How many innings have the Cubs faced an opponents bullpen?

by morgane on May 15, 2008 12:00 PM CDT

It seems as if the current club's MO of patient, selective hitting has resulted not only in more runs scored but also in higher pitch counts forcing starters out early.

Does anyone know where a statistic that shows how many innings the Cubs have faced opposing bullpens, and compare them to other clubs? (or conversely, how many innings have starters remained in games against them). I've made a cursory check at BP, to no avail. It would also be interesting to compare the past couple Cubs seasons as well.

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my guess is you would have to go through and check that game by game.

---AC 00 00 00 - Believe

by mjk83 on May 15, 2008 1:00 PM CDT reply actions

Better question

How many innings on average has an opposing teams Ace lasted against us?

by ak123 on May 15, 2008 1:41 PM CDT reply actions

Baseball Prospectus...

Has some pretty crazy stats. I can look it up later.

by wrigleyrocker12 on May 15, 2008 9:06 PM CDT reply actions

On a related note....

It’d be interesting to see the Cubs’ runs scored per inning. I bet they do pretty well in the 6-7-8 as the opposition’s starter wears down before the set-up man and closer can come in. It feels like the Cubs have had lots of big 6th and 7th innings this year. Don’t know how to find the numbers, but it’s the same idea…

"Cone spelled backwards is ENOC."

by SABRCub on May 15, 2008 9:10 PM CDT reply actions

Some numbers

One of the hitting splits on baseball-reference.com gives performance against starters each time through the order, and against relievers. Adding up the PAs in the starter categories and then taking PAs from the reliever category, we have:

2008 CUBS
PAs against starters: 1016 (61.5%)
PAs against relievers: 637 (38.5%)

2008 NL
PAs against starters: 15906 (63.3%)
PAs against relievers: 9226 (36.7%)

Maybe looking at pitching splits somehow or using the nifty play-index stuff (for someone that has a subscription… I don’t) could give a number of innings instead of plate-appearances. And it could well be interesting to compare these numbers NL vs. AL, look at past Cubs teams, look at specific teams around baseball this year and various historically notable teams, maybe historical trends overall… but I have to sleep.

I’d be mildly interested to see how all the teams come out, to see how wide the distribution is. And the same for teams’ pitching staffs instead of their hitters (I’d guess a significantly wider distribution).

by aldimond on May 16, 2008 1:07 AM CDT reply actions