Sunday, May 22, 2022

What Team Had the Lowest Power-Speed # since 1920?

I thought about this because the Tigers came into today with only 20 HRs, last in the AL by 5 while also being last in SBs with just 6, by 4.

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." 

Using Stathead, I called up all the teams who had both 50 or less HRs & SBs then all the teams with 20 or fewer HRs then all the teams with 20 or fewer SBs. It will probably be one of those teams. I just have not done the math yet. I only looked teams with 100+ games in a season (team Power-Speed # is not directly searchable in Stathead). 

The 1931 Reds have a PS# of 22.4, the lowest of any team from 1920 on (1957 Senators have 23.27). Found only 8 teams post 1920 under 30.

There are lots of teams lower than 22.4 but they all played before 1920 and even then it looks mostly before 1910. The 1908 White Sox are 5.91 with 3 HRs and 209 SBs

The Reds were still playing at Redland Field where it was very tough to hit a HR.

Here are the 10 lowest that I found

Tm

Year

Lg

HR

SB

PS#

G

CIN

1931

NL

21

24

22.40

154

WSH

1957

AL

111

13

23.27

154

BSN

1926

NL

16

81

26.72

153

KCA

1960

AL

110

16

27.94

155

BOS

1921

AL

17

83

28.22

154

PHA

1945

AL

33

25

28.45

153

STL

1949

NL

102

17

29.14

157

PIT

1920

NL

16

181

29.40

155

CLE

1945

AL

65

19

29.40

147

SLB

1953

AL

112

17

29.52

154

Thursday, March 17, 2022

Who had the most "raw" power?

This came up on Twitter several weeks ago. One measure that occurred to me was to look at HR rate when not striking out. I used all the guys with 200+ HRs. The first list has the top 25 but the 2nd list is relative to the league average (that is, a player's HR/(AB - SO) divided by the league average in the same number of ABs). I used Stathead and the Complete Baseball Encyclopedia by Lee Sinins.

Rank

Player

HR

AB

SO

AB - SO

Rate

1

Mark McGwire

583

6187

1596

4591

0.1270

2

Giancarlo Stanton

347

4839

1559

3280

0.1058

3

Jim Thome

612

8422

2548

5874

0.1042

4

Adam Dunn

462

6883

2379

4504

0.1026

5

Babe Ruth

714

8399

1330

7069

0.1010

6

Ryan Howard

382

5707

1843

3864

0.0989

7

Chris Davis

295

4978

1852

3126

0.0944

8

Sammy Sosa

609

8813

2306

6507

0.0936

9

Rob Deer

230

3881

1409

2472

0.0930

10

Khris Davis

221

3394

1017

2377

0.0930

11

Barry Bonds

762

9847

1539

8308

0.0917

12

Dave Kingman

442

6677

1816

4861

0.0909

13

Jose Canseco

462

7057

1942

5115

0.0903

14

Mike Trout

310

4656

1215

3441

0.0901

15

Harmon Killebrew

573

8147

1699

6448

0.0889

16

Nelson Cruz

449

6910

1751

5159

0.0870

17

Manny Ramirez

555

8244

1813

6431

0.0863

18

Mike Napoli

267

4572

1468

3104

0.0860

19

Jay Buhner

310

5013

1406

3607

0.0859

20

Carlos Delgado

473

7283

1745

5538

0.0854

21

Mark Reynolds

298

5432

1927

3505

0.0850

22

Carlos Pena

286

4949

1577

3372

0.0848

23

Mike Schmidt

548

8352

1883

6469

0.0847

24

Richie Sexson

306

4928

1313

3615

0.0846

25

Alex Rodriguez

696

10566

2287

8279

0.0841


Rank

Player

HR/(AB - SO)

AVGHR/(AB - AVGSO)

REL Raw Power

1

Babe Ruth

0.1010

0.0136

7.45

2

Lou Gehrig

0.0684

0.0173

3.96

3

Jimmie Foxx

0.0783

0.0199

3.94

4

Hack Wilson

0.0603

0.0159

3.80

5

Mark McGwire

0.1270

0.0340

3.73

6

Wally Berger

0.0541

0.0149

3.62

7

Willie Stargell

0.0793

0.0221

3.58

8

Rogers Hornsby

0.0402

0.0113

3.56

9

Hank Greenberg

0.0761

0.0219

3.48

10

Ted Williams

0.0745

0.0223

3.34

11

Mickey Mantle

0.0839

0.0254

3.31

12

Dave Kingman

0.0909

0.0280

3.25

13

Mike Schmidt

0.0847

0.0266

3.18

14

Bill Nicholson

0.0498

0.0161

3.09

15

Dolph Camilli

0.0544

0.0182

2.99

16

Ralph Kiner

0.0828

0.0277

2.99

17

Dick Allen

0.0735

0.0247

2.98

18

Barry Bonds

0.0917

0.0309

2.97

19

Willie McCovey

0.0784

0.0265

2.96

20

Darryl Strawberry

0.0824

0.0287

2.87

21

Rob Deer

0.0930

0.0326

2.86

22

Giancarlo Stanton

0.1058

0.0373

2.83

23

Harmon Killebrew

0.0889

0.0317

2.80

24

Hal Trosky

0.0483

0.0174

2.78

25

Reggie Jackson

0.0775

0.0280

2.77