Monday, October 29, 2018

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.

Thursday, October 18, 2018

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.

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

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

Friday, October 5, 2018

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

Thursday, October 4, 2018

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?

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

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

Monday, October 1, 2018

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