For those that think the 2014 Astros have not improved.

A few days ago (Game 123), the Astros reached the heady plateau of 51 wins, which would not be a significant number if the Astros hadn't won 51 games last year.  The Astros equalled that win total with 123 games completed, and therefore had 39 games - or very close to a quarter of the season - still to play.  The 2013 win total was eventually surpassed in game 125, with 37 more games still to play.  Excellent!

Around the same time, I was trawling through the Baseball Prospectus website when I saw this hit list.  The BP hit list is my favourite of all the power-ranking / in-season-team-listing list, partly because of the presence of a greater sabermatic presence and formula used to rank the teams, and partly because of the humorous lines posted right below.

Regardless, the thing that caught my eye was the presence of three AL West teams in the top three slots - the A's, the Angels and the Mariners.  Some significant down-scrolling is required to find the Astros (#26) and the Rangers (who would be #31 if the list went that low), so the whole AL West isn't great, but three quarters of the Astros' intra-division opposition is considered to be pretty darn good, and fighting for playoff slots.

I also recalled writing around a month ago - hidden inside another article - about the incredibly odd distribution of the runs-for and run-against equation of all the teams inside the AL West.  As of end-of-play on 18 August the AL West looks like this in terms of run differential per team:

1. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: +89
2. Oakland A's: +161
3. Seattle Mariners: +96
4. Houston Astros: -91
5. Texas Rangers: -135

Now this places the AL West at a total, division-wide run differential of +120.  The current run differentials of all the divisions in 2014 (in order, as at 18 August) look like this:

1. AL West: +120
2. NL Central: +8
3. AL East: -3
4. NL East: -8
5. AL Central: -26
6. NL West: -91

But what I thought was interesting a direct comparison to the run differential from last year inside the AL West.  As at August 18 2013, the AL West standings looked like:

1. Texas Rangers: +58
2. Oakland A's: +69
3. Seattle Mariners: -86
4. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: -36
5. Houston Astros: -174

... for a total division wide run differential of -172.  The baseball-wide division standings looked like (at 18 August 2013):

1. NL Central: +179
2. AL East: +159
3. AL Central: +68
4. NL West: -107
5. NL East: -127
6. AL West: -172

Last year, the Astros lagged all of baseball with -174 runs scored - the worst mark by exactly 70 runs.  This was also inside the worst division in baseball by runs scored versus runs against.  This year, they are 83 runs better, in the hardest division, which has arguably the top three teams in baseball.

Now the 2014 season schedule is somewhat unbalanced, and the Astros have a total of 24 games against AL West opponents out of their remaining 37 games (in 2013, they had 21 intra-division games to play on August 18).  Seventeen of these 24 games are against what some may argue as the top three teams in baseball, with the most difficult stretch in the 18 games between 25 August and 14 September - all of which are against AL West opponents, and only four of those being against the Rangers.  

This stretch will go a long way to determining what kind of season the Astros are recorded as having.  Go .500 through that 24 game period, and a legitimate shot at 70+ wins is the result.  Win two or three of those games, and another weak finish will consign the season to another lost one.

I guess the other point to make is that the Astros have not been a healthy team this year.  We don't quite get to grab all the sympathy from the Texas Rangers (who have ten players on the 60-day DL), but I read somewhere recently that the Astros have lost the second-most number of days to the DL of all the teams in the American League.  Some of these are important bullpen cogs (Jesse Crain, Matt Albers), some of these are/were key offensive performers (Dexter Fowler, George Springer) and some of these are/were spare parts (Jose Cisnero, Alex Presley).  Regardless, this has not been a great year for injuries in a young team, and potentially this could have cost the Astros a couple of games in the wins column as well.

In summary, I would make the argument that the 2014 Houston Astros are much better than the 2013 addition, and I don't think I will get much disagreement.  If anything, the win-loss column has the capacity to minimise the extent of the improvement given the improved competition inside the tougher division.  Injuries may have acted to obscure the extent of the improvement as well.

However, before any Astros fans get all excited, please check out the five right-most columns of the BP Hit List table.  They are the columns that outline the calculated playoff odds.  Until the Astros manage to have some non-zero numbers in those columns, they really haven't done anything, despite the extent of any improvement.

