Bleacher Report - Articles by Bryan Price

Weekly Stat Roundup: Holy Fukodome

Bryan Price — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:29:58 -0400

Here are my offensive rankings from the first week—a fool’s errand indeed.

Through Friday, April 3.

Name, Team, Position, OPS, OA, RC, RPA, RSA

(The math/methodology is at the bottom).

1. Cliff Floyd, Tbr, DH, 1.4620, .538, 5.077, .8154, .3624

2. AJ Pierzynski, Chw, C, 1.6148, .444, 10.00, .6730, .2447

3. Kevin Millar, Bal, 1B, 1.1670, .667, 3.75, .6353, .3177

4. Brian Roberts, Bal, 2B, 1.365, .462, 3.692, .3910, .2932

5. Carlos Guillen, Det, 1B, 1.2982, .529, 5.294, .3528, .2646

6. Mark Teahen, Kcr, LF, 1.1453, .588, 4.529, .4456, .2674

7. Jermaine Dye, Chw, RF, 1.3235, .556, 7.000, .3671, .2447

8. Grady Sizemore, Cle, CF, 1.1315, .556, 4.278, .5313, .2277

9. Howie Kendrick, Laa, 2B, 1.1076, .619, 5.143, .4161, .2972

10. Carlos Gomez, Min, CF, 1.0260, .524, 5.238, .3028, .3028

1. Kosuke Fukodome, Chi, RF, 1.5417, .375, 6.875, .6359, .3634

2. Xavier Nady, Pit, RF, 1.3333, .500, 6.750, .8043, .3351

3. Chase Utley, Phi, 2B, 1.4740, .579, 6.632, .7319, .3992

4. Jason Kendall, Mil, C, 1.3500, .438, 5.063, .4747, .2373

5. David Wright, Nym, 3B, 1.4561, .600, 6.400, .6667, .2222

6. Yunel Escobar, Atl, SS, 1.1875, .500, 5.500, .5806, .1935

7. Carlos Beltran, Nym, CF, 1.3333, .500, 5.0000, .3175, .2381

8. Scott Hairston, Sdp, CF, 1.2711, .571, 6.857, .4115, .2352

9. Brandon Phillips, Cin, 2B, 1.1250, .625, 4.500, .7364, .3682

10. Chipper Jones, Atl, 3B, 1.0611, .550, 4.950, .6452, .2581

Some Thoughts on the week that was from the Batters Box

-This is all really quite meaningless at this point, but I could not help myself.

-It is also obviously an untidy tangle of numbers that may be hard to decipher, I tried to put these figures in neat boxes, but alas, it did not work.

-These numbers are all over-influenced by big games at this point.

-The beginning of the season is probably the only time this list will be weighted down with names like A.J. Pierzynski, Jason Kendall, Kevin Millar, and Scott Hairston; but I’m excited to see how long they can stick.

-These rankings are not purely scientific—I looked over everybody’s stats and only did calculations on players that passed the eye test—about eighty players in total.

-Albert Pujols is at 12, sandwiched between Angel Pagan and Jeff Keppinger.

-As soon as he hits a home run he will be in the top five.

-Fukodome got out of the box fast, I am interested to see if he really is an elite hitter.

-Some Fukodome Highlights: through his first 16 plate appearances he had six hits, four runs, three batted in, a home run, two doubles, four walks…he was nearly a perfect batsman.

-Some of the AL players outside looking in: David Murphy, Carlos Pena, and Bobby Abreu.

-Minnesota’s Carlos Gomez had a tremendous week with the bat and on the base paths: 4 for 4 in thefts.

-The Metropolitans pounded out 24 runs through three games—who needs Pedro when you have Beltran, Wright, and Pagan (among others)

-Chase Utley may be the only second baseman that can realistically stay in the top ten.

-Brandon Phillips strikes out way too much and is reluctant to take walks.

-Shock of the week—Those Tampa Bay De… I mean Rays: 25 runs, three games, Cliff Floyd: two long balls, 9 runs + RBI; it must be that Florida air.

