PBR - Wheels and Tom McCarthy were discussing the Mets during tonight's telecast and how they have been successful this season despite average pitching and horrible defense.
I've been talking with several statisticians over the past few weeks regarding a project I'm doing and we've been discussing what statistics best correlate to wins. Of the dozens of statistics in baseball, the consensus appears to be OPS, WHIP and Run Differential.
If we look at where the Mets compare in all three of these categories to the NL average, we see why they are perched second in the NL East.
- NL average OPS: .718 | Mets OPS: .725 (8 of 16)
- NL average WHIP: 1.32 | Mets WHIP: 1.28 (7 of 16)
- NL average RD: -6.75 | Mets RD: 27 (4 of 16)
I won't bore you with the regression analysis and everything else, but taking the standard deviations of where a team ranks in OPS, WHIP and RD has a 92% correlation rate to Winning Percentage.
Also, on a different note, I believe Wheels said the Mets starters have been horrible this season, but their xFIP ranks second in the NL at 3.57 and their ERA is tied for third at 3.42.
The more you know ...
