After the 9th game of the Cavaliers’ season - an embarrassing loss to the Indiana Pacers that I watched in person - I posted a few notable statistics that you wouldn’t read in your morning paper. Because the Indians didn’t sign Cliff Lee and the Browns are in treadmill mode, I figured I would revisit those same stats, to see just how far the Cavs have fallen now that 24 games have been played.
Thanks, as always, to Hoopdata.com for the assist.
Offensive Efficiency (Points Scored Per 100 Possessions): 97.7 (29th) *Negative 8 spots and minus 4.4 points per 100 possessions
Defensive Efficiency (Points Given Up Per 100 Possessions): 108.5 (26th) *Negative 18 spots and minus 2.7 points per 100 possessions
Efficiency Differential: -10.8 (30th) *Negative 7 spots and minus 7.1 points per loss
Pace: 95.4 (20th) *Positive 5 spots and plus .2 possessions per game
Field Goal Percentage at the Rim: 59.3% (28th) *Negative 4 spots with a plus 1.6%
3P Field Goal Percentage: 54.4% (21st) *Negative 8 spots and minus 2.5%
Opponents Field Goal Attempts at the Rim Per Game: 21.1 (13th) *Same rank, 1.5 attempts less per game
Opponents 3P Field Goal Attempts: 20.0 (5th) *Negative 6 spots, plus 2.6 attempts per game
Total Rebound Rate (Percentage of Total Available Rebounds Grabbed): 47.96 (27th) *Negative 2 spots, minus .2%
Defensive Rebound Rate: 76.35 (6th) *Positive 15 spots, plus 4.09%
Offensive Rebound Rate: 21.95 (28th) *Same rank, minus 1.18%
True Shooting % (Shooting Efficiency, Adjusted for 2P, 3P, and FT): 50.9% (28th) *Negative 9 spots, minus 2.8%
Assist Rate (Percentage of Possessions Ending in an Assist): 19.28 (20th) *Negative 6 spots, minus .46%
Turnover Rate (Percentage of Possessions Ending in a Turnover): 12.72 (3rd) *Plus 5 spots, plus .56%
By my count, this means the Cavs have improved in three areas since we last checked: defensive rebounding, pace and turnovers. Their field goal percentage at the rim has increased, as well, although overall NBA rank in that department is down. The defensive rebounding improvement - plus 15 spots in the rankings - is dramatic, and I would like to commend the Cavaliers for their performance in this department. The small rate at which they turn the ball over is excellent, too.
However, in pretty much every other area, the Cavs are terrible. This is disconcerting because - aside from offensive rebounding and steals (27th) - the Cavs are winning the possession battle. Okay, so maybe the fact that they’re only winning half of the possession battle is crucial, particularly when they aren’t making any shots (28th in the league in TS%) - or preventing anyone from making any shots either (Opponents’ TS% is 56.6% for 26th in the league, behind only Toronto, Golden State, and Phoenix … not exactly great company).
What does all of these numbers tell us, ultimately? That there is a very real correlation between certain statistics and wins and losses. Like, you know, if you don’t make shots, you get barely any second shots, and your opponent loads up on 3’s and shots at the rim, you are probably going to end up losing by a whole lot, like, say an average of 9.7 points per game.
If you’re like me and Tim, you’ve probably noticed recently that a fair amount of high profile players have moved from the American League to the National League and immediately gotten a whole lot frickin’ better.
Cliff Lee was untouchable until he got knocked around a little bit last week. Manny Ramirez hit somewhere near .400 after he got traded to the Dodgers last year. Matt Holliday sucked in Oakland but is now hitting the hell out of the ball in St. Louis. The same goes for John Smoltz, who had 6 SO’s in 6 innings and only gave up one run for the Cardinals after getting unceremoniously dumped by the Red Sox. Tonight I see that, according to ESPN, Brad Penny - who was released by a team in the middle of a pennant race - “dominated” the Phillies as the newest member of the Giants.
In the midst of my eyes telling me that something wasn’t quite right, I was fortunate enough to discover an article on ESPN Insider, written by Jay Jaffe, that has enabled me to completely believe what I thought I’d been seeing.
The basic evidence is that the AL has won 13 straight All-Star Games and beat the NL 52.2% of the time in interleague play since it began in 1997.
The deeper evidence is that over the past 5 years both good and bad AL teams see their winning percentage go up against every kind of NL team - bad, mediocre, great - while those same NL teams’ winning percentages decrease. And not just by a little, we’re talking between 39 and 85 points.
No grouping of NL teams, even those who performed in the top 20% against teams in their league, has a winning percentage above .500. The best overall showing by one of these groups is .461.
The reason I bring this up isn’t to say that it’s illogial for MLB to have two separate leagues that operate under different rules (that would be entirely true, however). Rather it’s to say that we’ve talked a lot about how mediocre the AL Central is, but we’ve never talked about how strong the AL is in general.
Jaffe and his colleague Eric Seidman ran a more complicated mathematical analysis of these numbers in order to predict how a team that performs at certain winning percentages in intraleague and interleague play would perform if they swapped leagues.
For example, using linear regression analysis the Dodgers at .608 would be a .458 team in the AL. The Blue Jays, on the other hand, would be contending for the wild card in the NL.
