The Problem With The Domination Index
Criticism of a good idea
NOTE: This post has been edited due to a silly math error on my part. Apologies!
The Problem With The Domination Index
I really like the domination index. I think it’s excellent for many reasons.
However, there is one major problem that we should talk about. The problem is that teams might not always be trying to win.
Let’s look at two examples.
2001 Mariners
You remember this game, don’t you?
This was that famous Sunday Night Baseball game, where the Cleveland Indians came back from a 12 run deficit to beat the Mariners, 15-14. I remember listening to the whole thing on ESPN’s radio broadcast.
This was such a memorable game that ESPN deemed it an “instant classic.” In fact, if you want, you can watch the whole thing here:
So why bring all of this up?
It’s simple. It has to do with runs, which is the thing that the domination index is so squarely focused on.
Let’s take a look and see what impact this game has on Seattle’s domination index score. Note that I’m looking at the 2001 Mariners only in the context of the American League run environment; interleague play means I should technically be looking at the Major Leagues as a whole.
The 2001 American League Domination Index looks like this:
How good is that 3.47 Domination Index rating? Well, if you look back here, you’ll see that the 1927 Yankees had a 3.65 Domination Index. In other words, 3.47 is clearly indicative of one of the greatest teams in the history of baseball.
Now, let’s play around with this a little bit. What happens if the Mariners hold onto the lead?
I mean, let’s be more specific here. This is what the Seattle pitchers did in that forgettable game:
Let’s say that John Halama wasn’t brought in to give up 4 earned runs in the space of 2 outs. Let’s say that manager Lou Pinella realized that having Sele pitch another inning or two wasn’t going to kill him, that the difference between throwing 116 pitches and 150 isn’t anywhere near as big as the powers that be will tell you.
Let’s say that the Mariners actually win this game 14-2.
What happens to their won-loss record? Well, the Mariners would have had 117 wins, good enough for the all time win record. That’s pretty easy to figure out.
But let’s take a look now at what happens to their Domination Index:
Now, I didn’t just take 13 runs allowed away from the Mariners. I also took 13 runs scored away from Cleveland, and took those 13 runs away from the average.
The difference? Seattle now has a Domination Index rating of 3.61, allowing them to almost equal the 1927 Yankees.
And all of that is because of a single game.
1939 Yankees
Now let’s do the same thing, but from the other perspective.
Here’s what the 1939 American League Domination Index looks like:
See what I mean when I say that those 2001 Mariners were good? According to this somewhat quick and dirty rating, they dominated their league in a very similar fashion to how the 1939 Yankees did.
Now, we’re going to use the same trick, but we’re going to go the other way around.
The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians on June 2, 1939, by a score of 17-5:
Let’s have some fun with this. Let’s say that Cleveland didn’t just give up. In fact, let’s say that the Yankees did something stupid, like bring Atley Donald out in the 6th because of his pitch count or something.
In this hypothetical world, the Indians rally to come back, scoring an additional 13 runs in the late innings to win this game, 18-17.
Yes, I know full well that this would mean Cleveland would have come back from a 14-1 deficit, setting a modern record for a miraculous performance. It probably wouldn’t happen. But it could have, right? I mean, the 2001 Indians did it.
Anyway, this is the impact that our hypothetical has on the 1939 Domination Index:
The 1939 Yankees still look awesome. However, that one blip, that one 13-run bulge means that the Yankees now seem less dominant than the real-life 2001 Mariners were.
So What?
So what?
Well, the problem here is that unimportant games can severely skew the Domination Index.
This is particularly a problem for teams that have already clinched the pennant — or, in the ridiculous modern world of endless postseason series, a playoff spot.
If a team decides to save itself in later games for the postseason, its Domination Index could be skewed. We’ve seen here the significant impact that 13 runs makes, for example. Not giving up 13 runs in a game that seemed a cinch would have made the Mariners have a solid argument for being the greatest team of all time. And giving up an extra 13 runs in a meaningless game in June would have made the Yankees look much less like the greatest team of all time.
That’s the impact that a single game can have. And that’s something we’ve really got to keep in mind when it comes to these ratings.
Now, there are other problems with cross-era baseball comparison. We’ll get to those slowly as time goes on. This problem, however, is one that is easy to ignore — until somebody points it out.