Monday, September 30, 2013

Trout Has Highest OPS+ Ever For Ages 20 & 21 Combined

500+ PAs over the two years. Trout had 169 last year and 179 this year. Here is everyone with 150 or higher

Player OPS+ PA From To
Mike Trout 174 1355 2012 2013
Ty Cobb 168 1277 1907 1908
Jimmie Foxx 162 1111 1928 1929
Ted Williams 161 1336 1939 1940
Rogers Hornsby 160 1138 1916 1917
Mel Ott 158 1323 1929 1930
Albert Pujols 157 676 2001 2001
Mickey Mantle 154 1166 1952 1953
King Kelly 154 597 1878 1879
Stan Musial 153 585 1941 1942
Al Kaline 150 1374 1955 1956

Below are the leaders in wRC+. There is disagreement over Jackson's age. If he was born in 1887 instead of 1889, he would not be on this list

Name PA wRC+
Joe Jackson 727 187
Mike Trout 1355 171
Jimmie Foxx 1111 165
Ty Cobb 1281 162
Albert Pujols 676 159
Stan Musial 585 158
Ted Williams 1338 157
Mel Ott 1320 156
Rogers Hornsby 1139 156
Mickey Mantle 1166 153

Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Most Imbalanced Seasons Using SLG & OBP

Using qualifiers for the batting title, I called up the top 1000 seasons in SLG from 1876-1960 and then for 1961-2012. I used the Lee Sinins database and I also called up each guy's OBP along with it. Then I did something similar for the lowest OBPs. Below are the top 25 ratios. I also found the highest OBP/SLG ratios

This was inspired by a Twitter exchange with High Heat Stats and James Gentile. Evan Gattis had .480/.291 =  1.65 this year. Javy Lopez had a high ratio in 495 PAs in 2003, but that was not a qualifier. He 1.82 that year (.687/.378). Now maybe I should have used relative SLG and relative OBP. Maybe I will do a post on that in a day or two.


Player YEAR SLG OBP SLG/OBP
Matt Williams 1994 0.607 0.319 1.90
Dave Kingman 1979 0.613 0.343 1.79
Tony Armas 1983 0.453 0.254 1.78
Joe Adcock 1956 0.597 0.337 1.77
Tony Armas 1984 0.531 0.300 1.77
Tony Armas 1984 0.531 0.300 1.77
Dave Kingman 1976 0.506 0.286 1.77
Juan Gonzalez 1997 0.589 0.335 1.76
Juan Gonzalez 1996 0.643 0.368 1.75
Sammy Sosa 1996 0.564 0.323 1.75
Juan Gonzalez 1992 0.529 0.304 1.74
Juan Gonzalez 1992 0.529 0.304 1.74
Dave Kingman 1975 0.494 0.284 1.74
Andre Dawson 1987 0.568 0.328 1.73
Sammy Sosa 1999 0.635 0.367 1.73
Henry Rodriguez 1996 0.562 0.325 1.73
Walker Cooper 1947 0.586 0.339 1.73
Ernie Banks 1955 0.596 0.345 1.73
Matt Williams 1993 0.561 0.325 1.73
Juan Gonzalez 1998 0.630 0.366 1.72
Albert Belle 1995 0.690 0.401 1.72
Mike Jacobs 2008 0.514 0.299 1.72
George Bell 1987 0.605 0.352 1.72
Juan Gonzalez 1993 0.632 0.368 1.72
Sammy Sosa 1998 0.647 0.377 1.72
Dante Bichette 1995 0.620 0.364 1.70
Johnny Bench 1970 0.587 0.345 1.70

Now here are the highest OBP/SLG ratios. They are mostly before 1920, so after that is a 1920-2012 list


