NASCAR is Baseball, Baseball is NASCAR
By David Smith (on Twitter at @DavidSmithMA)
April 20, 2012
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Stick-and-ball sports have their own individual languages. It is those languages that create a barrier between those that do not watch NASCAR to those that view it as a religion. When a typical non-racing fan hears the terms “lucky dog,” and “room of doom” it conjures up a discussion about Michael Vick; conversely, when those in NASCAR attempt to speak “stick-and-ball” to better establish a moment of significance for those that do not truly grasp it, it becomes a mangled, inaccurate mess.
I am a fan of baseball, perhaps the sport most opposite from racing in terms of consistent, enduring excitement. But I see the similarities between the two. The batter-pitcher duel that occurs with every at-bat is really no different than a driver taking on a racetrack for 200 laps. This is how I truly analyze a driver; I judge how they fared in a specific at-bat.
When I say that speaking “stick-and-ball” to the non-NASCAR masses can become lost in translation, I am referring to the concept of a driver’s “batting average.” Without naming names (a simple Google search would suffice), many in the NASCAR beat media proudly determined that Tony Stewart’s “batting average” in last year’s Chase was 0.500. Holy mackerel! He won five of 10 races! That’s a remarkable 0.500 batting average!
Except that it is nowhere near remarkable. Hell, the Majors are not three weeks into the season and I am fairly sure three guys on my fantasy team have gone five for 10 in 10 consecutive at-bats at some point. Can Tony Stewart get a little bit more respect than this, please? After all, what he did was remarkable.
Securing a hit vs. not securing a hit is a 1/2 result. In racing, winning vs. not winning is a 1/43 result. So how about we say this: let us consider the number of relevant finishes (read: finishes in the top half of the field) as the equivalent of gaining a hit in baseball. You either get a hit or you do not1. You either finish in the top half of the field or you do not. Fair? Fair.
We will judge singles as any race finished from 11th to 21st. A double will act as a finish of sixth to 10th. Finishes second through fifth are a triple. A win? Home run. By this logic, Stewart batted 0.900 in 10 at-bats with five – FIVE! – homers, one triple, two doubles and a single. That is some serious raking, my friends. (And no, that is not how I drew up the formula for my Production in Equal Equipment Rating).
When analyzing a driver, I like to take the baseball analogy a step further and truly examine what the driver does with the track’s race each Sunday. Like a pitcher, all tracks are unique, with different characteristics for each driver to consider. While sparing you the race-by-race breakdowns of each driver, I can point to Top 15 Efficiency, which I define as the difference between the percentage of a season’s races finished in the top 15 and the percentage of all races’ laps ran in the top 15, to understand drivers a little bit better. That difference, positive or negative, can explain a lot about how a driver goes about producing a high-finishing result in races.
Consider the chart below with each driver’s Top 15 Efficiency from the 2011 season and through seven races in 2012. Green signifies a first-pitch swinger, yellow is a balanced batter and red indicates a patient pitch counter that will wear down the pitcher, not lifting the bat off his shoulders until a 3-2 pitch comes his way.
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Top 15 Efficiency - NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 2011 thru 2012
| Driver |
2011 Run |
2011 Fin |
Difference |
2012 Run |
2012 Fin |
Difference |
| A.J. Allmendinger |
50.0% |
61.1% |
+11.1% |
38.4% |
42.9% |
+4.5% |
| Aric Almirola |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
33.4% |
28.6% |
-4.8% |
| Bobby Labonte |
12.7% |
8.3% |
-4.4% |
18.2% |
14.3% |
-3.9% |
| Brad Keselowski |
56.8% |
50.0% |
-6.8% |
84.4% |
42.9% |
-41.5% |
| Brian Vickers |
27.8% |
36.1% |
+8.3% |
54.4% |
50.0% |
-4.4% |
| Carl Edwards |
74.6% |
83.3% |
+8.7% |
42.9% |
71.4% |
+28.5% |
| Casey Mears |
3.3% |
2.9% |
-0.4% |
2.3% |
0.0% |
-2.3% |
| Clint Bowyer |
55.8% |
55.6% |
-0.2% |
68.6% |
71.4% |
+2.8% |
| Dale Earnhardt, Jr. |
51.7% |
58.3% |
+6.6% |
84.9% |
100.0% |
+15.1% |
| Dave Blaney |
2.8% |
2.9% |
+0.1% |
2.0% |
14.3% |
+12.3% |
| David Gilliland |
3.3% |
8.3% |
+5.0% |
0.5% |
0.0% |
-0.5% |
| David Ragan |
42.7% |
41.7% |
-1.0% |
0.6% |
0.0% |
-0.6% |
| David Reutimann |
29.4% |
27.8% |
-1.6% |
2.2% |
0.0% |
-2.2% |
| David Stremme |
0.1% |
0.0% |
-0.1% |
0.1% |
0.0% |
-0.1% |
| Denny Hamlin |
62.3% |
58.3% |
-4.0% |
64.3% |
71.4% |
+7.1% |
| Greg Biffle |
56.2% |
55.6% |
-0.6% |
87.1% |
100.0% |
+12.9% |
| J.J. Yeley |
1.0% |
0.0% |
-1.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
| Jamie McMurray |
33.8% |
22.2% |
-11.6% |
47.1% |
42.9% |
-4.2% |
| Jeff Burton |
41.6% |
36.1% |
-5.5% |
53.7% |
42.9% |
-10.8% |
| Jeff Gordon |
67.2% |
63.9% |
-3.3% |
74.9% |
57.1% |
-17.8% |
| Jimmie Johnson |
71.6% |
69.4% |
-2.2% |
81.8% |
85.7% |
+3.9% |
| Joe Nemechek |
0.6% |
0.0% |
-0.6% |
