Root for This Team (NL)

Table of Contents
Picking up where I said I would today about a very loose “study” that I introduced yesterday.

Here’s a clickable Table of Contents, so that you can skip over any crap you want to skip, or skip to other crap as you see fit. I put the Team Scores first for convenience.

All charts herein are sortable by category.

1. National League Team Scores
2. NL Hitter Scores
3. NL Pitcher Scores
4. Conclusions and a Suggestion

 
National League Team Scores
In the chart below, “PSA” is the team’s most recent postseason appearance, “DT” is most recent division title, “WSA” is most recent World Series appearance, “PSV” is postseason series victories in the last ten years (2002-2011), “W%” is regular season winning percentage in the last ten seasons (2002-2011), “Market” is the market size that the team has (per these rankings), H-Score is they score assigned their sweetest hitter, and P-Score is the same for the sweetest pitcher. Finally, “Score” is a combination of all of the above, using the rotisserie scoring method.

Team	PSA	DT	WSA	PSV	W%	Market	H-Score	P-Score	Score
Pittsburgh Pirates	1992	1992	1979	0	0.418	22	34	36.5	54.5
Washington Nationals	1981	N/A	N/A	0	0.448	9	32	46	51.5
Cincinnati Reds	2010	2010	1990	0	0.475	25	35.5	44	46
Los Angeles Dodgers	2009	2009	1988	2	0.526	7	38	31	36.5
Atlanta Braves	2010	2005	1999	0	0.549	11	33.5	17.5	32.5
San Francisco Giants	2010	2010	2010	5	0.523	14	30.5	30.5	25.5
Arizona Diamondbacks	2011	2011	2001	1	0.486	17	28	25.5	24.5
St. Louis Cardinals	2011	2009	2011	10	0.556	19	22.5	15	17

The Pittsburgh Pirates, on the strength of the worst ten-year winning percentage of the teams in question, edge out the Washington Nationals.

It’s worth noting, I think, that in “beta version” of this same study, the Nationals were ahead of the Pirates. That version included most recent World Series Win and most recent postseason series win, which heavily weighted things toward the Nats, who, as a franchise, have never won a playoff series. I opted to replace those two with postseason victories in the past ten years, which maybe I shouldn’t have done. Sorry.

 
National League Hitter Scores
Two categories might require explanation here. One is “tSpd”, which is an aggregate of Bill James’s Speed Score, and BaseRuns.

The other is “Misc.”, which, as I noted in my intro, allowed me to give credit to certain players for “intangibles.” Bryce Harper is the only player in this batch that I saw worthy of note above his peers, seeing that he’s only 19 years old. (Note: The “Misc.” score was added to the rotisserie totals, as opposed to being counted in the roto ranking.)

National League Hitters

Player	Team	Age	POS	PA	P/PA	ISO	Clutch	LD%	tSpd	Misc.	Score
Matt Kemp	LAD	27	CF	262	3.985	0.29	0.67	22.5%	5.1	0	38
Joey Votto	CIN	28	1B	370	4.203	0.262	1.51	30.2%	1.4	0	35.5
Andrew McCutchen	PIT	25	CF	459	3.810	0.248	-0.24	23.2%	8.9	0	34
Jason Heyward	ATL	22	RF	452	4.102	0.211	-0.01	22.2%	10.7	0	33.5
Bryce Harper	WAS	19	RF/CF	399	3.855	0.159	0.64	20.6%	5.7	2	32
Buster Posey	SFG	25	C	424	4.177	0.216	-0.53	22.6%	-1.9	0	30.5
Paul Goldschmidt	ARZ	24	1B	401	3.975	0.232	-0.66	24.4%	5.1	0	28
Carlos Beltran	STL	35	RF	449	3.606	0.263	0.10	20.8%	2.4	0	22.5

You might be surprised by the fact that I chose Paul Goldschmidt over Justin Upton at the Diamondback’s hitter, especially since they’re the same age, and that Upton has superstar power and plays a position farther up the defensive spectrum. But there’s been some negative energy around Upton this year (unduly so, in my opinion), and he’s having an off year by his standards. Goldie, on the other hand, has the benefit of feeling younger than Upton, as this is his first full season in the Majors, and is simply electric against LHP.

The rest of the choices should be pretty self-explanatory, I think.

 
National League Pitcher Scores
Regarding the categories here: “FPv” is the average velocity for the pitcher’s fastest pitch. In all cases except for Adam Wainwright, the pitcher’s fastest pitch ended up being the four-seam fastball; in Wainwright’s case, it was his sinker that was fastest.

National League Pitchers

Name	Team	Age	POS	TBF	P/PA	FPv	SwStr%	K%	Clutch	Misc.	Score
Stephen Strasburg	WAS	23	SP	539	4.02	95.8	11.4%	30.8%	0.63	2	46
Aroldis Chapman	CIN	24	RP	216	4.46	98.1	19.3%	49.1%	-0.59	2	44
Joel Hanrahan	PIT	30	RP	183	3.95	95.8	14.4%	29.5%	0.82	0	36.5
Clayton Kershaw	LAD	24	SP	650	3.86	93.0	10.4%	24.2%	-0.38	0	31
Tim Lincecum	SFG	28	SP	607	3.98	90.4	12.1%	23.4%	-0.23	1	30.5
Wade Miley	ARZ	25	SP	559	3.74	91.2	8.8%	17.7%	0.30	1	25.5
Ben Sheets	ATL	33	SP	156	3.69	90.6	7.5%	18.0%	0.35	0	17.5
Adam Wainwright	STL	30	SP	605	3.72	90.2	8.5%	22.6%	-1.15	0	15

I don’t think that anyone is surprised to find Stephen Strasburg at the top of this chart. What might be surprising is to find two relievers hot on his tail. I had a hard time choosing between Chapman and Mat Latos as the Reds’ representative. Latos was a big off-season acquisition for the Reds, obviously, but the thrill of Chapman’s stuff, the fact that he’s a defected Cuban, and his historic season was too much to pass up.

I really didn’t know who to choose for the Pirates, but it helped their score that I picked Hanrahan, for sure.

Ben Sheets, for me, actually was an easy pick. He’s a great story: guy with great stuff/control and couple of great seasons has career derailed by injuries, doesn’t pitch for nearly two years, then signs on midseason with a playoff contender and quickly rattles off a couple of quality starts. Choosing Craig Kimbrel might have helped the Braves here, but I couldn’t pass up Sheets.

Ditto for Timmy. Matt Cain had the perfect game (and is simply one of the best pitchers in the game), and Maddy Bumgarner is a San Francisco darling, but Timmy has media clout, name recognition, and has been volatile this season — so much so that he could be the source of great drama down the stretch and, mayhap, in the playoffs. Certainly eyes will be on him more than any other Giants pitcher.

 
Conclusions and a Suggestion
Basically, if your favorite team is not in postseason contention and you’re looking for a National League team to root for you’re going to want to adopt the Pirates or the Nationals. Both are young teams with excited franchise players, both have been awful in recent years. The Nationals[/Expos] have never won a playoff series. The Pirates are an original MLB franchise that hasn’t been to the World Series since 1979, have one of the worst markets in baseball, and (although I didn’t consider this in the “study”) have awesome uniforms.

Also basically, unless you are from St. Louis or have other familial ties to that area, I cannot recommend rooting for the Cardinals, and in fact recommend against it.

Tomorrow, I’ll have the American League half of this “study.”