20090518

playoff-caliber offense?

The Post, this morning, talking about the Nationals, said, "its offense humming at a playoff-caliber level".

This seems, at best, a bit of a stretch to me. Looking at runs scored, the Nats are in a three-way tie for sixth in the senior circuit. For what it's worth, that puts fourteen teams ahead of them in the majors.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see, now that I'm looking, that it does put them at a solid 107 OPS+. Seeing as the National League as a whole has a 94 OPS+, that's quite impressive. Adding in that the only two teams ahead of them (the Mets at 108 and the Dodgers at 109), I guess I'll have to concede the point.

Hmm... Actually, those numbers seem a bit suspicious now that I'm looking at the whole of the Majors. I can't really see how the league as a whole could have something other than a 100 OPS+; kind of defeats the purpose of the stat, if that's the case. Certainly, the park factor for the new Yankee stadium is still an unknown, but that should fall out in the wash of the overall stat, I would think (but it does make the Yankees 112 OPS+ a bit suspicious, to put it mildly).

Anyway, I guess the Nats do have a better offense (at least in performance so far; I'm not sure what their odds of this continuing through the season are). And it appears not to be absurd to say playoff-caliber.

No comments:

Post a Comment