Player YEAR SLG OBP OBP/SLG
Yank Robinson 1890 0.281 0.434 1.54
Goat Anderson 1907 0.225 0.343 1.52
Jack Crooks 1890 0.254 0.357 1.41
Jack Crooks 1892 0.294 0.400 1.36
Jack Crooks 1893 0.306 0.408 1.33
Billy Lush 1902 0.262 0.346 1.32
Candy Nelson 1886 0.252 0.332 1.32
Eddie Stanky 1943 0.278 0.363 1.31
Cliff Carroll 1893 0.276 0.360 1.30
Roy Thomas 1906 0.302 0.393 1.30
Paul Radford 1893 0.293 0.380 1.30
Yank Robinson 1889 0.292 0.378 1.29
Paul Radford 1891 0.305 0.393 1.29
Ed Hahn 1906 0.257 0.331 1.29
Donie Bush 1915 0.283 0.364 1.29
Dave Bancroft 1916 0.252 0.323 1.28
Marty Berghammer 1915 0.290 0.371 1.28
Donie Bush 1918 0.266 0.340 1.28
Bobby Wheelock 1891 0.263 0.336 1.28
Hugh Nicol 1887 0.267 0.341 1.28
Al Bridwell 1907 0.242 0.309 1.28
Yank Robinson 1888 0.314 0.400 1.27
Will Smalley 1890 0.239 0.303 1.27
Dick Harley 1903 0.259 0.328 1.27
Donie Bush 1914 0.295 0.373 1.26

Now 1920-2012


Player YEAR SLG OBP OBP/SLG
Eddie Stanky 1943 0.278 0.363 1.31
Walt Weiss 1995 0.321 0.403 1.26
Mike Tresh 1945 0.273 0.342 1.25
Ron Hunt 1968 0.297 0.371 1.25
Ron Hunt 1974 0.298 0.372 1.25
Rodney Scott 1981 0.250 0.308 1.23
Steve Jeltz 1986 0.262 0.320 1.22
Don Buford 1972 0.267 0.326 1.22
Ron Hunt 1972 0.298 0.363 1.22
Dave Chalk 1976 0.253 0.308 1.22
Gary Pettis 1989 0.309 0.375 1.21
Connie Ryan 1943 0.249 0.301 1.21
Rickey Henderson 2000 0.305 0.368 1.21
Charlie Gehringer 1941 0.303 0.363 1.20
John Sullivan 1943 0.250 0.298 1.19
Rickey Henderson 1996 0.344 0.410 1.19
Walt Weiss 1993 0.308 0.367 1.19
Spook Jacobs 1954 0.283 0.336 1.19
Eddie Joost 1943 0.252 0.299 1.19
Julio Cruz 1978 0.269 0.319 1.19
Ivan DeJesus 1981 0.233 0.276 1.18
Gregor Blanco 2008 0.309 0.366 1.18
Gerald Young 1989 0.276 0.326 1.18
Enzo Hernandez 1971 0.250 0.295 1.18
Bud Harrelson 1972 0.266 0.313 1.18

Thursday, September 26, 2013

How Well Do OBP And SLG Explain WPA?

I took all the players with 5000+ PAs since 1945 and found their WPA per PA using the data from Baseball Reference.

Baseball Reference only has WPA or Win Probability Added going back to 1945. The idea is that every hit, walk or out a player makes either increases or decreases his team's probability of winning. Players who hit well with runners on base or in the late innings of close games will tend to score higher.

I ran a regresssion with WPA/PA being the dependent variable and a player's OBP & SLG relative to the league average. Here is he equation

WPA = 0.00008686*RELSLG + 0.00016*RELOBP - .0245

Notice that the coefficient for OBP divided by the one for SLG is 1.85. That is pretty close to the 1.73 that Tom Tango shows at Blast From the Past: Proof of the Modified OPS.

The r-squared was .915 and the standard error was 0.0006686 or .468 over 700 PAs.

I also checked to see how each guy was predicted by the equation. Then I calculated how many more or fewer wins they had than predicted. Click here to see the list.

