Harper asked a couple of interesting questions in the comment(s) to the previous post:
- Casual observation tells us our offense is better this year. The numbers you've shown don't see to agree. Has the NL as a whole seen an offensive explosion? Or was June just so bad it killed us?
- Where do we stand in comparison to last year when we thought the offense was the worst thing ever put in a batters box since sliced bread?
CAT 2005 2006
AVG .262 .265
OBP .330 .334
SLG .414 .424
As to the second question, last season the Nats ranked:
- last in runs scored;
- last in batting average;
- fourteenth in on-base percentage;
- last in slugging percentage; and
- last in on-base-plus-slugging.
But do those two things really account for an improvement from .252/.322/.386 to .257/.329/.417? The slugging increase outpaces the league-wide increase by a good bit. I'm going to attribute the excess to a guy named Alfonso Soriano.
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Well, as a blogger recently back from sabbatical once called this blog, it's the home of unfinished features. And such it would appear---at least for the moment. I'm not going to get around to the pitching numbers tonight. But I'll post them tomorrow night---really.