There is a large variety of metrics that can be used to evaluate how well teams have performed this season, but two of the simplest, and yet most important, are the number of runs that a player scores, and the number of runs an AI team gives up. Here, then, is an overview of that information for all of the teams in the BBL this season.

This was done at the eleven-week point, because that point offers the most balanced picture, given that each team has faced each other team in their league one time. Still, complete balance is impossible, and some teams’ totals will be slightly skewed from facing teams that started out the season performing rather differently than they did later on – teams like the Monsters, Angels, Tapirs, and Expos. And sometimes, teams’ performances have little to do with their competition, and more to do with just having a particularly good or bad week. But these numbers can still provide some good insight as to how good teams are at different aspects of the league, and why they’ve been successful – or not.

Since the Backyard and Frontyard leagues have been dramatically different in terms of average runs scored, they are being evaluated separately here. This also only evaluates based on raw run totals – the multiplier, or runs scored by AI teams, will not be considered here.

Backyard League

Runs Allowed By AI

Orioles – 8.5 runs on average (93 total over 11 games)

Indians – 9.3 average (102 total over 11 games)

Rockies – 11.5 average (126 total over 11 games)

Pirates – 11.9 average (131 total over 11 games)

Monsters – 12.7 average (140 total over 11 games)

Athletics – 13.1 average (131 total over 10 games)

Wombats – 13.6 average (150 total over 11 games)

Blue Jays – 14.0 average (154 total over 11 games)

Tigers – 14.2 average (156 total over 11 games)

Red Sox – 16.5 average (181 total over 11 games)

Diamondbacks – 17.4 average (191 total over 11 games)

Melonheads – 17.9 average (197 total over 11 games)

Runs Scored As Player

Athletics – 16.5 average (182 total over 11 games)

Red Sox – 16.5 average (182 total over 11 games)

Indians – 16.4 average (180 total over 11 games)

Monsters – 15.6 average (172 total over 11 games)

Blue Jays – 13.5 average (148 total over 11 games)

Diamondbacks – 13.0 average (143 total over 11 games)

Rockies – 12.4 average (136 total over 11 games)

Tigers – 11.8 average (118 total over 10 games)

Melonheads – 11.6 average (128 total over 11 games)

Orioles – 11.5 average (127 total over 11 games)

Pirates – 10.8 average (119 total over 11 games)

Wombats – 10.6 average (117 total over 11 games)

Analysis

It’s immediately clear from looking at these results that they do, indeed, have some relation to how good teams actually are. For example, at 9-2, the Indians are the best team in the league in terms of record, and they also happen to be the only team in the Backyard with top-five values in both runs scored and runs allowed, discounting the inconsistent Monsters. More than that, too, at #2 on runs allowed and #3 at runs scored, their values in these categories are significantly better than those of the next teams on the list – after the Indians comes a significant drop-off. Even though their defense has faltered more in recent weeks, their success clearly has not been a fluke.

Similarly, even if they haven’t reached the success of the Indians, the other teams with them in the upper echelons are all playoff contenders. Doing the best of these are the A’s, leading their division with an 8-3 record, thanks to tying for the most runs scored along with having a decent runs allowed value. The other teams up here have a significant weakness which has required luck to break more their way and left their positions less secure. The Red Sox are tied for having scored the most runs in the AL and along with the Indians are one of two teams that has never scored less than 10 runs in a game, but they’ve actually given up just one run less as AIs then they’ve scored, an easy bottom three team and far below #9 in that category. That means that they’ve had to get somewhat lucky for the majority of matchups to fall in their favor. On the flip side, the Orioles have the best AI defense in the league, as the only team to give up less than 100 runs as an AI, but are in the bottom three in terms of runs scored, which has limited their number of wins. They also have been very inconsistent in their run production – their five wins are also the five games in the season where they have scored 10 runs or more, and the rest of the time they’ve put up minimal scores that have been good for a loss every time.

The other likely playoff contenders not from the West, the Rockies, haven’t swept away the competition in either category, and indeed are in the bottom half in terms of runs scored. But sitting in third place in runs allowed, they clearly have one of the better AI defenses despite initial impressions to the contrary. They also put up a lot of runs earlier in the season to ensure victories in the majority of contests, before their AI started letting up less runs to help further and offset their dipping average score.