Sandy Alomar, Sr. had the biggest positive differential. I plugged in his RELOBP of 76 and RELSLG of 91 (both are below 100 and therefore, below average) and it predicted a WPA/PA of -.0034 but he actually had -.0015. So that means he actually hit better the more important the situation, the closer and later it was, the more outs there were and the more men that were on base.

Over 700 PAs, that is 1.33 wins. That means his teams 1.33 more games per season than we might have thought based only on his OBP and SLG.

Click here to see Alomar's career splits at Baseball Reference. He batted .297 in high leverage situations with a .341 OBP. Medium leverage, he had .240 & .286. Low leverage .232 & .275. Maybe being a switch hitter helped so that teams could not get the platoon advantage on him. He his followed Eric Davis, McCovey and Berra.

But Ted Williams had the biggest negative differential. Click here to see his splits. If you go the list I have and scroll down, he his at the bottom. The Red Sox won 1.96 fewer games than we might expect based on his OBP & SLG. The table below shows how Williams hit in the various situations

Split BA OBP SLG
High Lvrge 0.323 0.468 0.576
Medium Lvrge 0.349 0.485 0.638
Low Lvrge 0.333 0.475 0.633

His numbers are all down when it was high leverage (this probably only includes his post-war data). Maybe because he was a lefty, he faced more lefties in high leverage situations than he normally did. If I used the Baseball Reference Play Index correctly, he normally faced lefties 23.8% of the time but in high leverage cases it was 26.4%

But his overall OPS over the years they have play by play data was 1.158 vs. righties and .915 vs. lefties. In high leverage cases, it was 1.104 and .884. So he declined against both lefties and righties, and more in absolute terms against righties.

But Williams is not the only great player near the bottom of the list. The bottom 11 includes three other Hall of Famers: Musial, Boggs and Kiner. Robinson Cano is there, too.

Update 9-28: I broke down all the guys into groups of .1 and then made a distribution chart. Here it is. Actually, I cut everyone down to 1 decimal point and then did a frequency distribution. If there is a better or easier way to do this with Excel, please let me know



Per 700 PA count
1.3 2
1.2 1
1.1 2
1 4
0.9 10
0.8 11
0.7 20
0.6 27
0.5 31
0.4 37
0.3 50
0.2 47
0.1 51
0 48
-0.1 47
-0.2 44
-0.3 38
-0.4 31
-0.5 26
-0.6 20
-0.7 11
-0.8 6
-0.9 8
-1 9
-1.1 1
-1.2 1
-1.3 1
-1.4 2
-2 1

Here is a slightly different version

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Astros will finish under .350, 1st team with 3 straight years under .350 since the 1962-65 Mets

Click here to see my post from July which shows all the teams that did it. Even if we looked for teams with a pct < .375, the last to do it was the Blue Jays, 1977-79 with .335, .366, and .327. So the Astros are performing at the level of a new expansion team these past 3 years.

Trout is youngest player ever to reach base (H, BB, HBP) 300+ times and have 300+ TBs in one season

See my post on this from Nov. 2009 Baseball's "300" Hitters. That has a list of everyone who did it. Cabrera did in 2011. He is not on the list I had back then. Ted Williams and Joe Kelley both did it at age 22

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Who Held The Single Season WPA Record Before Barry Bonds Came Along?

Baseball Reference only has WPA or Win Probability Added going back to 1945. The idea is that every hit, walk or out a player makes either increases or decreases his team's probability of winning. Players who hit well with runners on base or in the late innings of close games will tend to score higher.

Barry Bonds has the three highest WPA totals ever. Our player in question has the 4th best. Bonds had 12.95 in 2004, 11.48 in 2001 and 10.49 in 2002. So in 2004, the Giants won 12.95 more games with Bonds than they would have if an average hitter were in his place.

Here are some clues about the record holder before Barry Bonds:

He is in the Hall of Fame

He was MVP in the year he broke the previous record.

The player whose record he broke is also in the Hall of Fame and was also MVP the year he set the record.

