In recent years about 72 percent of major league players were born in the USA.
Most significant WBC players have played major league U.S. ball.
Just given that, shouldn't the USA team be reasonably expected to win about 72% of its games? Shouldn't team USA have won at least two of the three tournaments played so far? Should we expect team USA to finally win this tournament?
_________________________
Techie note: Google and I are still experiencing a disconnect. The spreadsheet-like data below looks fine in "compose" mode. Click this link to view that data in a file.
Let's see if this is supported by some stats. Top ten in OPS+:
-->
USA players are in bold. The number of USA players in the top ten are above the names of the players. Only eight catchers qualified and outfield positions may seem a bit off because of players playing multiple positions.
Of the 78 players listed above, 51 were born in the USA: 65%. That's still about two thirds. USA has the top player in 7 of 8 positions. Only Canadian born Joey Votto breaks through at first base. Oh, Canada!
Maybe the pitchers make up the 8% difference.
-->
| 8 | |||
| Pitcher | ERA+ | Tm | born |
| Kyle Hendricks | 188 | CHC | USA |
| Jon Lester | 164 | CHC | USA |
| Noah Syndergaard | 158 | NYM | USA |
| Madison Bumgarner | 149 | SFG | USA |
| Corey Kluber | 149 | CLE | USA |
| Tanner Roark | 148 | WSN | USA |
| Johnny Cueto | 147 | SFG | |
| Rick Porcello | 145 | BOS | USA |
| Aaron Sanchez | 142 | TOR | USA |
| Masahiro Tanaka | 142 | NYY |
Yep. But hardly any of the top USA pitchers participate, so maybe that accounts for a big part of the lack of USA success.
I'm looking for extra inning games:
WBC extra innings: 11th inning starts with runners on first and second base. Saturday, March 4, 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment