WHAT’S IN A STAT?
It can be hard to determine a player’s value, so here’s what can be done
Baseball has always been a game of numbers and two of those numbers were always emphasized. For everyday players it was the batting average. For pitchers it was the wonloss record. Other statistics mattered but those two were the gold standard. The game’s stars were the ones who could hit .300 or win 20 games.
Baseball has moved on.
It is still a game of numbers but the numbers that were once ultra-important no longer seem to matter much at all. They’ve been replaced but sometimes it is difficult to get a handle on exactly what it is that has replaced them.
That point was driven home last week during a Mets telecast when an announcer noted that the Citi Field scoreboard now posts each player’s OPS next to his name instead of his batting average. The announcer had two ex-players as partners and they both weighed on the topic.
One of them expressed the belief that the OPS is a much better indicator of a batter’s achievements than his batting average. The other agreed but added that many fans don’t know what an OPS is, how it is determined and, most importantly, what is or isn’t a good number.
The batting average is easy to understand — divide a player’s hit total by his official at bats. Any junior high school student can do the math.
But the results are incomplete. All hits, whether they’re home runs or singles, count the same. Walks, hit-by-pitches and sacrifices are not official at-bats so they don’t factor into the batting average at all.
There are other formulae designed to rectify those weaknesses.
The slugging percentage is the batter’s total bases divided by his at bats. It is exactly the same as a batting average except for the fact that a double has twice the value of a single and home run has four times the value. Just as with the batting average, however, walks, hit-by-pitches and sacrifices are non-factors.
The on-base percentage totals all hits, walks and hit-by-pitches and divides them by the player’s total plate appearance. A plate appearance is any completed at bat that doesn’t result in a sacrifice bunt or catcher’s interference. In this tabulation a player’s numbers benefit from a walk or hit by pitch but those numbers carry exactly the same weight as a home run.
In short, both of these tabulations address some, but not all, of the statistical weaknesses of the batting average. Put them together, however, and almost all of those weaknesses disappear, and that’s what the OPS does. OPS stands for “on base average plus slugging percentage” and it is the sum of these two calculations. A good hitter will have an OPS of .700 or better. A star player will reach .800. A player under .600 probably won’t stay in the lineup unless he is mighty good at something else.
I agree that the OPS is far superior to batting average when evaluating a hitter’s value to his team, but I don’t agree that it’s a perfect formula. If baseball is looking for a new statistical standard to evaluate batters, I think the OPS would be a good place to start but some modifications are needed. Here are three.
1) A sacrifice bunt counts as nothing towards either the slugging average or on base percentage. It’s a non-play as far as the OPS is concerned. It should be rewarded in some way.
2) A sacrifice fly is actually a negative statistic in the OPS. It is not an at-bat so it does factor into the slugging percentage, but it is a plate appearance and that causes the on base percentage to drop. Thus, if a batter hits a sacrifice fly he returns to the dugout with an OPS that is lower than one he had when he came to bat. Obviously, that’s not right.
3) No consideration is given for grounding into a double play. When a player hits into a double play his at-bat results in two outs instead of one AND he removes a runner from the bases. Simply charging him with one at bat does not reflect all the damage he has done. A modified OPS should somehow call for a greater deduction when a batter grounds into a force double play.
Now let’s shift gears and look at that other antiquated stat — a pitcher’s wonloss record.
Last week I received an email from a reader who had just watched a game in which the starting pitcher worked eight scoreless innings but got a no decision.
The winning run was scored in the ninth inning so the win went to a reliever who worked just one inning. The reader thought the starter deserved the win and wondered why the official scorer didn’t agree.
I told him that in a situation like this the official scorer had no option. His response was that the rules ought to be changed.
I agree. This is the 21st century and baseball is making calculations with a 20th Century scale. That’s almost a waste of time.
During most of baseball’s history a team’s four or five best pitchers rotated the starting assignments. Those starters normally pitched deep into the game and each pitcher’s won-loss record was a reasonably fair measurement of his contribution to the team’s fortunes. A relief pitcher could get a win or loss only if the lead changed hands after the starter had left the game. But, just to make sure a starter didn’t get a cheap win, a rule was added that the starter must pitch at least five innings to be eligible for the win.
Most games today feature a parade of pitchers. If the game is close the winner is often a reliever who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. That’s sometimes true even if the game isn’t close.
Today’s managers get nervous when a starter’s pitch count gets into the 80s. They are often reluctant to allow a pitcher to face a batter three times in the same game. It isn’t unusual for a starter to be removed before he has pitched five innings and thus, even if that pitcher is the pitcher of record, he is ineligible for the win. In that situation the official scorer does get to choose the winning pitcher but he must pick one of the relievers. He often is forced to anoint a reliever who has had much less impact on the game than the starter.
No wonder wins by a pitcher now seem almost irrelevant.
We have to accept the fact that individual pitchers rarely impact today’s game the way starting pitchers impacted games in the past. Nonetheless, someone must be declared the winning pitcher of every game and that distinction should go to whatever hurler has contributed the most to the team’s success. Too often that doesn’t happen.
Perhaps the solution could be very simple. Award the win to whichever pitcher secured the greatest number of outs unless that pitcher left the game with his team trailing. If the winning team rallies from behind to secure the win, make the winning pitcher the one who secured the greatest number of outs after the team tied the game or took the lead.
It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.
A FEW STATISTICS (Wednesday’s games not included): Six players have reached double digits in homers and three of them — Aaron Judge (14), Anthony Rizzo (10) and Giancarlo Stanton (10) play for the Yankees. Nevertheless, the Yanks trail the Astros in team homers, 55-54…Taylor Ward is batting .376 and his teammate Mike Trout has a .325 average. The rest of the Angels collectively are batting .226…Jacob Stallings won the NL Gold Glove last year at catcher. This year he’s on a new team — the Marlins — and he’s permitted 19 stolen bases…In eight games against AL teams the Phillies’ Rhys Hoskins is batting .379 with 12 RBIs…Corbin Burnes of the Brewers has an ERA of 1.77 despite the fact that he has allowed six homers in seven starts…The Mets’ team fielding percentage (.991) is the best in the majors…Francisco Valdez of the Astros has registered almost three times as many ground ball outs as fly ball outs. He’s induced seven batters to ground into double plays…Mookie Betts is batting a mediocre .263 but leads the majors in runs scored with 35…The Brewers are 8-3 in one-run games. They have yet to play an extra-inning contest…Justin Verlander of the Astros has made three starts in May. He has won all three while posting a 0.92 ERA…Second baseman Tommy Edman of the Cardinals leads all major leaguers in assists with 103…The White Sox have drawn only 81 walks. The major league average is 117…The Pirates are 8-16 in their own division but 7-5 in other games…Pablo Lopez of the Marlins has an 8-46 ratio of walks to strike outs. Perhaps that explains his 1.05 ERA.