To pick up on Walt (and other's) complaints about the offensive efficiency - or lack thereof - of the 2015 baseball squad, I thought I would run some numbers and get some hard data.

I'm using a measure of offensive efficiency described here: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2014/2/...efficiency

The basic concept is how good are you at turning baserunners into runs, which is what I gather the complaint is about (Walt, feel free to chime in if I'm off base). Rice is excellent at generating baserunners (#3 nationally in hits, for example), and really not bad at scoring runs (we rank #25 in that category). These rankings can be misleading however, as they don't adjust for number of games played.

Total baserunners is estimated by taking PA * OBP. That's compared to the number of runs scored for an offensive efficiency rating.

For Rice, we have 190 runs generated from 469 baserunners (1260 PA * our 0.373 OBP). This turns out to rank #89 nationally. Ranking all 295 D1 teams (I ignored the 6 reclassifying ones) shows a fairly normal distribution.

Rice is on the right half, roughly 1/2 of a standard deviation above the mean.

Anticipating Walt's objection that he only cares to compare Rice to the elite teams, not all of D1, I pulled out just the 30 teams currently ranked by the writers.

Rice is smack in the middle, and we've lost our bell curve. This implies to me that this measure of offensive efficiency is at best weakly correlated to on-field success. Note that six of the Top 30 teams actually fall below the overall D1 mean in this measure. The original author, in the link above, found a correlation of 0.586 to winning percentage for this stat in MLB, which is all well and good, but it doesn't seem to hold as well for the college game.

For those interested, the top 10 in offensive efficiency:

Others of note:
14 A&M
34 TSU
58 TCU
79 UH
97 Lamar
175 UT
219 Stanford

That is great research, and interesting. I would say this: we might well be 3rd in hits, but we walk at a low rate; we do not hit for power that well; and our SB success rate leaves us at about the same place as if we never attempted to steal at all. Put those 3 collateral elements together and you get a runs converted number that would not look so good, if only comparing it to hits.

Great post, Noodle, and thanks for taking the time to do the research. Yes, that's how I would define "efficiency", with the only additional caveat being a team's OBP. We are getting free passes at what I believe is a significantly lower rate than previous years....and, obviously, the more walks and HBPs one gets, the more runs one is likely to score with a similar number of hits. We are amongst the leaders in hits per game this year, but our ranking in walks/game has gone down decisively.

(04-02-2015 04:31 PM)owlsfan Wrote:  That is great research, and interesting. I would say this: we might well be 3rd in hits, but we walk at a low rate; we do not hit for power that well; and our SB success rate leaves us at about the same place as if we never attempted to steal at all. Put those 3 collateral elements together and you get a runs converted number that would not look so good, if only comparing it to hits.

Beat me to it by a nano second! We had the exact same response. Hits are up, but we're hitting with less power than last year, our frequency of walks is down, we don't steal bases, and have made numerous baserunning blunders. All that factors into our efficiency issue.

Total OBP, we're #70, slotted between Georgia Tech & Louisville.
BB, we're tied for #118 with several teams, and one ahead of LSU, Sam, and ECU. (not adjusted for games played)

Here are some stats for Rice for 2015 to date and full years 2010 to 2014. Note that 2011 was the first year for the new (dead) bbcor bats. Thus, 2010 was the last year for the old bats.

Our runs scored are up by 0.6/game over last year compared to 0.3/game for all of D1. Our team ERA is up by 0.8 compared to 0.25 for all of D1. Thus, after controlling for the overall change in D1, our offense looks better than last year and our pitching looks worse.

Our unearned runs/game is almost twice what it was last year. Our defense is killing us.

Looking at our on base percentage and runs/game, our scoring efficiency for 2015 seems to be at a five year high.

Offense:

Year avg slg% ob% runs/game
2015 0.309 0.395 0.374 6.1
2014 0.293 0.385 0.363 5.5
2013 0.279 0.372 0.369 5.2
2012 0.281 0.395 0.379 5.6
2011 0.286 0.377 0.387 5.9
2010 0.326 0.53 0.417 9.0

Pitching/Defense:

Year ERA Unearned runs/game
2015 3.33 1.16
2014 2.56 0.53
2013 2.83 0.66
2012 2.85 0.45
2011 3.18 0.94
2010 4.30 0.78

(04-02-2015 05:44 PM)temchugh Wrote:  Here are some stats for Rice for 2015 to date and full years 2010 to 2014. Note that 2011 was the first year for the new (dead) bbcor bats. Thus, 2010 was the last year for the old bats.

Our runs scored are up by 0.6/game over last year compared to 0.3/game for all of D1. Our team ERA is up by 0.8 compared to 0.25 for all of D1. Thus, after controlling for the overall change in D1, our offense looks better than last year and our pitching looks worse.

Our unearned runs/game is almost twice what it was last year. Our defense is killing us.

Looking at our on base percentage and runs/game, our scoring efficiency for 2015 seems to be at a five year high.

Offense:

Year avg slg% ob% runs/game
2015 0.309 0.395 0.374 6.1
2014 0.293 0.385 0.363 5.5
2013 0.279 0.372 0.369 5.2
2012 0.281 0.395 0.379 5.6
2011 0.286 0.377 0.387 5.9
2010 0.326 0.53 0.417 9.0

Pitching/Defense:

Year ERA Unearned runs/game
2015 3.33 1.16
2014 2.56 0.53
2013 2.83 0.66
2012 2.85 0.45
2011 3.18 0.94
2010 4.30 0.78

Scoring efficiency is not measured by runs scored per game. Most would define offensive efficiency by runs scored per hit, and we are lagging in that regard. As for OBP, we are slightly higher than the past 2 years, but have yet to play the full season, including the post-season. If I recall correctly, our OBP at this point last year was right around .400.

