Red Sox Excelled In High Leverage Situations This Year, Allowing Them To Win Seven More Games Than Expected Based On Their OPS Differential

Here is a regression generated equation where team winning pct was a function of overall OPS differential. It was based on the years 2010-14. All data from Baseball Reference's Play Index.

Pct = .5 + 1.3246*OPSDIFF

The Red Sox had a team OPS of .792 while allowing their opponents .698, for a differential of .094. The equation estimates they would have a .6245 winning pct. That would be 101 wins. But they actually won 108 games.  Maybe it was because they did so well in High Leverage situations.

Split	OPS	POPS	Diff
High Lvrge	0.854	0.649	0.205
Medium Lvrge	0.801	0.734	0.067
Low Lvrge	0.762	0.689	0.073

They had a .854 OPS in High Leverage cases while allowing .649. Using the same years, here is the regression equation when breaking things down by leverage

Pct = .5 + .306*LOW +.420*MED + .564*HIGH

Where LOW, MED and HIGH are the OPS differentials in the three cases. That equation estimates they would have a .666 winning pct., good for 107.9 wins. So it looks like their High Leverage performance added about 7 wins.

In case anyone is curious, in LOW, MED and HIGH case for all of MLB this year, OPS was .724, .734, .724, respectively. So on average, teams do about the same in all cases. But the Red Sox were much different than that.

Roberto Clemente's Amazing Late Career Defense

Clemente is the only outfielder to have at least 1.0 defensive WAR at age 36 or older (from the Baseball Reference Play Index with a minimum of 50% of games played in the outfield).

In 1971, at age 36, Clemente had 1.8 defensive WAR in 1,081 innings (about 120 games).

In 1972, he had 1.0 defensive WAR in 812 innings (about 90 games).

Only two other players had at least 0.8. Robin Yount had 0.9 in 1993 at age 37. Steve Finley had 0.8 in 2004 at age 39.

If we lower the minimum defensive WAR to 0.5, it was done only 12 times outside of Clemente and only one guy did it more than once, Finley. Finley had 0.6 in 2001 at age 36.

Lonnie Smith had 0.7 at age 36 in 1992 but in only 84 games. Pretty impressive. Stan Javier had 0.8 at age 37 in 2001 in 89 games (he shows up if I set a minimum of 0.75 but not at 0.8).

If we lower the age to 35 but go back to a minimum of 1.0, there are still only 4 cases outside of Clemente. Here they are:

Rk	Player	dWAR	Year	Age	G
1	Willie Mays	2.1	1966	35	152
2	Roberto Clemente	1.8	1971	36	132
3	Devon White	1.5	1998	35	146
4	Jay Payton	1.3	2008	35	127
5	Al Bumbry	1.1	1982	35	150
6	Roberto Clemente	1	1972	37	102

If we look at ages 36-37 combined, Clemente has 2.7 (there must be a rounding issue because it is not 2.8). The only other guy with at least 1.0 is Finley, at 1.0.

Which teams had the largest differentials between their blowout winning percentage and their non-blowout winning percentage?

I used the Baseball Reference Situational Records tool. I found every team's record since 1901 in blowouts and in all other games then found the difference in winning pct. The 1931 Yankees do have the biggest differential of .330. The 1958 Reds are 2nd with .324 (.750 - .426).

Tm	Year	BW	BL	BW-L%	NBW	NBL	NBW-L%	Diff
NYY	1931	44	9	0.830	50	50	0.500	0.330
CIN	1958	24	8	0.750	52	70	0.426	0.324
CLE	1906	31	7	0.816	58	57	0.504	0.312
PIT	1911	32	9	0.780	53	60	0.469	0.311
PHA	1909	30	5	0.857	65	53	0.551	0.306
LAD	1977	27	5	0.844	71	59	0.546	0.298
OAK	1972	22	4	0.846	71	58	0.550	0.296
NYG	1929	39	13	0.750	45	54	0.455	0.295
HOU	1984	26	10	0.722	54	72	0.429	0.293
CHC	1909	35	4	0.897	69	45	0.605	0.292

Here are the biggest negative differentials.

