Basebology (The Study of Baseball): Revisiting the American League DH advantage question

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Revisiting the American League DH advantage question

You will recall, Dear Reader, that I addressed not long ago the question of whether or not the American League should have an inherent structural advantage over the National League due to the existence of the DH. I concluded that it should not and speculated that one of the reasons that the AL is dominating the NL in interleague play could be simply that the AL has more resources at its disposal.

This appears to be the case, as Tom Tango notes here:

The effect is that the average NL payroll for those five years is 74MM per team, and the average AL payroll is 84MM. Each AL team has 10MM more dollars of talent than the NL teams.

Does this explain all of the effect? I don't know, but it certainly goes a long, long way.

1 comment:

Lisa said...: So money can't buy you love, but it can purchase talent! That's what happens in a business, and we all know that professional sports is big business as well as entertainment. So you're saying in effect that the people who look at actually playing the game aren't seeing the whole picture. It's the economy of the game, stupid...; July 22, 2009 at 7:00 AM

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Key Stats

ARP
Adjusted Runs Prevented

ARP measures the amount of runs that a relief pitcher prevented from scoring above what an average relief pitcher would have prevented. ARP is adjusted for the situation in which the pitcher was used.

ISO
Isolated Power

ISO is the ratio of extra bases that a player has accumulated to the number of at bats he has received. ISO is essentially a player's SLG minus his batting average. This has the effect of giving a player credit only for extra base hits. ISO is not a useful measure of player value on its own, but is a very effective measure of a player's extra base ability.

OBP
On Base Percentage

OBP is the ratio of the number of times a player reached base safely to the number of opportunities he had to reach base. It effectively measures a player's skill at not making outs. Since outs are a teams most precious commodity, OBP measures perhaps the most valuable and fundamental skill a player can have.

OPS
On Base Plus Slugging Percentage

OPS is a crude metric that simply sums a player's on base and slugging percentages. It is probably the most popular non-traditional measure of overall batting performance due to its simplicity. However, it has drawn criticism from performance analysts for its inaccuracy relative to other advanced metrics and because it works by adding two numbers with different denominators together to produce a conceptually meaningless quantity. It is best used as a quick and dirty estimator of batting prowess.

SLG
Slugging Percentage

SLG is the ratio of total bases that a player has accumulated to the number of at bats he has received. It is essentially a weighted batting average that gives a player more credit for extra base hits.

UZR
Ultimate Zone Rating

UZR is a defensive metric that uses play-by-play data to determine how good a player's defense is. On Fangraphs, it is denominated in runs saved above average.

VORP
Value Over Replacement Player

VORP measures the amount of runs that a player contributed above what a "replacement player" at the same position would produce. VORP considers only offensive contributions.

WARP
Wins Above Replacement Player

WARP measures the amount of wins that a player contributed above what a "replacement player" at the same position would produce. WARP considers both offensive and defensive contributions.

WXRL
Win Expectancy added above Replacement adjusted for Lineup

WXRL measures the amount of wins that a relief pitcher contributed above what a "replacement player" would produce. WXRL differs from WARP because it is adjusted for both the game situation in which the pitcher was used and the hitters that the pitcher faced.

Basebology (The Study of Baseball)

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Revisiting the American League DH advantage question

1 comment:

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