Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Home Improvement

There's been a lot of discussion the last few days on the net and in the mainstream press about the unusually large home field advantage that has shown up this season across the majors. The Mets have been no exception. Going into tonight's game, the Mets have a .607 winning percentage at home and .382 away, which sounds more like a football or basketball differential than a baseball one. The Mets current 2008 differential comes out to a difference of .225 home over away. If extended over a full season, that would be the largest home/away differential in Mets history, topping the previous high of .210 in 1963 (.420 home, .210 away).

Last year the Mets had a home park disadvantage, .580 on the road and only .506 at home.Overall since 1962 the Mets have had an .069 home/road differential. Since 1962, the largest home/road differentials by a single team over one full season have been by the 1996 Rockies and 1987 Twins, who each had win percentages a full .333 greater at home than on the road. This season so far, two teams, Atlanta and Boston, have larger differentials than that. The biggest road advantage by any team since 1962 has been the 1994 Cubs, who were .339 at home and .537 on the road.

Since 1962, on average 15% of teams end up the season with a higher road percentage than home percentage and about 2 to 3% complete a season with identical home and road percentages, while the other 82% or so win more at home than on the road. This season so far (going into tonight's games), only the Giants and Angels among the 30 MLB clubs have a road over home advantage. The Mets, despite having a home over road differential that would be the highest in team history over a full season, have only the seventh highest home/road differential in the majors so far in 2008.

Friday, June 6, 2008

NL East Hall of Fame

The National League East division began in its current form with the 1994 season, so the current season is the division's 15th season. The most Win Shares accumulated, 1994-current, by players playing for teams in the NL East (Mets in bold; players active in the NL East in 2008 in italics):

1. Chipper Jones 342
2. Andruw Jones 256
3. Bobby Abreu 241
4. Tom Glavine 229
5. Greg Maddux 221
6. John Smoltz 211
7. Cliff Floyd 174
8. Edgardo Alfonzo 169
9. Vlad Guerrero 166
10. Jimmy Rollins 165
11. Javy Lopez 157
12/13. Gary Sheffield/Pat Burrell 153
14. Mike Piazza 149
15. Luis Castillo 146
16. Jose Vidro 141
17. Scott Rolen 139
18/19. Miguel Cabrera/Mike Lowell 127
20/21. Al Leiter/Mike Lieberthal 121

David Wright, at 113, and Chase Utley, at 111, should break onto this list this summer.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Happier Days

Over the 3+ seasons that Willie Randolph has been manager of the Mets, the team has the best win/loss record in the National League. Top NL regular season records, 2005-current:
Mets 295 -245 (.546)
Cards 294-248 (.542)
Phils 294-249 (.541)
Braves 282-260 (.520)

Over the 3 seasons immediately preceding Randolph becoming manager, the Mets were 15th of the 16 NL teams in winning percentage. Worst NL regular season records, 2002-2004:
Brewers 191-294 (.394)
Mets 212-272 (.438)
Rockies 215-271 (.442)
Padres 217--269 (.447)

From The Top

With an on-base streak of thirty-one games as a leadoff man throgh yesterday's game, Jose Reyes has broken Benny Agbayani's team record in that (highly specialized!) category. Over the 2000 and 2001 seasons, Bobby Valentine used Benny as his leadoff man intermittently, but if you count only those games in which Agbayani was the leadoff batter, you find he was on base the last three games in which he batted leadoff in 2000 and the first 27 times he batted leadoff in 2001.

The longest streak of this type anywhere in the majors since 1962 has been by Alfonso Soriano, who was on base at least once in 58 consecutive games in which he was the leadoff hitter, spanning his last leadoff appearances for the Nationals in 2006 and his first for the Cubs in 2007. The longest such streak for one team in one season since 1962 is Craig Biggio's 51 game streak in 1998. Biggio's 51-game streak stretched across 52 games played -- 51 games in the leadoff spot in each of which he got on base, plus one game in the middle of that leadoff spot streak in which he pinch hit in the ninth spot and failed to get on.

Pitch and Win

The Mets have lost only 4 games this season in which they have held the opposition to fewer than 5 runs. They are now 25-4 in such games, an .862 winning percentage. The average winning percentage in the majors this season in games a team holds its oppostion under 5 runs is .729 -- on average, teams in the majors have lost 8 or 9 games when holding the opposition below 5 runs. Only the two Florida clubs, the Rays and Marlins, have a better record in such games than the Mets.

The Mets were also third best in the majors in this category last season, with an .828 winning percentage for the full 2007 season, behind only the Brewers (.848) and Mariners (.859). The overall average for all teams last season in games in which they held the opposition below 5 runs was .749. Last year over the full season, teams averaged about 21 to 22 losses per team in such games (the Mets lost only 16).