Baseball is chock full of debatable topics. Arguments go back and forth over who was the best hitter of all time, the best left handed pitcher or whether steroids made baseball better. The list of questions could potentially go on and on forever. For today, let's talk about pitchers. More specificially, does a pitcher gain or lose an advantage moving from the National League to the American League?
AL vs. NL
The Designated Hitter [DH] makes general managers in each league build their teams differently. The American League is built for power with a few fielders on the bench. In the National League, teams stock up on utility players so they can pinch hit for pitchers late in the game. In the AL, pitchers are tasked with having to pitch against nine pure hitters; whereas in the NL, pitchers have a tentative break once every nine batters as they face the opposing pitcher. The style of play is also a factor in pitching.
When a a pitcher goes from the NL to AL, they will have higher numbers across the board with ERA being highest. Batters in the AL will be more aggressive than what that pitcher faced in the NL. Small ball is essentially non-existent in the AL. Bunts are few and far between and so are sacrifice hits. Let's take a look at Josh Beckett's last season with the Florida Marlins (2005) against his first season with the Red Sox (2006). The numbers, in this example, don't lie.
- 2005 ERA: 3.38 Runs: 75 HR: 14 WHIP: 1.181
- 2006 ERA: 5.01 Runs: 120 HR: 36 WHIP: 1.295
Those numbers are just a sample of what may happen. There are a number of reasons for the big jump in numbers, but facing a gauntlet of aggressive hitters is an important part. Baseball Reference lists the average numbers of Beckett's 5 years of pitching in the National League and his 4 years, so far, of pitching in the American League.
- NL (5 yrs) ERA: 3.46 Runs: 266 HR: 55 WHIP: 1.235
- AL (4 yrs) ERA: 4.11 Runs: 314 HR: 77 WHIP: 1.226
It's a small sample size but the numbers show that Josh Beckett pitched better when he was in the National League. Beckett did win a World Series in both leagues, as well as having just about equal time in both leagues. Was he a better pitcher in the NL, or is the AL just that much tougher for pitchers?
This topic will be constantly debated but I'm sticking to the side that a pitcher's numbers will increase when they switch from the NL to the AL. That's not to say that a pitcher won't be able to help the team because that's also up to the team's offense, but there will be a change aside from the adjustment to seeing unknown hitters.
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What about his Wins during the WC years in each league?
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What about them? I only used his last year in NL and first year in AL as a reference and then the average of his time in each league. They years he won World Series are essentially irrelevant to me since I’m not taking the team’s performance as a whole into account. Only for the numbers he is directly responsible for. (i.e. HR, ERA, WHIP)
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I wasn’t disagreeing with you, just wondering if you had those stats. I am interested Wins, as they help out a lot. We all know that the AL games are high in tuns because of the extra hitters, so the stats are norm, but how does he rank in Wins. I guess I can search it too.
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Jim, he was 9-8 in 2003 when the Marlins won the World Series and 2-2 in that postseason. In 2007 he was 20-7 (2nd in Cy Young voting) and 4-0 in that postseason. What I think happened in his second season with the Red Sox is that adjustement period with hitters in the league so he was able to completely dominate.
This is in no way an exact science, and with only one reference hard to quantify but the way the teams are put together in the league I will say that in the year that a pitcher comes from the NL to the AL their numbers will increase. I’m not saying it’s a permanent thing, just one of those funky adjustment things.
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The only issue I have with your argument Matt is that it relies on his stats, which will be worse in the AL vs. the NL (as you said).
But that doesn’t make him a worse pitcher, just that he’s in tougher conditions. How do his wins per year break down between AL vs. NL? That’s the most important stat in my book.
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But wins are also determined by how the team plays. The question layed out was whether the pitcher perfoms better or worse. In this case his number sincreased from the NL to AL. A pitcher in the AL can only influence so much for a win, not allowing hits by way of strikeout, causing pop flys, groundballls etc. The latter two are helped out by his fielders but if they make a mistake and an error occur then that is not on the stats of the pitcher, which is why I didn’t include unearned runs.
Wins are influenced by too many factors to include, in my opinion, whether a pitcher does better from NL to AL. He could go from a last place team in the NL to a first place team in the AL have far worse stats but still have a higher winning percentage based soley on the fact that the team he’s on is better. That I feel isn’t the argument, but wins are still essential to a pitcher’s numbers.
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*EDIT* I meant value in that last sentence.
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Right, but are his stats really a good indication of performance? If the best pitcher in the NL moves to the AL and remains the best pitcher in the AL (based on ERA, runs, HR, WHIP), but his stats significantly get worse, does that really mean he performed worse?
I think it’s more a reflection on the AL being tougher for pitchers than the NL, rather than a true drop in performance. They’re the same pitcher, performing at the same level, but against tougher competition, which causes their stats to drop.
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I think it is a good indication. But like I said in an above comment, Beckett performed amazing in his 2nd year in the AL and I feel that might be attributed to familiarization of the hitters in the league. He adjusted to the style of the AL lineups.
I’m not saying they stay consistently bad but there is a noticeable increase in certain statistical categories the first year of the switch.
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good post Matt. I agree with you.. Wins are very, very overrated in my book, not useless but overatted, due to team performance, run support etc…. I go by ERA, IP, H, more than anything when I study a starting pitcher. Whenever the Sox talk about acquring a pitcher from the NL, I always tack on another .50-.75 to their ERA.. mostly because they’re facing a tough DH opposed to a weak pitcher hitting.
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Right and that was the main point. It’s obvious that an ERA will increase due to the extra hitter and design of the team, power vs. finesse or high on base guys, aggressive hitting startegy vs. moving runners along/sacrificing and so on but the other numbers that a pitcher directly controls should be maintained in but aren’t. (and could be due to numerous misc. reasons)
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Yeah, using wins to study individual pitchers is difficult, but at the end of the day only wins matter. If a pitcher throws up a 10.0 ERA but goes 30-0 for the season, can we really say he had a poor season?
What’s the impact of the pitcher’s personality on encouraging hitters to hit for him?
There are tendencies for some pitchers to get more run support than others and don’t think it can all be attributed to random chance…
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It’s not random chance and if a pitcher is giving up that many runs he probably wouldn’t last long enough in a game to qualify for a win. Also, if said pitcher is doing all that and getting wins then his offense is amazing! Wins are nice but are ultimately a product of the offense as well as with the pitching.
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It’s ok, I knew what you meant. Post was dead on.. Adam is still dreaming of those Carribean dancers from Dot Day. Takes a couple, three days for the head to clear! ha…
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Those Caribbean dancers were quite fascinating…
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I see what you’re saying Matt, but I feel like switching leagues could actually help a pitcher regardless of which league they switch to and from.
The wheels are turning Matt, the wheels are turning, expect a rebuttal soon.
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Help how? What numbers do you want to use to quantify a pitcher? Wins? Depends too much on your team (as previously stated). I feel, and I believe I’ve mentioned it already, that to fully see how the different leagues affect a pitcher you should only look at the stats that he directly controls.
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I’ll keep you on your toes, you’ll see.
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The master of mystery strikes again. Now that you’ve hyped yourself you better deliver Josh.
Welcome to the pressure zone.
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What a great topic. I think the best baseball minds have gathered and they couldn’t figure this one out.
A little to the side: When I was playing fantasy baseball, I have played for 10 years straight until I moved to Costa Rica, I would start my pitchers based on what their pitch type was and the ability of the batters to hit those pitches.
Maybe this is more about hitting pitches rather than throwing them and we should focus on the batters in the AL compared to the NL..
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