Our player, not surprisingly, led his league in SLG and OBP.

Our player is also among the all-time leaders in WPA.

He batted .349 with runners in scoring position in his record year.

His SLG was .678 with runners on base.

In close & late situations, he batted .390.

In close & late situations, his SLG was .792.

Click here to see who this player is and his splits for this record year

Click here to see the single season leaders

Click here to see the career leaders

Click here to see the progressive leaders

Friday, September 20, 2013

Is The Year Of The Great Fielder?

Below are the current top 18, through yesterday. The four from this year are in red. But at Baseball Reference, the league average, if I understand things correctly, has to be zero. That would mean that someone else has to be especially negative for these guys to be so high. Should they still have the high rank see here? I am not sure. Click here to go to the Baseball Reference leaders

Up date after games of 9-20: Simmons falls back to 5.3 fielding WAR

Rank Player (age that year) Def WAR Year
1 Andrelton Simmons (23) 5.4 2013

Terry Turner (25) 5.4 1906
3 Art Fletcher (32) 5.1 1917
4 Mark Belanger (31) 4.9 1975
5 Ozzie Smith+ (34) 4.7 1989
6 Brooks Robinson+ (31) 4.5 1968
7 Mark Belanger (24) 4.4 1968

Frankie Frisch+ (28) 4.4 1927
9 Joe Tinker+ (27) 4.3 1908
10 Darin Erstad (28) 4.2 2002

Carlos Gomez (27) 4.2 2013

Manny Machado (20) 4.2 2013

Rabbit Maranville+ (22) 4.2 1914

Brooks Robinson+ (30) 4.2 1967
15 Hughie Critz (32) 4.1 1933

Adam Everett (29) 4.1 2006

Gerardo Parra (26) 4.1 2013

Jack Wilson (27) 4.1 2005


Sunday, September 15, 2013

Andrelton Simmons now tied for best fielding WAR ever

Tied with Terry Turner at 5.4. Click here to see the rankings at Baseball Reference. Manny Machado is tied for 10th at 4.2.

After yesterday (9-17), he is back down to 5.2. So 2nd best ever

After 9-18 Andrelton Simmons is tied again for best fielding WAR ever Machado and Carlos Gomez are tied for 13th

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Chris Davis 26th player to have a 40+ HR & 40+ 2B season

Here are the others and how many times they each did it

T1   Lou Gehrig                3  
T1   Albert Pujols             3  
T3   Albert Belle              2  
T3   Todd Helton               2  
T3   Babe Ruth                 2  
T3   David Ortiz               2  
T3   Chuck Klein               2  
T3   Hank Greenberg            2  
T9   Hal Trosky                1  
T9   Alfonso Soriano           1  
T9   Shawn Green               1  
T9   Willie Stargell           1  
T9   Richard Hidalgo           1  
T9   Carlos Delgado            1  
T9   Frank Thomas              1  
T9   Chipper Jones             1  
T9   Larry Walker              1  
T9   Ellis Burks               1  
T9   Manny Ramirez             1  
T9   Juan Gonzalez             1  
T9   Rogers Hornsby            1  
T9   Miguel Cabrera            1  
T9   Mark Teixeira             1  
T9   Jeff Bagwell              1  
T9   Derrek Lee                1  

Has Andrelton Simmons been in a fielding slump the last 12 games?

Andrelton Simmons field WAR was 5.1 12 games ago and it is 5.1 now. I think that means he has been just average the last 12 games if I understand how Baseball Reference does it. Suppose he has been like a .400 hitter as a fielder this year and a .250 hitter is average. I used my Excel program to calculate the binomial probability of a .400 hitter getting 12 or fewer hits in 12 games (48 ABs). It gave me 2.2%. Is that significant? Is that low enough to say he is in a slump? Or would we expect a .400 hitter to have an occassional run of 12 games only hitting .250?

