Who would be tops?

(okay, no kidding, i just thought of that, and before I hit “submit” I checked google and found this:)
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1507571/batting_excitement_factor_bef_explained_pg2_pg2.html?cat=14

there is officially a stat for everything.

Pudge comes in at 26th worst, while Mora comes in at somewhere around 40th.

Probably penalizing a lack of speed here, and overcounting other stats.

When making the Hit correction I outlined previously (post #23), we see this as the Top and Bottom 15. (I used a min 200 PA as well)

Top
.723 Pujols
.659 Mark Reynolds
.659 Joe Mauer
.644 Manny
.641 Fielder
.635 Utley
.633 Dunn
.623 Hanley
.622 Ibanez
.621 Josh Willingham
.620 Youkilis
.620 Zobrist
.616 Bartlett
.615 Torii Hunter
.611 (3 tied – Bay, Cruz and Teixeira)

.472 MLB Average

Bottom
.367 Ivan Rodriguez
.366 Melvin Mora
.366 Adam Everett
.361 Edgar Renteria
.359 Yuni
.359 Bill Hall
.357 Dioner Navarro
.356 Brian Anderson
.355 Jason Kendall
.348 Ronny Cedeno
.342 Alex Gonzalez
.340 Alexi Casilla
.339 Emmanuel Burriss
.333 Delmon Young
.332 Giles

Of real note, 3 of the Bottom-5 do not make the Bottom-10 wOBA list garik16 provided above, while Tavares (#22) and Punto (#20) escape infamy this time around.

Also, I truly cant believe how much of a lead Pujols has over all the others. The difference between #2 and #15 is merely .048 points. Meanwhile, Pujols has a .064 lead on second place.

Also, calculated Aaron Miles (148 PA with .478 OPS) for the fun of it. He scored a .297

1. Pujols
2. Mauer
3. Hanley Ramirez
4. Youkilis
5. Prince Fielder
6. Mark Reynolds
7. Chase Utley
8. Adam Dunn
9. Jason Bartlett
10. Ryan Braun
11. Raul Ibanez

Pretty close right? Mind you, two players on Poz’s list don’t have enough ABs to qualify for this list (Beltran and Manny) so it’s more or less identical there.

Bottom 10 (230 PAs minimum):
1. Alex Gonzalez
2. Ronny Cedeno
3. Brian Giles
4. Dionar Navarro
5. Willy Tavares
6. Nick Punto
7. Yuni
8. Adam Everett
9. Bill Hall
10. Jason kendall

Once again, essentially identical (I chose 200 PAs for the cutoff here, because Qualified is like 400 PAs, and players this bad don’t get that many PAs usually, and Yuni and like 4 others on Poz’s list don’t qualify).

So yeah, the stats show Poz is on to the right track, but he could be more advanced and find the stuff easier by just looking up wOBA on fangraphs.com

“Could you find a way to include HBP?”

It is included in TOB, as are walks.

“((Total bases + Times on Base + Stolen Bases + Sacrifice hits and flies) – (caught stealing + grounded into double plays)) / (Plate Appearances + Caught Stealing)”

Youre giving double weight to all hits in this calculation.

Break TB and TOB down into their components to see what I mean

Singles + 2* Doubles + 3* Triples + 4* HR = TB
Singles + Doubles + Triples + HR + BB + HBP = TOB

An example of the problem: (using Justin Morneau)

A) 246 TB, 198 TOB, 0 SB, 6 SF, 0 CS, 11 DP, 510 PA = .861
(132 Hits, 63 Walks, 3 HBP)

B) 229 TB, 198 TOB, 0 SB, 6 SF, 0 CS, 11 DP, 510 PA = .827
(115 Hits, 80 Walks, 3 HBP)

There is technically no difference in the two Justins. “A” merely has 17 more singles but 17 fewer walks, both end up at First Base the same amount of times. Your calculation incorrectly creates a rather large .044 variance between the two though.

To correct it, just subtract Hits after Total Bases.

Now Joe doesn’t presume to claim his stat is accurate or not screwing up somewhere…he fiddles around and was just posting something that came to mind. But if Tango and others agree that wOBA does more or less what Poz is trying to do spur of hte moment, is there any problem with showing Joe the stat does it more accurately?

I mean, yeah, the “dont reinvent the wheel” bit is a bit too snarky than necessary, but well…it’s beside the point.

You could take the same measurements and then divide by PA to normalize it. So using your list above, Albert Pujols is at 2.18. Manny Ramirez is at 2.11. Joe Mauer is at 2.09. Andre Ethier (a good but not great player with an OPS of .870 and OPS+ of 127) is at 1.73. Last season, when Ethier’s OPS was .885 with more times on base but fewer homers, his score was 1.75. And last on your list this year, Brian Giles, is at 1.14, half of Pujols. The best offensive team in the NL (by runs scored) is the Phillies, with a team average of 1.543. The Royals grade out at 1.334. The Yankees, the best offense in baseball, are at 1.664. I think we can assume that 1.50 is decent, and make whatever adjustments we want to make for speed and defense.

The beauty of this kind of system is that you can easily weight it based on your preferences AND upon seen results based on the team. For example, to me there’s no real way the Angels should be so close to the Yankees in runs scores. The Yankees as a team have an OPS of .837. The Angels are at .804. That should be a hell of a lot bigger difference than only five runs. In my rankings, the Angels are at 1.596, which is a lot closer to the Yankees than OPS. But it still isn’t 5 runs difference. However, it does suggest that this weighting system is more accurate than just OPS.

What that says to me is that the Angels have the best offensive manager and base coaches in baseball. Yes, they steal more than the Yankees, but they also steal at a less effective rate, and it’s not like comparing the fastest team in baseball to the slowest. The only source of divergences are either the way we rank is wrong, or (and this is far more likely) the Angels manufacture more runs through their well documented team philosophy of always pushing for more on the basepaths. And that dovetails nicely with the Royals underperformance by not pushing at all on the basepaths. Note that the Rays are a fairly close third in OPS, have stolen a LOT more bases than the Angels with FEWER times caught stealing which if anything should move them closer to the top two, have a ranking almost tied with the Angels at 1.592, but are not close to the two leaders in runs scores. So it’s not steals that are driving the extra run production.

Setting aside the anomalous Angels, one advantage of this kind of method is that it lends itself to easy manipulation based on actual results. Excel could calculate all the numbers per team per year, and then the weightings could be tweaked to come up with something more accurate. One thing that almost scares me is that the Angels have a huge lead in batting average, even though they are only second in OBP. So maybe singles should count for more. And maybe Batting Average does count for more, like the old timers thought.

The Angels also do a terrific job of putting the ball in play. Very few strikeouts, not many walks, very few hit by pitches. So perhaps there is synergy; batting average plus defensive outs (many of which advance runners) leads to more runs than predicted. I don’t know. It’s just another method. But I think Mike Scioscia deserves a raise. And Hillman should look at how the Angels attack on the basepaths all the time. I bet the Angels have more unearned runs than more teams.