We've heard about how inconsistent the Yankee offense is, but is it true? They went from scoring 15 runs against one of the best pitchers in baseball to scoring seven runs in three games against the god-awful Nationals.
Using Standard Deviation, I studied the offensive consistency of AL teams. The lower the STDEV, the more consistent the scoring is.
Through Sunday, June 21 -
From most consistent to least consistent
M's: 2.63
A's: 2.66
Angels: 2.82
Royals: 2.88
O's: 2.93
Yankees: 3.14
Red Sox: 3.20
Rangers: 3.24
White Sox: 3.35
Jays: 3.43
Tigers: 3.49
Rays: 3.68
Twins: 3.70
Indians: 3.74
As you can see, the better offensive teams are grouped toward the bottom, but does this correlate with actual runs scored?
Overall runs/game:
1. Rays (5.59)
Yanks
Red Sox
Indians
Jays
Angels
7. Rangers (4.91)
Tigers
Twins
O's
A's
White Sox
Royals
14. M's (3.78)
So while Seattle has the most consistent offense, it doesn't help them score. Conversely, Cleveland has the least consistent, yet one of the highest-scoring offenses.
Unfortunately, Standard Deviation doesn't tell the whole story. Because while Seattle or Chicago score consistently, it's often low (usually 1-5 runs), whereas teams like Cleveland or Tampa also have those stretches, but then they'll put up nine, 11, 15, even 22 on occasion, which throws their consistency off; but those high-run games are (needless to say) more valuable than low-run games.
What might be more helpful is scoring 5-6 runs consistently rather than 2 one day and 10 the next.
Stay tuned for Part II in the coming days.
(Couldn't be done without BRef and MS Excel)