The Relationship Between Hitting and Pitching Points in Ottoneu

Generally, you set out on a journey, not figuring out the vacation spot and also you wind up, properly…nowhere. I feel which may be what occurred to me this week, however because the saying goes, “It’s the journey, not the vacation spot,” so perhaps there are some fascinating nuggets to be gleaned from this considerably aimless wandering.

I got down to see if there had been any change within the relationship between hitting and pitching factors in Ottoneu FanGraphs Factors during the last 15 years. We all know offense is down in baseball in the mean time and I used to be curious if there was an identical pattern in Ottoneu factors scoring that might affect roster-building methods.

To do that, I pulled MLB-wide hitting and pitching information from 2010-2024. I used that to calculate complete hitting factors, complete pitching factors, complete factors, hitting factors per sport (P/G), and pitching factors per inning pitched (P/IP) for every season. It’s price conserving in thoughts that that is for all sport motion over the course of every common season. Sure, which means there are each pitchers and hitters included on this information that might by no means see a fantasy roster, not to mention a fantasy lineup. Sure, it’s potential that that is due to this fact hiding a pattern (maybe hitting factors have change into extra concentrated in the perfect hitters, whereas pitching factors have change into extra dispersed), however that must be a separate journey.

The very first thing to notice is that complete factors don’t transfer that a lot. The imply complete factors obtainable throughout MLB since 2010 (excluding 2020, for apparent causes), is 389,170, whereas the median is 389,421. The minimal is 383,979 complete factors in 2021, whereas the max is 393,964 in 2019, a variety of simply 9,985 factors, or 2.6% of the imply.

In contrast, here’s a desk exhibiting that very same information, however together with hitting and pitching factors:

So whereas complete factors haven’t moved a ton, hitting and pitching factors have (comparatively) moved fairly a bit. This is smart as Ottoneu FanGraphs Factors scoring is one thing of a zero sum sport. For example, a batter hitting a HR will get 5.6 factors for getting successful, 9.4 factors for that hit being a HR and loses 1 level for his AB, leaving him with a acquire of 14 factors. The pitcher who gave up that HR loses 2.6 factors for giving up successful and 12.3 extra for that hit being a HR for a complete of -14.9 factors. When a hitter will get out, that AB is a -1 and the pitcher will get 2.8 for the 0.1 IP. So it’s not EXACTLY a zero sum sport, however it’s shut.

Will increase in strikeouts will assist pitching with out hurting hitting. Pitchers get 2.8 for every 0.1 IP and a couple of.0 for every Ok, whereas hitters get simply -1 for every AB. All else equal, extra strikeouts will result in extra complete factors. Extra HR will truly result in fewer complete factors, because the pitchers giving up the HR lose greater than the hitters acquire for hitting them. Non-HR XBH will result in extra complete factors, since hitters get credit score for 2B and 3B, however pitchers don’t lose credit score for them.

However, basically, something that helps the hitters hurts the pitchers and vice versa, so complete factors throughout the league don’t fluctuate a lot.

And in the event you have a look at hitting vs. pitching factors through the years, you get a graph that appears like this:

Notice: there isn’t a information level for 2020 in right here, so whereas the strains cross 2022 slightly below 210,000 hitting and simply over 180,000 pitching factors, you may ignore that.

The strains aren’t completely negatively correlated, however it’s shut. When one goes up, the opposite comes down.

This was the graph I got down to view after I began on my journey. My speculation was that as pitching turns into extra dominant in MLB, we’d see a pattern in the direction of pitching factors being increased and hitting factors being decrease. And you’ll type of see that, however not precisely.

Each hitting and pitching have bounced round and neither line has a transparent upward or downward pattern since 2010. Nonetheless, pitching has been increased than hitting in solely 5 of the 14 season (2013-15, 2022, and 2024) and two of these years are latest – 2022 and 2024. However even that isn’t distinctive – the final time pitching surpassed hitting, it stayed up for 3 straight seasons.

As a substitute, it seems to be like we’ve three “eras” of Ottoneu factors: (1) 2010-2015, neither hitting nor pitching had been dominant, with every having up and down years. (2) 2016-2021, when offense was king. (3) 2022-2024, which seems to be a return to that first period.

If there’s a lesson right here (and I’m not positive there’s), it’s that neither offense nor pitching are king, no less than league-wide. Apparently, yesterday Lucas Kelly shared a graph exhibiting that higher-finishing groups have increased P/G relative to their P/IP than lower-finishing groups. This means you’re higher off optimizing for P/G than P/IP, which tracks logically because you get 1,944 video games performed however simply 1,500 IP to make use of to attempt to rating factors.

Keep in mind after I mentioned initially that some journeys lead nowhere? Yeah, right here we’re. I do assume we noticed some fascinating websites alongside the way in which. And perhaps, simply perhaps, the actual vacation spot was the chums we made alongside the way in which.