For the fourth consecutive year -- indeed, for the only four years of his career -- Mike Trout will finish in the top two in the MVP race. Also for the fourth time, he should finish first, ahead of a star with bigger traditional numbers. And for the third time, he might finish second.
Josh Donaldson has produced a monster season for the Blue Jays, hitting .298 with 41 homers and a league-leading 123 RBI. He's scored a league-pacing 122 runs too. His OBP-SLG of .373/.571 places him second in the AL in OPS.
Behind Mike Trout, whose .299-41-90 with 104 runs scored and a .400-.588 OBP-SLG gives him 44 points more of OPS.
Here's the comparison, with league-leading numbers in bold.
Trout .299-41-90 104R .402/.590/.992 176 OPS+ .353 TAv
Donaldson .297-41-123 122R .370/.569/.939 155 OPS+ .323 TAv
In other words, Donaldson leads in team events because he bats in the middle of that historically-potent Blue Jays lineup. Trout leads in measures of individual excellence.
Both are superb base runners who have not applied that to base stealing. Donaldson has swiped all six of his attempts. Trout, once a 40-steal guy, is just 11 of 18. That's a ding against Trout.
Both light up the web gems highlight reel. Donaldson is generally considered even more special at his position than Trout is at his, but Trout plays the more critical CF to Donaldson's hot corner.
Factoring in their ballparks and strength of opposing pitchers, Trout has produced 8.7 offensive wins for his team, 13% more than Donaldson's 7.7, according to Baseball Reference. Baseball Prospectus has the gap even wider, and rates Trout the better fielder too.
Sentiment had shifted toward Donaldson as he and Toronto heated up while Trout and the Of Anaheims cooled in August. But the tables turned some in September/October as Trout humped it up and his team hung in the playoff race until the last day. Of course, the performance of his teammates should be of no consequence to a player's MVP candidacy: it's not up to him whether the nine wins he adds are wins 71-79 or wins 87-95.
So a voter could cast his vote for Josh Donaldson for 2015 AL MVP and that would be a perfectly reasonable choice. No one could argue that Donaldson didn't deserve it for the quantum leap he's taken this year following his shocking trade from Oakland. It's just that Trout is clearly the better candidate, not by a significant margin, but by enough that everyone ought to recognize it.
Showing posts with label TAv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TAv. Show all posts
07 October 2015
28 June 2015
The Best Player Not to Make This Year's All-Star Team
After exercising my first 70 (of 105) All-Star franchises, I initiated a thought experiment about who would eventually wind up in Cincinnati and, more to the point, who wouldn't. Who would be the best player left off the All-Star roster?
It didn't take long before a name popped so far out it couldn't be ignored. The research ended there, less exhaustive than exhausted, so take it with an extra grain of salt.
It appears that only injury or a bizarre desire on the manager's part to select five first baseman will punch Freddie Freeman's Mid-Summer Classic ticket in 2015. Freeman is having a fine season -- a .327 True Average, the best of his career, along with solid defense at the cold corner. It doesn't appear that will suffice.
Ahead of Freeman are a pair of MVP candidates, the Dbacks' Paul Goldschmidt and Cubs' Anthony Rizzo, and two veteran stars, the Reds' Joey Votto and Dodgers' Adrian Gonzalez. The quartet rank second, third, ninth and tenth in OPS in the NL this year. With Votto playing at home, he's a nearly sure bet to be selected, while Gonzalez's offensive-subduing home field and Gold Glove credentials argue for him.
That leaves Freeman fifth for three -- maybe four at most -- spots on the All-Star roster.
In a way, it's a microcosm of Freeman's career. A milquetoast guy on a middling team, Freeman has demonstrated broad excellence (a lifetime .304 TAv) but has rarely stood out. He's hit .300+ once and knocked in 100 runs once in his five-year career. He's never bopped more than 23 homers, stolen bases or claimed many Web gem moments. He's a steady-Eddie kind of player, the type who rarely earns much notice.
So he appears to be the best player who won't make this year's All-Star team. Of course, that might change once my research moves beyond first base.
Addendum: Another reason Freeman might not make the All-Star team is that he's now on the shelf with an injury. I don't think it was true when I wrote this, but if it was, it was a new development that hadn't filtered down to me yet.
It didn't take long before a name popped so far out it couldn't be ignored. The research ended there, less exhaustive than exhausted, so take it with an extra grain of salt.
It appears that only injury or a bizarre desire on the manager's part to select five first baseman will punch Freddie Freeman's Mid-Summer Classic ticket in 2015. Freeman is having a fine season -- a .327 True Average, the best of his career, along with solid defense at the cold corner. It doesn't appear that will suffice.
