Are the Brewers and Rays models of baseball?

Translated by Marco Gámez

This World Series, more than any other in recent memory, has been dominated by two narratives: the rise of the small market (as I hope the Dodgers and Yankees watched it from their mansions) and the triumph of baseball in terms of bunting, contact and speed. Never mind that Rays hitters struck out more often than Rangers hitters in the ALCS, or that the Brewers had more hits, more home runs, and more errors than the Dodgers in the NLCS. Here we have a story, no matter what! Teams that avoided hitters (well, the Brewers had the 14th-highest hitting percentage in the majors) and attacked the bases (well, the Rays averaged about the major league average in extra base hits after a hit, while the Brewers were below average), with old-school pitching (well, the Rays and Brewers ranked 20th and 21st, respectively, in the first trophy standings), were in for trophies. They left the teams that play in the three basic events (well, in the regular season, the Brewers have a higher percentage of plate appearances that end in a hit, walk or home run than the two teams they beat in the field, the Dodgers and the Padres, I agree with the Rays).

Instead of refuting this request with nothing but sarcasm in the parenthetical comments, I decided to calculate a model for baseball not dependent on offensive power and a small, non-home run-based Baseball Index for each team. These are the components I used (and, for home game tracks, their own sources);

• High contact percentage: The percentage of swings in which the pitcher makes contact with the ball. This is a sign of great value in circles that favor non-home baseball. (Baseball Duxboards Prospects Ball Batted tab)
• Low pitch follow-up percentage: PERCENTAGE of times the batter pitched to pitch outside the strike zone. A low percentage indicates the training approach, the pulse is not a “happy trigger.” (Ibid.).
• Low reliance on home runs: Guillen’s number represents the percentage of a team’s runs that are home runs. The lower this Guillen Number, the less the team depends on the power hitter runs the ball out of the park to score. (Baseball Prospects Leaderboards, Standard tab)
• Stolen bases: Self-explanatory. (Ibid.).
• Ball bunts: I thought a lot about this point. Am I only sacri- good, or will they all be? I opted for this, when bunting for a hit on the base ball, not a home run, like a sacrifice bunt, a play that, by the way, is rare in a context where there is a universally designated pitcher. (Team Batting Split Finder Death Principle) Stathead; filter: hit trajectory = bunts)
• Additional Bases Acquired: Progressing from first to third or from second to the plate after a single, or from first to the plate after a double, is a form of offensive baseball. Although the results depend on both the connection and the ability of the runner, overall, when the extra base is taken, the strategy in non-home run baseball. (Baseball ReferenceBatting section, tab Baserunning/Mix)
• Turning the ball over: The Defensive Efficiency Index measures the percentage of balls in play that end up in the goal. (Baseball ReferenceFielding section, Standard Fielding tab)
• Productive Outs: This statistic, developed by Elia and ESPN, measures how often a team manages to advance a runner with no outs or a run in the second out of an inning. (Baseball ReferenceBatting Section, PR/HR/Situation Hitting tab)

For each statistic, I calculated a z score, which represents the number of standard deviations from the mean. For example, this year the average Defensive Efficiency index was 0.699, with a standard deviation of 0.013. His 0.723 record, the best in the majors, was 1.82 standard deviations above the mean. His share of Cleveland, his rival in the American League Championship Series, was 0.691, which is equivalent to a z score of -0.62.

To calculate baseball’s non-home run index, I simply added all the z scores. Here is the effect;

Who would have believed it! Two teams that exemplified the non-home run style of baseball made it to the World Series. The Rays led the major leagues in contact, bunts and defensive efficiency. They record Guillen’s second-lowest number, second in stolen bases, and third in productive outfields. For their part, the Brewers excelled at pitching outside the hitting zone because they didn’t just hit home runs and ranked second in stolen bases.

As you can see, playing this type of game does not necessarily guarantee success. The Royals are not a good team; It was the Yankees and the Phillies that their fans commented on their social skills. The Nationals weren’t better than the Dodgers, and the Rockies certainly weren’t better than the Pirates or Astros.

However, the overall correlation between non-league baseball home runs and slugging percentage was 0.53. That is quite a significant number! This suggests that teams that make contact, bunt, get extra bases, home runs, advance runners and play effective defensive plays have a competitive advantage. Is it possible that those who play the arguments in favor of non-domestic non-domestication may be missing something?

Well, maybe not. Due to the distorting factor of pitchers’ at-bats (which reduces the Guillén Number and increases productivity, since pitchers consistently hit the ball when there were runners on base and less than two outs, although this significantly affects the rest of the statistics, it is necessary to analyze both leagues separately in the years before 2022, however, this ideal work with samples of only 15 teams (or 2022-2026 These events are:

The ratio between a small baseball’s home run rate and how many people are catching has, I admit, been quite accepted in recent years. However, it was not as marked in 2024, and in the 2022-2023 era the relationship was almost non-existent.

The teams on this list tend to be measured skills, simply good teams. There is something that changes most clearly. The Dodgers, a team that is considered good, but not exactly designed for small baseball, took ninth place this year, fourteenth in 2025, eighth in 2024, twelfth in 2023 and fourth in 2022. On the other hand, the Marlins, a team that generally lacks offensive control and that, each season in one way in their games, seems to sneak 20 fifteenth year, but in order to be placed in any year 2024. in 2023 and 22 in 2022. Overall, when the universally designated hitter was introduced, the correlation between baseball’s minor league index and winning percentage is 0.31. Therefore it is a weak relation.

And the most compelling thing about the premise surrounding the rise of minor league baseball is the idea that it represents this kind of rejection of analytics. Rays have long been at the forefront of analytics; when Andreas Friedman He left Tampa Bay to join the Dodgers, some described him as “Money but money.” The Brewers have four people in management who are coming Baseball Prospectus! Both are true for clubs with limited income. It is true that they both excelled in aspects of the game with baseball. But they also excelled in analytics, from player acquisition and development and squad construction, to strategy and tactics. The reason why both of them are among the three best in the classification of the best directors that Jarrett Seidler has been practicing is not precisely because he touches the ball a lot.

So our hats are off to this year’s World Series contenders. It is the first time since 2013 that the teams with the best records in their respective leagues have reached the final round. (No, 2020 does not count). There is much to admire in both freedoms. But there will be those who look at it and think, “Hey, this means we’re going to emphasize long hits and sign contact hitters who can get on base and run”. The last time we saw something similar was after the Royals’ success in the 2015 World Series. That’s also the last time the team hit fewer home runs than average in the World Series. This year the situation has changed, but two points, separated by eleven years, are not enough to draw a line.