Bear Down

How does a baseball team's ability to keep runner's from scoring affect their win total? Today I am going to look at the relationship between Team Wins and Left on Base %.

Team Wins
Number of total wins for a team

Left On Base %
The percentage of hitters that reach base but do not score.

I charted out 2008's values to see what kind of trendline it would generate. The Correlation is only about 60%, but if you remove the 1 obvious anomaly, it jumps to 70%.

It is quite obvious that holding runners or bearing down is a key component to winning. What determines how far a team is above or below the line? Hitting

The anomaly? That would be the 79 win Texas Rangers. The equation Wins = 435.37(LOB %) - 231.28 describes the slope of the line without the Rangers. That would peg the Rangers at 55 Wins last year based upon pitching.

The teams that were farthest from the line were (Actual to Equation):
Can't Hit
Seattle Mariners (61 to 77)
Washington Nationals (59 to 74)
San Diego Padres (63 to 77)

Hit a lot
Texas Rangers (79 to 55)
California Anaheim LA Angels (100 to 87)