Now that James Shields has finally signed, the off-season is winding down and Spring Training is right around the corner. With the daily news updates slowing down there is not quite as much to write about. This has caused me to try to figure out different types of things to write about and that need combined with my baseball nerdiness has led me to this topic: which teams had the best offensive pitchers and how big is the difference between the best and worst teams?

The Value of Pitchers who Hit Well

For the sake of this article and equal sample sizes I am only looking at the offensive ability of National League pitchers. There are several different ways to evaluate offensive ability but the easiest way of looking at would be to compare wOBAs. wOBA is commonly used in computing wRAA compared to league average for all players. The equation for this is:

wRAA=(wOBA-leaguewOBA/wOBA scale)*PA

So in order to compare the offensive ability of pitchers I replaced league wOBA with the average wOBA for all pitchers. I then used the same equation and calculated wRAA compared to the average pitcher for each team.

Team wRAA Dodgers 15 Cubs 12 Cardinals 9 Rockies 4 Reds 4 Giants 3 Phillies 3 Padres 1 Nationals 0 Diamondbacks -3 Marlins -4 Pirates -6 Braves -7 Mets -9 Brewers -9

As it can be seen by looking at the chart the Dodgers and Cubs are considerably better than every other team offensively, with the Mets and Brewers bringing up the rear. The Dodgers’ staff featured three players in the top 15 of wOBA among pitchers with more than 30 PAs. Comparing these staffs to everyday MLB players the Dodgers hit like Adam Jones (15.8 wRAA) and the Cubs hit like Adam Eaton (12.4). Conversely the Mets and Brewers’ pitchers in 2014 were as bad as Chris Johnson (-9.9).

Looking at the best individual hitting pitchers showed some very interesting things. Madison Bumgarner was incredile in 2014. He had a wOBA of .329 which actually translated to a wRC+ of 115 meaning he was better than average hitter in 2014. His wRC+ number of 115 was actually equal to that of Howie Kendrick’s. The next two best hitting pitchers were Travis Wood who was slightly below the average MLB hitter (93 wRC+) and then Zach Greinke behind him. Bumgarner’s season gave him the sixth highest single season wRC+ for pitchers since 2010 and in that span he is only one of ten pitchers to ever rank above 100. Greinke actually did it in 2013, his wRC+ was 132 good for third best all-time. After those three there was a significant drop off, and Jordan Lyles was third best followed by Mike Leake. Below is the complete top ten of all pitchers with more that 30 plate appearances with the wRAA calculation compared to pitchers.

Player Team wRAA Madison Bumgarner Giants 11 Travis Wood Cubs 9 Zack Greinke Dodgers 7 Jordan Lyles Rockies 4 Mike Leake Reds 5 Shelby Miller Cardinals 4 Jake Arrieta Cubs 3 Jacob deGrom Mets 3 Clayton Kershaw Dodgers 4 Gerrit Cole Pirates 2

As it can be seen the top three are much better than the rest of the league offensively and shows on another level how good Bumgarner was. Both the Cubs and Dodgers, the two top overall teams, have two players each in the top 10 showing why those teams were so good in 2014.

In the grand scheme of things, over the course of the season the additional offensive capabilities of pitchers doesn’t seem to really make a huge difference. wRAA is used to calculate WAR for position players. Although there are slight adjustments made to compensate for the league and home park for players the numbers in the chart are extremely similar to what they would be we were readjust and calculate the WAR based off the pitcher wOBA. So in essence the Dodgers pitchers are about one and half wins better (between 9 and 10 runs is a “win”) than the average pitcher offensively. It may not seem like a big deal but those two wins could end up being the difference between making or missing the playoffs.

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