Sunday, May 23, 2010

Astros Record Low OPS Update

Last week I reported that their OPS relative to the league average was just 81. If that is what they finished with, it would be the lowest ever. This is what I said last week: "They have a team OPS of .597 while the NL average is .735. So they have a rate of 81 (.597/.735 = .81, which is 81 when multiplied by 100)." (actually .8122)

But now their OPS is down to .590 while the league OPS is .733. The ratio is now .8049, just a little lower than a week ago. Last week's post Astros Offense On Record Setting Low Pace shows the worst 10 teams in both AL and NL history.

But this is not park adjusted. Baseball Reference has OPS+, which is park adjusted. It is calculated a little differently. Here is the formula:

100*[OBP/lg OBP + SLG/lg SLG - 1]

The Astros now have an OPS+ of 58. See this Baseball Reference link. The lowest team OPS+ I found going all the way back to 1920 was 69 for the 1920 Philadelphia A's.

5 comments:

Phil Birnbaum said...

Wow ... they're scoring less than 3 runs a game. Scary.

Cyril Morong said...

Right. They are scoring 2.93 per game and the league average is 4.51. They are 20 runs behind the next lowest team, the Pirates. They are .465 runs per game lower than Pittsburgh.

Cyril Morong said...

Also, the Astros PrOPS as calculated by JC Bradbury last week was .720. That is based on their HR%, line drive %, etc. The NL average PrOPS was .758. So the Astros ratio was .720/.758 = .949.

But if we park adjust that, it would be lower. I made an estimte of what park factor Baseball Reference used (about 1.06). Applying that here drives down their PrOPS (relative to the league average) to .894. Still not very good.

mb21 said...

Imagine what that offense could be like if they trade Berkman and Lee. I know Berkman hasn't hit all that well so far this year, but he's still been a better than league average hitter and will probably be better than going forward. Carlos Lee has been awful this year, but one would also expect him to be better. Get rid of those two guys and the team has little hope of being much better than they are right now.

The Astros wOBA is .264. The Mariners are 2nd worst at .297. I'm pretty sure fangraphs doesn't park adjust those numbers so it would be even lower than .264. You have to go back to 2003 to find a team that had a wOBA lower than .300 (Dodgers, Tigers at .294). The Tigers wOBA was .296 in 2002. That's the lowest this decade and only 3 teams under .300. The Astros aren't even close to .300. The expansion Marlins were .298 in 1993. 1992 had 4 teams below .300 (one at .289). 3 other teams in 1990 and 1991. Those are the only teams below .300 in the last 20 years and nowhere close to where the Astros are now.

It's still early though. The Astros could have a .310 wOBA the rest of the way and finish right at or around .300.

I hope you keep doing these updates, Cyril.

Cyril Morong said...

mb21

Thanks for dropping by and adding the additional data. Great job!. I plan to update it every Sunday. wOBA is a good stat, so it shows how poorly they are doing.

Cy