Meanwhile, this season the Melonheads went from a top 5 team, who won the division and made it to the ALCS, to a struggling team now guaranteed to finish the season with a losing record, and the reason is clear once one looks at the scoring data – the Melonheads have the worst AI defense in the entire league! Most of the rest of the league has been feasting on their defense, as in 9 out of 11 games, they have given up 15 runs or more. Compounding the problem is the fact that the Melonheads also have been one of the weakest teams in the league on offense – in fact, in 9 out of 11 games, they have scored 14 runs or fewer! And indeed, the four times where they either scored over 14 runs or gave up under 15 all took place in their only three wins of the season so far. Their eight losses all came from them putting up totals that were modest at best while their opponents put up high totals, and the consistency of this happening suggests that the Melonheads’ defense is seriously flawed, as opposed to them just having bad luck.

Elsewhere, the Wombats have had a decent AI defense, which has especially improved in recent weeks to help them finally win more games, but have struggled throughout the season to put up good run totals, jumping up and down across the season but ultimately scoring less runs in total than anybody else in the Backyard League. They also have had some unfortunate matchups, three of their six highest totals getting outshone to add to their struggles. Given that their coach, Wizard, made the NLCS as a rookie last season, this is clearly just a case of a team that he’s not so comfortable with.

The remaining teams have less commentary to be made on them. The Diamondbacks’ runs allowed average is skewed by the Monsters’ 50 against them at the start of the season, and they’ve otherwise been average in both categories. The Monsters have a solid defense and started the season off very strong in terms of scoring, but were brought down to earth when newbie coach BootyHunter took over for them. The Blue Jays are near the middle in both categories, but tend to score either very high or very low, leading to an inconsistent performance. The Tigers are below average in both offense and defense, and surprisingly have not been affected much by their change in coach, with average runs scored of 11.6 under GSchlim and 12.0 under newbie Ozzman. Instead, their struggles post-change have mostly come from a lot of runs given up by Ozzman to the AI. Finally, the Pirates have one of the better defenses in the league, but have still lost out as they’re a bottom team in terms of runs scored, barely more than the Wombats.

What About the Monsters?

No team in the league, except perhaps the Expos in the Frontyard, saw as dramatic of a performance transformation as the Minnesota Monsters. They started out as an unstoppable force, putting up giant scores in their first four games, before it was found out that they had been using tactics that violate the Lulu ruleset, under the mistaken belief that they were permissible. Coach Aesnop wasn’t the same afterwards, and soon dropped the team completely. But in the meantime, their inflated scores in the early weeks did work to skew the averages of the four teams that faced them to begin with.

So how would these teams’ averages look if one was to simply ignore the single result against the Monsters? They adjust to the following:

A’s – 12.3
D’Backs – 14.1
Red Sox – 15.8
Melonheads – 16.7

As the team that gave up the least runs to the original Monsters, the A’s overall position isn’t significantly affected, simply jumping ahead of the Monsters. Meanwhile, without the 50, the D’Backs jump up from being a particularly bad defense to being up with the pack, just barely above the Tigers, even if they still are one of the worse defenses in the league. This shift also makes it clear that the Red Sox and Melonheads have the two worst AI defenses in the league, far worse than any of the other ten. The Melonheads in particular are even farther behind the next-worse defense than before. So ultimately, in the overall rankings, the Diamondbacks are the only team significantly affected by the Monsters’ big score against them.

Frontyard League

Runs Allowed By AI

Cardinals – 5.5 average (60 total over 11 games)

Braves – 5.5 average (60 total over 11 games)

Bombers – 5.8 average (64 over 11 games)

Mariners – 6.3 average (57 total over 9 games)

Tapirs – 6.7 average (74 total over 11 games)

Marlins – 7.2 average (79 total over 11 games)

Angels – 8.1 average (89 total over 11 games)

Devil Rays – 8.2 average (90 total over 11 games)

Yankees – 8.3 average (91 total over 11 games)

Giants – 9.1 average (91 total over 10 games)

Expos – 9.6 average (106 total over 11 games)

Cubs – 12.3 average (135 total over 11 games)

Runs Scored As Player

Angels – 16.1 average (177 total over 11 games)

Tapirs – 13.4 average (147 total over 11 games)

Marlins – 9.9 average (109 total over 11 games)

Mariners – 7.8 average (86 total over 11 games)

Braves – 7.5 average (83 total over 11 games)

Bombers – 7.2 average (79 total over 11 games)

Yankees – 5.7 average (63 total over 11 games)

Expos – 5.5 average (55 total over 10 games)

Cardinals – 5.3 average (58 total over 11 games)

Devil Rays – 5.0 average (55 total over 11 games)

Cubs – 5.0 average (45 total over 9 games)

Giants – 3.8 average (42 total over 11 games)

Analysis

One fact that immediately jumps out is that, as could be expected from the fact that it’s for the newer members of the league, the Frontyard has been far lower-scoring than the Backyard. Only two teams have scored more on average than the worst team in the Backyard, and only three have given up more runs on average than the best of the Backyard. We already knew that the Frontyard tended to put up lower totals, so it’s no surprise that this is reflected in these results.

