Today is Christmas Eve, a holiday that inspires visions of impending gifts.
I’ve decided — in what you might call a tenuous way — to get in the spirit by tallying up the gifts that each big-league club gave its opponents over the recent season. (Hey, I said the connection was tenuous.)
It seems to me that there are a couple of ways to measure each team’s generosity:
Add up the statistics that could be considered pure gifts to the other side.
Figure out how many unearned runs the club allowed.
We could quibble about the first definition. I’m choosing to identify five actions as gifts from one team to another — errors, balks, hit batters, passed balls, and wild pitches. These events allow opposing players, through no skill of their own, either to reach base or to advance on the basepaths.
You might argue for additions to my list — strikeouts by a team’s own batters, perhaps, or walks given to the other club. But there’s a sense of competition to both of these outcomes. The batter, after all, is trying to get a hit, while the pitcher is trying to register an out.
My five gifts, on the other hand, are unexpected bonuses for the opposition, bonuses it has done nothing to earn.
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The Miami Marlins were paragons of generosity under my first definition. They committed 122 errors in the field — easily the most by any club in 2021 — while their catchers were charged with 28 passed balls (also the most), and their pitchers hit 88 batters, threw 58 wild pitches, and committed two balks.
The grand total for the Marlins was 298 gifts, which exceeded the sum for the runner-up Boston Red Sox by 29. At the opposite end of the scale were the San Francisco Giants with precisely 200 gifts. Here’s the full rundown, ranked from top to bottom in generosity (which is the same as worst to best in impact):
1. Miami Marlins, 298 gifts
2. Boston Red Sox, 269
3. Detroit Tigers, 266
4. New York Yankees, 261
5. Chicago Cubs, 259
6. Chicago White Sox, 256
7. Baltimore Orioles, 250
7. Milwaukee Brewers, 250
9. Los Angeles Angels, 249
10. St. Louis Cardinals, 246
11. Kansas City Royals, 245
12. Arizona Diamondbacks, 240
13. San Diego Padres, 239
14. Atlanta Braves, 237
15. Cincinnati Reds, 235
16. Philadelphia Phillies, 234
17. Minnesota Twins, 233
18. New York Mets, 231
19. Toronto Blue Jays, 229
20. Houston Astros, 228
21. Los Angeles Dodgers, 225
22. Seattle Mariners, 221
23. Colorado Rockies, 220
24. Tampa Bay Rays, 219
25. Texas Rangers, 218
26. Cleveland Indians, 216
26. Washington Nationals, 216
28. Pittsburgh Pirates, 210
29. Oakland Athletics, 207
30. San Francisco Giants, 200
The second definition of “gift” involves a simple measure of runs that were deemed to be unearned. You’re well familiar with ERA — earned-run average. Well, this category is based on URA — unearned-run average.
The Arizona Diamondbacks, for example, gave up 893 earned runs, 804 of which were classified as earned. That leaves 89 unearned runs, the most surrendered by any big-league club in 2021. The resulting URA for Arizona was 0.57, the number of unearned runs it handed its opponents every nine innings. The Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals were the stingiest clubs with matching URAs of 0.29.
Here are the full standings:
1. Arizona Diamondbacks, 0.57 URA
2. Miami Marlins, 0.50
2. Washington Nationals, 0.50
4. Boston Red Sox, 0.49
5. Detroit Tigers, 0.48
6. Chicago Cubs, 0.47
7. Los Angeles Dodgers, 0.46
7. Minnesota Twins, 0.46
7. New York Mets, 0.46
7. New York Yankees, 0.46
11. San Francisco Giants, 0.43
12. Milwaukee Brewers, 0.41
13. Los Angeles Angels, 0.40
14. Seattle Mariners, 0.37
15. Cincinnati Reds, 0.36
15. Kansas City Royals, 0.36
15. San Diego Padres, 0.36
15. Tampa Bay Rays, 0.36
15. Texas Rangers, 0.36
20. Chicago White Sox, 0.35
21. Houston Astros, 0.34
21. Philadelphia Phillies, 0.34
21. Toronto Blue Jays, 0.34
24. Atlanta Braves, 0.31
24. Cleveland Indians, 0.31
24. Colorado Rockies, 0.31
27. Baltimore Orioles, 0.30
27. Oakland Athletics, 0.30
29. Pittsburgh Pirates, 0.29
29. St. Louis Cardinals, 0.29
I began with the assumption that gifts would correlate strongly with winning percentages. If a club was stingy on the field, it would be ideally suited for championship contention. Or so I thought.
The reality is that neither definition fits the expectation very well. Oh, it’s generally true that a club allowing fewer gifts is likely to finish with a better record than a team making more mistakes. But the difference isn’t particularly large.
Here’s how the first category breaks down, reflecting the sums for all five stats that I selected. The 10 clubs giving the most gifts averaged 80.6 victories in 2021, while the 10 franchises handing out the fewest had 82.9 wins.
The gap was similar for the second category, based on URAs. The 10 teams surrendering the most unearned runs averaged 77.2 victories, while the 10 clubs giving the fewest had 79.9 wins.
So what?
Well, it’s something, I guess, but admittedly not very much. Just let me say Merry Christmas, and let’s leave it at that.