(04-02-2015 05:50 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Scoring efficiency is not measured by runs scored per game. Most would define offensive efficiency by runs scored per hit, and we are lagging in that regard. As for OBP, we are slightly higher than the past 2 years, but have yet to play the full season, including the post-season. If I recall correctly, our OBP at this point last year was right around .400.

Exactly. If runs scored per game goes up and OBP does not change much, then scoring efficiency has increased. Looking at those two stats, our scoring efficiency is at a multi-year high.

So scoring efficiency is sort of like the bathing suit part of the beauty contest? I thought the scoring of runs and the giving up of runs were the two most direct components of winning and losing.

(BTW, thanks for the stats Noodle.)

(04-02-2015 06:05 PM)temchugh Wrote:  

(04-02-2015 05:50 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Scoring efficiency is not measured by runs scored per game. Most would define offensive efficiency by runs scored per hit, and we are lagging in that regard. As for OBP, we are slightly higher than the past 2 years, but have yet to play the full season, including the post-season. If I recall correctly, our OBP at this point last year was right around .400.

Exactly. If runs scored per game goes up and OBP does not change much, then scoring efficiency has increased. Looking at those two stats, our scoring efficiency is at a multi-year high.

Our OBP is up ever so slightly, but only because we're getting more hits. Our runs per hit average, I would bet, is down significantly from last year.

(04-02-2015 07:59 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(04-02-2015 06:05 PM)temchugh Wrote:  

(04-02-2015 05:50 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Scoring efficiency is not measured by runs scored per game. Most would define offensive efficiency by runs scored per hit, and we are lagging in that regard. As for OBP, we are slightly higher than the past 2 years, but have yet to play the full season, including the post-season. If I recall correctly, our OBP at this point last year was right around .400.

Exactly. If runs scored per game goes up and OBP does not change much, then scoring efficiency has increased. Looking at those two stats, our scoring efficiency is at a multi-year high.

Our OBP is up ever so slightly, but only because we're getting more hits. Our runs per hit average, I would bet, is down significantly from last year.

I must have misunderstood you in Post #3 of this thread. I thought you were agreeing that runs as a function of OBP was a better measure of efficiency than runs per hit average.

Last year we had 344 runs on 631 hits (0.545). This year, we have 190 runs on 341 hits (0.557). Even by runs per hit average, we are more efficient so far this year.

On the efficiency metric I used above, we were 0.377 last year - significantly worse. If I find some time this weekend in amongst all the church services, I'll see if I can run the numbers for all of D1 for last year to see how the new ball is affecting the stat.

So our offense has improved by 0.6 runs per game (from 5.5 to 6.1) due either to an increasing in hitting or an increase in scoring efficiency, depending on your preferred narrative.

On the flip side, we are allowing an extra 1.4 runs per game (from 3.1 to 4.5). This increase in runs allowed breaks down into an extra 0.8 earned runs per game and an extra 0.6 unearned runs.

(04-03-2015 07:05 AM)temchugh Wrote:  So our offense has improved by 0.6 runs per game (from 5.5 to 6.1) due either to an increasing in hitting or an increase in scoring efficiency, depending on your preferred narrative.

On the flip side, we are allowing an extra 1.4 runs per game (from 3.1 to 4.5). This increase in runs allowed breaks down into an extra 0.8 earned runs per game and an extra 0.6 unearned runs.

I'd venture to bet a good chunk of that 0.8 increase in earned runs per game is due to the substantial recent spike in both BBs and wild pitches. Keep in mind, our staff ERA jumped almost exactly one run per game over the last 4 weeks; whereas our BAA rose only slightly.

(04-03-2015 07:22 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 07:05 AM)temchugh Wrote:  So our offense has improved by 0.6 runs per game (from 5.5 to 6.1) due either to an increasing in hitting or an increase in scoring efficiency, depending on your preferred narrative.

On the flip side, we are allowing an extra 1.4 runs per game (from 3.1 to 4.5). This increase in runs allowed breaks down into an extra 0.8 earned runs per game and an extra 0.6 unearned runs.

I'd venture to bet a good chunk of that 0.8 increase in earned runs per game is due to the substantial recent spike in both BBs and wild pitches. Keep in mind, our staff ERA jumped almost exactly one run per game over the last 4 weeks; whereas our BAA rose only slightly.

But in previous posts on this thread you said that our walks are way down this year, and attributed the higher OBP to getting more hits.

Just accept that the statistics do not support your subjective impression of the offense. Your opinion is not fact.

(04-03-2015 08:19 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 07:22 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 07:05 AM)temchugh Wrote:  So our offense has improved by 0.6 runs per game (from 5.5 to 6.1) due either to an increasing in hitting or an increase in scoring efficiency, depending on your preferred narrative.

On the flip side, we are allowing an extra 1.4 runs per game (from 3.1 to 4.5). This increase in runs allowed breaks down into an extra 0.8 earned runs per game and an extra 0.6 unearned runs.

I'd venture to bet a good chunk of that 0.8 increase in earned runs per game is due to the substantial recent spike in both BBs and wild pitches. Keep in mind, our staff ERA jumped almost exactly one run per game over the last 4 weeks; whereas our BAA rose only slightly.

But in previous posts on this thread you said that our walks are way down this year, and attributed the higher OBP to getting more hits.

Just accept that the statistics do not support your subjective impression of the offense. Your opinion is not fact.

??? The above post refers to our pitching staff; not our offense. You might just once try reading my post before attacking it.