Ahead of Freeman are a pair of MVP candidates, the Dbacks' Paul Goldschmidt and Cubs' Anthony Rizzo, and two veteran stars, the Reds' Joey Votto and Dodgers' Adrian Gonzalez. The quartet rank second, third, ninth and tenth in OPS in the NL this year. With Votto playing at home, he's a nearly sure bet to be selected, while Gonzalez's offensive-subduing home field and Gold Glove credentials argue for him.
That leaves Freeman fifth for three -- maybe four at most -- spots on the All-Star roster.
In a way, it's a microcosm of Freeman's career. A milquetoast guy on a middling team, Freeman has demonstrated broad excellence (a lifetime .304 TAv) but has rarely stood out. He's hit .300+ once and knocked in 100 runs once in his five-year career. He's never bopped more than 23 homers, stolen bases or claimed many Web gem moments. He's a steady-Eddie kind of player, the type who rarely earns much notice.
So he appears to be the best player who won't make this year's All-Star team. Of course, that might change once my research moves beyond first base.
Addendum: Another reason Freeman might not make the All-Star team is that he's now on the shelf with an injury. I don't think it was true when I wrote this, but if it was, it was a new development that hadn't filtered down to me yet.
14 March 2015
OPS Is Dead; Long Live TAv!
Remember when those statistics geeks dragged their pencil necks out of the ooze of their mothers' basements and dropped their complicated nerd numbers on us, numbers like OPS and WAR? They made unreasonable demands on us, like understanding obtuse concepts: "getting on base is good" and "hitting for power is more than home runs."
And then, just when we picked up the spin on those knuckleballs they were throwing us, they began firing heat, telling us OPS wasn't the end-all. No, it turns out we could gloat that they were wrong all along, those Moneyball pocket protectors. We know that science should make a pronouncement and that should be The Truth forever, without any revisions or further inquiry. So now when they decide that wOBA is a more useful statistic, they're just admitting they were wrong.
So now we have wOBA, weighted on base average, which "combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value. While batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage fall short in accuracy and scope, wOBA measures and captures offensive value more accurately and comprehensively," according to Fangraphs.
OPS values slugging as equal to on base percentage, when in fact getting on base safely is nearly twice as important to a team's ability to score runs as slugging is. That's why OPS always over-rated the big lugs who walk, strikeout and go yard and under-rated skeeters who Baltimore-chop their way aboard, steal second and score on a sac fly.
wOBA is tuned to the pitch of average on-base percentage, or roughly .320. So if you see that Yan Gomes posted a wOBA of .340 last year, you know that the Indians' catcher was an above-average hitter. (He's also a quality backstop worth nearly five wins for the Tribe last year. He's an under-appreciated ballplayer.) Ordinary fans can't calculate wOBA because the formula is complicated and requires facility with the cosmic mysteries of multiplication and division.
For 2015, wOBA will be one of our go-to statistics for hitters. So will TAv, or True Average, a similar measurement scaled to batting average (where average is .260) that accounts for park factors and league quality, but not for baserunning. It is also beyond the derivation powers of ordinary humans without green eyeshades and solved Rubic's cube puzzles. Potato tomahto.
Sometimes we want total value wrapped up in a single package with a nice ribbon. WAR, wins above replacement, wins the Oscar for best performance in The Theory of Everything, flawed though its performance is. WAR includes a defensive component, which still inspires chuckling, but does compare players to others at their position. An average defender in right field with a .340 wOBA is not nearly as valuable as an average defender with a .340 wOBA behind the plate.
WAR is becoming more popular, and not just because the deformed brains of Boko Haram and Daesh are on rampages that inspire war in their corners of the world. WAR provides one-stop shopping for a player's tangible value to his team in games won, taking into account offense and defense, park factors, league averages and replacement value. And it's becoming ubiquitous, which hikes its value as a statistic, as long as it's consumed with a grain of salt even by those with high blood pressure.
Look for wOBA, TAv and WAr in this space to replace OPS and OPS+, which once upon a time replaced batting average, home runs and RBIs. It's called "learning." Don't tell Boko Haram.
And then, just when we picked up the spin on those knuckleballs they were throwing us, they began firing heat, telling us OPS wasn't the end-all. No, it turns out we could gloat that they were wrong all along, those Moneyball pocket protectors. We know that science should make a pronouncement and that should be The Truth forever, without any revisions or further inquiry. So now when they decide that wOBA is a more useful statistic, they're just admitting they were wrong.
So now we have wOBA, weighted on base average, which "combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value. While batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage fall short in accuracy and scope, wOBA measures and captures offensive value more accurately and comprehensively," according to Fangraphs.
