Joe Sheehan Impressed By Pirates Setting New Records

Remember that newsletter you need to subscribe to by Joe Sheehan?  You are a slacker.  I am going to give you one more reason to sign up today.

Look at these impressive stats gathered by the Sheehan, the guru, in his latest newsletter:

"The Pirates…the Pirates are a different animal all together. A 2-1 win Monday night gives them 247 runs in 76 games, 3.25 per game, a pace that would get them only 527 runs over a full season. No team since 1971 has scored so few runs in a season. Even after the rules changes that went into affect in 1969, run scoring stayed at a low level, something that led the AL to institite the DH in 1973. Just seven teams since 1973, inclusive, have scored fewer than 550 runs in a full season, and the most recent of those came in 1992, when the Dodgers topped out at 548. Just two teams since 1979 have scored fewer than 550 runs; four are taking a run at it this year. We’re certainly going to be rebuilding the list of worst offenses since the labor dispute…"

"Over at BP, the talented Mr. Davenport created a tool that, like EqA, measures team performance by taking out the factors than can pollute a won-loss record….the end product is a team’s third-order record. The Astros and Pirates have the two worst third-order records in baseball—they are the two worst teams in baseball—and it’s not terribly close: The Astros’ third-order record would project to a 108-loss season, and the Pirates would be over 110 losses. I don’t have access to historical third-order records, but I’m pretty sure we’re talking about not just two awful offenses, but two of the worst teams of the 21st century, and perhaps the worst tandem to appear in one division since realignment in 1994."

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