Summary

In this report, I present a brief overview, from an exploratory statistical standpoint of the offense and pitching performances, of the Puerto Rico winning streak during the 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC2017) before the final game vs Team USA. As of the day this report was prepared, Puerto Rico have 7 wins and are heading to the WBC 2017 final. Let’s evaluate how Puerto Rico’s execution in offense and pitching supports Team Puerto Rico undefeated record.

Note: This report was elaborated through the programming language R, and the data and codes that generated this report can be found here. The data was extracted from the World Baseball Classic website: https://www.worldbaseballclassic.com/stats/. Information about the author of this report can be found in this website: http://friveram.com/

Outline

  1. WBC 2017 Teams by Offensive Categories
  2. WBC 2017 Teams by Pitching Categories
  3. Brief Discussion of Findings

WBC 2017 Teams by Offensive Categories

Let’s first evaluate Puerto Rico’s offensive performance and how it relates to its 7 wins. First, you will find offensive statistics per team (Table 1) followed by per Team per 9 innings (Table 2). For offensive categories per 9 innings, you’ll also find bar graphs. The offensive categories to be discussed are the following:

  1. Team
  2. Team’s win
  3. tot_R = total runs scores
  4. H = total hits
  5. X2B = doubles
  6. X3B = triples
  7. HR = home runs
  8. AVG = batting average
  9. OBP = on-base batting percentage (perentage of times a player gets on base, including reaching base in a manner that does not include hits, doubles, triples, or home runs)
  10. OPS = on-base plus slugging (sum of the on-base and slugging percentage: slugging is calculated by dividing total bases of a player by at-bats)
Table 1: Offensive Summary per Team
TEAM Wins R H X2B X3B HR SO SB AVG OBP OPS
PUR 7 55 79 12 3 11 45 10 0.327 0.402 0.940
JPN 6 46 67 13 0 10 35 10 0.279 0.366 0.756
DOM 4 33 62 16 0 9 37 5 0.264 0.326 0.767
ISR 4 30 54 12 1 3 47 0 0.276 0.399 0.794
NED 4 48 80 17 1 10 39 2 0.251 0.312 0.731
USA 4 31 51 13 1 7 37 1 0.233 0.291 0.671
CUB 2 23 55 15 1 4 39 4 0.255 0.309 0.643
VEN 2 28 59 12 0 5 51 1 0.234 0.299 0.652
AUS 1 15 27 6 1 4 25 2 0.210 0.294 0.681
COL 1 9 22 6 1 1 28 1 0.173 0.232 0.338
ITA 1 26 34 9 0 10 39 0 0.260 0.324 0.799
KOR 1 12 31 6 0 1 21 2 0.261 0.364 0.650
MEX 1 24 34 5 0 4 22 0 0.309 0.365 0.823
CAN 0 3 15 2 0 0 34 2 0.148 0.241 0.399
CHN 0 1 11 0 0 0 26 2 0.110 0.166 0.276
TPE 0 20 35 7 0 2 26 1 0.342 0.401 0.766

In table 1 above, with the exceptions of doubles per 9 innings, Team Puerto Rico is the leader, or among the top 2, in all offensive categories: hits (H), triples (X3B), stolen bases (SB), batting average (AVG). Nevertheless, let’s pay attention to on-base percentage (OBP) and on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS), as this measure how often a players reach base and how are they reaching base, respectively. In both of these metrics, Team Puerto Rico is first. More importantly, in Major League Baseball, when a player has an OPS above 0.900 it represent that the player is reaching base often and it is doing in with power (i.e. may extra-base hits, such as doubles, triples, and/or home runs). As shown in the table above, Team Puerto Rico is leader in OPS with 0.940, which is parallel with Team Puerto Rico leading triples and Home Runs. In summary, Team Puerto Rico, although is also leading in strikeouts, is not only reaching base in a high percentage, they are getting on base with power, and this contributes to Team Puerto Rico scoring lots of runs – leading in runs scored (R).

Table 2: Offensive Summary per Team per 9 Innings
TEAM Wins R_p9 H_p9 X2B_p9 X3B_p9 HR_p9 SO_p9 SB_p9
PUR 7 6.111 8.78 1.333 0.333 1.222 5.00 1.111
JPN 6 5.111 7.44 1.444 0.000 1.111 3.89 1.111
DOM 4 3.667 6.89 1.778 0.000 1.000 4.11 0.556
ISR 4 3.333 6.00 1.333 0.111 0.333 5.22 0.000
NED 4 5.333 8.89 1.889 0.111 1.111 4.33 0.222
USA 4 3.444 5.67 1.444 0.111 0.778 4.11 0.111
CUB 2 2.556 6.11 1.667 0.111 0.444 4.33 0.444
VEN 2 3.111 6.56 1.333 0.000 0.556 5.67 0.111
AUS 1 1.667 3.00 0.667 0.111 0.444 2.78 0.222
COL 1 1.000 2.44 0.667 0.111 0.111 3.11 0.111
ITA 1 2.889 3.78 1.000 0.000 1.111 4.33 0.000
KOR 1 1.333 3.44 0.667 0.000 0.111 2.33 0.222
MEX 1 2.667 3.78 0.556 0.000 0.444 2.44 0.000
CAN 0 0.333 1.67 0.222 0.000 0.000 3.78 0.222
CHN 0 0.111 1.22 0.000 0.000 0.000 2.89 0.222
TPE 0 2.222 3.89 0.778 0.000 0.222 2.89 0.111

Table 2 above summarizes Team Puerto Rico’s offense per 9 innings. To better visualize the comparison between WBC’s teams in these categories, follow six bar graphs below.