OPS values slugging as equal to on base percentage, when in fact getting on base safely is nearly twice as important to a team's ability to score runs as slugging is. That's why OPS always over-rated the big lugs who walk, strikeout and go yard and under-rated skeeters who Baltimore-chop their way aboard, steal second and score on a sac fly.
wOBA is tuned to the pitch of average on-base percentage, or roughly .320. So if you see that Yan Gomes posted a wOBA of .340 last year, you know that the Indians' catcher was an above-average hitter. (He's also a quality backstop worth nearly five wins for the Tribe last year. He's an under-appreciated ballplayer.) Ordinary fans can't calculate wOBA because the formula is complicated and requires facility with the cosmic mysteries of multiplication and division.
For 2015, wOBA will be one of our go-to statistics for hitters. So will TAv, or True Average, a similar measurement scaled to batting average (where average is .260) that accounts for park factors and league quality, but not for baserunning. It is also beyond the derivation powers of ordinary humans without green eyeshades and solved Rubic's cube puzzles. Potato tomahto.
Sometimes we want total value wrapped up in a single package with a nice ribbon. WAR, wins above replacement, wins the Oscar for best performance in The Theory of Everything, flawed though its performance is. WAR includes a defensive component, which still inspires chuckling, but does compare players to others at their position. An average defender in right field with a .340 wOBA is not nearly as valuable as an average defender with a .340 wOBA behind the plate.
WAR is becoming more popular, and not just because the deformed brains of Boko Haram and Daesh are on rampages that inspire war in their corners of the world. WAR provides one-stop shopping for a player's tangible value to his team in games won, taking into account offense and defense, park factors, league averages and replacement value. And it's becoming ubiquitous, which hikes its value as a statistic, as long as it's consumed with a grain of salt even by those with high blood pressure.
Look for wOBA, TAv and WAr in this space to replace OPS and OPS+, which once upon a time replaced batting average, home runs and RBIs. It's called "learning." Don't tell Boko Haram.
03 May 2014
Why A Single Is Half a Home Run
Max from Boston asks on behalf of his dad: It strikes us that slugging is measured inaccurately in that a double isn't necessarily worth twice a single, a triple isn't necessarily worth 50% more than a double, a homer may be worth more than 2 doubles, etc. Is there any data regarding the possible value of a weighted slugging pct.?
Is there any data? Ha! The pale-skinned basement-dwellers responsible for much of the sabermetric research over the last generation have trolled every piece of datum from all 400,000 MLB games played since 1876; analyzed each across 49 criteria; subjected them to 11 statistical tests, applied two dozen filters; pickled them in proprietary solutions for 48 hours, rolled them in flour, egg and bread crumbs and sauteed them on high heat until crispy and brown on the edges.
There is more known about shortstop Leo Cardenas' ability to go from first-to-third on a single for the Cincinnati Reds in 1967 than about Toronto mayor Rob Ford's whereabouts last Thursday. Is there any data!
In fact, Max has opened a window into what seamheads call linear weights, exactly the calculation that Max has outlined. With runners on first and second, a double scores two runs, just as a triple does. Leaving the yard produces three -- not four -- times as many runs as a single, and the single leaves a runner just 90 feet from home. So what is the relative value of these events?
Going for Third on A Double? Hardly Worth It
Denied girlfriends after years playing video games, the stubby-fingered geeks have instead focused their pursuits on sifting through every occurrence in baseball history and determined how often and how many runs have scored when these hits (and all other events like fly outs, strikeouts, HBP, errors, etc.) have been involved. These are the relative values, assigning a walk/HBP a vaue of one:
Single ~ 1.25
Double ~ 1.75
Triple ~ 2.25
HR ~ 2.75
Are you shocked that a homer is worth less than three walks and less than two-and-a-quarter singles? Part of the value of each of these accomplishments is in their ability to not cause an out, of which there are a finite number allotted each team per game.
And Now, To Actually Answer the Question
So back to slugging percentage. Clearly just adding up total bases to derive slugging percentage, and therefore OPS, glorifies yard barkers and diminishes the accomplishments of slap hitters. We documented this in March.
There are now better measures than slugging percentage and OPS that are defined by these linear weights. wOBA and True Average are one-stop shopping linear weights measurements of overall offensive performance that include park adjustments and other sanded edges, all rolled up into a number that looks like OBP (wOBA) or batting average (TAv). Here's an example of how wOBA can correct a misconception created by Max's slugging percentage discovery:
Last year, Adam Dunn produced an OPS 48% better than league average. That's awesome. But his wOBA was just .331 -- slightly better than average. Matt Carpenter, whose OPS was lower but whose hit distribution included many fewer home runs and many more singles, doubles (55) and triples (seven), produced a wOBA of .381.
In other words, OPS says Dunn was a great hitter last season and Carpenter a good one. wOBA shows us that Dunn was an above-average offensive performer while Carpenter was a downballot MVP candidate.
