After a five-year slide in scoring landed on the lowest mark since 1981, everyone’s scrambling for offense. That’s a natural response, but maybe not a sensible one.
Stating the obvious, there’s no fixed scoring level that wins ballgames. You just have to score more runs than you allow. And the “pythagorean formula,” which predicts winning percentage from runs scored and allowed, has two corollaries that speak to the most efficient path to improving a team’s record:
Josh Donaldson, one of the best two-way players in baseball, has been dealt to Toronto.
With 15.4 WAR in 2013-14 (second to Mike Trout), Donaldson ties Chuck Knoblauch for the most age 27-28 WAR of any player who changed teams going into or during age 29. Even if you don’t buy his top-notch defensive metrics, Donaldson ranked 6th in offensive WAR for the last two years. He’s a player.
Alvin Dark, a star shortstop and a World Champion as player and manager, died Thursday. Obituaries ran in the S.F. Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the N.Y. Times, and many others. Here is a stats-centric look at his baseball career.
I mean that lovingly. But we all know that San Francisco’s different — and a place where difference is celebrated. In that vein, and while Giants fans are still too giddy to feel how affronted, let’s see just how offbeat is this dynasty of 2010-12-14.
Game 6: @Royals 10, Giants 0 — Jake Peavy was on a very short leash, but it still proved too much rope.
@Giants 5, Royals 0, Giants go up 3-2 — Madison Bumgarner’s eight strikeouts are fairly modest by today’s standards for an utterly dominant game. But he got them when they counted most:
World Series, Game 3: Royals 3, @Giants 2 — Kansas City’s first run scored on a groundout. Typical, right?
Couldn’t quite pull together a WS preview, so I’ll offer this up as a chat space.
NLCS Game 2: @Cardinals 5, Giants 4 — A thrilling, confounding ballgame, to remind us of all that we’ll miss in the dark months ahead.
ALCS Game 1: Royals 8, @Orioles 6 — That’s eight straight postseason wins for the Royals since 1985. A five-and-oh postseason start would have left a team two wins from the title in 1984; to put that another way, KC is still seven victories from shocking the world, which was a full champion’s portion that year. But don’t bet against them. The Royals don’t know it’s a damn show; they think it’s a damn fight.