Teams like the 1991 Tigers

[digglahhh]

The 1991 Tigers, who I often sarcastically refer to as the sabermetric dream team, lead the league in HRs, Ks and BBs. I was curious if anybody could tell me if any other team has done this, I would assume its been done a handful of times before.

Thank you in advance.

[SABR Matt]

The 1991 Tigers, who I often sarcastically refer to as the sabermetric dream team, lead the league in HRs, Ks and BBs. I was curious if anybody could tell me if any other team has done this, I would assume its been done a handful of times before.

Thank you in advance.

No sabermetrician would call the '91 Tigers a sabermetric dream team. Relatively weak pitching and HORRIBLE team defense do not a sabermetric dream team make.

[RuthMayBond]

No sabermetrician would call the '91 Tigers a sabermetric dream team. Relatively weak pitching and HORRIBLE team defense do not a sabermetric dream team make.

I think diglah was referring to the offense. I'm not sure why leading the league in Ks would be part of a dream but try the '76 Reds, '26-28, '30, '37-38 Yanks, '30 Cubs, '26 Cards, '11-12 Bosox?, '07 Giants. The '69 Bosox, '66 Tigers, '66 Braves, '65 Bosox, '62 Tigers, '52-55 Dodgers, 45 Yanks!, '36 Yanks!, 32 Phils, 31 Yanks were pretty close.

[RuthMayBond]

The 1991 Tigers, who I often sarcastically refer to as the sabermetric dream team, lead the league in HRs, Ks and BBs. I was curious if anybody could tell me if any other team has done this, I would assume its been done a handful of times before.

Thank you in advance.

The sabermetric offensive dream team would be more like leading the league in OBP+, OPS+, OPS+ with RISP, and, if we could get it, SLG+ and HRs.

[digglahhh]

Thanks a lot.

The dream team part was obvious sarcasm. I basically meant that the 91 Tigers seem to support the idea that batting average is secondary to OBP and SLG and that walking is very important. They're offense was Adam Dunn on a team level, low BA, tons of Ks, lots of walks heavily reliant on slugging, yet overall highly productive. They were second in the league in runs scored and offer evidence that Ks are not really worse than other outs, and walking and slugging is a viable offensive strategy.

With that said, I think that this team is somewhat of a mirage. The low average and high K totals are very much due to two players, Rob Deer and Pete Incagivlia- two weaker versions of Dave Kingman.

[538280]

I think diglah was referring to the offense. I'm not sure why leading the league in Ks would be part of a dream but try the '76 Reds, '26-28, '30, '37-38 Yanks, '30 Cubs, '26 Cards, '11-12 Bosox?, '07 Yanks. The '69 Bosox, '66 Tigers, '66 Braves, '65 Bosox, '62 Tigers, '52-55 Dodgers, 45 Yanks!, '36 Yanks!, 32 Phils, 31 Yanks were pretty close.

Ironically (or perhaps not) those teams are all great offensive teams. Pretty much sticks a dagger through the heart of the ElHalo offensive strategy.

[digglahhh]

Ironically (or perhaps not) those teams are all great offensive teams. Pretty much sticks a dagger through the heart of the ElHalo offensive strategy.

Right, but did they all also have the lowest team BA in the league?

[RuthMayBond]

Right, but did they all also have the lowest team BA in the league?

38 Yanks were pretty close, 37 Yanks weren't far ahead/behind?

[SABR Matt]

Thanks a lot.

The dream team part was obvious sarcasm. I basically meant that the 91 Tigers seem to support the idea that batting average is secondary to OBP and SLG and that walking is very important. They're offense was Adam Dunn on a team level, low BA, tons of Ks, lots of walks heavily reliant on slugging, yet overall highly productive. They were second in the league in runs scored and offer evidence that Ks are not really worse than other outs, and walking and slugging is a viable offensive strategy.

With that said, I think that this team is somewhat of a mirage. The low average and high K totals are very much due to two players, Rob Deer and Pete Incagivlia- two weaker versions of Dave Kingman.

Didn't that team also have Mickey Tettleton? Hitting like .241 with HRs and a BUNCH of Ks? And Cecil Fielder not exactly light on the Ks?

[SABR Matt]

Yep...that team had Tettleton and Fielder who combined for like 290 Ks and 180 BBs...LOL

Of course Rob Deer and Pete Inkaviglia soaking up 700 ABs worth of .180 hitting is gonna pull down a team's BA...but the rest of that team wasn't exactly lighting it up with the BA.

[Ubiquitous]

As far as I can tell the only other team to do it in the AL was the Yankees. In 1926, 1927, 1928, 1930, and 1938. Its possible that Boston in 1912 did it as well but they did not keep track of strikeouts.

[SABR Matt]

Ironically enough...those Yankee teams were consistantly among the best offenses in the game's history. So...I'm thinking the sabermetric dream-offense isn't far from reality.

[Ubiquitous]

For the NL it has happened to:
1887 Chicago
1926 Cardinals
1930 Cubs
1976 Reds

with possibly the 1904 and 1907 Giants doint it as well.

In 1926 the Cardinals won the pennant, in 1930 the Cubs finished 2 games back, and in 1976 the Reds won the pennant.

[SABR Matt]

and 1887 CHI was a good offense...just a poor defense...common for 19th century teams (because of all the errors and weird parks and bad equipment and the offensively biased scoring environment.

[Ubiquitous]

The 1887 team had a good defense and pitching the offense wasn't all that hot, and the strikeouts probably had something to do with it. This team led the leagues in homers and walks yets scored the 5th most runs in a league of 8. Meanwhile they allow the third fewest runs in the league. In that day and age with the field conditions and the equipment they should not have been striking out so much. They should have been putting the ball in play more often and gotten themselves more runners. On top of that they had the second most stolen bases in the league. So you got to figure that means that they probably have a really high caught stealing rate as well, which again removes runners from the basepaths. So while the Cubs hit almost double the amount of homers the average non-Chicago team hit they did not manage to capitalize on it with extra runs.