Thursday, May 25, 2017

WAR Leaders Per 162 Games Since 2012

Data from Baseball Reference Play Index. For all guys with 20+ WAR since the beginning of the 2012 season. Through games of May 23 this year. If I only did 2013-2017 and look at guys with 15+ WAR, Trout edges Donaldson 9.72-8.02. Trout had 12.59 WAR per 162 games in 2012.


Player WAR Age G Per 162
Mike Trout 51.3 20-25 813 10.22
Josh Donaldson 33.1 26-31 713 7.52
Adrian Beltre 32.1 33-37 761 6.83
Robinson Cano 34.5 29-34 830 6.73
Joey Votto 28 28-33 696 6.52
Paul Goldschmidt 31.2 24-29 778 6.50
Manny Machado 25.5 19-24 651 6.35
Buster Posey 30.1 25-30 776 6.28
Miguel Cabrera 29.9 29-34 777 6.23
Nolan Arenado 22.7 22-26 607 6.06
Lorenzo Cain 21.9 26-31 595 5.96
Starling Marte 21.5 23-28 612 5.69
Giancarlo Stanton 21.6 22-27 621 5.63
Andrelton Simmons 22.8 22-27 670 5.51
Dustin Pedroia 24.6 28-33 723 5.51
Bryce Harper 23.7 19-24 698 5.50
Jason Heyward 24.9 22-27 738 5.47
Ian Kinsler 26.4 30-35 799 5.35
Anthony Rizzo 22.9 22-27 745 4.98
Andrew McCutchen 25 25-30 815 4.97
Freddie Freeman 23.1 22-27 769 4.87
Jose Bautista 20.2 31-36 680 4.81
Kyle Seager 23.9 24-29 836 4.63
Ben Zobrist 22 31-36 772 4.62
Alex Gordon 20.6 28-33 744 4.49
Edwin Encarnacion 21.1 29-34 771 4.43
Jose Altuve 22.3 22-27 817 4.42
Evan Longoria 20.5 26-31 762 4.36

Monday, May 22, 2017

Trout Off To The Best 40 Game Start Of His Career

His OPS so far this year is 1.223 (AVG .350, OBP .466, SLG .757). Starting with 2012, here are his OPS numbers through 40 games each year starting with 2012 with the league average in parentheses after:

2012) .977 (.731)
2013) .912 (.725)
2014) .888 (.706)
2015) .941 (.730)
2016) .975 (.744)
2017) 1.223 (.733)

(the league averages are for the whole season). Trout had 3 months prior to this season with an OPS of at least 1.200 (minimum of 75 PAs). But no one ever plays 40 games in a month.

So I used enough games from the months before and after to see if he had any 40 game stretches that at least match the 1.223 OPS of this year. There was one, which includes July 2015 when his OPS was 1.323 in 21 games. Adding in his last 19 games from June would give him an OPS of 1.239 (all data from Baseball Reference using player splits and game logs).

So this is probably his 2nd best 40 game stretch of his career.

Monday, May 15, 2017

In terms of OPS differential, the Cubs are having an historically large year over year decline

Last year, the Cubs had the 3rd best OPS differential since 1914 and best since 1939. See Cubs finish tied for 3rd best OPS differential since 1914 & tied for best since 1939. But so far this year, it is -.015 (.715 - .730).

I looked at the top 10 teams before last year in OPS differential (your team hitting OPS minus the OPS your pitchers allow) and how they did the following year. The lowest of the "next year" OPS differential for any of the previous top 10 teams was .043 (the 1940 Yankees). So none of them ended up close to negative.

The Cubs still have time to turn things around. But last year they were +.139. So their swing or decline is .154, much higher than any of the previous top 10. The biggest drop among them was .115 for the 1939-1940 Yankees. The drop of .154 would be the third biggest drop of ANY team from 1914-2014. The only teams worse are the 1915 A's, whose decline was .186 and the 1998 Marlins, whose decline was .157. And both of those teams lost many of their good players. The A's owner, Connie Mack sold some of his best players (if I recall correctly, it was because they got swept by the underdog Braves the World Series in 1914). The Marlins won the series in 1997 but did not want to pay to keep many of their good players in 1998.

Here is how those 10 did the next year

Team Year OPS DIFF Next year Decline
NYY 1927 0.196 0.094 0.102
NYY 1939 0.158 0.043 0.115
ATL 1998 0.139 0.086 0.053
BAL 1969 0.136 0.080 0.056
NYY 1936 0.131 0.121 0.010
STL 1944 0.130 0.044 0.086
STL 1942 0.127 0.114 0.013
CLE 1948 0.127 0.046 0.081
NYY 1998 0.126 0.089 0.037
SEA 2001 0.126 0.044 0.082