-I am glad Todd Helton already has a home run: Helton’s home run totals over the last 7 seasons: 2001, 49; 2002, 30; 2003, 33; 2004, 32; 2005, 20; 2006, 15; 2007, 17…that humidor sure is something.

_______________________________________________________________________

The Math:

OPS: (OBP + Slugging Average)
Out Average (OA): (Outs/Plate Appearances)
Runs Created (RC): (Hits + Walks) x (Total Bases) / (At Bats + Walks)
Run Production Average (RPA): ((Runs + Runs Batted In) / Plate Appearances)/Team OPS)
Run Scoring Average (RSA): (Runs/Plate Appearances) / Team OPS

The final rankings take equally in to account the five stats above.

San Francisco Giants: Weekly Notes

Bryan Price — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:23:36 -0400

-A miserable start; Zito got hammered on opening day. His line—5 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, and 1 K, and only two swinging strikes. The tragic thing is, he needed all the luck in the world to get that line. I hope it’s just his head and not his arm that’s shot.

-The First Giants extra base hit did not occur until the third game of the year—a double by Jose Castillo, a guy they did not sign until very recently.

-Let the Jose Castillo era begin.

-Let the Eugenio Velez era begin, first seven plate appearances—3 singles, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 SB, no K’s, pretty good for a Giant.

-City of Brotherly Love: good luck with Pedro Feliz. Don’t boo until your lungs bleed—it hurts.

-Pedro Feliz, first seven plate appearances—1 single (it did break up a no-hitter, but he ran into a double play), 2 K’s, 7 outs made.

-Pedro Feliz’s career OBP—.288, absolutely, positively miserable.

-Bruce Bochy: some onions.

-Putting Tim Lincecum in the fourth frame was one thing, but then putting him back in after an hour-plus rain delay—yikes!

-It worked.

-I listened to the game on the radio and it was one of the most harrowing 4 inning performances I’ve encountered in which the pitcher gave up only one run.

-After the first series with the Dodgers; Giants team OBP: .292; team SLG: .242.

-Milwaukee came out guns blazing and the Giants can only cower.

-If the Giants don’t pitch, they lose.

-The Giants are easily looking down the barrel of 100 losses, with perhaps the best pitching staff a one hundred loss team has ever had.

-Cain, Lincecum, Valdez,Threets, Wilson, and Taschner have been lights out.

-Trade Bait?

-The guys the Giants have tried to pump—Fred Lewis, Rajai Davis, and Daniel Ortmeier—as starters have one lousy hit between them.

-The kid who hadn’t seen the diamond above Triple A—Brian Bocock—has three.

-Pedro Feliz bounced back. Sort of, not really.

-The best Giants hitters have been Aaron Rowand and Jose Castillo—make of that what you will.

-Tim Lincecum though, is batting 1.000.

-There is more, but it is all just as depressing.

How Overrated Is Ichiro Suzuki?

Bryan Price — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:53:36 -0400

The 2001 baseball season seems like ages ago. It was the year that the Diamondbacks’ veteran left fielder, Luis Gonzalez hit a looping,heart-thumping bloop that finally drew Yankee blood—and even more impressive—drew it from the stone of Mariano Rivera.

It was also the first major sports championship post 9/11, when everything, pop cultural or otherwise, was in a state of chaotic, almost mindless glass-eyed flux.

That year, Ichiro Suzuki, late of the Japanese Pacific League’s Orix Blue Wave, won the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player Awards. It marked the true beginning of an exodus of talent from the East, and Ichiro, a star in his native Japan, proved his mettle and then some in the crucible of America’s game.

I have no doubt that Ichiro deserved the Rookie of the Year award—but did he deserve the MVP? Without wading into the messy swamp of meaning tied to the MVP, how good was/is Ichiro? Is he overrated?

