Tapping on Shutouts
by Peter Portero (4/7/06)
Of the over 17,000 games played over the past 7 years, there were 1670 games that resulted in a shutout. This means that roughly 10% of the games result in a shutout.
The number of shutouts last season was the second largest total of any year during the 7-year span, should we thank steroids for that? Well, since we expect to see more shutouts this season, how can we make plays knowing shutouts.
Much like in basketball where teams having poor offensive performances come back with a vengeance, baseball is no different. Teams off a shutout loss were 144-117 last season (+28 units).
As of today, April 5, 2006, there has only been one situation where this happened and it resulted in a win for +2.00 units. What if we piggy-backed shutout losses. Meaning a team is coming off two consecutive shut out losses?
What we found was not necessarily all that thrilling. But if we turned around our test case and asked ourselves "How do teams do if having pitched two consecutive shutout?". We find something very very interesting.
Lets cut to the chase: Home teams going against teams throwing two consecutive shutouts are 22-10, +13 units. On an 11-3 (+10.5 units) roll over the past 3 years.
