1. Batting average
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The league average is down about seven points from last year and a little more from 2008. Only three teams have improved on last year's so far, and those are all pretty substantial increases. Stockton probably won't hit .227 the entire season, so the BA could even out by the end of the year.
2. OBP
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The league averages aren't exact because a few key components to calculating OBP aren't available as team statistics, so that number is the average of all the team OBP which isn't quite the same. It's pretty impressive that Stockton has that huge drop in BA but maintains the same OBP. The league average is again down from the previous two years. Lancaster has a lot to do with that drop, and Bakersfield also has a pretty big dropoff compared to last year. It's pretty unlikely that Bakersfield has a team OBP below .300 for an entire season, so the league average should rise at some point.
3. SLG
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The league averages may not be exact, but they should be pretty accurate. The lower slugging is definitely uncharacteristic of the Cal League, but a look at the team by team numbers shows that'll probably rise before the season is finished. The two best hitting havens, High Desert and Lancaster, have seen some of the biggest SLG drops. In those environments, they should see an improvement as more home games are played, especially Lancaster.
4. OPS
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High Desert's insane number in 2009 likely can't be repeated. This year's roster just doesn't have the talent of the 2009 squad, so if the league is going to improve its OPS, it'll have to come from some other teams, which is probably still likely. In 2008 and 2009, only two teams were below .700, both Visalia teams. In 2010 so far, four teams are. Bakersfield and Inland Empire's numbers both appear to be flukes, especially the very talented 66ers team. Lancaster's number should also have a huge increase at some point due to the ballpark.
5. Runs
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The first set of numbers is runs per game, and the second set is total runs in a season. The 2010 column just shows what teams are on pace for based on their current R/G. The league averages with the first set are runs per game between two teams in an average game. Maybe the most surprising thing is Visalia's projected total which is lower than both of the previous two seasons despite a huge increase in team OPS. Scoring fewer than four runs a game is very unusual, especially for this league and Lancaster in particular. I don't know if it's necessarily true in the Cal League, and I won't be able to find the numbers to see if there's a trend, but in the majors teams start scoring more as the weather warms up, and that could be the case here.
6. Home runs
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Like the runs table, the league averages are per game for both teams participating. Usually there's a couple teams that will average one a game, and so far the best teams are just a little off that pace. Teams are on pace to average 33 fewer home runs than last season, which is a pretty big drop. Like the other numbers, I expect to see a lot of this to change by the end of the season. I doubt a team will only hit 42 home runs over the course of an entire season.
7. ERA
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That's a staggering difference in league ERA. Only two teams have an ERA worse than last season, and San Jose had a couple marks that are tough to repeat. They had far and away the best ERA in the league the last two years, and they don't have that kind of talent there again. High Desert's will likely rise just because of the stadium, and there's no way that many teams finish with an ERA below 4. I could see Lancaster's dipping a little still with some of the pitching they have.
8. WHIP
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Maybe I'm just wrong about benchmarks in WHIP, but I don't see this being much of a difference. It kind of indicates that the much lower ERA could be a bit of a fluke since the league isn't really allowing fewer baserunners. From this point forward, I see Modesto and High Desert's rising. I don't think the Nuts have the talent to have the best WHIP in the league over the past three seasons, and the Mavericks' WHIP will rise as they play more games at home. Lake Elsinore's pitching is struggling more than I expected, but I think they'll turn it around.
9. Hits
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In the hits table and the following HR and K tables, the first set of numbers is a rate per nine innings. The second set is a season total, with the 2010 column a projected total based on the current rate. One thing I need to say about that column is it's inexact to calculate because not every team pitches the same amount of innings. Last year, teams averaged pitching 1240 IP, so I used that for everyone. Right now, a couple teams area averaging below 8 H/9 which is not sustainable. On the other hand, a few teams are allowing more hits per nine than they likely will the rest of the way.
10. Home runs allowed
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Astute readers will notice that my projected HR total here is different from my projected HR total from earlier. It's unfortunate, but it's because of how I calculated the projected totals for the "per 9" tables at the end of this entry. A couple teams are allowing home runs at a rate that's pretty much impossible to keep up over an entire season. At some point, Modesto and Inland Empire will start allowing more home runs, although both do have good pitching.
11. Strikeouts
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I guess I really didn't need to include this because I don't know what to take from it. I don't think strikeouts is something that can be generally consistent from year to year like runs scored are in this league. A lot of it depends on the stuff of the pitchers and the approach taken by the batters. As the table shows, it can change somewhat drastically from year to year, but there are the numbers anyway.
What does all of this mean? I really think most of the numbers can be attributed to a small sample size. I think there are still a lot of outliers in the 2010 data compared to the full seasons of 2008 and 2009. I don't believe the offensive stats will stay this low an entire season, but I guess it's something to keep an eye on throughout the year. I'll probably update this again at some point.
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