Tm	Year	BW	BL	BW-L%	NBW	NBL	NBW-L%	Diff
BRO	1918	3	22	0.120	54	47	0.535	-0.415
SDP	2017	9	36	0.200	62	55	0.530	-0.330
CIN	2004	11	35	0.239	65	51	0.560	-0.321
NYG	1901	8	38	0.174	44	47	0.484	-0.310
SDP	2009	10	32	0.238	65	55	0.542	-0.304
PHA	1915	3	41	0.068	40	68	0.370	-0.302
WSH	1947	7	30	0.189	57	60	0.487	-0.298
SDP	1974	7	38	0.156	53	64	0.453	-0.297
PHI	2013	11	35	0.239	62	54	0.534	-0.295
PHI	2016	10	34	0.227	61	57	0.517	-0.290

Yelich Had 11th Highest 2nd Half SLG Since 1946

Click here to see the list from Baseball Reference's Play Index. The minimum 2nd half PA was 200.

Then I found the difference between 2nd half SLG and season SLG for all the guys that had at least a .700 SLG in the 2nd half. Then I ranked them by this difference and Yelich had the biggest difference. Here is that list.

Player	Year	2nd Half SLG	Season SLG	Diff
Christian Yelich	2018	0.770	0.598	0.172
Albert Belle	1998	0.816	0.655	0.161
David Ortiz	2015	0.701	0.553	0.148
Edwin Encarnacion	2015	0.700	0.557	0.143
Ken Caminiti	1996	0.760	0.621	0.139
Willie Mays	1963	0.709	0.582	0.127
Ted Williams	1957	0.855	0.731	0.124
Manny Ramirez	2008	0.723	0.601	0.122
Stan Musial	1949	0.740	0.625	0.115
Mark McGwire	1999	0.810	0.697	0.113
Eddie Mathews	1954	0.712	0.603	0.109
Stan Musial	1953	0.715	0.609	0.106
Albert Belle	1995	0.787	0.690	0.097
Jim Thome	2002	0.773	0.677	0.096
Ryan Howard	2006	0.751	0.659	0.092
Jose Bautista	2010	0.702	0.617	0.085
Duke Snider	1953	0.706	0.627	0.079
Sammy Sosa	2000	0.711	0.634	0.077
Mike Schmidt	1981	0.719	0.644	0.075
Mike Napoli	2011	0.706	0.631	0.075
Giancarlo Stanton	2017	0.702	0.631	0.071
Mike Piazza	1997	0.707	0.638	0.069
Javy Lopez	2003	0.755	0.687	0.068
Albert Pujols	2004	0.721	0.657	0.064
Jim Edmonds	2004	0.705	0.643	0.062
J.D. Martinez	2017	0.751	0.690	0.061
Barry Bonds	2003	0.806	0.749	0.057
Manny Ramirez	2000	0.750	0.697	0.053
Albert Pujols	2008	0.706	0.653	0.053
Jason Giambi	2001	0.709	0.660	0.049
Sammy Sosa	2001	0.785	0.737	0.048
Barry Bonds	2001	0.908	0.863	0.045
Hank Aaron	1971	0.710	0.669	0.041
Barry Bonds	2002	0.825	0.799	0.026
Todd Helton	2001	0.710	0.685	0.025
Barry Bonds	2004	0.832	0.812	0.020
Mark McGwire	1998	0.734	0.752	-0.018

Altuve's speed and power drop off

Here are some of his numbers each of the last 3 years.

ISO) .193-.201-.135
1B/AB) .227-.232-.234
BB/PA) .084-.088-.092
SO/PA) .098-.127-.132
SB)30-32-17

Big drop in isolated power this year. It does not seem like the rise in his SO/PA is the reason because it did not go up much this year and when it went up quite a bit last year, the power was there.

He seems to be getting singles and walks at about the same rate as before (if not a bit better). He had 23 fewer extra base hits (67-44) this year than last year (he did play 16 fewer games but if games were even and he had the same extra base hits per game he would only go up to 49 or 18 fewer).

