87)
Rangers (79)
Mariners (69)

Net OPS AL West

A's (.044)
Rangers (.029)
Angels (.019)
Mariners (-.044)

TO Pythag NL East

Phillies (88)
Mets (88)
Braves (85)
Marlins (80)
Nationals (74)

Net OPS NL East

Braves (.030)
Mets (.030)
Phillies (.023)
Marlins (.006)
National (-.019)

TO Pythag NL Central

Cardinals (90)
Astros (87)
Cubs (84)
Brewers (82)
Reds (73)
Pirates (71)

Net OPS NL Central

Cardinals (.045)
Cubs (.034)
Astros (.032)
Brewers (.024)
Reds (-.049)
Pirates (-.5)

TO Pythag NL West

Padres (75)
Dodgers (69)
Diamondbacks (69)
Giants (67)
Rockies (62)

Net OPS NL West

Padres (-.017)
Dodgers (-.033)
Giants (-.038)
Diamondbacks (-.045)
Rockies (-.076)

Summary: Pretty significant disagreements only on three teams: Twins (Pythag says they're better), Rangers (net OPS says they're better) and Braves (net OPS says they're better). Maybe this is where the translations come in. I obviously haven't recalculated the OPS based on strength of schedule and home parks. I don't think that's a big deal when you're focusing on division records. Plus it's too ethereal. (Okay, I'm not smart enough.)