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.

Blog Status

At the last awards dinner, JZ affectionately described our league as being our version of little league; A chance to relive that great part of our childhood. Personally, I’d take it even a step further and say it feels like our version of being in the Major Leagues. In Little League we never had the leaderboard posted or had pre-season predictions. We never had MVPs and Cy Young Award winners or Rookie and Manager of the Years. In Little League we never kept stats so carefully that it enabled us to keep some kind of formal history of the league and its players.  These are all things we associate with professional baseball and these are all reasons why this league is so awesome.

This is also why I started the blog. In keeping the tradition of this feeling like our version of the Major Leagues, I wanted to create a forum where the league could get discussed, just how you can check the Star Ledger the day after a big game and read a columnist give his angle on what happened. If the game summaries represented the next day’s box score, I wanted to represent the next day’s Mike Lupica. Is that taking the league too seriously? Probably. But that was part of the fun. The day the blog turned into something not fun is the day it feels right to end it.

Before the season started, I wasn’t sure whether to continue doing it anyway. That’s why the pre-season rankings were done at the last minute. At this point I’ll update the blog occasionally if something strikes me as interesting. I love the passion of the league, and I can’t wait to see everyone on the field and at Wednesday Night games.

Thank you for reading.

2014 Pre-Season Power Rankings/Predictions

Pre-Season Power Rankings:

 Here are the pre-season power rankings along with some comments. Projected records are in parenthesis.

1.       Feldman (16-6)

Last year’s Team Jacoby was a favorite from the beginning because of their mix of defense and offense. If any team emulates this formula this year, it’s Team Feldman (This is the case even while Jacoby almost had the same exact the draft, but more on this later on). Want defense? They’ve got the Feldman sons in the OF, the perennially great Gluck, and the“sleeper of the draft” Mark Stewart at third. Then there’s wild card Glen Roland who should be back to his gold glove status at some point during the year. Want offense? They have Lazzaro (one of the 2-3 best hitters in the league), Gluck, who batted .624 in a resurgent year, and the consistently great Roland.  Performance wise, Phil Lipomi could be the steal of the draft and the perfect complement for a captain looking to make the final four for the first time since 2006.

2.       Carlin (15-7)

The only question mark is how many games will Jesse/Scott miss? No matter what the answer is, they will be around for the playoffs. Getting Jesse this late in the second round is a steal, not the only first round talent OF to go later than he should.

3.       Lapine (14-8)

Otherwise known as the team with all those rookies. While first year players often need some time to adjust to the league, this looks like the team with the biggest upside in the league. As we saw with Lapine’s 2010’s rookie fueled team (Polzer and Pat Brock),  the strategy can pay huge dividends.

4.       Applebaum (13-9)

The JZ-Herm- Glazier trio has me slightly nostalgic for 2011. With the new strike zone being the x-factor this year, Herm is a likely candidate for “pitcher most likely to succeed” with the new adjustment. With plenty of offense, the only question will be whether or not the defense can hold its ground over the course of the whole season.

5.       Pollock (12-10)

Don’t get me wrong, there are some huge question marks surrounding our team. Will Matt be able to be an effective pitcher in a year where pitching experience seems to be essential? Will our defense be able to keep us in games where our offense isn’t clicking? Will all these families get along? Obviously I might be just a little bit biased, but I think the answer to all these questions will be YES. Besides, our offense is clearly the key ingredient four our future success. The Jared/Ari 1-2 punch is the best in the league (sorry Brad/Jesse). In addition we have Jordan Krant who is coming off two seasons where he batted over .600(!) and .500 and perennial on base machine, Don Mesmer. If my brother and I can rebound from subpar/injury plagued 2013 seasons then we should be the top contender for best offense in the league. As one of my future posts will show, offense has proven to win championships more than defense has.

6.       Mamone (12-10)- A nice mix of offense and defense. If you’re looking for this year’s version of 2013’s Team Jacoby, this could be it.

7.       Goldfarb (12-10)- Solid from top to bottom. Martinez should quickly establish himself as a top player, and this is one of the better offenses in the league.

8.       Jacoby (11-11)- Of course this year’s version of 2013’s Team Jacoby should on paper be 2014’s Team Jacoby.  Surely a team that so closely resembles the top team from last year should be pre-season favorites this year. But there are two glaring differences that most likely will be enough to bring them down to Earth:

1.       With no disrespect to Dave Polzer, who is one of the best hitters in the league and worthy of being a second round pick, he is not the same pitcher as Dave Clampffer. Almost nobody is. Clamp has always been a great pitcher, but he was downright masterful in 2013. Polzer is a good pitcher, but unless they redrafted Clampffer, they were going to experience a downgrade at the position.

2.       Polzer adequately replaces Clamp’s offense, but this team has no replacement for Schindelheim’s offense. Last year’s one knock is that the offense didn’t appear too intimidating (although they still ranked 7^th in runs scored). This year the offense will most likely go from being adequate to a detriment.

And with this being said, Jacoby’s defense should once again be amazing. It’ll be enough to keep them from being a “bad” team. It’s just that with a few key differences, a 2013 repeat is unlikely.

9.       Younger (10-12) - Wins the award for team nobody wants to go against in the playoffs. A couple of unknown quantities (Pat’s health, Comins and Brock Jr.) can easily bump them up this list by the end of the year.

10.   Beilis (10-12) - With all the attention on Lapine’s rookies, maybe Beilis’s three rookies steals the headlines and becomes the sleeper team of 2014.

11.   Randell (10-12)- If Rothschild and Messinger can have bounce back years, then this offense will be dangerous.

 

12.   Wallman (9-13) - A good defense will not be able to make up for the lack of offensive punch.

13.   Harris (9-13)- I tend to be wrong about Harris’s team year after year. Expect a 13-9 year as much as a 9-13 campaign.

14.   Granese (8-14)- A team that feels like they’re missing one more guy on offense and one more guy on defense to be decent. Drapkin will keep them in games.

15.   Marrone (8-14)- Some nice bats but a highly suspect defense.

16.   Bykofsky (8-14)- Team has a collective high Batting Average but lack of pop will be fatal flaw.