I would like to preface this with the fact that I believe Ichiro will definitely be a first ballot, no doubt Hall of Famer. But his hyper-elite status is not particularly well founded. A sports columnist in San Francisco wrote last season, and I’m paraphrasing, that Ichiro would be a better fit for San Francisco than Alex Rodriguez. That is, in two words: beyond ludicrous. It is like saying that you would rather have Dick Groat than Willie Mays. At any rate, it defies logic.

My impressionistic feeling is that Ichiro represents an attractive redoubt for modern writers, pundits,statisticians, etc., who abhor the crass influence of power and long for the old game. Baseball is ideologically conservative and is therefore backward looking and nostalgic. In short, Ichiro satisfies a kind of atavistic hunger that grips baseball fans who long to have been able to watch players like Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner. He is a modern day substitute fort he dead-ball era, representing the mythologized core of the old game.

Cobb and Wagner though were both more effective batsmen than Ichiro. Being a student of history, his style appeals to me too, but his production does not match many of his less heralded peers.

In 2001, Ichiro took the American baseball world by storm—he rapped out 242 hits at a .350 clip, stole 56 bases, all of which led the American League, and won the gold glove as a right fielder. He also scored 127 runs, which trailed only Texas shortstop, Alex Rodriguez (133). That is however, where the list of positives ends, though it is a fine list to be sure.

I rank baseball players on five offensive criteria. OutAverage (outs/plate appearances), RunsCreated (I use the equation from Baseball-Reference: (hits + walks) x (total bases)/ (at bats + walks), OPS (OBP + Slugging Average), Run Production Average (A stat I developed to measure outcomes over potential ((runs + runs batted in)/plate appearances)/team OPS), and RunScoring Average which is the same, asRPA minus the runs batted in. I factor this in to give added weight to run scorers because I believe scoring runs is more difficult than driving them in. I rank each player in those five realms, and then average the ranking, thus giving equal weight to each statistic.

There are some flaws, one is that I don’t take into account park effects, which is why Boston players always have high rankings, and second, I would like to have a better awareness of batting order. Funny things happen with the rankings also, so I will readily admit that 1-3 or so may be debatable, but after that it begins to solidify.

In 2001, Ichiro was ranked eighteenth—lower than Cleveland second baseman, Roberto Alomar (7), Kansas City first baseman, Mike Sweeney (9), and Boston right fielder, Trot Nixon(14). In dissecting why exactly Ichiro ranks so low—relative to the praise heaped on him that year—it is important to look at his stunning lack of power.

Power is a prickly subject among serious baseball fans. It is certainly valued, perhaps overvalued by the tangential fan, but even by serious fans it is a cherished attribute. There is though, a certain American egalitarianism that prevents many of us from requiring it from our most treasured players, given the fact that it is more of a gift than a skill one could develop—chemistry though is increasingly changing that assertion.

The fact of the matter is however, that without some semblance of power, and by that I mean, averaging one home run at least every 45 at bats or having an Extra Base Hit Average up around .100, the value of a hitter is severely eroded. Ichiro, for his part, is a resolute singles hitter. He is an elegant technician, but his body of work is built on a foundation of singles.

Though Ichiro has been an ultra-consistent, if not mechanical hitter throughout his career, the year that stands out, aside from his rookie season, is 2004, the year he shattered George Sisler’s record for hits in a season. Ichiro slapped a mind-boggling 262 hits that year. Unfortunately, a whopping 86 percent of them were singles. And while he carried a .414 On Base Percentage—second only to Baltimore third baseman Melvin Mora (.419)—his lack of power—a singles-loaded .455 Slugging Average—drove his OPS down to .869, which put him 22^nd in the American League. His overall ranking was 21, one spot behind Tampa Bay third baseman Aubrey Huff.

Another reason that Ichiro made such a poor showing in the 2004 rankings was his failure to score runs. As a rookie, he nearly led the league in scoring runs, in 2004 with 762 plate appearances, he managed only 101 runs, which is fine on its face, but when looked at through the prism of Run Scoring Average—ranked 37^th—it’s actually disastrously low for a guy who broke the record for hits in a year.

