The RPM Report — August 27, 2018 (week 22)
Hi all, I’m Ivan Lukianchuk, the CTO and co-founder of RunPlusMinus™️and this is our weekly report about performances of Major League Baseball players and teams.
For last week’s report (week 21), click here.
The RPM Report gives you a unique insight into on-field performances based on the new RunPlusMinus™️ statistic. For more information about this statistic, please go here.
Wondering how we differ from WAR? Read this. Do we use Park Effect? Yes, read more here.
TL;DR — We’ve built a new baseball statistic that allows us to rate all of the players (pitchers, batters, runners, fielders) on the same scale: performance.
This report has two parts:
- The week’s best performers (week 22 — August 20th through August 26th)
- All regular season data up to and including August 26th 2018.
The Best Players of the Week
We’ve reported the top 10 best pitchers and batters of the week. There are separate rankings for starting and relief pitchers.
Players are ranked on the RPM statistic. A total above zero means above average performance for the pitcher or batter. The RPMs in the report have been multiplied by 100 to make it easier to read and compare. The higher the number, the more value and impact that player brought to their team in their role as a pitcher or batter.
In each top 10 list we show how many times a player has made it into a weekly top 10 list, with 1 meaning this is their first.
The Top 10 Starting Pitchers (week 22)
Ryne Stanek is back for his sixth weekly best! Peralta returns for a third time while four others make their first return. The RPM range fluctuates back to just over 3.
The lowest starting pitcher RPM total of the week was -34.9 RPMs.
The Top 10 Relief Pitchers (week 22)
Not all relief pitcher situations (outs and bases-occupied) are equal threats. Furthermore, relief pitchers generally face fewer batters that starters. Relief pitcher ratings exclude pitchers with fewer than 3 batters faced.
From mostly fresh last week to 6 out of 10 returners this week with Wilson on top at his fourth appearance. Perez makes his 3rd and four others make their first reappearance. Just over 10 RPMs separate these relievers this week, down about 2 from last week.
For reference, the lowest Relief Pitcher RPM value this week was -100.5.
The Top 10 Batters (week 22)
Baez makes his 3rd appearance alongside Goldschmidt, while Peralta and Chapman make their second weekly appearance. An RPM range of 3.5 separate these batters this week. We see two Jays, Diamondbacks and Cubs this week.
The lowest RPM for this week was -58.5.
The State of the Game so Far
We’ve looked at last week, but let’s take a look at the entire season so far up to the 27th of August.
We’ve got a number of interesting charts ranging from top players, team rankings and most overpaid players.
Top 25 Players to August 27th
Ramirez’s lead drops by about 25, but he’s still the new top dog by a long shot! Trout has climbed back up a step to 3rd and is only a short distance from Martinez who holds second. Bregman and Carpenter trade spots while Baez leaps from 17th to 9th! Lindor falls from 9th to 15th. A trio of newcomers takes the bottom 3 spots, removing Benintendi, Albies and Freeman from the charts.
We still see deGrom and Sale as the only pitchers on the chart, however Sale has fallen one rank while deGrom has held true at 18th.
Things to note: a “rating of 0” is always the average over all active players, with positive values representing above average performance and negative values below average performance. Earned salary is how much of the team’s total salary did that player’s performance justify. Bolded payroll earned means a player is worth more than they are paid (in the context of their own team), and italicized and red means they aren’t. Blank ratings mean the player did not meet a minimum level of participation to be ranked on a specific component.
Where Are They Now? 2017 Top 25 to 2018
2017 brought us over 48 million data points and from that we derived the top 25 player list. How do those players rate in 2018? Below is a chart showing where each player stands today. Note that only 8 players (ranks highlighted in yellow) are still in the top 25! The rankings will change as the season moves forward.
Stanton falls 20 spots, Schoop 72, and Kluber 30. Andrus gains 180 spots and Ozuna 26. Everyone else is very close to where they were before.
This week we hold at 8 players in the top 25.
Team Rankings as of August 27th
Houston and Cleveland trade spots again this week while the Cubs leap into the top 5. We see some huge gains from Tampa Bay this week with 6 spots and a number of small shifts down, including a 3 spot drop for Minnesota. This week we’ve added win percentage to the chart to show you how our team ratings compare to actual team positions.
Until next time…
Stay tuned for our future reports due out every week this season. If you want to be reminded whenever we release new content, please subscribe to our mailing list to be kept up to date!
If you have any questions, comments, requests or complaints, please feel free to add them in the comments below or to email us at info@runplusminus.com
You can learn more about the RunPlusMinus™️ statistic at RunPlusMinus.com
