Analysis

How the SBa Stacks Up to the MLB: Part 1

JP hunts down the all time stats for the MLB and compared them to the first three SBa seasons

JP

Apr 11, 2021 • 6 min read

We frequently debate how "realistic" our league is compared to the MLB. I hunted down the all time stats for the MLB and compared them to the first three seasons that we've put together to see just how realistic things are.

Part 1 of the comparisons will be between each SBa season and the MLB season that the cards are based on. So it'll be 2018 for S1 and 2019 for S2 and S3. I'll do a S4 comparison when the season ends (don't hold me to that).

Everything is normalized to a per team, per-162 game rate for easier comparison. I'll also share the data for anyone to poke around once this is finished.

Starting with S1 vs 2018 MLB, here's what we have:
Batting Stats

Year	Tms	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	HBP	IBB
2018	30	6171	5514	721	1367	275	28	186	687	82	32	523	1374	0.248	0.318	0.409	0.728	64	31
S1	12	5997	5406	606	1254	260	38	175	568	74	28	457	1449	0.232	0.295	0.391	0.687	60	25

Pitching Stats

Year	IP	H	R	ER	SO	BB	HBP	WP	HR	SV	WHIP	ERA
2018	1449	1367	721	667	1373	523	64	62	186	41	1.30	4.14
S1	1456	1263	619	585	1473	474	61	3	164	33	1.19	3.62

At a glance, Season 1 team batting stats come in below MLB averages across the board. S1 was definitely a pitcher's year looking at batting stats. The average S1 team would have finished last in hits, batting average and OBP, and near the bottom of the league in runs, walks, SLG, and OPS. The average S1 team would easily be a top 5 MLB pitching staff.

Now as for whether these numbers are realistic. This is where I probably make a mistake with statistics but here we go. I found the standard deviations for each statistic using MLB team stats for the season. The percentile of each stat within the MLB distribution was found using a normal distribution. For simplicity we'll say a "realistic" value is between the 25th and 75th percentile, or +/- one quartile. (A percentile of 50% would be MLB average)

Batter Stats

Stat	Value	MLB Avg	Percentile	Realistic?
PA	5997	6171	4%	No
AB	5406	5514	2%	No
R	606	721	6%	No
H	1254	1367	3%	No
2B	260	275	30%	Yes
3B	38	28	86%	No
HR	175	186	36%	Yes
RBI	568	687	5%	No
SB	74	82	37%	Yes
CS	28	32	26%	Yes
BB	457	523	14%	No
SO	1449	1374	79%	No
BA	0.232	0.248	4%	No
OBP	0.295	0.318	3%	No
SLG	0.391	0.409	21%	No
OPS	0.687	0.728	11%	No
HBP	60	64	40%	Yes
IBB	25	31	32%	Yes

Pitcher Stats

Year	S1	MLB	Percentile	Realistic?
IP	1456	1450	67%	Yes
H	1263	1367	12%	No
R	619	721	11%	No
ER	585	668	14%	No
SO	1473	1374	77%	No (barely)
BB	474	523	22%	No (barely)
HBP	61	64	38%	Yes
WP	3	62	0%	No
HR	164	186	16%	No
SV	33	41	13%	No
WHIP	1.19	1.30	10%	No
ERA	3.62	4.14	15%	No

I personally enjoy the fact that S1 was just a tad heavy on 3B despite being so insanely low on the other hitting stats. The hotly debated topic of stealing also turned out to be somewhat realistic despite some players having ridiculous numbers. Turns out when your batters fare below average the pitching stats are gonna be busted too. I'm gonna attribute any inconsistencies in stat totals to rounding.

S1 Verdict:
I'm gonna say S1 was unrealistic as a whole. Pitchers OP pls nerf.

Moving into S2 and S3 stats, I'm hoping for a bit more normalcy with rules changes and the like. Let's find out.

Batters:

Year	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	HBP	IBB
2019	6217	5555	782	1401	284	26	226	749	76	28	530	1427	0.252	0.323	0.435	0.758	66	25
S2	6233	5516	741	1351	294	38	237	699	63	20	515	1451	0.243	0.316	0.437	0.753	69	21
S3	6315	5648	847	1442	304	39	274	813	59	15	527	1490	0.255	0.329	0.469	0.798	74	17

Pitchers:

Year	IP	H	R	ER	SO	BB	HBP	WP	HR	SV	WHIP	ERA
2019	1447	1401	782	723	1427	530	66	60	226	39	1.33	4.49
S2	1458	1339	750	702	1445	521	68	45	229	43	1.28	4.33
S3	1456	1439	848	791	1492	545	75	54	275	37	1.36	4.89

At a glance, this looks a lot better. Comparing the seasonal averages to the MLB as a whole puts S2 and S3 closer to the middle of the pack. The S3 batting stats start to take off a bit but they still sit within a realm of possibility. Let's see how the percentiles stack up.

