Formula 14:   DP Adv (Double Play Advantage)

            Double Play advantage is a team’s double plays, compared to their EXPECTED double plays:

            DP Adv = Tm DP – TXDP

            We can see, then, that although the 1964 Mets turned 154 Double Plays and the 1968 Tigers only 133, the 1968 Tigers were actually much better at turning the Double Play (+12) than the 1964 Mets (-9).  Most of the World Championship teams on this chart were good at turning the double play; most of the bad teams were not good at it.   There are five exceptions.  The 1972 Rangers and the 1980 Mariners were above average at turning the double play, although they were not good teams overall, and the 1992 Blue Jays, 2000 Yankees and 2008 Phillies were not good at turning the Double Play, although they won the World Championship.   The 1992 Blue Jays were actually last in the majors in Double Plays, 48 double plays below the league average.  About half of that is explained by baserunners and ground balls; the other half is just that they weren’t good at turning the DP, or were not focused on it.   

            Formula 15:  NormDP      (Normalized Double Plays)

            Once we have the team’s Double Play Advantage, we need to place that back in a normalized context for the era.   So we figure the average number of DP/Game FOR THE DECADE IN WHICH THE TEAM PLAYED, apply that to the team’s games, and add the DP Advantage:

            NormDP = (Lg DP/Game for Decade) * Tm Games + DP Adv

            Formula 16:  DP-RS-TM  (Double Play Runs Saved, team)

            The value of each Double Play turned (Normalized) is .516 runs, the same as the value of a Baserunner Removed:

            DP-RS-TM = NormDP * .516

            MAKE A MENTAL NOTE OF THIS NUMBER, the team’s runs saved by double plays.  We will use this number repeatedly in figuring the Runs Saved by infielders and pitchers.   These are the Runs Saved by Double Play Performance for the 15 teams that we are following:

            Formula 17:  Pit-DP-RS1-P6  (Pitcher’s Double Play Runs Saved-1; 6^th Pitcher’s Value)

            70% of the team’s Runs Saved by Double Plays are attributed to pitchers and infielders (except first basemen) based on their Double Plays participated in.   (First basemen will be dealt with in a different manner).  Anyway, you add together the double plays participated in by all of the team’s pitchers, second basemen, third basemen and shortstops, and allocate 70% of team’s DP RS (Double Play Runs Saved) based on each player’s share of those.  The term DP(indpit) means Double Plays by the individual pitcher:

            DPRS-Fldg-Pit-T6 = DP RS * .70 * DP(indpit)/(DP pit + DP 2B + DP 3B + DP SS)

            This exact same formula is also used to allocate credit for double plays to second basemen, third basemen, and shortstops.   Anyway, these are the double play participation numbers for the pitchers, second basemen, third basemen and shortstops on the 15 teams that we have focused on:

            And with these numbers, we can assign credit for fielding participation in double plays.    The Pittsburgh Pirates are credited with 84.91 Runs Saved by Double Plays, and there are 288 "shares" of that to be divided up.    

            The numbers of Runs Saved credited to pitchers here are very small; the most of any pitcher in our study is 1.4, by Brandon Webb of the 2004 Arizona Diamondbacks.   Webb was involved in 7 double plays, also the most of any pitcher on any of the 15 teams being studied.  While the numbers involved are very small, Dan Petry (1984 Tigers) moves up another spot on the list of the top pitchers being studied, up to 6^th place, and Jack Fisher (1964 Mets) gets back on the list, pushing Floyd Bannister (1980 Mariners) back off:

            Formula 18:  Sum Pit DP Sq  (Pitcher’s Double Plays Squared)

            Pitchers receive credit for Double Plays in two different ways.  They receive credit for participating in double plays as a fielder, just as other infielders do.  That’s formula 17.   But they also receive credit for the double plays that happen on balls that they put in play.  70% of Double Play credit is distributed based on participating in double plays as a fielder, and only 20% is distributed under this process (Formulas 20 and 21), but since all of THESE runs saved credits go to pitchers, they are much larger for pitchers than are the other credits. 