Is there any data? Ha! The pale-skinned basement-dwellers responsible for much of the sabermetric research over the last generation have trolled every piece of datum from all 400,000 MLB games played since 1876; analyzed each across 49 criteria; subjected them to 11 statistical tests, applied two dozen filters; pickled them in proprietary solutions for 48 hours, rolled them in flour, egg and bread crumbs and sauteed them on high heat until crispy and brown on the edges.
There is more known about shortstop Leo Cardenas' ability to go from first-to-third on a single for the Cincinnati Reds in 1967 than about Toronto mayor Rob Ford's whereabouts last Thursday. Is there any data!
In fact, Max has opened a window into what seamheads call linear weights, exactly the calculation that Max has outlined. With runners on first and second, a double scores two runs, just as a triple does. Leaving the yard produces three -- not four -- times as many runs as a single, and the single leaves a runner just 90 feet from home. So what is the relative value of these events?
Going for Third on A Double? Hardly Worth It
Denied girlfriends after years playing video games, the stubby-fingered geeks have instead focused their pursuits on sifting through every occurrence in baseball history and determined how often and how many runs have scored when these hits (and all other events like fly outs, strikeouts, HBP, errors, etc.) have been involved. These are the relative values, assigning a walk/HBP a vaue of one:
Single ~ 1.25
Double ~ 1.75
Triple ~ 2.25
HR ~ 2.75
Are you shocked that a homer is worth less than three walks and less than two-and-a-quarter singles? Part of the value of each of these accomplishments is in their ability to not cause an out, of which there are a finite number allotted each team per game.
And Now, To Actually Answer the Question
So back to slugging percentage. Clearly just adding up total bases to derive slugging percentage, and therefore OPS, glorifies yard barkers and diminishes the accomplishments of slap hitters. We documented this in March.
There are now better measures than slugging percentage and OPS that are defined by these linear weights. wOBA and True Average are one-stop shopping linear weights measurements of overall offensive performance that include park adjustments and other sanded edges, all rolled up into a number that looks like OBP (wOBA) or batting average (TAv). Here's an example of how wOBA can correct a misconception created by Max's slugging percentage discovery:
Last year, Adam Dunn produced an OPS 48% better than league average. That's awesome. But his wOBA was just .331 -- slightly better than average. Matt Carpenter, whose OPS was lower but whose hit distribution included many fewer home runs and many more singles, doubles (55) and triples (seven), produced a wOBA of .381.
In other words, OPS says Dunn was a great hitter last season and Carpenter a good one. wOBA shows us that Dunn was an above-average offensive performer while Carpenter was a downballot MVP candidate.
04 April 2014
Best & Worst New Metrics Part III: OPS
The days of explaining why batting average, home runs and RBIs don't adequately capture an everyday player's performance are long gone. Even the retrogrades who cling tenaciously to the old numbers recognize in their hearts why on-base percentage and slugging percentage are more comprehensive and why RBIs don't tell a useful story.
Adding on base and slugging gave us OPS, the shorthand statistic of choice to seamheads in the seamheady early days of the sabremetric movement. But analysts cannot live by OPS alone; indeed, OPS and its close relations, like OPS+, now long in the tooth, have become something of an anachronism, rarely used to make anything but the crudest point.
The reason is simple: not all OPS is equal. Seamheads have long known that OBP is more important than slugging, about 20% more when talking about run creation. So simply adding the two numbers devalues on-base percentage.
OPS is not park-adjusted, position-adjusted or competition-adjusted. The narrative it creates doesn't describe whether a batter hits same-handed pitchers or has to be platooned. It's also largely irrelevant when discussing leadoff hitters, whose OBP is invaluable and whose slugging is not very valuable at all.
OPS was good to the analysis community in its prime, but has lost a step and is now little more than a veteran presence off the bench, backing up starters TAv, WAR/WARP and their ilk. We thank OPS for its contributions, particularly for introducing fans to better ways to measure players. and wish it the best of luck in its future endeavors.
Adding on base and slugging gave us OPS, the shorthand statistic of choice to seamheads in the seamheady early days of the sabremetric movement. But analysts cannot live by OPS alone; indeed, OPS and its close relations, like OPS+, now long in the tooth, have become something of an anachronism, rarely used to make anything but the crudest point.
The reason is simple: not all OPS is equal. Seamheads have long known that OBP is more important than slugging, about 20% more when talking about run creation. So simply adding the two numbers devalues on-base percentage.
OPS is not park-adjusted, position-adjusted or competition-adjusted. The narrative it creates doesn't describe whether a batter hits same-handed pitchers or has to be platooned. It's also largely irrelevant when discussing leadoff hitters, whose OBP is invaluable and whose slugging is not very valuable at all.
OPS was good to the analysis community in its prime, but has lost a step and is now little more than a veteran presence off the bench, backing up starters TAv, WAR/WARP and their ilk. We thank OPS for its contributions, particularly for introducing fans to better ways to measure players. and wish it the best of luck in its future endeavors.
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