Comparing Phillies and Yankees by the numbers
by Scott Butler 10/28/09
Everyone has their thoughts on who they feel will win the 2009 World Series between the Phillies and Yankees. Obviously the Yankees had the best record in baseball and the Phillies are reigning champs, but the best way to decide might be to compare the stats.
I decided to compare the numbers for both teams and also come up with the numbers for the "typical" hitter and pitcher for each team. To begin, it is important to adjust as much as possible for the Designated Hitter. To do that, we first need to look at the runs scored in each league. For the 2009 regular season, the American League scored 4.88 runs per game and the National League scored 4.47 runs per game. According to those numbers, the AL scored 1.09 more runs per game.
To adjust the numbers for the Phils and Yanks I used a very simple formula. I just multiplied the runs scored by the Phillies by 1.09. This is certainly not a perfect adjustment because it ignores the fact that the AL is probably better and some of the games were interleague games, but it at least evens the playing field somewhat.
Here are the numbers:
Yankees pitching gave up 4.67 runs per game
Phillies pitching (adjusted for the DH) gave up 4.79 runs per game
Yankees hitting scored 5.68 runs per game
Phillies hitting (adjusted for the DH) gave up 5.54 runs per game
The Yankees have an advantage in both categories, but the Phillies are pretty close.
Now to compare the hitters:
I decided to take the numbers of each of the everyday hitters on each team, come up with the average numbers between them, and adjust based on a 162 game season. This gives us the numbers for the "typical" player on each team. Since hitters are not specifically affected by the DH, there was no need to adjust for it.
Here's what we get:
Average Yankees hitter: .291 average with 28 home runs, 97 RBI, and 9 stolen bases.
Average Phillies hitter: .271 average with 27 home runs, 94 RBI, and 16 steals.
Overall, the Yankees have a better average, slightly better power, and fewer stolen bases.
To compare pitching, it seemed futile to compare the bullpens because there are so many "x-factors," so I decided to just compare the starters.
Since the fourth starter for each team is unclear, we will simply compare the top three starters on each team. Here are the average ERA's for each team.
Yankees: 3.86 ERA
Phillies (adjusted for the DH): 4.03
Now that we have all of the numbers I can give you a clear prediction on the result of this series and who will hold the trophy for 2009.
My prediction: I HAVE NO CLUE.
After looking, comparing, and analyzing all of these numbers, we pretty much know what we did before, that this should be a very close series. Other than that, we will just need to watch the games!
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