Ok -

I tried to go and model what was being discussed in a thread a couple days ago, and had been mentioned by DiaTriber.

Basically, the idea is that the Indians are struggling because they bunch their runs in just a few innings, and don't score otherwise.  This seems to bear out in the data and I tried to depict it graphically.  The red triangles indicated a Winning Percentage of .550 or greater.

via i284.photobucket.com

via i284.photobucket.com

The chart essentially maps out two things:

X-axis:  Number of innings with 4+ runs / Total number of innings played

Y-axis:  Number of runs scored in innings with at least 4 runs scored / Total number of runs scored

The extreme would be if you scored all of your runs for the whole season in one inning, you would be in the upper left hand corner and would not win many games. However, if you scored 4+ runs consistently in bunches over and over again, let's call it being good at having a "Big Inning" then you would be towards the upper right hand corner.

I think it's clear that the majority of the teams that are winning their games (red triangle is a W-L % of greater than .550) are able to have the "Big Inning" more often than the rest of the league.  They have a greater proportion of their innings, and a greater number of total runs, that are generated in big innings.

The Indians are generating big innings, but they are clearly concentrated in a smaller number of innings than is being demonstrated for clubs that are successful thus far.  The Indians are also 24th in the majors in runs scored, so their absolute number of runs is much smaller than, say the Cubs or Red Sox, who are scoring 250+ runs total so far (compared with 186 for the Indians).

I guess this goes without saying, but if the Indians can move towards the right, that means that they'll be stringing together more "Big Innings", which should be plenty to get them wins if the pitching stays consistent.

I've been having some conversations with a buddy in LA about Andruw Jones being fat.  So I decided to take a look at the fattest listed weights in the game - I pulled my info from ESPN.com rosters as of 3/14, and it is not the full 40-man, but is above 25, so most teams have around 35 people listed (1,006 total players).  I recognize that listed weights aren't that accurate, and that this is more trivial than informative, but I found it interesting anyways:

(1)  CC is tied for fattest listed weight in the league, along with Jonathan Broxton, at 290.  Wow.  The saving grace for Charleston Chew is that he has 3 inches on Broxton.

(2) The White Sox are the fattest team in the majors (avg wt = 221), followed by the Yankees (219).  This couldn't have turned out any better, IMHO.

(3)  The general numbers between AL and NL by position are pretty similar, except that at CF, AL is 10 lbs heavier than NL (202 v. 192).  The next largest variance of any position is RF 7 lbs (214 v. 207), and then 5 lbs LF(204 v. 209), with NL being heavier.  Given that there are 8 people named as DH in the AL (avg wt = 235), it surprises me that AL outfielders are also much heavier.

(4)  All three AL divisions are heavier, with avg wt of W (210) / C (210) / E (208) on average, than NL divisions, C (208), W (205), E (204).  AL (avg wt = 209) is heavier than NL (206).

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