Knuckle Curve » ops

Parsing Maddon

Geoff Young — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 18:12:44 +0000

This is a tough time of the year to write about baseball, so I love when people say things that don’t make a lot of sense. The great thing is, you can almost always count on someone to come through in the clutch.

Enter Tampa Bay Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon, talking about the fact that his outfielder, Delmon Young, didn’t win the AL Rookie of the Year:

It’s really disturbing. I can see him not winning the award, but leaving him off eight ballots is just a sign of personal prejudice.

In this case, “personal prejudice” is code for “understanding the criteria for determining excellence.” The folks who left Young off the ballot presumably recognized that a 91+ OPS from a corner outfielder just isn’t all that exciting.

Don’t get me wrong, Young has a bright future ahead of him if he can keep from doing Really Stupid Things, but aside from the batting average and RBI, his rookie season wasn’t special. Each writer gets to put three names on the ballot, and I could totally see going with Dustin Pedroia (an easy choice for #1 despite his Red Sox affiliation), Brian Bannister, and Daisuke Matsuzaka. I’m not sure that’s how I would have voted, but I think it’s perfectly justifiable without bringing any nonsense about “personal prejudice” into the discussion.

I think it’s wrong. At that point, it has nothing to do with the player’s performance. The award is not a popularity race.

Okay, how long has Maddon been in baseball? And he honestly believes that the award is not a popularity race? Is he even paying attention?

I don’t think there was any way he wasn’t one of the top three rookies in the league.

Right, but eight writers disagreed, and it’s a defensible position.

And how many other rookies in the history of the game played 162 games like he did?

So now excellence is a function of showing up to work every day. Sorry, but this doesn’t belong in the discussion at all. Still, give Maddon credit for defending his player even if it’s not entirely justified.

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Why Would You Add These Two Statistics to Make a Third?

Geoff Young — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:18:01 +0000

The good folks at Walk Like a Sabermetrician have posted an article on the trouble with OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) as a statistic (tip o’ the Knuckle Curve cap to Baseball Think Factory). This is a drum I’ve beaten at various points in the past, with limited success, but here is the problem in a nutshell:

What if we think about what OPS looks like if you write it with a common denominator? Now we have:
OPS = ((H+W)*AB + TB*(AB+W))/(AB*(AB+W))

That is a hideous equation that measures, um… what? Anyway, I agree with the overall sentiment:

OPS is a fine, quick way to measure a hitter. That does not mean that its units are meaningful, that does not mean that it is has meaningful units when it is divided by the league average, or that it is a statistic that has any inherent logic behind it other then adding together two things because it works, or that another metric that combines OBA and SLG in a different way is necessarily inferior or incorrect. As long as you keep those things in mind, there’s not really anything audacious about OPS.

Batting average is meaningful (because it measures something) but not useful (because what it measures doesn’t provide us with information about how well a player or team will perform). OPS is useful (because it correlates reasonably well to how well an offense performs at an individual or team level) but not meaningful (because it doesn’t actually measure anything).

I know which I prefer…

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Examining Braun

Geoff Young — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:26:06 +0000

Rich at Baseball Analysts takes a look at Milwaukee Brewers phenom and leading (what, there are others?) National League Rookie of the Year candidate, Ryan Braun. In case you’ve missed it, Braun is hitting a robust .343/.388/.663 so far. Big deal, right? Um, yeah…

To put Braun’s numbers in historical perspective, he is on pace to produce the highest AVG, SLG, OPS, and OPS+ of any first-year player in the modern era. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound native of Southern California is in elite company with such greats as Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Mize, Albert Pujols, Frank Robinson, and Ted Williams.

Sure, but is he any good?

When we adjust for home ballpark and era, Braun’s OPS+ of 168 would rank as the best first season in the annals of modern baseball.

Well, I’d say that qualifies. Finally, I love this line (small sample and all): .468/.543/1.013 against LHP. I don’t care if it’s only 79 at-bats, that’s freakish. Which, come to think of it, is a good word describe Braun and what he’s done so far as a rookie…

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Projection Rejection

Geoff Young — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:41:50 +0000

I was thinking about which players have been among the biggest surprises so far in 2007. There are plenty of names to choose from, but two that really stand out to me are the Tigers’ Magglio Ordonez and the Royals’ Alex Gordon.

Among all MLB qualifying batters, Ordonez has the highest OPS, while Gordon checks in at #185. Only Jason “I Really Need to Find a New Career” Kendall has a lower OPS (438).

Not to pick on any one system, but Ordonez and Gordon provide an excellent illustration of why “projection” is just a fancy word for “guess”:

Magglio Ordonez and Alex Gordon: Perception vs Reality
	Bill James	CHONE	Marcel	ZiPS	Actual
Stats are through June 4, 2007, and courtesy of ESPN. Projections are courtesy of FanGraphs.
Ordonez	850	803	803	803	1117
Gordon	919	817	n/a	834	565

I once tried to develop my own projection system. Now, when I’m looking for that particular type of pain, I just watch reruns of Small Wonder instead…

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