Does Pitching Always Win Championships?
From Rory Paap at The Hardball Times on March 16:
Does pitching really win championships? This is something people have looked at quite a lot, and the results have pretty clearly shown this is the case. But using Chris [Quick’s] method, we can test it once again.
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[I]f you had to choose which is more important between offense and pitching, the answer is obvious: run prevention.
I looked at the data a lot of ways, so here are some others:
- Only 22 of 106 winners had better hitting than pitching (20.75 percent)
- Only eight of 40 winners had better hitting than pitching in the divisional era (20 percent)
- Only two of 16 winners had better hitting than pitching in the dead-ball era (12.50 percent)
- Since the offensive-centric Reds of the 1970s, aka The Big Red Machine, only five of 33 have had better hitting than pitching (15.15 percent)
- The average World Series winner had an OPS+ of 103.47 and a median of 104
- The average World Series winner had an ERA+ of 113.84 and a median of 113
- Thus, on average, the winner has an ERA+ of 10.37 more than its OPS+
Read the full article here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/pitching-almost-always-wins-championships/
Originally published: March 18, 2011. Last Updated: March 18, 2011.