Throwdowns > Completed

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  • June 07, 2008 12:10 PM ET

The best hitting team in baseball this year has been the Texas Rangers.

PhillyFan83: Bring it Brewers (73-30-11) vs T-fo is Medium Pimpin' (132-64-14)
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A lot of teams to chose from, but I took Texas for numerous reasons.

The lead the MLB in AVG, R, H, 2B, RBI, and SLG.
In the remaining categories they rank 3rd in HR and 4th in OBP. Yeah, there a bit low in steals, but in 3B they still rank 9th in the MLB. Not bad for a team without much speed in the lineup. All in all, they rank either 1st or in the top for mostly all the hitting categories.

Now to the players:

To start, they have the MVP right now, Josh Hamilton. He ranks 3rd in HR, 1st in RBI, and is a triple crown canidate for the AL.

The Rangers- AL speaking here- have the top 3 guys in runs- Kinsler, Young, and Hamilton, with Milton Bradley being 2 spots down. They have 4 guys in the top 10 in 2B- AL. They have the leader in AVG- Bradley, with Hamilton being 4th.

In the Rangers lineup, they have 5 guys batting .300 or better, and have David Murphy batting around .300 at 294. They have leaders in almost every category in the AL, and MLB speaking, they have a lot of players at the top too.

There hasn't been a better hitting team this year than the Ranger's.


OK, I'm going to accept your challenge, because it seems like you are going for the easy win here. You came across the stats that show the Rangers leading most offensive categories and throw out a TD on it. I'm not just going to call you out on this and hope for a win myself though.

I'm going to selrct the Chicago Cubs. If you pull up the team stats for the year, if Texas is #1 in stats, the Cubs are right there with them. In fact, the Cubs actually lead Texas in OBP.

There is another couple of factors at play here. For one, Texas plays in the hitters-friendly American League to begin with. Their team performance is offset by the presence of an every-day DH. That definitely boosts thje stats vs. an NL team. 2nd, and just as important, while the Cubs are 2nd in most batting categories, they are also 5th in team pitching. That means their pitching is doing a far better job in keeping runs down. If the pitching is doing that, the runs you need to score go down as well. Texas pitching on the other hand? 30th place. Dead last. Cubs give up 3.3 per game, Texas 5.1. That's a huge difference. Enough to give me a legit argument that the Cubs hitting is better.


Okay. I wasn't going for the easy win really because i knew there was 1 team that contends with texas and that was the cubs.

The Rangers though beat the Cubs in every category except SB and OBP.

Now, you talked about them playing in a hitter friendly park. Well here are their road stats:

- 4th in AVG, 2nd in R, 4th in H, 8th in HR, 1st in 2B, 2nd in RBI, 3rd in OBP, and SLG.

From the stats, it doesn't look like their hitter friendly park makes a difference as they seem to be able to hit anywhere they play. Also, their 3 rivals in the West who they play often, play in pitchers ballparks- Oakland, Seattle, and LA.

Another important stat that goes into this : RISP and RISP w/ 2 outs
Texas RISP- 2nd in the MLB with a 279 AVG. RISP w/ 2 outs- 245. Bad, but wait
Chicago RISP- 272 AVG. RISP w/2 outs- 201 AVG. Which ranks 29 in the MLB.

I don't know if that whole good pitching=less runs things plays a major factor. If your offense is good, they are gonna score runs regardless. Texas is last in ERA, but look who else is at the bottom. Colorado, Pitt, Seattle, KC, Washington. Bad pitching and yet poor hitting.
More to come.


Forfeited Turn


okay.

The Rangers hitters in position have also been better.

C- Cubs
1B- Cubs


Here's the problem. You factor Bradley in as a LF. He's a DH. So when the Cubs TEAM rankings take a minus from having a pitcher bat in games, the Rangers get to pad their stats with Bradley and his .340 avg. and 14 HR's. Take him out of the equation, and let the pitchers bat, and the scale tips toward the Cubs.

You single out individual match-ups, but the TD is a TEAM comparison. If you remove Bradley and his stats from the equation and only look at position players, suddenly the Cubs as a TEAM have BETTER numbers than the Rangers. Even if you put Bradley in his natural position of RIGHT (not left) field, the Rangers then lose the stats of Davisd Murphy, who bats .287 with 8 HR's and 40 RBI. Guess what? Cubs win again. If you truly want to compare team stats from an AL team and an NL team, you have to take the DH out of the equation. Otherwise, you are adding in the stats of an extra player - in this case an excellent batter too fragile for everyday in the field.

When you consider the numbers of position players only, the Cubs are a better hitting team.

Comments (15) Add A Comment

June 7, 2008  02:16 PM ET
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Damn I wanted this and was going to say the Cubs. Damn.

June 7, 2008  02:28 PM ET
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so gimme the vote Cass!

June 7, 2008  02:45 PM ET
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I just can't believe the Rangers are actually good at something!

Freaking pitching...

June 8, 2008  06:03 PM ET
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****

June 8, 2008  06:04 PM ET
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acidentally hit submit.. I'll finish the argument here since it isn't long

June 8, 2008  06:06 PM ET
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2B- Rangers
SS- Rangers
3B- Cubs
RF- Rangers
CF- Rangers
LF- Rangers
Bradley is factored in as the LF since the cubs have no DH.

The ballpark doesn't make a huge difference since they hit well on the road as well. The Rangers are just overall the better hitting team right now. They have a triple crown canidate, leaders in every category for the AL, and have arguably the best 1-2-3-4 hitters in the MLB at the moment.

Hard to argue anything else without a 2nd argument from him.

June 8, 2008  06:10 PM ET
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Bradley plays RF in the Outfield.

June 8, 2008  11:53 PM ET
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Hmm, tough vote, but I'm going right. Better arguments.

June 9, 2008  10:57 AM ET
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T-fo...you're back. Welcome back.

June 9, 2008  10:58 AM ET
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If stats are close with the DH but get blown away without the DH, the non-DH team wins.

June 9, 2008  12:06 PM ET
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What's up with the forfeitted turn? It's throwing me off in this one.

June 9, 2008  12:17 PM ET
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Family life called over the weekend and I failed to post yesterday afternoon. My bad.

June 9, 2008  12:18 PM ET
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Missed it too much Porkins...plus got unblocked!

June 9, 2008  08:15 PM ET
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2B- Rangers
SS- Rangers
3B- Cubs
RF- Rangers
CF- Rangers
LF- Rangers
Bradley is factored in as the LF since the cubs have no DH.

The ballpark doesn't make a huge difference since they hit well on the road as well. The Rangers are just overall the better hitting team right now. They have a triple crown canidate, leaders in every category for the AL, and have arguably the best 1-2-3-4 hitters in the MLB at the moment.

Hard to argue anything else without a 2nd argument from him.
PhillyFan83 is Cole Hamels | 06/08/08, 06:06 PM

Whoa.

Try

C- Cubs
1B- Cubs
2B- Rangers
SS- Cubs
3B- Cubs
OF- Tie

 
June 12, 2008  09:55 PM ET
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do you honestly think theriot is better than young? cmon

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