They also quite effectively highlight the plight of the NL West, which has struggled mightily ever since inter-divisional play began. It’s made clear why, here – not only are its four teams among the five lowest-scoring teams in the league, but their AIs are also among the five that have given up the most runs! Not only do the NL West teams generally struggle to score, but they also have to face higher totals than the other teams. In particular the Giants stand out as being by far the lowest-scoring team in the league, while the Cubs stand out as having an AI defense that’s an order of magnitude worse than any others in the Frontyard – even giving up more runs than a third of the high-scoring Backyard’s AIs. The Expos and Devil Rays are little better, but it seems likely that the Rays’ continued status at the top of the division can be attributed partially to the fact that their defense is clearly rather more effective than the other three teams’ – and in particular, in the starting four games of the season that they won, their AI only gave up 2.5 runs on average. It’s also worth noting that the Expos have improved dramatically over the course of the season – if you cut out the four starting games, where they scored no runs, and ignore their Week 10 forfeit (which is not included in the above list of averages), their average rockets up to a 9.2, the fourth-best in the league. That’s helped them turn around their fortunes some, although a mediocre AI defense has still limited their wins.

Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the spectrum, the Tapirs and Angels stand out as the two teams who’ve put up run totals to compete with the Backyard League. Both teams took several weeks to get going at the start of the season, but since then have become nigh-unstoppable forces due to the sheer number of runs they produce, despite both teams having only average AI defenses. Indeed, in the past eight weeks of play, the only time either team lost was when they played each other, so one team had to lose – they’ve been 15-1 in those past eight weeks. They’re competitive with the Backyard teams, too – the Angels’ average is good enough to be the fourth-best in the Backyard and an order of magnitude better than the teams below that mark, while the Tapirs would also clock in as a top-half team among the Backyard crews. takenotes011 and jorgesbankaccount have made the most obvious cases for promotion to the Backyard league next season.

Elsewhere, three teams clearly stand out as having the most effective AI defenses. The Bombers are tied for the best record in the league, and that’s largely due to having the third-best AI defense along with a top-half player offense – they’re also the only team in the league to never give up more than 10 runs in a single game. The Cardinals sat atop the NL East for most of the season, and that’s largely because they’re tied for having the best AI defense in the league, one good enough to usually keep their opponents down enough to make up for the fact that they’re also one of the lowest-scoring teams – but recent losses have shown that their low scores leave them vulnerable to their higher-scoring opponents. Meanwhile, the Braves are an interesting case – they’re tied for the best AI defense in the league and have a top-half offense, better than the Bombers’, yet stand at a mere 5-6 and are out of playoff contention. The explanation here comes from a factor not covered by these metrics – the player-controlled Braves have suffered from allowing a lot of runs to AI teams. In fact, the AI Braves have only given up 11 more runs to player teams than the player Braves have given up to AI teams! That’s cut into their scores a lot and explains their poor record despite looking good in these metrics.

As for the remaining teams, the Mariners are one of the better teams both in runs allowed by AI and runs scored, and in any other division would be contenders for the lead, but the fact that they scored less at the beginning of the season, heating up more in recent weeks to drive up their average, explains why they’ve faltered next to their competition in the Central. The Marlins have the only offense outside of the top two that’s close to being competitive with the Backyard League, but both of their averages are skewed by a small number of outlier games – without a single smackdown by the Tapirs, they’d have an AI defense among the best in the league, while their runs scored average is propped up largely be three straight big games they had earlier in the season, without which they’d be solidly in the middle of the pack. Still, swapped as their offense and defense are in the standings, they still do a good job of explaining why they’re still in the playoff hunt. Meanwhile, the Yankees’ struggles this season is reflected in their position in the bottom half of both lists. Their offense has been tepid all season, and while, in part due to a lot of games at the Casa, their defense held strong early in the season, it’s taken rather a beating recently to fall quite a bit in that regard as well.

That’s all for this analysis. Full-season data for these values will be provided at the end of this season, whether on BBL News Center or simply on the Discord server.