ATB Now a Pitchers League?

ATB Faithful Matt B, owner of the "Mechanics" sent me a note the other day:

Do the leading ERAs seem awful low to you? Seems like much more of a pitcher's league than last year? All 5 P10 starters under 3.00 ERA in that hitters' park, what??

I did some investigating and ultimately dismissed, or at least disagreed, with the idea:

Incredible isn't it. Very frustrating. I wonder if we reached the tipping point with the number of players or something. With 18 or 20 teams, hitters dominate. Now that we have 24, maybe there are just not enough good batters to go around. Also - I personally find it easier to find good no-name pitchers as opposed to good no-name batters. Each year we get better pitchers, but don't seem to find any new batters.

On the other hand, we are scoring 4.5 runs per game this year as a whole and last years was 4.7. Not a big deal. Plus, weather plays a part and run scoring goes up in the summer, so I do expect it to be around 4.7 again. Which, of course, doesn't explain why Planet 10 has such a good staff. AAAAHHHHHH

But something ain't right, that is for sure. Get this, in investigating the Player of the Month for May I found 51 qualifying pitchers with ERA's under 3.00, and this doesn't include short reliever types, meaning the number will only increase. This seems incredible to me and I can't put my finger on what has changed or why. Is it the tipping point theory I mentioned to Matt? A game engine problem? Something else?

First, any ideas from the owner base would be welcome, sounds like an interesting topic.

What I did do however, was try to compare ATB XI to ATB X among starting pitchers, to see if the number of 2.00 ERA pitchers, 3.00 ERA pitchers, etc, has increased. Ditto with RCERA and WHIP as well. Below is what I found.

But first, a team totals update - comparing league pitching stats of this year to last:

On the surface, there is something there. ERA and RCERA are down, and it looks like the culprit is slight improvement across the board to HR rates, walk rates, and hit rates.

I mentioned to Matt that DMB takes into consideration weather. From the help file, the first bullet on the impacts of weather (and some more for the curious):

• Warmer weather increases the level of offense
• Extreme temperatures (hot or cold) cause pitchers to tire more quickly
• The direction and speed of the wind can cause the level of offense to go up or down and may affect the flight of fly balls that are hit into or with the wind
• Rain delays may cause a pitcher to tire more quickly and, if his arm stiffens during a long delay, may force a pitcher to leave the game
• A wet field may cause a fielder to slip and misplay a ball

With that in mind, lets add in ATB X data through May:

Well, that makes it clear. At the league aggregate level there is little difference between ATB X and ATB XI at the same point in the season. It still begs the question on why there are so many pitchers with a low ERA. Here are the % of starting pitchers broken down by ERA, RCERA, and WHIP:

Interesting to say the least. Across all categories, there is a significant increase in the number of pitchers with elite type ERA's, RCERA's, and WHIP scores. There is also an increase, though not as dramatic, in the number of pitchers at the other end of the spectrum - very poor ERA's, RCERA's, and WHIP.

This reeks of small sample size alert and if forced to pick whether this is going to normalize during the summer or ATB has really changed, I would still choose the former - but the trend is interesting nonetheless and bears watching. I don't have the time at the moment to look at individual players through May 31 in ATB X, but a cursory glance does reveal the same trend - more elite stats than would be expected at this point in the season - but not nearly as many as we have found this season to date.