[Garlon]

Brad K, your team has the best offense and the best pitching in the league. You outscored your opponents by 240 runs. Your defense is -33 ZR which cost you about 4 wins.

Regardless of your team being 10th in defense, which is last in your 1965 season, they still were only -33 ZR.

As I have stated, most players care going to be very close to average. However, it is possible to put extremely bad defensive teams together who cannot compete due to their defense.


If you had an average pitching staff but still had that offense and defense, then you probably end up with 89 or 90 wins. The Pythagorean would be about .553 winning percentage.

Your team scored 757 Runs. The average team in 1965 scored 647 runs. If we keep that offense of 757 runs and that defense of -33 runs and combine that with a pitching staff allowing 647 runs, then your team will score 757 runs and allow 680 runs (647 from pitching and another 33 from defense). 757 - 680 = +77 runs for the season. It takes (757 + 680)/162 = 8.87 runs per win for such a team. 77/8.87 = +8.68 wins above average. That turns out to be 81 + 8.86 = 89.86 wins for the season.

This is pretty much what the author of the article was trying to convey. If you just load up on hitters and disregard defense, it is not going to necessarily be a winning formula. 89 or 90 wins probably does not win a pennant. In your example, you have what would be a historically great team in the history of baseball with the best hitting and pitching in the league, so yeah, you can get away with giving up some wins defensively.


For a typical team trying to compete, sacrificing 4 wins on defense can be problematic.