Revisiting the 2002 Braves

I was just looking up team pitching performances in relation to the thread
on defense, and I noticed something interesting. I was curious about the
defensive prowess of the 2002 Braves. As you may recall, that team pitched
remarkably, and it came out of nowhere - they sported a 3.13 team ERA and
only 54 unearned runs on top of that.

Anyway, what struck me is that the pitching staff's ERA+ was 133. I went
back the last 50 years in both leagues and that was the best ERA+ (second
and third went to the 1997 (131) and 1993 (129) Braves. (I got tired of
looking after 50 years.) The top recent mark by a non-Atlanta team was by
the 2003 Dodgers, at 128. I don't know the all-time record, but a quick
Google search suggested it's the 1906 Cubs at 150 (team ERA of 1.75 - that's
damned impressive even in the deadball era).

So, what was it with that 2002 team that was so good? The bullpen seemed to
benefit the most - Remlinger (1.99 ERA), Holmes (1.81) and Hammond (0.95!)
memorably dominated, but guys like Gryboski and Ligtenberg and Spooneybarger
also pitched well. Smoltz's ERA of 3.25 was above the team average, but that
was horribly skewed by his second outing of the season, when he allowed 8
runs; thereafter he posted an ERA of 2.40.

The starters also pitched well. Glavine came in at 2.96 and Maddux at 2.62 -
neither is the best season of each man's career, but for both it's the only
time they've posted an ERA under 3 since 1998 (unless you go to three
decimal places, then maddux was at 2.996 in 2000). Millwood posted the third
best season of his career in 2002. Damian Moss managed the one good season
of his career.

Overall, only two guys who got any significant number of innings pitched
poorly. Jason Marquis threw 114 innings of 5.04 ERA ball, and Albie Lopez
threw 55 innings at 4.37. The next lowest number was Gryboski's 3.48, and
that came with zero unearned runs and a good rate of stranding inherited
runners. This was, FWIW, the second-oldest pitching staff and third-oldest
hitting lineup in the league that year.

Here's a link to the team for those interested in reviewing it:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ATL/2002.shtml

I still don't know how they did it; who knows, maybe TVoS was saving a run a
game with his glove, just like Bobby claimed. Seems like Sheff was strong in
RF, and perhaps Chipper was good in LF too. Maybe Julio was a vacuum at 1B.
Maybe it was just dumb luck. Whatever it was, it was arguably the best
pitching staff in the majors in decades.

Colin
---------------------
"Science is based on a fundamental insight - that the degree to which an
idea seems true has nothing to do with whether it is true"

On Jun 2, 5:41 pm, "Colin William" <colintwill....RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I was just looking up team pitching performances in relation to the thread
> on defense, and I noticed something interesting. I was curious about the
> defensive prowess of the 2002 Braves. As you may recall, that team pitched
> remarkably, and it came out of nowhere - they sported a 3.13 team ERA and
> only 54 unearned runs on top of that.

Well, that's actually a decent number of unearned runs ... RA-ERA for
the top five teams that year.

ATL 0.38
SFG 0.26
LAD 0.28
STL 0.30
NYM 0.48

As I recall, that was the beginning of the Braves' historically good
bullpens. Four of the top five relievers had K/9 near 9.0, plus
Lightenberg.

Here's DER for the three-year run:

2001: .709
2002: .723
2003: .710

The pitching staff also had a BAA of .244 with none on, .231 with
runners on, and .222 with runners in scoring position. Which means
they probably stranded more runners than otherwise expected.

So it looks like three things, not necessarily in order
(1) A very strong and deep bullpen.
(2) stellar defense
(3) "clutch" pitching

Cheers,
Nicholas