Why are SBs down so much? Since he got on base by singles and walks at about the same rate or better as last year, why drop from 32 to 17? (it would be 19 in the same number of games as last year)

Is it a coincidence that SBs and power both dropped off at the same time? Did he have a leg injury that affected both?

Players who led their league in OBP & Power-Speed#

Here is what Baseball Reference says about Power-Speed#:

"2 x (Home Runs x Stolen Bases)/(Stolen Bases + Home Runs) The harmonic mean of HR and SB. To do well you need a lot of both. Developed by Bill James."

I thought that players who did this showed outstanding all-around offensive ability. Sixteen players have done it at least once with Ruth (3), Cobb (2) and Bonds (2) more than once. This is list is all-time greats, Hall of Famers and near greats.

Year	Player	PwrSpd	OBP
1901	Nap Lajoie+ (PHA)	18.4	0.463
1908	Honus Wagner+ (PIT)	16.8	0.415
1909	Ty Cobb+* (DET)	16.1	0.431
1910	Ty Cobb+* (DET)	14.2	0.456
1912	Tris Speaker+* (BOS)	16.8	0.464
1921	Babe Ruth+* (NYY)	26.4	0.512
1922	Rogers Hornsby+ (STL)	24.2	0.459
1923	Babe Ruth+* (NYY)	24	0.545
1926	Babe Ruth+* (NYY)	17.8	0.516
1933	Chuck Klein+* (PHI)	19.5	0.422
1934	Arky Vaughan+* (PIT)	10.9	0.431
1950	Larry Doby+* (CLE)	12.1	0.442
1952	Jackie Robinson+ (BRO)	21.2	0.440
1972	Dick Allen (CHW)	25.1	0.420
1976	Joe Morgan+* (CIN)	37.2	0.444
1990	Rickey Henderson+ (OAK)	39.1	0.439
1992	Barry Bonds* (PIT)	36.3	0.456
1993	Barry Bonds* (SFG)	35.6	0.458
1997	Larry Walker* (COL)	39.4	0.452
2016	Mike Trout (LAA)	29.5	0.441

Mike Trout is first player to win a triple threat triple crown since 1978

A couple of years ago I came up with what I called a "triple threat" triple crown. If a player led the league in a speed stat, a power stat and an on-base stat, he qualified.

I compiled a list of players I thought had done it and it is at this link

 https://cybermetric.blogspot.com/2015/07/triple-threat-triple-crowns.html

Please let me know if you think I missed someone. Also, just a couple of days ago I added Hank Aaron (1963) and Joe Morgan (176) if you require a 20 SB mininum. Trout led the AL in isolated power (ISO which is SLG - AVG), OBP (.460) and SB% (if we use a 20 SB minimum).

Here are the top 5 qualified batters in the AL in ISO

Player	ISO	BA	SLG
Mike Trout	0.316	0.312	0.628
Khris Davis	0.302	0.247	0.549
J.D. Martinez	0.299	0.330	0.629
Mookie Betts	0.294	0.346	0.640
Joey Gallo	0.292	0.206	0.498

Here are all the AL players with 20+ SBs this year. Baseball Reference has a minimum number of SB attempts of .1 per team game to qualify for the league lead in SB%. So if a player has 16 attempts, he qualifies. But The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer has 20 SBs as the minimum. Baseball Reference shows Jackie Bradley as the leader with 94.44% (17-1).

Player	SB%	SB	CS
Mike Trout	92.31%	24	2
Jonathan Villar	87.50%	21	3
Andrew Benintendi	87.50%	21	3
Jose Ramirez	85.00%	34	6
Greg Allen	84.00%	21	4
Delino DeShields	83.33%	20	4
Mookie Betts	83.33%	30	6
Adalberto Mondesi	82.05%	32	7
Whit Merrifield	81.82%	45	10
Mallex Smith	76.92%	40	12
Tim Anderson	76.47%	26	8
Rajai Davis	75.00%	21	7
Dee Gordon	71.43%	30	12
Francisco Lindor	71.43%	25	10
Jean Segura	64.52%	20	11