The Astros in May 2014: Starting Pitching Edition.

Last month, we looked at the Astros starting rotation in comparison to the surprising Royals and the current Champion Red Sox.  We found that the Astros had a surprisingly good starting rotation, pretty much equal to what the Red Sox were putting out there on a team-wide basis, but that the Royals had been nothing short of excellent at preventing runs from their starters.

This month, I have changed teams around.  We will revisit the Royal and Red Sox later in the year, but I decided to look at two other teams.  Both of the new teams had the narratives attached that they had the basis of a good starting rotation, but they needed to be active in accumulating SP talent from around the the Majors during the offseason (mostly due to dry farm systems).  And they did.  Meet the Angels and the White Sox, to be compared to the Astros:

Houston Astros (average age 26.3, average salary approx. $2.1 million)
29 starts
IP: 182, H: 176, R: 80, ER: 70, BB: 52, K: 141, HR: 14, ERA: 3.45
K:BB Ratio: 2.29,  WHIP: 1.39
Groundballs: 250, Flyballs: 149, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.68
Wins: 12, Losses: 13, Quality Starts: 18, Disaster Starts: 2
Record for Quality Starts: 10-6, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (average age 27.6, average salary approx. $5.7 million)
28 starts
IP: 175, H: 155, R: 83, ER: 75, BB: 58, K: 146, HR: 16, ERA: 3.86
K:BB Ratio: 2.51,  WHIP: 1.22
Groundballs: 197, Flyballs: 177, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.11
Wins: 13, Losses: 10, Quality Starts: 16, Disaster Starts: 3,
Record for Quality Starts: 11-2, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-3.

Chicago White Sox (average age 26.8, average salary approx. $3.35 million)
27 starts
IP: 151, H: 165, R: 87, ER: 80, BB: 53, K: 115, HR: 21, ERA: 4.76
K:BB Ratio: 2.17;  WHIP: 1.44
Groundballs: 174, Flyballs: 152, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.14
Wins: 6, Losses: 12, Quality Starts: 14, Disaster Starts: 3,
Record for Quality Starts: 4-5, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.

* - Disaster start defined as <5IP, 4 or more runs or earned runs given up.
** - Each of the three teams used six starters in the month of May, so the average age and salaries of the rotation are calculated using these six players.

The White Sox are clearly the most inferior of the three rotations on raw numbers.  Some of this is likely due to Chris Sale's absence (he pitched only three starting innings in May due to injury), but the lack of a true ace pitcher - probably the best pitcher on all three teams - is unlikely to account for the extent in the skew in numbers.

Of course, these numbers are not park-adjusted.  The Cell is rated the 21st overall park for suppressing run scoring (Minute Maid is fifth, and Angel Stadium is sixth), so the park-factor, if anything, protects the White Sox rotation in comparison to the other two.  The Astros and Angels pitch in one of the hardest parks to suppress runs in the majors, making their raw numbers look more impressive.

(These raw statistics do not account for strength of schedule, either.)

Further comparison reveals that the White Sox have an ERA that is around 136% of that of the Astros, and a WHIP of around 115% that of the Astros.  They have tossed the fewest innings of the three clubs looked at, given up the most runs, the most walks, the most home-runs, and stuck out the fewest batters.  As May has progressed, they have continued to hover around .500, and their starting pitching has clearly nor assisted much.  Still, most Astros fans would kill for "hovering around .500" - in a franchise with recent history like Houston has, that would be cause for a party this late in the season.

The two teams lending themselves to the most direct of comparisons are the Angels and the Astros.  The raw numbers are very similar for starting pitching, and we will look at the raw batting and base running statistics tomorrow.

The Angels entered May 14-13, having won three games in a row, and exit May at 30-25, comfortably in second place in the AL West, and now 3.5 games behind the juggernaut A's.  Overall, their starting numbers are very decent, and this has been helped by excellent May results for Weaver (8IP/1ER, 6.3IP/1ER, 7IP/2ER, 9IP/1ER and 6IP/3ER) and Wilson (8IP/3ER, 6IP/5ER, 9IP, 0ER, 6.1IP/1ER, 7.2IP/3ER) and solid May for Garrett Richards (6IP/3ER, 7IP/2ER, 7IP/0ER, 7IP/5ER, 7IP/3ER... but 0.2IP/5ER in his last start of the month).  Thirteen out of sixteen quality starts for that trio, and one start lasting less than six innings-pitched.  Not shabby.

