The RPM Report — September 17, 2018 (week 25)
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 24), 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 25 — September 10th through September 16th)
- All regular season data up to and including September 16th 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 25)
Chris Sale and Ryne Stanek are on fire with 7 appearances each in the top 10 for starting pitchers! David Price has 4 appearances and Clevinger just made his second. Only 2.5 RPMs separate these folks!
The lowest starting pitcher RPM total of the week was -57.2 RPMs.
The Top 10 Relief Pitchers (week 25)
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.
Not only did Ryne Stanek make top 10 starter for the week, but he’s also made his second appearance as top 10 relief pitcher too! Half the players this week have been here at least once before with Alvarado and Alexander making their 3rd appearance each.
We see two Giants, two Rays and two Dodgers on this list this week! Just under 16.5 RPMs separate these relievers.
For reference, the lowest Relief Pitcher RPM value this week was -83.1.
The Top 10 Batters (week 25)
Half the batters this week return for their first reappearance. None of the best batters this week are in the top 25 this week! An RPM range of 3.4 separates these batters.
The lowest RPM for this week was -75.8.
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 17th of September.
We’ve got a number of interesting charts ranging from top players, team rankings and most overpaid players.
Top 25 Players to September 17th
While Betts’ Rating remains nearly unchanged, Ramirez inches even higher compared to last week! Trout climbs back up to 3rd, taking Martinez’s spot who has now also fallen behind Bregman who is in 4th. Bregman and Trout are with half a point of each other. Harper keeps climbing, trading spots with Carpenter. Arenado jumps up 5 spots while Lowrie falls 4.
The performance gap between Goldschmidt and all below him is almost 70 Rating points, showing that the top 6 are in a different tier altogether. Jacob deGrom, our only pitcher on the chart, has climbed from 13th to 12th, slowly making his ascent, and he is only .1 away from overtaking Lindor!
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 9 players (ranks highlighted in yellow) are still in the top 25! The rankings will change as the season moves forward.
One more step and Blackmon makes it back top 25! Sale on the other hand falls one stop behind. Gordon falls 263 spots, while Andrus falls 186. Altuve went from 41 back to 31, coming closer to reacquainting himself with the top 25.
This week we hold at 9 players in the top 25.
Team Rankings as of September 17th
The top three teams seem to hold, while the Dodgers slip in by jumping 3 spots. The Mets are digging themselves out of the pit, making way for Toronto to fall further into it. Oakland and Atlanta are neck and neck Ratings wise with only .3 separating them and only about 1 point behind the Yankees.
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