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Are The Yankees The Luckiest Team This Year?

Through Friday's games, their hitters had an OPS of .692 and their pitchers allowed .730. So they have a differential of -.038. From regression analysis, I came up with the following equation to predict a team's winning pct

Pct = .5 +1.21*OPSDIFF

That predicts that they would have a pct of .454 while it was .532 throug Friday. So they are doing .078 better than expected. Over 162 games, that is an extra 12.63 wins. The table below summarizes how all teams did in the prediction
 
Team OPS OPSA Diff W-L% Pred Diff per162
NYY 0.692 0.730 -0.038 0.532 0.454 0.078 12.63
ATL 0.730 0.670 0.060 0.607 0.573 0.034 5.57
KCR 0.694 0.707 -0.013 0.518 0.484 0.034 5.46
BAL 0.753 0.750 0.003 0.536 0.504 0.032 5.24
LAD 0.724 0.672 0.052 0.593 0.563 0.030 4.87
PHI 0.687 0.746 -0.059 0.454 0.429 0.025 4.11
ARI 0.712 0.726 -0.014 0.507 0.483 0.024 3.88
STL 0.731 0.689 0.042 0.574 0.551 0.023 3.76
TEX 0.742 0.701 0.041 0.571 0.550 0.021 3.47
OAK 0.731 0.686 0.045 0.574 0.554 0.020 3.17
CLE 0.730 0.713 0.017 0.536 0.521 0.015 2.50
PIT 0.711 0.653 0.058 0.579 0.570 0.009 1.43
SDP 0.692 0.739 -0.047 0.450 0.443 0.007 1.11
CIN 0.724 0.677 0.047 0.563 0.557 0.006 0.99
BOS 0.793 0.714 0.079 0.601 0.596 0.005 0.88
MIN 0.701 0.754 -0.053 0.439 0.436 0.003 0.51
WSN 0.704 0.699 0.005 0.507 0.506 0.001 0.15
SEA 0.701 0.739 -0.038 0.454 0.454 0.000 0.00
TOR 0.727 0.756 -0.029 0.461 0.465 -0.004 -0.63
TBR 0.742 0.692 0.050 0.550 0.561 -0.011 -1.70
NYM 0.687 0.711 -0.024 0.453 0.471 -0.018 -2.91
HOU 0.682 0.804 -0.122 0.333 0.352 -0.019 -3.14
MIA 0.630 0.710 -0.080 0.381 0.403 -0.022 -3.60
COL 0.742 0.751 -0.009 0.465 0.489 -0.024 -3.91
LAA 0.743 0.742 0.001 0.471 0.501 -0.030 -4.89
SFG 0.696 0.709 -0.013 0.447 0.484 -0.037 -6.04
CHW 0.681 0.722 -0.041 0.400 0.450 -0.050 -8.16
CHC 0.701 0.717 -0.016 0.429 0.481 -0.052 -8.37
MIL 0.712 0.728 -0.016 0.429 0.481 -0.052 -8.37
DET 0.794 0.687 0.107 0.582 0.638 -0.056 -9.01

I wondered if they were doing especially better in clutch situations. The next table is for their hitters. These stats are through yesterday

Split AVG OBP SLG OPS
All PAs 0.248 0.313 0.380 0.693
RISP 0.263 0.345 0.392 0.737
None on 0.245 0.306 0.384 0.691
Men On 0.251 0.322 0.374 0.696
Late & Close 0.219 0.298 0.332 0.630

A little better with RISP but terrible when it is close and late. As you can see in the next table for pitchers, they do better with runners on but it does not seem really big. Their improvement when it is close and late is about at the league average for this year.

Split BA OBP SLG OPS
All PAs 0.263 0.320 0.414 0.734
RISP 0.246 0.322 0.386 0.709
None on 0.268 0.321 0.428 0.749
Men On 0.255 0.318 0.394 0.713
Late & Close 0.250 0.304 0.386 0.690