S2 Batters:

Year	2019	S2	Percentile	Realistic?
PA	6217	6233	56%	Yes
AB	5555	5516	32%	Yes
R	782	741	32%	Yes
H	1401	1351	25%	Yes
2B	284	294	65%	Yes
3B	26	38	95%	No
HR	226	237	61%	Yes
RBI	749	699	28%	Yes
SB	76	63	31%	Yes
CS	28	20	15%	No
BB	530	515	41%	Yes
SO	1427	1451	59%	Yes
BA	0.252	0.243	20%	No
OBP	0.323	0.316	30%	Yes
SLG	0.435	0.437	53%	Yes
OPS	0.758	0.753	45%	Yes
HBP	66	69	57%	Yes
IBB	25	21	37%	Yes

S2 Pitchers:

Year	2019	S2	Percentile	Realistic?
IP	1447	1458	78%	No (barely)
H	1401	1339	26%	Yes
R	782	750	37%	Yes
ER	723	702	41%	Yes
SO	1427	1445	56%	Yes
BB	530	521	44%	Yes
HBP	66	68	56%	Yes
WP	60	45	15%	No
HR	226	229	54%	Yes
SV	39	43	70%	Yes
WHIP	1.33	1.28	29%	Yes
ERA	4.49	4.33	39%	Yes

All I gotta say is wow. Season 2 is almost entirely within the "realistic" realm. Once again 3Bs are stupidly high, but the only other batting stats that are outside that range are CS and BA. BA is pretty close to being realistic so that'd basically leave 3B and CS as the outliers. Pretty good. As for pitching stats, every one is within the realm of realism except for IP and WP. Not sure what's up with WP, but maybe chaos needs to be increased? IP is barely above the 75th percentile so that's not super far-fetched either.

S2 Verdict:
Yeah S2 is pretty spot on for what can be considered a realistic season.

S3 Batters:

Year	2019	S3	Percentile	Realistic?
PA	6217	6315	81%	No
AB	5555	5648	86%	No
R	782	847	77%	No
H	1401	1442	71%	Yes
2B	284	304	78%	No
3B	26	39	97%	No
HR	226	274	88%	No
RBI	749	813	77%	No
SB	76	59	26%	Yes
CS	28	15	5%	No
BB	530	527	49%	Yes
SO	1427	1490	72%	Yes
BA	0.252	0.255	61%	Yes
OBP	0.323	0.329	67%	Yes
SLG	0.435	0.469	88%	No
OPS	0.758	0.798	83%	No
HBP	66	74	72%	Yes
IBB	25	17	25%	Yes

S3 Pitchers:

Year	2019	S3	Percentile	Realistic?
IP	1447	1456	73%	Yes
H	1401	1439	65%	Yes
R	782	848	75%	yes
ER	723	791	78%	No (barely)
SO	1427	1492	71%	Yes
BB	530	545	61%	Yes
HBP	66	75	77%	No (barely)
WP	60	54	33%	Yes
HR	226	275	96%	No
SV	39	37	40%	Yes
WHIP	1.33	1.36	60%	Yes
ERA	4.49	4.89	76%	No (barely)

S3 is a bit harder to judge than S2. Batting stats are pretty even on realistic vs unrealistic and a lot of the ones that fall into the unrealistic category are pretty close to that 75th percentile. Batting stats tend to run higher especially 3Bs (again, seriously), HR, and SLG. Pitching stats, as a result, also are on the high side, albeit closer to that 75th percentile that we've been shooting for. Oh hey and WPs are finally in a good range too.

S3 Verdict:
S3 is in pretty good shape. Things trend a bit higher than S2 but for the most part we're still in that realm of realism.

Overall I think we've got a pretty realistic product here (which I hoped we would) from a purely statistical perspective. Some takeaways I had are:

S1 SBs came in near MLB average despite the absurdness of pitcher holds.
We hit a lot of triples.
We've decidedly moved from pitcher friendly to batter friendly. I attribute this to custom park factors.

So there you have it. Maybe some of the super specific stuff we have (like reliever heavy rotations and not limiting guys to what their cards say) isn't considered "realistic" but we're in a good spot relative to the MLB on the stats side.

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