This post was inspired by Jonah Keri's comment on Twitter during their game last Thursday that "Only the Royals can turn 24,000 baserunners into 4 runs" (they had 4 runs on 19 hits and walks), to which I responded "I beg to differ. O's seem pretty adept at that as well." That was based only on watching most Orioles' games, writing up a game wrap on the majority of those, and too often having to mention that the O's scored only X runs on Y baserunners (with X << Y). Figured it was worth actually looking at instead of just going with my gut, so here's a graphic by team of baserunners (in this case non-home run hits plus walks plus HBP) per run scored. Also added in each team's ISO, since power production is one way of getting more for less.
(Click to embiggen.)
Few teams of note:
- The Royals - while bad - aren't particularly close to being the worst in baseball in this regard.
- The Orioles are indeed terrible - nice to know I'm not crazy.
- It's actually the Mariners who take the top spot (#6org!). The M's have scored a major league low 321 runs on 700 non-HR hits (they've also hit an ML low 61 homers), 311 walks, and 22 HBPs (all stats as of Saturday).
- The Rays - who I've seen fans often complain about not turning runners into runs - are towards the better end of the spectrum.
- The Blue Jays and their absurd 144 home runs are able to score a decent number of runs without having many people hanging out on the bases (their .309 OBP is fourth worst in the majors).