MLB: State Of The Art Baseball: What the 2013 Stats Have To Say // NBA: Standings, Near The Wire; Denver Nuggets

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team---milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed., Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner MLB: State Of The Art Baseball: What The 2013 Stats Have To Say // NBA: Standinge, Near The Wire; Denver Nuggets. MLB---THERE are 30 MLB franchises, but during year 2013 only a few shared the high end of power-credentials when it came to the art of hitting. This is seen readily in MLB 2013’s hitting stats, where some surprises existed, among them, that the American League team that won the 2013 AL-LC and the World Series, the Boston Red Sox, did not have the highest team batting average. The Red Sox reached a .277 BA, while best BA in the AL belonged to the Detroit Tigers, .283. Nor did the Red Sox deliver the most home runs during 2013, putting up 178 HR’s, while the highest number of HR’s belonged to the Baltimore Orioles, 212. And, the Red Sox did not have the most hits during MLB-2013, 1,566 compared with the year’s highest number of hits gained by the Tigers, 1,625. But the Red Sox had the AL’s highest On Base Percentage (OBP), .349, and acquired the most RBI’s, 819, and the most runs, 853. And, it is most runs that win a ball game. The Red Sox finished MLB-2013 with 97 won games, best in the AL and tied with the National League’s St. Louis Cardinals 97 wins. So, bases loaded and then a third out with runners left in scoring position, this equals zero, zip, NADA! Runners reaching home before that third out, such made the difference for MLB-2013’s Red Sox, signaling the importance of OBP = runs, at the same time suggesting how insignificant OBP is without it translating into runners reaching home... NATIONAL LEAGUE: THE NL team that during MLB-2013 had the highest number of hits, 1,511, the highest BA, .270, the second highest number of runs, 706, and third highest number of RBI’s, 673, was the Colorado Rockies, yet the Rockies finished the season within the bottom half of all MLB clubs. The easy answer as to why would appear to be a Rockies pitching staff that couldn’t stop opposing teams from accruing more runs than the Rockies line-up could deliver, but there’s probably more to the story here, which to date the game’s software wizards haven’t been able to decode, though surely part of the problem for the Rockies were the stats put up by the NL teams that they were challenged by, e.g., the St Louis Cardinals having the year’s second highest number of hits, 1,494, the most RBI’s, 745, the most runs, 783, the second highest BA, .269 (just a decimal behind the Rockies), and the highest OBP, 332. Yet most HR’s were delivered by the Atlanta Braves, 181, next highest in HR’s being the Chicago Cubs (4th from the bottom within both leagues), having put up 172, third best in HR’s the Washington Nationals, 161. The Cardinals were seventh in this category, 125 HR’s, underscoring why the preference among managers is the extra base hits that result in runs, runs, runs. Again, and from the Cardinals 2013 stats, it’s base-runners becoming runs that best sends teams to the top and keeps them there. . . // NBA--- IT’s clear now that within the NBA West the Northeast Division’s Oklahoma City Thunder, the Southwest’s San Antonio Spurs and the Pacific’s L.A. Clippers will finish the current season as division leaders, and that the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers will end the season leading the East’s Southeast and Central Divisions, and that the East’s Atlantic Division could see the Brooklyn Nets ahead of the Toronto Raptors for first position within the East’s Atlantic Division. Of the aforementioned three teams of the West is a combined total of more than 150 games, the 54-16 Spurs having been the first in the league to reach more than 50 wins, and the Thunder, as of today, second best in the West with a 52-18 record, also ahead of the East’s leading franchise, the 51-20 Indiana Pacers. The aforementioned three division-leading franchises of the East have a combined total 133 games, with eh Nets added, 172. The Nets are at 37-32, only two games behind the Raptors. . . // NUGGETS--- Last night, the Denver Nuggets lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder, 117-96, the first loss of four games versus NBA teams that have held first and second place within their divisions, a set of challenges that began for the Nuggets mid-March and will continue until the Nuggets last game of the season, vs. the Golden State Warriors. So, the Nuggets are three for four, if you will, having beaten the Miami Heat, the L.A. Clippers and the Washington Wizards since March 14. There are seven such games to go before that last challenge, two vs. the Spurs this Wednesday and again on Friday, then two games vs. the Houston Rockets in April, another against the Clippers and the two vs. the Warriors. Winning the lion’s share of these games will prove that the Nuggets are an above-the-margin NBA franchise, in spite of the team’s current 32-39 record. END/ml