3 posts tagged “hitting”

A month ago or so, I posted something about my baseball stat, which I like to call OAR (or Offensive Ability Rating). I developed a formula that has a few different components to it, primarily one that measures how many bases a player generates as well as how many bases they steal (and the success rate they steal them at). So one component measures power, speed, and how successful they are (batting average is also included). The next nearly equal part of the component, which I call ELF (or Eye Luck Factor) measures how often a batter gets on base after hitting the ball into play (BABIP), how often a player walks or gets on base without getting a hit, while also counting against the hitter with how many times they strike out or ground into a double play. Another small component to the formula is pitches per plate appearance, but this is just added in as a tie-breaker more than anything else (also measures how "Gritty" a player is... could wear the starting pitcher down).

This is the third version of my stat, so it has become a bit refined over the past few months of working on the formula, and then tweaking it to get it as correct as possible, since we're rating a player's overall offensive value and want to be as accurate as possible. So, here's a top 50 hitters list (from 2008, I think I'm going to use this as a guide for my fantasy draft, heh):

1. Albert Pujols 130.68
2. Adam Dunn 127.59
3. Chipper Jones 123.27
4. Milton Bradley 121.98
5. Lance Berkman 118.33
6. Manny Ramirez 118.31
7. J.D. Drew 116.84
8. Alex Rodriguez 115.74
9. Chris Ianetta 114.34
10. Hanley Ramirez 113.76
11. Mark Texeira 113.27
12. Jason Giambi 113.11
13. Carlos Pena 112.26
14. Matt Holliday 112.12
15. Shin-soo Choo 110.3
16. Jack Cust 110.27
17. Carlos Quentin 110.02
18. Grady Sizemore 109.77
19. Ryan Ludwick 109.13
20. David Wright 108.95
21. Kevin Youkilis 108.82
22. Chase Utley 108.63
23. Pat Burrell 108.46
24. Jason Werth 107.99
25. Jason Bay 107.76
26. Carlos Beltran 105.71
27. Nick Markakis 105.56
28. Prince Fielder 105.12
29. Brad Hawpe 104.81
30. Aramis Ramirez 104.7
31. Jim Thome 104.25
32. David Ortiz 104.2
33. Mark Derosa 103.71
34. Dan Uggla 103.4
35. Elijah Dukes 103.35
36. Andre Ethier 102.57
37. Josh Hamilton 102.44
38. Nate McLouth 102.38
39. Evan Longoria 101.77
40. Ryan Howard 101.73
41. Brian Roberts 101.39
42. Troy Glaus 100.88
43. Curtis Granderson 100.7
44. Kelly Shoppach 100.55
45. Aubrey Huff 99.84
46. Carlos Lee 99.8
47. Geovany Soto 99.4
48. Ian Kinsler 99.17
49. Jim Edmonds 99
50. Carlos Delgado 98.76

For a fantasy baseball tip, it's not a bad idea to choose your hitters from the NL, since the NL has weaker pitching overall. Also, don't forget that a player shouldn't just be evaluated using solely offensive statistics... other factors are important too such as how healthy the player is, and if they are a defensive liability (Adam Dunn may be one of the best hitters in the game, but he is one of the worst at defense as well), and finally remember that there are not as many good hitters at positions like middle infield or catcher as there are in the outfield, etc.

Here we see the most successful teams in offense for 2008 by Offensive Ability Rating:

