baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

, run differential is a cumulative team statistic that combines offensive and defensive scoring. Run differential is calculated by subtracting runs allowed from runs scored. Run differential is positive when a team scores more runs than it allows; it is negative when a team allows more runs than it scores. Non-zero run differentials are normally expressed with leading

plus and minus signs The plus and minus signs, and , are mathematical symbols used to represent the notions of positive and negative, respectively. In addition, represents the operation of addition, which results in a sum, while represents subtraction, resul ...

Example

The final standings, along with runs scored (RS), runs allows (RA), and run differential (RD), of the

American League West The American League West is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. The division has five teams as of the 2013 season, but had four teams from 1994 to 2012, and had as many as seven teams before the 1994 realignment. Although its teams curr ...

for the season were as follows: Note: the run differentials shown above are not

zero sum Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other. In other words, player one's gain is e ...

as the four teams within the AL West did not exclusively play against one another; there were 14 total teams in the

American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league ...

in 1999.

Usage

Run differentials may be used by some leagues or in some tournaments as a tiebreaker. An example is

baseball at the Summer Olympics Baseball at the Summer Olympics unofficially debuted at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, and was first contested as a demonstration sport at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm. It became an official Olympic sport at the 1992 Summer O ...

, where if teams in

pool play A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

finish with identical records, run differential is used to determine which team advances to the

knockout stage A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

. The 1956 Claxton Shield tournament, held in Australia, included an instance of a team attempting to manipulate the run differential in order to advance.

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

(MLB) does ''not'' use run differential in breaking ties for postseason berths, although standings presented on the

MLB.com MLB.com is the official site of Major League Baseball and is overseen by Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. (a subsidiary of MLB). MLB.com is a source of baseball-related information, including baseball news, statistics, and sports column ...

website may include run differential as a courtesy to the reader. Run differential has a strong

correlation In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics ...

to a team's

winning percentage In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of match ...

, which is characterized by a formula known as the

Pythagorean expectation Pythagorean expectation is a sports analytics formula devised by Bill James to estimate the percentage of games a baseball team "should" have won based on the number of runs they scored and allowed. Comparing a team's actual and Pythagorean win ...

, devised by

Bill James George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. ...

A variation on the run differential formula is the Team Quality Balance (TQB) formula, defined by the

World Baseball Softball Confederation World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC; french: Confédération internationale de baseball et softball) is the world governing body for the sports of baseball, softball, and Baseball5. It was established in 2013 by the merger of the Inter ...

(WBSC) for use in certain tie-breaking scenarios. It is calculated as runs scored per innings played on offense minus runs allowed per innings played on defense. TQB functions the same as run differential except that it also factors in the number of innings played on offense and defense, which is not always the same. For example, when a home team is winning after innings have been played, the bottom of the ninth inning is not played; in such cases, the home team has played eight innings on offense and nine on defense, while the away team has played nine innings on offense and eight on defense.

Records

The best run differential in a major-league season is +458, set by the 1884 St Louis Maroons, who scored 887 runs while allowing 429. The Maroons competed in the

Union Association The Union Association was a league in Major League Baseball which lasted for just the 1884 season. St. Louis won the pennant and joined the National League the following season. Seven of the twelve teams who were in the Association at some poi ...

, whose records and statistics are recognized by MLB. The worst run differential was by the 1899 Cleveland Spiders of the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

at −723, who allowed 1252 runs while only scoring 529. In baseball's modern era (since 1900), the 1939 New York Yankees have recorded the best run differential (+411), while the 1932 Boston Red Sox have recorded the worst (-349). The highest run differential in a single game in major-league history is 29, when the

Chicago Colts The following is a North American professional sports league organization, franchise history of the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball, a charter member of the National League who started play in the National Association of Base Ball Players, ...

(now the Cubs) beat the

Louisville Colonels The Louisville Colonels were a Major League Baseball team that also played in the American Association (AA) throughout that league's ten-year existence from 1882 until 1891. They were known as the Louisville Eclipse from 1882 to 1884, and as ...

36–7 on June 29, 1897, and the record in baseball's modern era (since 1900) is 27, when the Texas Rangers beat the

Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...

30–3 on August 22, 2007. The biggest run differential in a

shutout In team sports, a shutout ( US) or clean sheet ( UK) is a game in which one team prevents the other from scoring any points. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball. Shutouts are usuall ...

is 22, when the

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive F ...

defeated the New York Yankees 22–0 on August 31, 2004.

References

External links

MLB Team Run Differential
at Team Rankings Baseball statistics Tie-breaking in group tournaments

Example

Usage

Records

See also

References

Further reading

External links