            For anyone who might not know, Retrosheet displays the number of Double Plays with each pitcher on the mound.   For years before this data is available, simply zero out this category, and assign 90% of the credit for double play runs saved to the fielders’ DP participation, rather than 70%. 

            Pit DP Sq =  The sum of the squares of the double plays started by all pitchers on the team.

            Not exactly a formula, but you know what I mean. 

            Formula 19:  Pit-DP-RS2-P7  (Pitcher’s Double Play Runs Saved-2, 7^th Pitcher’s Value)

            20% of the Run-Saving value of double plays is allocated to pitchers based on throwing the pitch that gets the double play, and this is divided among pitchers based on the square of their Double Plays (as a pitcher). 

            Pit-DP-RS2-P7 = (.20 * DP-RS) * DP^2 /  (Sum Pit DP Squared)

            The pitcher who pick up the most Runs Saved from starting Double Plays is Vern Law, 1960 Cy Young Award winner, who had the support of 33 Double Plays, and is credited with 7.04 Runs Saved based on that fact.  Running through the numbers:

            The 1960 Pirates are credited with 84.91 Runs Saved by Double Plays,

            20% of that is set aside for pitchers, based on their Double Play Support.  That’s 16.98 runs for the team’s pitchers. 

            Law had the support of 33 Double Plays, easily the most of any pitcher on any of the 15 teams we are studying. 

            33 squared is 1089.

            The sum of the squares for ALL of the Pirates pitchers is 2,624.

            1089 of 2624 is 41.5%.

            Law gets 41.5% of the 16.98 runs which are credited to the Pirate pitchers.

            Which is 7.05 Runs.

            These are the top 10 pitchers in the study in this regard:

            Many of you will want to know why we base this on the SQUARE of double plays, rather than simply proportional to double plays.  In other words, if one pitcher is on the mound for 10 double plays and the other pitcher for 30, the credit they get for that is not in the ratio of 1-3, but in the ratio of 1-9.  

            But what if the one pitcher gets 10 double plays in 70 innings, and the other gets 30 double plays in 210 innings?  Their Double Play Support, per inning, is the same.  Is it fair to give so much more credit to the man who pitched more innings? 

            I think that it is, and here’s why.  Double Plays PER INNING is heavily subject to random variance in small data samples.  All stats are heavily subject to random variance, but a stat like this, which relies on other fielders, even more so.  

            A pitcher who gets the support of 10 double plays in 70 innings is very probably lucky, and very probably will not get similar double play support in his future innings.   But a pitcher who gets the support of 30 double plays in 210 innings almost certainly has NOT done so by luck, and very probably WILL continue to receive very high Double Play Support. 

            There are only a few Runs Saved being allocated in this way.   An average team has a DP score of 140, and the Run Prevention Value of each DP is .516, so an average team has about 70, 75 Runs Saved by Double Plays.  Only 20% of that is being allocated under this provision of the system, so that’s 14, 15 runs per team.  The average team has just 15 runs being allocated to pitchers based on their being on the mound when a double play is turned.  

            As much as possible, I would like to see those 15 runs being credited to the pitcher whose stock in trade is getting a ground ball to get out of trouble.   I want to minimize the extent to which those Runs Saved are diverted to guys who pitched 40, 50, 60 innings and sometimes got a double play, or to the starting pitchers who got double plays because, well, everybody gets a double play sometimes.   The Andy Pettitte-, Jack Billingham-, Milt Wilcox- type pitcher has a tough time getting credit for his skills in analytical systems based heavily on strikeouts.   I’m just trying to level the playing field a little bit. 

            This is an updated list of the 15 pitchers within the study who are credited with saving the most runs:

            We have three more categories of performance for which pitchers will be credited with saving runs.   Unfortunately, it will take us 40-some pages and 24 formulas to work through those three categories, but it’s only three categories, anyway.