BASEBALL
I like the time shortly after Christmas because all my baseball books are here. I’ve looked over my Bill James Handbook 2011 already. The manufactured runs section caught my attention. Bill James<sup>1</sup> gives two charts telling how many manufactured runs each major league team generated and allowed. Basically a manufactured run comes when two of the bases are not from hits and walks. Steals, sacrifices and taking extra bases can contribute to manufactured runs. A typical team scores and allows about 1 manufactured run per game. On page 352 of the referenced book you can get the full definition.
The Detroit Tigers were slightly above the AL median in manufacturing runs with 166. They were fourth worst in the AL at allowing other teams to manufacture runs with 194 allowed.
I started thinking about net manufactured runs. That is runs manufactured minus opponent runs manufactured. There is no reason to thing that wisely taking an extra base offensively should correspond to defense, or threat of defense other than a small speed correlation. However, I thought this might measure fan frustration to some extent. Watching other teams score runs without hits while your team does not match is not fun. (Of course a lot of power or a few wins would likely overcome this sort of frustration.) Nonetheless, here are the net manufactured runs from the AL:
TEAM NET MANUFACTURED RUNS (Positive is good)
Rays………..74
Rangers……..60
Athletics……55
Twins……….29
White Sox……29
Orioles……..3
Angels………0
Yankees…….. -1
Royals………-21
Mariners…….-25
Blue Jays……. -27
Tigers……….-28
Indians……..-64
Red Sox………-69
The Tigers were 12th in this statistic in the AL and often very frustrating to watch in 2010. And, ask any Red Sox fan how 2010 went.
1 Bill James, “Manufactured Runs Contributions” and “2010 Manufactured Runs”, The Bill James Handbook 2011, ACTA Sports, Chicago, IL, 2010, P 351-353. (978-0-87946-439-4)
Baseball and Not Baseball 