To Draft Offense or To Draft Defense? That Is The Question.

It’s a question each captain has to ask before each draft. Should their team be built around offense or defense? It seems that most captains hold the longstanding belief that defense wins championships in this league. There are also people in the league, like my brother and I, who hold an “Offense first” mentality. But what do the numbers actually show? By looking at the last four championship matchups, there are a few observations that can be made.

It’s hard to reach any conclusions based on only four years of data, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I can only go back four years because those are the only years we have the season runs totals: Here’s a breakdown of where the last four champions ranked in Runs Scored (RS) and Runs Against (RA):

                                                RS                                           RA

2013: Jacoby                       7^th                                           2^nd

2012: Harris                         8^th                                           7^th

2011: Pollock                      1^st                                           13^th

2010: Lapine                       1^st                                           10^th

The data is far from conclusive, but here’s what I take from it. While the last two champions had offenses that finished in the middle of the pack, they didn’t have offenses that were in the bottom half of the league. Our team in 2011 and Lapine’s team in 2010, however, were able to win championships despite having defenses that were considered below average.

The average runs scored ranking of the past four winners is 4.25^th while the average runs against ranking for the last four champions is 8^th. This shows that for at least the last four years, the league’s champion has been noted for their offensive prowess than its defensive abilities.

But what if you just want to get to the championship game? After all, once you make the finals, anything can happen. Here are the same rankings for teams who lost in the finals:

                                                RS                                           RA

2013: Marrone                       12^th                                         16^th

2012: Younger                        5^th                                           1^st

2011: Beilis                            13^th                                         4^th

2010: Beilis                            13^th                                         2^nd

This is where the “Defense Matters” argument gains momentum. Every year, a top 4 defensive team has made the finals. In only two years did a top 4 offensive team make it to the championship game.

Semi-Finals/Runs Scored and Runs Against Correlations:

Speaking of “top 4 offensive teams”, I decided to take a look at the top 4 and bottom 4 teams in runs scored and runs against for each of the past four seasons to see how many from each category made the semi-finals.

Teams finishing in the top four of Runs Scored have made the semi-finals 5 times over the past four seasons. Teams finishing in the top 4 for Runs Against have made the semi-finals 6 teams during that same span. By this barometer, a great defense doesn’t really play a bigger factor in making the semi-finals than a great offense(only a 6-5 margin).

Out of the teams that have ranked in the bottom four of runs scored and runs against during the past four seasons, three from each category have made the semi-finals. A bad offense isn’t going to hurt your chances of making the semi-finals any more or less than a bad defense.

Final Conclusion:

While it seems like a giant letdown to perform all this analysis to say “It doesn’t really matter”, that’s what I’m leaning towards saying. Each side of the argument has enough evidence to support his side and discount the other. For example:

Pro-Offense: There have been two seasons where the best offensive team won the championship. In the last four years, zero “Best Defensive” teams have won. Team Jacoby’s 2013 championship team is rightfully remembered for having a great defense(2^nd in runs against), but maybe it’s just as significant that they also had a better offensive season than Team Marrone. In fact there have been two cases where one team in the finals had better offensive numbers while the other team had better defensive numbers. In both those cases the team with the better offense won (2010 and 2011).

Pro- Defense: As mentioned before, there has been a “Top Four” Defense team in the finals each of the last four years. You can’t say the same about great offensive teams. In three of the last four years, a team with one of the five worst offenses has made the finals. 

The other argument not addressed yet is “It takes a balance of good offense and good defense to succeed”. These numbers pretty much disprove this theory. Out of the eight teams to make the finals over the past four years, only Team Younger in 2012 had a top 6 offense and defense. The list is peppered with teams who either had a poor offense or a poor defense. Pollock and Lapine had below defenses in 2011 and 2010. Beilis had poor offensive numbers in 2010 and 2011 but managed to make the finals.  Marrone made the finals last year despite having poor numbers in both offense and defense. 

As much as I wish there was a clear-cut conclusion so I could use the result to help draft the team (or help my brother draft the team), there isn’t. What these numbers do help show is that anybody who can confidently say either “Defense wins Championships” or “Offense wins Championships” or even “A combination of good offense and good defense wins championships” isn’t entirely correct. The one edge I would give defense is that it may be easier to predict which players will be good defensively than who will have good offensive seasons. I’ll be interested to see how the 2014 results help reshape this discussion.