The year George Sisler racked up 257 hits he scored 137 runs in 692 plate appearances—a .255 RSA—good enough for third in the AL behind Babe Ruth (.332), and Tris Speaker (.258).

There was certainly a talent differential between 2001 and 2004—in 2001 Ichiro was the third best producer on his team behind Bret Boone and Edgar Martinez—in 2004 he was Seattle’s best. Ichiro is a singles machine, and a singles machine simply cannot carry a team.

In the end, I think Ichiro is satisfying to watch, but writers tend to ascribe to him more merit than I think he realistically deserves. As a producer—which is the point of baseball offense, not hitting, but producing—he is regularly ranked around 20 in the AL. He is, I suppose, overrated like Pete Rose was overrated. Make of that what you will.

The EYE Statistic: What Is It?

Bryan Price — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:27:44 -0500

In an article I recently wrote about Jack Cust, I received a few comments about a statistic I used to prop up Cust’s astronomically high strikeout total of 164—in only 507 plate appearances no less. The statistic is called EYE, for want of a better term. I think I invented it, but it is not terribly complicated, so there may be scores of us out there who think we have invented it.

The statistic (walks/walks+strikeouts) is a simple ratio that allows for the opportunity to look at strikeouts in concert with walks instead of looking at them in a vacuum, which is dangerous. If my favorite player were to have an EYE number beneath .300, I would begin to fret. It is not however, life threatening—see Alfonso Soriano.

I used to get enraged when my local paper’s regular baseball columnist, John Shea, would decry the fact that power hitters like Sammy Sosa and Jim Thome struck out so much, using the high numbers as statistics that could keep one or both out of the Hall of Fame. Jim Thome has a .409 career OBP, who cares how he makes his outs?

Personally, I do not like strikeouts, they are graceless and often dramatic let downs. They are sometimes humorous and often times disappointing. Strikeouts seem to personify the failure of a batsman. One must however, come to the realistic conclusion that strikeouts are usually a side effect of power, and only the greatest hitters are immune. And in this era, that would be Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, and Vladimir Guerrero.

But, that is not to excuse striking out; a hitter must balance, or offset, his strikeouts with walks. Otherwise he is not just impatient, but inconsistent, not unlike a hard throwing pitcher who is prone to fits of wildness. If statisticians measure the ratio of walks to strikeouts among pitchers, why not hitters?

Power must also be looked at through this prism. It cannot be measured purely in home runs, power has to also be measured in a translatable form of respect that leads to a high OPS, otherwise, you have Dave Kingman—a guy who hit 37 home runs in 1976, but carried a laughable OBP of .286. EYE is a statistic that is most valuable in separating the Cust’s from the Kingman’s, as it were.

A quick examination of the 2007 season will elucidate some parameters. Out of the top ten in OPS among all the regular hitters (at least 490 plate appearances, 400 for catchers) last season, the one with the lowest EYE was Ryan Braun (.206, 29 BB, 112 K). This of course proves that one could dip below .300—well below, obviously—and still put together a great year. It is rare though, and Braun had what I would call a phenomenal and slightly freakish year.

It is true, .300 is not a hard and fast Mendoza line, players can get past going below it. But there is a ceiling and a pretty substantial drop off also. This is a list of the top five players in each league with EYE numbers below .300 with their league rank (by my well-thought out and quantitative calculation) in parentheses next to them.

AL: Curtis Granderson (7), .269, BJ Upton (12), .297, Torri Hunter (22), .284, Carl Crawford (27), .222, Adrian Beltre (40), .268.

NL: Ryan Braun (9), .206, Aaron Rowand (19), .283, Alfonso Soriano (20), .193, Corey Hart (25), .267, Brandon Phillips (34), .232.

Obviously one can have a low EYE and still have fairly good years, and even elite years—Granderson and Braun. Still though, a batter puts himself at a distinct disadvantage by not reigning in his strikeouts, or offsetting them with modicum patience.