The sample sizes are small and a little disjointed because teams aren’t competing against the same teams in interleague play, but the implication is pretty clear - the Indians are, and have been, outperforming a slew of NL teams.
Unfortunately, they’re stuck in the AL.
So while Indians can feel fortunate their team isn’t in the AL East with the Red Sox and the Yankees, they should probably feel a lot worse about the fact that the Tribe is still in the American League.
This discrepancy between the quality of teams in the NL and the AL is a huge flaw in the MLB system, especially if we’re to assume that a big part of the gap stems from one league having a DH while the other does not. Add to this the fact that there’s no salary cap, there is revenue sharing - which incentivizes teams to not bother with trying to win - and we begin to see how MLB is creating widespread imbalances in the sport. The wealthy teams are playing with more resources, the NL teams and players are battling against poorer competition…yet, at the same time everyone from the players to the coaches to the front office is being judged by the same criteria.
Would we be talking about Eric Wedge being fired, the Dolans fudging the facts about revenue, and whether or not Shapiro got enough for Cliff Lee if the Indians were playing in the NL?
Hard to say for sure, but we at least have reason to believe we might not. And this kind of imbalance isn’t good for the competitive spirit that’s at the root of baseball and every other sport.
The above link is to a Cleveland Plain Dealer interview with Cliff Lee that, I must say, does not include any softballs from “DW” (whoever that may be, since the article is credited to Dennis Manoloff or “DM” where I come from).
I suspect the following will get a lot of run around Cleveland:
DW: Do you feel bad for the fans who see the core of their team traded, fans who wonder, ‘Why can’t Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez still be around in 2010, to try to make another run at it?’
CL: Uh, it would help if the fans showed up and came to the games. That’s why the team didn’t make money, because the fans weren’t there, supporting the team. That’s what happens when the fans don’t support —
DW: But you guys weren’t winning.
CL: Right. It goes hand-in-hand, though. It definitely goes hand-in-hand. Yeah, I feel sorry for them. I wish we were all still there, that we had won the World Series in ‘07, come back and won it again last year and were going to win it this year. That’s not reality. That’s not…It’s a business. It’s a total business.
Aside from Lee offering up the classic “it’s a business” line, which is a current favorite amongst professional athletes, I think his answers include a pretty noteworthy assertion:
Cliff Lee is blaming Indians fans for not buying tickets to games even when the team was losing.
Sure, he backtracks a little by admitting that there’s typically a correlation between winning and attendance, but the initial point is obvious to me - he believes fans should go to games when their team sucks.
While I tend to agree with Cliff, I don’t think he’s being realistic. The truth of the matter is that sporting events become more compelling when there’s more at stake, and it’s nearly impossible to find drama in most MLB games before the All Star break - and it’s definitely 100% inconceivable to do so when a team is 19 games under .500.
On top of this, every team’s fan base consists of, at the very minimum, two distinct groups: hardcore fans and bandwagoneers.
I don’t gamble (well, okay, I bet on a few NBA games when I was in Vegas - and lost money on every one), but if I was forced to for just a moment, I’d bet that the majority of a team’s fan base is made up of bandwagoneers. When ticket sales are thriving and venues are sold out or really packed, in other words, that volume is dictated a lot more by casual fans than by hardcore fans - and those are the people who are only going to buy tickets when a team’s winning, when there’s a buzz around the city, when the stadium or the arena is the “place to be.”
I’m sure the percentages change based on which city and sport we’re discussing. For instance, I presume there are more hardcore Browns fans in Cleveland than there are hardcore Indians fans.
Curious to hear your thoughts. Chime in below.
Side note: there’s a follow-up conversation to be had about what it means to be a fan. I’ve been circling this discussion in my head for a while but haven’t been inspired to write about it…this thread could change that.
Carlos Carrasco, who you’ll remember most Indians reporters characterized as “struggling” in Triple-A before the Indians acquired him as part of the Cliff Lee deal, was dominant tonight, striking out 10 in 8 innings, walking none, and giving up no home runs in an International League victory.
Also, BJT68, great comment in the old post I’m referring to - I’m sorry I missed it the first time around. I don’t know how anyone can argue that throwing hard is so incredibly important. Obviously, there have been plenty of hard throwers who can’t pitch. If I’m a hitter, I’ll take 95 mph fastballs all day if they’re coming on 2-0 and 3-1 counts, especially (for example).
Pluto said the same thing today in his weekly podcast, expounding again on the greatness of guys who throw way above 90. At least this time he gave a reason, albeit a weak one, claiming that if you throw hard you don’t have to be as “fine” with your pitches.
What it is, I think, is that people associate strikeouts with throwing fast because guys like Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens struck a bunch of hitters out - but really, you can’t tell me there isn’t more than one way to strike a dude out.
For his career, Greg Maddux’s SO/9 were 6.1 and his BB/9 were 1.8. Clemens struck out more (8.6) but also walked more (2.9). Both were fantastic in HR/9 - Clemens at .7 and Maddux at .6. In other words, not a lot of guys on base when balls were hit out of the park.
So, there are a lot of things that matter…but, obviously, getting three guys out before anyone scores is the big one. If throwing hard contributes to a pitcher’s ability to pitch, great - if it doesn’t…get him outta here.