The other metrics like the Angels as a staff, too.  Their ERA sits at a solid, non-park-adjusted 3.78, and the WHIP sits at a very solid 1.20.  They strike out over two-and-one-half more batters than they walk.

That said, the Astros staff has pretty much their absolute equal, if not slightly better.  While the Astros' WHIP is a little higher (1.25), their ERA is a quarter-run lower, possibly by virtue of their defensive shifting and their ground-ball centric staff (1.66 GB:FB ratio, compared to the Angels' 1.12).  Both staffs have very similar numbers of innings pitched, quality starts and disaster starts.

The Astros threw 8 more innings, gave up a 21 more hits, walked six fewer batters, and struck out five fewer hitters.  The Astros gave up two fewer home-runs.  They started one extra time, so that could account for the innings difference, but not the other differences.  So, perhaps the Astros are just a little more hit-prone at this stage, but again this is likely a reflection of their policy of pitching to contact, and making the contact of the ground-ball variety.

The Astros and Angels starting staff were credited with roughly the same number of wins compared to losses (12-13 compared to 13-10).  Clearly, the win and loss stats are influenced by both pitching and hitting, but all things being equal, the Astros have the wins as losses tilted against them in comparison to the Angels.

The real advantage to the Astros comes when the average age and average salary is weighed against the the overall production.  The Astros are the cheapest and youngest of the rotations by a considerable margin, and are arguably the most effective of these three rotations.

In last months' article, we removed the statistical outliers from the various rotations, then re-analysed the rotations to try and get a better feel for how much of an effect the outlier had on the numbers of the overall staff.  Last month, Lucas Harrell, who made four starts, three awful, for the Astros was removed as a "bad" outlier, along with the Red Sox and Royals' worst starters.  Predictably, we found the Lucas had dragged the Astros down somewhat in terms of their overall starters' stats, and once his numbers were excluded, the Astros were very similar to the Red Sox.

I want to continue to remove the leading statistical outlier on the Astros staff, and reanalyse.  However, this month the outlier on the Astros is not the worst pitcher, but most likely the best.  Dallas Keuchel has been the focus of a few articles expressing wonderment recently, because of his excellent month.  (Imagine what the month could have been like without seventh inning sudden loss-of-control versus the Tigers (3 May), a two-out, 2 run triple (May 19) against the Angels, and a fifth-inning loss of control versus the Orioles (31 May).  Yikes!).

But, until Keuchel can prove that he dominate for half a season or more, his current performance remains somewhat outlier-ish, so lets remove him, and the other two best starters from each team (Jose Quintana and Jered Weaver) and re-run the digits:

Houston Astros (minus Keuchel)
IP: 136, H: 144, R: 68, ER: 59, BB: 45, K: 107, HR: 13, ERA: 3.90
K:BB Ratio: 2.38; WHIP: 1.39
Groundballs: 169, Flyballs: 127, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.33
Wins: 8, Losses: 11, Quality Starts: 13, Disaster Starts: 2,
Record for Quality Starts: 6-5, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (minus Weaver)
IP: 139, H: 133, R: 75, ER: 67, BB: 48,  K: 119, HR: 13, ERA: 4.35
K:BB Ratio: 2.48; WHIP: 1.31
Groundballs: 164, Flyballs: 129, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.27
Wins: 9, Losses: 9, Quality Starts: 12, Disaster Starts: 3,
Record for Quality Starts: 7-2, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-3.

Chicago White Sox (minus Quintana)
IP: 117, H: 130, R: 73, ER: 66, BB: 42, K: 89, HR: 21, ERA: 5.09
K:BB Ratio: 2.12; WHIP: 1.47
Groundballs: 127, Flyballs: 123, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.03
Wins: 4, Losses: 9, Quality Starts: 10, Disaster Starts: 3,
Record for Quality Starts: 3-3, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.

