I know I asked questions about this last year but I’m asking again. Either something is very wrong with our stats or the labels we use don’t correspond to what one would think they should.
On each team page there are two stats, one labeled “Earned Runs Allowed” and another labeled “RA” (runs allowed?). Presumably
RA=Earned Runs + Unearned Runs
where Earned Runs is determined by the quality of the pitching and Unearned Runs by the quality of the defense.
But then we have these anomalies (RA=runs allowed, ER=earned runs allowed):
Cottage: 32 ER, 31 RA (amazing defense! eliminated an earned run!)
Haviland: 33.2 defense (yeah, pretty bad) with 45.9 RA and 31 ER – a whopping 48% of runs allowed are not earned. The highest total in MLB in 2014 was 12.4%.
Pittsburgh: 29.4 defense (yeah, worse than “pretty bad”) with 50.2 RA and 41 ER – just 22.4% of runs allowed are not earned.
If everything is functioning fine and I just don’t get it, then just let me know and I’ll shut up (until next year). I don’t even need an explanation, just tell me the data are correct and somehow the labels are misleading. I suspect it has something to do with replacement pitching.
You make a good case. This needs to be looked into. I’ll try to spend some time with it tomorrow. Looks like I still have access to some of Ron’s old spreadsheets from 2013 on Google drive. So I’ll grab one and put your team on it, see if I can spot where the bug sneaks in.
There are some other stats that need to be fixed too. The OPS for individual players in MLB stats is clearly wrong, but that’s just in the report, not in the calculations.
Ok, here’s a first attempt to explain things. Let’s see how far it gets toward a full explanation.
1. Where on your team sheet it lists Earned Runs Allowed, in every case it is referring to actual earned runs allowed by your actual pitchers in real life PLUS replacement players. So you have 61 total MLB innings from real pitchers, who have allowed 24 earned runs. That left you 9 innings short for covering the 70 innings you need to cover in 10 games, so you took on replacements at a 7.50 ERA for those 9 innings, for 7.5 more earned runs and 31.5 earned runs allowed total in 70 innings. .
That gives you a total ERA of 4.05.
But that only covers 70 innings. There are 90 innings in 10 games, really. So we take your ERA for 70 innings and apply it to 90 innings, on the (dubious but by now well-worn) theory that we would be smart enough to get about 25% more production out of our entire pitching staff than MLB owners get. (This 25% is a carry-over from the old league.) So now you have to multiply 31.5 X 9/7 to get the total earned runs allowed by your team in 10 games. That gets your total earned runs for 10 games up to 40.5.
Now you have to add the unearned runs your team allowed, which depends on defense. Your 33.2 defense, a little below average, allowed 5.4 unearned runs. The average defense adds about 10% to its runs allowed totals in the form of unearned runs. Yours allowed about 13%.
The labels could be clearer. They refer to earned runs in different contexts with the same labels. So I suppose there should be something like: :
A. MLB Raw Earned Runs Allowed: 24
B. Replacement Earned Runs Allowed: 7.5
C. Total Raw Earned Runs Allowed (MLB + replacement): 31.5
D. Adjusted Earned Runs Allowed (Pro-Rated to Games Played): 40.5
E. Unearned Runs Allowed By Defense: 5.4
F. Total Runs Allowed: 45.9
Note: Line D can be smaller than Line C where the team has MORE innings pitched than needed to cover 9 innings x games played. So, in Cottage’s case, with only 8 games to cover, the spreadsheet is only going to look to end up at 72 ip. Cheeses have already pitched 76.5 actual innings, have no replacements. So when generating an 8-game record the database removed 4.5 innings worth of pitching. That removes nearly 2 runs. A 40.1 defense adds one of those back in as an unearned run. Cottage is getting close to the point where defense subtracts runs, representing both the smaller proportion of unearned runs allowed and good defense’s effect in reducing EARNED runs.
In honor of tax season, maybe we should invent some kind of Schedule D that would track all this!
Does that leave anything unaccounted for?
By the way: Don’t look at the OPS numbers just now. We’re in the process of fixing them. In the meantime they aren’t affecting W/L results, they are just looking funny.
Do you mind if I recategorize this exchange so everyone can see it?
By the way — there is no bug if my answer accounts for everything, so Dave you can relax on this one.
Okay, thanks Ron. And you maybe noticed that I said I didn’t need an explanation, just reassurance that everything was as it should be. And you’ve reassured me – having allowed 5.4 unearned runs is completely reasonable.
And according to your very last comment, did I submit the post in a way that only allowed you and Dave to see it? I intended for everyone to see it.
As for everyone seeing it – you have to pick a category. There’s a check box for that, on the right side of the page where you write the post.
So – are you saying that I don’t need to research this, that all I have to do is improve the labels? That would be great. I’ll see if I can figure that out.