Correlation of Stats Part 1

by trademaker on May 28, 2009 11:09 PM EDT

All stats used for this fanpost are from 2008.

Each year, many teams have a huge amounted total of home runs. From the White Sox hitting 235 homers to the Giants hitting 94 homers. They are many things to factor in, such as ballparks, wind, and things of that sort. Now we will see if there is any correlation between home runs and record.

Arizona Diamondbacks - 82-80, 159HR

Atlanta Braves - 72-90, 130HR

Baltimore Orioles - 68-93, 172HR

Boston Red Sox - 95-67, 173HR

Chicago Cubs - 97-64, 184HR

Chicago White Sox - 89-74, 235HR

Cincinnati Reds - 74-88, 187HR

Cleveland Indians - 81-81, 171HR

Colorado Rockies - 74-88, 160HR

Detroit TIgers - 74-88, 200HR

Florida Marlins - 84-77, 208HR

Houston Astros - 86-75, 167HR

Kansas City Royals - 75-87, 120HR

Los Angeles Angels - 100-62, 159HR

Los Angeles Dodgers - 84-78, 137HR

Milwaukee Brewers - 90-72, 198HR

Minnesota Twins - 88-75, 111HR

New York Mets - 89-73, 172HR

New York Yankees - 89-73, 180HR

Oakland Athetics - 75-86, 125HR

Philadelphia Phillies - 92-70, 214HR

Pittsburgh Pirates - 67-95, 153HR

San Diego Padres - 63-99, 154HR

San Francisco Giants - 72-90, 94HR

Seattle Mariners - 61-101, 124HR

St. Louis Cardinals - 86-76, 174HR

Tampa Bay Rays - 97-65, 180HR

Texas Rangers - 79-83, 194HR

Toronto Blue Jays - 86-76, 126HR

Washington Nationals - 59-102, 117HR

From all the stats here, you can see that the number of home runs doesn't have anything to do with the teams record. The Sox hit 235HR while winning 89. Then the Angels hit 159HR while winning 100. The numbers here show that home runs doesn't have anything to do with winning. They just give a big show. What do you think on the correlation between home runs and record?

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For most people, they would like to see a Graph of Winning % vs HR to visualize better

and us more stat heavy nerds will definitely want to know the r-squared (stat that actually measures correlation between numbers). If you need help figuring out either of these, let me know.

by Jeff Zimmerman on May 28, 2009 11:47 PM EDT reply actions

Agreed

I’d like a graph and R-squared. At the very least, this list should have been in record order or HR order to better illustrate it

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by Zach Sanders on May 29, 2009 12:06 AM EDT up reply actions

Something like this? 2008 data

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 29, 2009 10:25 AM EDT up reply actions

Beautiful

The artist formerly known as "mlbnotebook".
MLB Notebook.com
Inside the Majors

by Zach Sanders on May 29, 2009 3:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Which program did you use to make that graph

St. Louis Cardinals... defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on May 29, 2009 4:06 PM EDT up reply actions

Excel. Whatever the last version for Mac was. Scatterplot.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 29, 2009 4:23 PM EDT up reply actions

We should do a Basics on stats in Excel/OO/Scatterplot

by Jeff Zimmerman on May 29, 2009 4:39 PM EDT up reply actions

Correlation will go up if you use net HR.

Or HR – HR_Against. Which, if the question is “how do home runs correlate with team wins,” I think answers it better. Of course I’m weird like taht.

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by cwyers on May 29, 2009 8:01 PM EDT up reply actions

sorry, I don't know how to make the graphs

Rebuild and Restock.

by trademaker on May 29, 2009 7:17 PM EDT up reply actions

I will send you an email and step you through it, it is pretty easy.

by Jeff Zimmerman on May 29, 2009 7:24 PM EDT up reply actions

When an x-axis and a y-axis love each other very much...

…they get together and they make a graph.

(Yes, I’m being snarky and uphelpful. Do you have a copy of Microsoft Excel available? That’s a great place to start.)

I has a blog. | Ask a sabermagician!

by cwyers on May 29, 2009 8:02 PM EDT up reply actions

Also, I don't think the numbers show that homers don't mean anything

Since they do make it a whole lot easier to score runs. But they’re not the only way to score runs.

And scoring runs is only half the battle.

So homers are important, but maybe not as important as people think. Are there a lot of people out there who think home runs are that important on the team level?

by Dan Turkenkopf on May 29, 2009 7:38 AM EDT reply actions

I just look at team wOBA

much simpler

St. Louis Cardinals... defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on May 29, 2009 6:21 PM EDT up reply actions

You're going to have random variation with everything

That said, there are other measures that are going to have a much higher correlation to record than home runs. But that’s really the point of sabrmetrics.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on May 31, 2009 1:17 PM EDT reply actions