Obviously, with the best starter removed, all the teams' major statistical measures take a bit of a tumble.  The Astros and While Sox increase their ERA's approximately 0.5 of a run per nine, whereas the Angels hold their increase to just under 0.4 runs per nine.  The Astros experience the largest increase in WHIP out of the three teams, proving just how efficient Keuchel has been in keeping batters off bases (7 walks in May, one in the four starts between his May 3 start and his May 31 start).  The Astros also experience the largest tumble in GB/FB ratio (0.33, compared to the White Sox 0.08 and the Angels' improvement in GB:FB ratio of -0.19), showing (i) that Keuchel is the most effective on the Astros staff in keeping the ball on the ground, and (ii) Weaver is an extreme fly-ball pitcher who relies on weak contact.  The Astros experience the largest reduction in strikeout to walk ratio with Keuchel removed (0.35, compared to the White Sox' 0.05 and the Angels very slight improvement: -0.01 (again, proving how much of a statistical outlier Jered Weaver is).

Regardless, the characteristics of the starting staffs described above remains broadly intact.  The Astros outperform both other teams in ERA, whilst remaining somewhat of a ground-ball staff which gives up more in the way of hits to the Angels.  Both the Angels and the Astros outperform the White Sox.  All three starters have done a great job of keeping themselves in the contest, and doing a good job of avoiding disasters.

On the surface, the Astros' pitching staff has been very solid.  But while most of the brilliance has been provided by Dallas Keuchel, the rest have been plenty solid with the occasional dominant performance thrown in.  All Astros starters have pretty much kept the team the game, which is something, especially over a long season, and especially given the relative youth of the group.

Finally, lets compare April 2014 Astros with May 2014 Astros:

April Houston Astros
IP: 157, H: 146, R: 79, ER: 75, BB: 66,  K: 126, ERA: 4.28
K:BB Ratio: 1.90;  WHIP:  1.34
Groundballs: 235, Flyballs: 138, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.70
Wins: 7, Losses: 13, Quality Starts: 13, Disaster Starts: 6,
Record per Quality Start: 6-1, Record per Disaster Start: 0-6.

May Houston Astros (rehashed from above)
IP: 182, H: 176, R: 80, ER: 70, BB: 52, K: 141, HR: 14, ERA: 3.45
K:BB Ratio: 2.29,  WHIP: 1.39
Groundballs: 250, Flyballs: 149, Groundball: Flyball Ratio: 1.68
Wins: 12, Losses: 13, Quality Starts: 18, Disaster Starts: 2
Record for Quality Starts: 10-6, Record for Disaster Starts: 0-2.

An across-the-board improvement for the Astros between April and May, with perhaps the only peripheral that is not in their favour being the slightly increase number of hits (especially when compared to innings pitched) in May.  That said, there will be some random variability there, and it is most likely a combination of noise, and Feldman regression (who was filthy for most of April, and has struggled a bit in May).  Arguably, the May Astros are a tiny bit less ground-ball-y as well, but again, most likely random variation plus subtraction of Lucas Harrell.  Singificant improvements in disaster starts (but remember three April disasters were attributed to Lucas Harrell), and quality starts are noted as the season has progressed, and are certainly welcomed.

The biggest improvement is the significant ERA drop between April and May.  Also, remember that the minus-Harrell ERA was 3.84 in April, so this continues to represent a significant improvement, even with Harrell excluded.  This improvement demands ongoing monitoring.

So, in summary, the solid April that the Astros starting pitchers put together have continued into a solid May.  The Astros starters also compare vary favourably with a rotation with two expensive free-agents on a club that (as a team) has had a great month, and finds itself contending through the first third of the season (the Angels).  The Astros continue to minimise base runners and home runs, and keep the ball on the ground at a far better rate than any of the teams that we have looked at this year.  The longer this starting pitching continues like this, the more likely that it will continue, as the statistical noise gets eliminated, and regression becomes less of a concern.  Some of the starters still have room to improve, given their ages, and improvements in their peripheral stats, but also when the individual box scores are looked at.  Some of the starters may also turn into pumpkins - and if that happens, the organisation still has some arms that they will want to see having an opportunity in a ML rotation.

Tomorrow, I will put up a much, much briefer post, using the advanced statistics to compare the rotations, once Fangraphs bangs them up.