0.1% |
0.0% |
-0.1% |
| Joey Logano |
31.3% |
38.9% |
+7.6% |
33.9% |
28.6% |
-5.3% |
| Josh Wise |
0.2% |
0.0% |
-0.2% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
| Juan Pablo Montoya |
39.5% |
44.4% |
+4.9% |
23.0% |
28.6% |
+5.6% |
| Kasey Kahne |
56.9% |
61.1% |
+4.2% |
45.0% |
28.6% |
-16.4% |
| Kevin Harvick |
70.1% |
72.2% |
+2.1% |
68.0% |
85.7% |
+17.7% |
| Kurt Busch |
62.3% |
61.1% |
-1.2% |
15.1% |
42.9% |
+27.8% |
| Kyle Busch |
79.6% |
68.6% |
-11.0% |
45.2% |
42.9% |
-2.3% |
| Landon Cassill |
4.4% |
3.1% |
-1.3% |
0.4% |
0.0% |
-0.4% |
| Marcos Ambrose |
41.1% |
41.7% |
+0.6% |
41.6% |
42.9% |
+1.3% |
| Mark Martin |
38.2% |
38.9% |
+0.7% |
78.5% |
80.0% |
+1.5% |
| Martin Truex |
52.5% |
44.4% |
-8.1% |
88.4% |
85.7% |
-2.7% |
| Matt Kenseth |
70.9% |
69.4% |
-1.5% |
86.2% |
71.4% |
-14.8% |
| Michael McDowell |
0.3% |
0.0% |
-0.3% |
0.4% |
0.0% |
-0.4% |
| Paul Menard |
44.0% |
38.9% |
-5.1% |
40.5% |
42.9% |
+2.4% |
| Regan Smith |
26.4% |
27.8% |
+1.4% |
17.3% |
14.3% |
-3.0% |
| Ryan Newman |
62.3% |
58.3% |
-4.0% |
56.1% |
57.1% |
+1.0% |
| Tony Stewart |
59.6% |
72.2% |
+12.6% |
73.0% |
57.1% |
-15.9% |
| Travis Kvapil |
2.0% |
0.0% |
-2.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
| Trevor Bayne |
14.5% |
11.8% |
-2.7% |
6.8% |
33.3% |
+26.5% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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The First Pitch Swingers (All Green)
There are plenty notables in this category, such as Brad Keselowski, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch. Do not let the negative number in the difference fool you; it is not bad to be a first pitch swinger. Sometimes it pays off to just gun for the gullet at the onset of a race, as it is did with Busch (2.600 PEER, four wins) and Keselowski (1.694 PEER, three wins) last season and is with Keselowski (3.321 PEER, one win) this season.
The Balanced Batters (All Yellow)
You run where you finish, you hit when you can get a hit. Mark Martin would be in this category, would he not? At the current moment, Jimmie Johnson does not technically fit in as a balanced batter in 2012 – he skews pitch counter after seven races, though not by much – but will float back in as the season progresses. The category is also home to the criminally underrated Clint Bowyer and Regan Smith. For them, especially in 2011, the strategy to stay neutral worked. For the likes of David Ragan (-0.321 PEER), Casey Mears (-0.750 PEER) and David Reutimann (-0.321 PEER), it did not; they would be better served to get more aggressive in one direction or another.
The Patient Pitch Counters (All Red)
When you think about A.J. Allmendinger, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Juan Pablo Montoya, patience is certainly not the word that comes to mind; however, they consistently finish better than where they run. These drivers habitually take their spots in the top 15 late in the race after saving their equipment in the race’s initial stages. The maestro of wearing down the pitcher is Carl Edwards, who utilized this practice to finish second in the standings and register a 36-race PEER of 3.444 last season.
Changed Swings (Differing Colors)
The comical part of all the “Tony’s still got it” stories following Stewart’s wins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Auto Club Speedway was that while yes, he is still amassing victories at a frantic pace, his racing style has completely changed. Those two wins were brilliant; however, his outing in the Daytona 500 and last week at Texas Motor Speedway lacked such revered intelligence. After glancing at his Top 15 Efficiency, it becomes clear that his overall approach to a race has changed from last year to this year. Stewart is still hitting home runs, though he is increasingly more eager at doing so in the first few pitches of an at-bat than we have come to expect.
Others that have undergone some successful swing changes include Greg Biffle (5.214 PEER, one win), Denny Hamlin (3.357 PEER, one win), Kevin Harvick (3.143 PEER) and Kurt Busch (1.607 PEER), all currently skewing pitch counter2. Matt Kenseth leans toward first pitch hitter (it landed him his second Daytona 500 victory). Martin Truex (3.679 PEER) is enjoying a more balanced season, providing a stout statistical seven-race sample size in a contract year.
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Stick-and-ball sports and NASCAR do intersect and can make plenty of sense for both parties. The difference in sports speak should not act as a barrier; as the numbers suggest, there is always room for an analytical interpreter.
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1 Walks and sacrifice flies/bunts do not count against a batter’s average, which is fine considering the track cannot intentionally walk a driver, though it could certainly bean one.
2 Busch was forced to change his approach, going from a Penske Racing entry that he could run rampant in all day to a Phoenix Racing car that must pick spots in order to succeed in a 500-mile race.
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David Smith is the Editor-in-Chief of Motorsports Analytics. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidSmithMA. |
