The Misunderstood Relationship Between Team Chemistry and Sabermetrics

Almost two weeks ago (I was hoping to write about this sooner, but life gets in the way sometimes), Steve Melewski of MASN ruffled some feathers with the following tweet.

Pretty cool per @masnroch that guys like Tillman/Britton watched a kid like Hunter Harvey throw today. Can't put a sabermetric stat on that.
— Steve Melewski (@masnSteve) February 21, 2015

Overall it seemed like an odd statement to make.  Not odd in the sense that some of the major league pitchers decided to watch Hunter Harvey throw his bullpen session, but odd that he appeared to force the topic of team chemistry and sabermetrics into the observation.  It’s entirely likely that the inclusion was only meant to get a reaction, which it did.

CHEMISTRY!

The fact is he’s not incorrect; sabermetrics can’t put a stat on team chemistry*.  However, his tweet implies that sabermetrics completely discounts team chemistry, which is simply not true.  The way that team chemistry relates to production on the field has been studied quite a bit, but it just so happens that it is incredibly difficult to quantify its effect.  So while you can’t put a sabermetric stat on team chemistry, it hasn’t been for a lack of trying.

*He’s also kind of incorrect, as people have actually tried to put a number on team chemistry, although that attempt is not without its own issues.

In particular, Russell Carleton of Baseball Prospectus has tried several times to quantify the impact of chemistry on a team’s production.  He’s examined Brandon McCarthy’s claim that the 2012 Oakland A’s (who won 94 games) would have been a 70 win team without the presence of Brandon Inge and Jonny Gomes** (possibly, but not nearly to the extent McCarthy claimed), whether having a veteran with a good clubhouse presence helps a young player produce better (it doesn’t), and whether players perform better on teams with high personnel turnover or low turnover (some correlation for hitters, but nothing for pitchers, teams, or a team’s performance in close games).

**Inge and Gomes combined for 2.8 WARP in 2012, according to Baseball Prospectus

While those results initially tell us that the effect of team chemistry is minimal or even non-existent, Carleton himself points out that it doesn’t mean that there isn’t some real positive effect of mentoring a young player.  In fact, in one of his non-gory math articles about chemistry, he wonders what “chemistry” actually means, eventually hypothesizing that it may boil down to whether an individual cares enough about his team (and teammates) to not take certain plays off.  However, as Carleton states, that decision to not take certain plays off could also be made out of pure selfishness (for example, playing hard to get a higher paycheck the following year).

Differing opinions about team chemistry aren’t limited to sabermatricians and beat writers, they vary between people within the game itself.  On one hand, there is Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Brandon McCarthy (who has a reputation as a believer in sabermetrics), stating his belief in the unaccounted value provided by Inge and Gomes (mentioned above).  On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have former manager Jim Leyland saying that team chemistry isn’t worth a “hill of beans” (Leyland didn’t actually use the term “hill of beans”, but this is a family website).  In the middle, there’s front office man Jonah Hill Paul DePodesta, who doesn’t doubt its importance, but questions a team’s ability to manufacture it.

The truth is it can be easy to mock the “team chemistry” argument.  It’s only typically talked about before and after the season.  In spring training, EVERYONE has good chemistry.  Ben Lindbergh wrote about that for Baseball Prospectus last year and found that 25 of the 30 MLB teams believed they had great clubhouse chemistry prior to the 2013 season (spoiler alert, not all 25 teams won the world series that year, or even managed a winning record). After the season ends, as Lindbergh states, “chemistry is trotted out to explain success or failure after the fact.”

However, that doesn’t mean team chemistry is irrelevant.  The difficulty is in measuring its effect, especially without everyday access to record the complex interactions that 25 individuals have on a daily basis over the course of a long season.  The ones with the closest type of access are beat writers.  Still, they don’t see everything, and wouldn’t necessarily report on it even if they did, because they require a certain level of trust with the players in order to effectively perform their job.

Melewski’s statement on team chemistry and sabertmetrics wasn’t technically incorrect.  However, it was unnecessary and stated in a manner that encouraged confrontation.  Baseball teams are made up of many unique individuals with different personalities and motives.  Can we be sure that Tillman or Britton weren’t watching Harvey’s bullpen session out concern for their own job security?  Maybe they decided to observe out of sheer curiosity?  I mean, who wouldn’t want to watch a top 30 prospect pitch?  Those may sound like silly questions, but I don’t think they can be completely ruled out.  Team chemistry is an extremely complex concept that has yet to be quantified (and quite possibly it never will).  Watching a teammate throw a bullpen session shouldn’t be touted as definitive evidence that it exists.

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Note: While this article mostly used examples from Baseball Prospectus, other websites (such as Fangraphs) have previously looked at the topic as well.  Additionally, past work by Camden Depot’s Jon Shepherd on manager wins added (or subtracted) could be considered an indirect way to measure team chemistry.