Team Chemistry: Fact or Fiction?

I recently got into a discussion with someone in a newsgroup regarding team chemistry.

It all started when I sent out a message to some of the more active Usenet baseball newsgroups about this site.  Not a heck of a lot of people are reading it so I figured I might as well go out and promote it a little.

One person was kind enough to click the link but immediately took offense to my bio, which states that I believe team chemistry is a myth.  That’s not a joke; I really do think it’s a myth.  This particular poster said that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that the Blue Jays pre-Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar and post Carter/Alomar were proof of chemistry.

Proof of chemistry?  The Holy Grail of baseball lore?  I had to investigate.

I quickly went over to baseballreference.com and looked up the early 1990’s Blue Jays, hoping to see team chemistry jump out at me.  I dug and dug and dug, and decided that the only way to figure out if the Blue Jays had truly used team chemistry to overhaul their roster and make themselves better was to compare the team before the trade for Carter and Alomar in 1990 to the World Series team in 1992.

Here’s what I found:

Of the 29 main contributors to the 1990 “bad chemistry” team, defining a main contributor as at least 70 at bats or eight appearances as a pitcher, 19 of those players returned for the 1991 season, for a 34% roster turnover.

That’s a lot but not to bad.

The 1990 team scored 767 runs and allowed 661 for a team ERA of 3.84 and a run differential of 106 which is very good.

The 1991 team scored 684 runs (-83) and allowed 622 (-39) for a team ERA of 3.50 and a run differential of 62 which is less than 1990.

So while the pitching improved, it didn’t makeup for the turnover in offense and actually made the Blue Jays 44 runs worse than before the trade.

Of the 1992 roster, the first of two World Series winners, there were eleven players leftover from the 1990 “bad chemistry” team, for a turnover of 62%, more than half the roster.

The 1992 team scored 780 runs, up 96 from 1991 and 13 from 1990, and allowed 682 runs, down 2 from 1990 and up 60 from 1991, for a team ERA of 3.91, worst of the three years.  The run differential, however, was back up to 98, which is pretty good.

Now, with this complete makeover in roster in the name of team chemistry, one would expect that, with chemistry better, the existing players from 1990 would perform better on the 1992 team.  So let’s break that down.


1990           AVG   OBP   SLG
  
 Greg Myers   .236  .293  .332  
 John Olerud  .265  .364  .430  
 Kelly Gruber .274  .330  .512  
 Manuel Lee   .243  .288  .340  
 Pat Borders  .286  .319  .497  
 total       1.304 1.594 2.111  
       
                  ERA  W   L
 Dave Stieb       2.93 18  6  
 David Wells      3.14 11  6  
 Duane Ward       3.45  2  8  
 Jimmy Key        4.25 13  7  
 Todd Stottlemyre 4.34 13 17  
 Tom Henke        2.17  2  4  
 total           20.28 59 48


1992           AVG   OBP   SLG
 
 Greg Myers   .230  .279  .377  
 John Olerud  .284  .375  .450  
 Kelly Gruber .229  .275  .352  
 Manuel Lee   .263  .343  .316  
 Pat Borders  .242  .290  .385  
 total       1.248 1.562 1.880  
       
                  ERA  W   L    
 Dave Stieb       5.04  4  6  
 David Wells      5.40  7  9  
 Duane Ward       1.95  7  4  
 Jimmy Key        3.53 13 13  
 Todd Stottlemyre 4.50 12 11  
 Tom Henke        2.26  3  2  
 total           22.68 46 45

Difference between 1990 and 1992:

AVG -.056
OBP -.032
SLG -.231

ERA +2.40 (went up)
W –13
L –3 (less losses)

In every statistic except losses, the players who were on the 1990
team performed worse as a group than they did in 1992.  Meyers,
Olerud, Ward, and Key saw their statistics improve, although Meyers
only had 61 at bats and Olerud was 23, finishing his third season at a
young age and priming to break out in 1993.

So while the chemistry may have been better on the team, it didn't
positively impact the players that played on both teams to perform
better in 1992.