Sabermetric Stats
The “triple crown” is the ultimate feat for a batter in the MLB, meaning that in one season, they lead the entire league with the highest batting average, most homeruns, and most runs batted in. This is an uncommon feat that has only occurred 17 times in baseball’s elongated history. For many years, the three stats that make up the “triple crown” have been thought to be the only stats that describe a batter’s worth. But, in effort to better analyze the game, baseball historians and statisticians have begun to look past the traditional “triple crown” stats, because in baseball, the numbers tell a story more than any other sport.
The last player to win the “triple crown” was Miguel Cabrera in 2012. That year Cabrera lead all of the majors with 44 home runs, 139 runs batted in, and a .330 batting average.
Home runs, runs batted in, and batting average are not meaningless stats by any means, but they leave out important information. If a General Manager is going to look at a statistic, it might as well be the best one possible.
A player contributes to his team in a number of ways, so if you’re only looking at his batting average or his number of hits then you’re ignoring those other contributions. A player in the MLB who can muster up over 2,000 career hits, would be considered very good, but what if that certain player had managed to have a long-lasting career where he racked up many hits, with a low batting average, and few extra base hits. He would have a less valuable career as someone else who had the same amount of hits but accomplished it in a shorter amount of time, with more extra base hits.
If you’re going to look at stats, looking at the ones that tell the most accurate story is critical. To produce these more accurate stories, which allow for more objective judgements of a player’s abilities throughout the various eras of baseball, sabermetricians have produced formulas.
One of the most popular and valuable stats still today is one Bill James proposed through a mathematical formula that determined how many runs a hitter creates.
Runs Created (RC) = [(Hits + Walks)*(Total Bases)] / (At-bats + Walks)
The runs created stat estimates a player’s offensive contribution in terms of total runs. It combines a player’s ability to get on base with his ability for extra base hits. It then divides those two by the player’s total opportunities at the plate.
Mike Trout finished the 2016 MLB season atop the MVP race for the second time of his career. He lead the league in the runs created stat. Trout collected 302 total bases, 173 hits, 116 walks, throughout 549 at-bats.
[(173 + 116)*(302)] / (549 + 116) = 131 Runs Created.
With the introduction of the runs created stat, the RBI (Runs Batted In) is now viewed as a less important category. When it comes to batting average, which is used to gauge the dexterity of a hitter, it has been viewed as less important compared to categories such as on-base percentage, and on-base plus slugging percentage.
On-base Percentage (OBP) = (Hits + Walks + Hit by Pitch) / (At-bats + Walks + Hit by Pitch + Sacrifice Flies)
Mike Trout also lead the Major League in on-base percentage last season. Out of his 549 at-bats and 5 sacrifice flies, his 173 hits, 116 walks, 11 hit by pitch, all contributed him to getting on base 44.1 percent of the time.
(173 + 116 + 11) / (549 + 116 + 11 + 5) = .441 OBP
On-base percentage is basically evaluating every time a batter gets on base whereas, batting average just accounts for the average amount of times you get on base from a hit. To understand on-base plus slugging percentage, you first have to know how to get slugging percentage. Slugging percentage represents the total number of bases a batter records per at-bat. Not all hits are created equal, in batting average, a single and a hit are valued the same.
Slugging Percentage (SLG) = (1B + 2B*2 + 3B*3 + HR*4) / At-bat
David Ortiz’s final season in the MLB, in 2016, was none short of history. At 39 years old, he was hitting better than anyone, of that age, in baseball history. Despite his slow speed, Ortiz was a master at hitting extra base hits, yielding 87 last year (most in the MLB) and leading the league in slugging percentage and on-base plus slugging percentage. He collected 82 singles, 48 doubles, 1 triple, 38 home runs, throughout 537 at-bats.
(82 + 96 + 3 + 152) / 537 = .620 SLG
When OBP and SLG are calculated, then you can add the two together to get one number that can combine how well a hitter can reach base, with how well he can hit for average and power.
Ortiz’s on-base percentage, last year, was .401. When you add that to his slugging percentage of .620, you get his league leading 1.021 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS).
When it comes to pitching, stats like wins and losses can separate good pitchers from the bad, but wins are highly dependent on the amount of runs a team scores for their pitcher. A pitcher is tagged with an ERA (Earned Run Average), and a decent ERA would be 3.50 meaning that, in one outing that pitcher gives up 3.5 runs, on average. However, if that pitcher’s team is only scoring 2 to 3 runs a game then his win-loss record would not accurately reflect his performance.
Pat Dobson was an MLB All-star in the 1971 season with 20 wins and 8 losses, and a 2.90 ERA. The following season, however, he was not an All-star despite posting an even lower ERA. Dobson finished the 1972 season with 16 wins and 18 losses, and a 2.61 ERA. Dobson’s win-loss record did not accurately reflect his pitching ability. As you can see he was keeping players from scoring with his low ERA, but his team was not getting enough runs across the plate to get him the wins.
For evaluating pitching stats, a sabermetric stat that is important to look at is WHIP — walks and hits per inning pitched. WHIP is one of the most commonly used statistics for evaluating a pitcher’s performance and it shows how well a pitcher has kept runners off the base paths.
WHIP = (Walks + Hits) / (Innings Pitched)
Since first pitching in the MLB in the 2008 season, Clayton Kershaw has a MVP award and two Cy Young awards under his belt. Kershaw has also racked up the fourth lowest WHIP of all-time. Allowing an average 1.005 walks or hits per inning he pitches. In his career, Kershaw has given up 484 walks and 1333 hits through 1808.2 innings pitched.
(484 + 1333) / (1808.2) = 1.005 WHIP
All of these players have been dominant throughout their careers, and everyone can easily tell. So, when it comes to average and mediocre players, it is important to look at these stats. Not everyone looks at stats like these, but by doing so, evaluators can find player’s weaknesses and strengths.
There are so many ways to analyze a player’s ability or value to a team, and that stats I provided here just scratch the surface of what sabermetric stats are out there. Stats such as these have changed the way the game is analyzed.