Similarly to table 1, in table 2 Team Puerto Rico is not only leading in runs scores (above 6 runs per 9 innings) but also leading or among the top two (with the exception of doubles) in all offensive categories. For example, Team Puerto Rico is averaging almost 9 hits, more than 1 double and home run, and more than 1 stolen base per 9 innings. Team Puerto Rico is also among the leaders striking out, which may be an area the team may look forward to improve. Nevertheless, as we saw in table 1 has a very high OPS, which counteracts any negative effects the strikeouts may be having on Team Puerto Rico’s offense. If we put the numbers in table 2 together, Team Puerto Rico’s victories have been the result of reaching base on a high percentage and with power (i.e. extra-base hits): scoring more than 6 runs per game as results of nearly 9 hits per game, of which nearly 3 out of 9 hits (1.33 + 0.33 + 1.22 is approximately 3) are extra-base hits.

WBC 2017 Teams by Pitching Categories

In a similar approach as with the offensive categories discussed previously, the pitching categories will be first evaluated by team, but only per 9 innings (not cumulative as first performed with offensive categories).

The categories to be included are the following:

  1. ERA = earned run average
  2. SV = games saves by the bullpen
  3. Hp9 = total hits allowed
  4. Rp9 = total runs allowed
  5. ERp9 = total earned runs allowed
  6. HRp9 = total home runs allowed
  7. BBp9 = total base-on-balls allowed
  8. SOp9 = total strikeouts
  9. WHIP = walks and hits allowed per inning
Table 3: Pitching Summary per Team per 9 Innings
TEAM W L ERA Rp9 ERp9 ER_R_pcnt Hp9 HRp9 BBp9 SOp9 WHIP
PUR 7 0 1.64 2.000 1.778 11.11 4.67 0.778 2.667 6.22 1.017
JPN 6 0 2.76 2.444 2.333 4.54 5.33 0.556 1.333 6.56 1.073
DOM 4 2 3.04 2.111 1.667 21.05 4.67 0.333 1.778 6.33 0.991
ISR 4 2 8.25 3.444 3.111 9.68 6.33 0.333 3.222 4.44 2.276
NED 4 3 3.66 2.667 2.222 16.67 7.11 0.556 2.667 4.33 1.486
USA 4 2 4.03 2.222 1.778 20.00 4.56 0.556 1.111 5.78 1.155
CUB 2 4 10.60 4.444 3.556 20.00 6.11 1.000 3.333 4.44 2.881
VEN 2 5 8.40 6.111 5.444 10.91 8.78 1.556 3.667 5.56 2.132
AUS 1 2 1.76 0.889 0.889 0.00 2.56 0.333 1.000 2.22 1.332
COL 1 2 2.47 1.556 1.000 35.71 2.78 0.000 1.222 2.22 1.572
ITA 1 3 14.10 3.667 3.111 15.15 5.33 0.556 2.000 2.89 3.315
KOR 1 2 4.80 1.667 1.667 0.00 3.56 0.333 1.333 2.89 2.539
MEX 1 2 10.00 3.111 2.556 17.86 4.56 0.889 1.222 2.11 2.658
CAN 0 3 6.78 2.333 2.111 9.52 4.11 0.444 1.222 1.67 1.924
CHN 0 3 10.35 2.667 2.444 8.33 3.44 0.444 1.667 1.44 2.343
TPE 0 3 16.09 3.556 3.333 6.25 5.67 0.333 0.778 2.11 3.063

Find above table 3, which summarizes each teams pitching categories per 9 innings. To better visualize the comparison, find the 8 bar graphs below.

Among the teams that had more wins than loses (see the W column), Team Puerto Rico is also leader or among the leaders in most pitching categories: lowest ERA, least runs (Rp9) and earned runs(ERp9), least hits (Hp9) allowed, most batters strikeouts (SO), and walks-plus-hits per inning. On the contrary, Team Puerto Rico is allowing almost 1 home run and approximately 3 walks per 9 innings. Nevertheless, these two latter categories seem to have had limited effect on the pitching performance for Team Puerto Rico in ERA is by far leading in this category, and only 11% of the runs are unearned (ER_R_pnct). Therefore, this suggests that Team Puerto Rico is combining good hitting with good pitching by keeping unearned runs low (suggesting good defense) and making the opposition earn their runs.

Brief Discussion of Findings

This report explores the offensive and pitching categories for Team Puerto Rico prior to the final game versus Team USA (to be dispute on March 22nd of 2017). Team Puerto Rico is leader or among the leaders in most of the offensive as well as pitching categories, which evidence that Team Puerto Rico’s pitching is being supplemented with a good offense. Team Puerto Rico is reaching base often and with power (not only to one-base hits). Furthermore, the low percentage of unearned runs suggest Team Puerto Rico is employing good defense as well. In summary, Team Puerto Rico’s success so far in the 2017 WBC has been a combination of good and powerful hitting, effective pitching (including with men on base), and quality defensive execution.