#1 Chicago Cubs - 91.77

#2 Philadelphia Phillies - 90.04

#3 New York Mets - 88.53

#4 Florida Marlins - 88.49

#5 Colorado Rockies - 87.48

#6 St. Louis Cardinals - 87.42

#7 Arizona Diamondbacks - 87.36

#8 Atlanta Braves - 85.94

#9 Milwaukee Brewers - 84.73

#10 Cincinnati Reds - 84.12

#11 Los Angeles Dodgers - 83.24

#12 Houston Astros - 82.67

#13 Pittsburgh Pirates - 82.33

#14 San Diego Padres - 81.3

#15 Washington D.C. - 79.77

#16 San Francisco - 78.82

The Cubs being the most well-rounded on offense, and also being in a tiny stadium improves their abilities greatly, making it easier to hit home runs... The Phillies became World Champions in '08 with the second highest OAR in the NL, which included bashers like Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell, and the best second baseman in the game in Chase Utley (usually one of the worst offensive positions)... The Marlins also were ranked rather highly with a waaaaaaaaay above average middle infield offense in Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla... the Rockies barely eeked it out over the Cardinals due to the perrennially batter-friendly confines of Coors Field... The Braves were bolstered by a great season by Chipper Jones... The Brewers despite their exceedingly above average power hitting landed in the middle of the pack due to their bad plate discipline... and the Reds rounded out the top 10 again due to being in a hitter's ballpark more than anything else. As expected, the SF Giants were last in offense, with the Padres somehow being better than the Nationals despite being in the most hitter neutralizing ballpark in the majors.

Next I'll publish the American League's top teams in OAR, and then next week I'll post the big one, with the top 100 hitters in baseball.

So for a few months I've been working on a new stat for baseball titled Offensive Ability Rating. This stat measures a player's overall offensive worth, encompassing stats including Total Bases, Stolen Bases, Caught Stealing, Hits, Batting Average, BABIP (or batting average on balls batted into play), Ground into Double Plays, Sacrifice Flies, Hit By Pitch, and to a lesser extent pitches per plate appearance (P/PA). So instead of looking at who's the best in one area of the game (or at bulk stats like RBI or HR), I'm attempting to wrap all of facets of the offensive part of the game of baseball into one tidy little package.

Basically, the stat sort of reads like a quarter back rating stat... it shows who are the players with not only the most power, but the players who combine power with speed and baserunning, their eye for the ball and plate discipline, and even how hard they hit the ball or wear a pitcher down.

This new stat has several components, or other stats that focus on certain areas, mainly Base Efficiency Factor, which is sort of like Power Factor (which just measures how many bases a player generates with one hit) but with stolen bases and caught stealing thrown into the equation. BEF is the most straightforward part of OAR; it is total bases + .8 times the number of stolen bases divided by hits plus number of times caught stealing. The formula being TB +.8*SB divided by H+CS. This component of offensive ability rating both tells you how powerful and how good at stealing a hitter is (so running speed is involved), measuring the efficiency in number of bases a hitter generates when getting a hit as well as if they can steal or not.

Related to BEF is Base Efficiency Average (or BEA), which is simply batting average multiplied by BEF... showing how often a player can pull off those total bases when actually getting a hit... players like Ryan Howard gets penalized here since they don't hit for average.

The next part of OAR is called RELF, or Raw Eye Luck Factor for lack of a better term. This part of the stat is a little more convoluted, measuring the amount of walks, hit by pitch, and to an extent sacrifice flies, which are penalized statistically speaking by the amount of ground into double plays the player generates as well as how often they strike out and do not at least put the ball into play (perhaps causing an error)...

This raw version of the component (RELF) is then averaged into the next component, called Eye Luck Factor, or ELF for short which is also factored in with BABIP... which measures how often a player gets on base because they hit the ball really really hard, are really fast, how lucky the player is, etc. This is usually higher than the player's batting average, and is another way of determining how good a player is at getting onto base. Players with good plate discipline, hitters that are feared or hit tons of line drives, and hitters that just get on base a lot in general and play smart baseball are good at this stat... two good examples would be Albert Pujols and Adam Dunn.

So once I do the calculations, Offensive Ability Rating is Base Efficiency Average plus Eye Luck Factor plus pitches per plate appearance divided by 30, then multiplied by 100 (BEA + ELF + P/PA/30 * 100).

In the next few weeks I'll be doing posts showing how individuals as well as teams did in 2008 offensively, using this stat to illustrate. Tomorrow I'll be doing a rundown of the National League and which teams were the best at hitting.