Why isn't Cleveland in First??

For a while now, I've been asking myself, why aren't the Cleveland Indians leading the AL Central? They seem to me to have a better team than the Minnesota Twins.

So, after wondering why for so long, I decided I needed an answer. So, naturally, I went to the numbers to find it.

I started researching every Twins and Indian player's VORP, hitting line(AVG/OBP/SLG), and K/BB ratio. Then, of course I compared them.

Now before I just lay out these numbers, I want to explain how I used them.

I took the teams best player at each position, and used their numbers to represent each team's starter. So, each team has nine players in their comparison.

***Note: In some cases, I had to use players that have since been traded, because I am trying to figure out why the Indians aren't in first place NOW. And in order to do that I have to look at what each player did UNTIL NOW for their team. ***

So, after compiling all these numbers, I decided stack the nine starter's for each team next to eachother, in order, by VORP. And here are those lists:

Cleveland-------------------- Minnesota
1. Travis Hafner- 57.4--------1. Lew Ford- 30.4
2. Victor Martinez-39.7-----2. Torii Hunter- 19.0
3. Ronnie Belliard- 33.0-----3. Shannon Stewart- 14.7
4. Omar Vizquel- 29.1------4. Corey Koskie- 14.0
5. Matt Lawton- 25.4-------5. Christian Guzman- 11.8
6. Casey Blake- 24.2--------6. Jacque Jones- 6.4
7. Ben Broussard- 18.8------7. Luis Rivas- 5.2
8. Jody Gerut- 12.3----------8. Doug Mientkiewicz-3.0
9. Coco Crisp- 9.3-----------9. Henry Blanco- -5.0


Please tell me that I am not the only one who sees how much better Cleveland's offense is than Minnesota's. Actually, when you look at these charts, the only conclusion that can be made is that Minnesota's offense is a joke. Their second best player only has a 19.0 VORP!!!!

Also notice that Cleveland's lineup is actually producing a positive VORP at the bottom of the list. Cleveland's offense is far and away the better of the two.

So now I must look at pitching. With pitching I did the same thing I did with position players, but for the top 4 pitchers on each team(by Innings Pitched). I looked at all of the player's VORP, ERA, and K/BB ratio.

Again I compiled a chart of each teams four pitchers by VORP. This chart is displayed below:

Cleveland---------------------Minnesota
1. Jake Westbrook- 33.1------1. Johan Santana- 45.6
2. C.C. Sabathia- 28.6--------2. Brad Radke- 34.4
3. Cliff Lee- 15.8--------------3. Carlos Silva- 25.2
4. Jason Davis- -4.1----------4. Kyle Lohse- 5.8

OK, so here we see where Minnesota differentiates, and is better than Cleveland. Minnesota's top 3 starters, each are better than Cleveland's top 3. And, Minnesota is actually getting a positive VORP out of it's number 4 starter, as opposed to Cleveland's negative output.

So now, after breaking down all of these player's numbers, I ask- Is the difference between Cleveland's amazing offense and decent starting pitching, greater than the difference between Minnesota's horrific offense and phenomenal starting pitching.

Well, I tried answering this question by taking both Cleveland and Minnesota's total offensive VORP, and total pitching VORP, and subracting the two.

Well as it turns out, this question cannot be answered. Even though Cleveland's total offensive VORP of 250.2 minus their pitching VORP of 73.4 came out to be 176.8, and Minnesota's offensive VORP(hahahah) of 99.5, minus their pitching VORP of 111.0 came out to be -11.5, these numbers cannot be compared.

These differences only show that Minnesota's pitching is 11.5 runs better than their offense, while Cleveland offense is 176.8 runs better than their pitching.

I found that trying to compare these differences, is like comparing apples and oranges, it can't be done. Pitching and offense are two completely different categories(obviously). Those differences are just there to show you how each teams pitching and offense stack up to eachother. But I do this for argument's sake.

****Keep in mind that only 4 players contribute to each teams pitching VORP, while 9 players contribute to each teams offensive VORP, creating a huge difference in Cleveland's comparison numbers. This "number of players" concept, acutally makes Minnesotas offense more laughable. They have a greater total VORP produced by 4 pitchers, than their 9 offensive players!!!! ****


Now looking at all of these numbers, I still think Cleveland should be ahead in the standings. But they are not, and there has to be a reason.

To find this out I decided to look at each teams offensive K/BB ratios, and pitching K/BB ratios, to figure out how often they are: A. Keeping batters offbase, and B. Getting on base.

After looking at all of Cleveland and Minnesota's ratios, they came out looking like this:

Cleveland
Offensive K/BB: 535/355 (Crisp- 43/20, Lawton- 70/42, Belliard- 70/47, Vizquel- 46/40, Blake- 91/46, Gerut- 45/40, Martinez- 46/39, Hafner- 73/44, Broussard- 51/37)

Pitching K/BB: 342/191 (Westbrook- 76/42, Sabathia-99/48, Lee- 105/56, Davis- 62/45)

Minnesota
Offensive K/BB: 435/238 (Ford- 50/40, Guzman- 42/16, Jones- 77/27, Hunter- 66/24, Koskie- 72/38, Rivas- 38/10, Stewart- 24/30, Blanco- 37/14, Mientkiewicz- 38/39)

Pitcing K/BB: 399/128 (Santana- 173/41, Radke- 104/14, Silva- 53/23, Lohse- 69/50)


And there's your answer folks. Yes, Cleveland is walking more, but they have also struck out 117 more times than Minnesota. Therefore, not even putting the ball in play to have a chance at getting on base.

And the biggest factor in Minnesota being atop the division- They've struck out 57 more batters, and walked 63 less, therefore putting way less people on base than Cleveland.

So, as the old adage say, pitching wins baseball, not offense.

This comparison just goes to show that keeping batters off off base is what wins baseball games, and the best way to do that is to strike out batters, and not walk them. Which is what Minnesota is so good at doing, that it can overcome is extremely horrible offense.

Frank E. Bundy III