Caleb Peiffer of Baseball Prospectus has a nice article at the New York Sun on stolen bases titled "Steals Have Become More Precise and More Effective" to which I contributed a very small part. Especially interesting are his stats on the Padres recent woeful record of catching opposing baserunners. Good stuff and similar to this piece by The Numbers Guy at the Wall Street Journal online.
Showing posts with label Baserunning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baserunning. Show all posts
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Baserunning for the Ages
I've been writing mostly about defense over at Baseball Prospectus and here in the past couple of months and so I thought I'd revisit the topic of baserunning today.
Although in my column I talked about the greatest baserunners of the Retrosheet era and here have extolled the virtues of Tim Raines, Robin Yount and others, I noticed that I've failed in either venue to list the top and bottom single seasons of that era.
So today here are the top and bottom 50 baserunning seasons in terms of total Equivalent Baserunning Runs (EqBRR). And don't forget that an essay describing the system and its metrics titled "The Tortoise, the Hare, and Juan Pierre" appears in Baseball Prospectus 2008, which I'm told, is shipping now. Also, I'll be talking about the book with Christina Kahrl and Nate Silver Wednesday, March 5th at 7:30 pm at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Historic LoDo in Denver.
First, the top 50 seasons.
Name Year EqGAR EqSBR EqAAR EqHAR EqOAR TotOpps EqBRR EqBRRate
Maury Wills 1962 0.8 13.8 2.3 3.6 0.1 848 20.6 1.26
Willie Wilson 1980 0.5 10.0 4.2 3.9 0.5 741 19.1 1.35
Rickey Henderson 1985 2.6 9.8 1.0 3.1 2.3 663 18.8 1.43
Vince Coleman 1986 0.0 11.0 0.3 0.9 4.2 627 16.4 1.26
Willie Wilson 1979 2.1 9.2 0.7 2.8 0.9 563 15.7 1.33
Eric Davis 1986 -0.3 10.2 0.5 1.7 3.2 403 15.3 1.55
Rickey Henderson 1988 2.3 9.0 1.3 -2.0 3.8 650 14.4 1.27
Vince Coleman 1987 2.5 7.1 1.2 2.4 0.8 723 14.1 1.28
Tim Raines Sr 1983 0.9 7.6 1.8 2.7 0.6 762 13.6 1.22
Bobby Bonds 1972 2.0 6.0 1.6 3.6 0.5 517 13.6 1.42
Kenny Lofton 1993 1.5 8.1 -0.1 4.3 -0.5 717 13.3 1.17
Lonnie Smith 1985 2.8 1.4 2.5 2.9 3.1 460 12.8 1.85
Willie Wilson 1987 0.4 7.1 0.6 3.9 0.7 581 12.6 1.24
Juan Pierre 2007 0.3 4.2 1.9 5.0 0.6 666 12.0 1.40
Davey Lopes 1978 0.6 5.8 1.9 1.4 2.1 580 11.8 1.24
Vince Coleman 1985 1.2 10.7 0.7 0.6 -1.4 665 11.8 1.06
Rickey Henderson 1983 0.9 7.8 1.3 0.1 1.6 609 11.7 1.17
Gary Pettis 1985 2.1 7.4 0.7 0.2 1.3 470 11.7 1.31
Johnny Damon 2000 3.1 2.7 -0.7 4.2 2.2 743 11.5 1.33
Ron LeFlore 1979 2.3 5.6 1.3 1.9 0.4 602 11.5 1.30
Davey Lopes 1975 0.4 8.6 -1.3 2.2 1.4 685 11.4 1.14
Barry Larkin 1995 1.3 5.5 1.2 1.3 1.9 526 11.2 1.31
Tim Raines Sr 1985 1.6 9.4 0.8 -0.6 0.0 726 11.2 1.08
Willie Wilson 1983 1.9 7.0 -0.6 1.4 1.5 532 11.2 1.24
Ivan DeJesus 1978 1.0 2.2 1.7 4.5 1.7 625 11.1 1.38
Hanley Ramirez 2006 3.1 1.7 1.3 3.5 1.5 576 11.0 1.50
Joe Morgan 1975 0.8 6.3 0.9 2.0 0.9 618 10.8 1.27
Ron LeFlore 1980 0.1 11.0 0.3 -0.1 -0.5 611 10.7 0.99
Tim Raines Sr 1987 -0.5 7.2 0.3 2.5 0.9 567 10.4 1.17
Ray Durham 1998 1.2 2.0 1.8 3.6 1.8 611 10.4 1.37
Juan Pierre 2005 3.6 1.7 -0.3 2.5 2.9 665 10.4 1.43
Chone Figgins 2005 4.4 0.7 1.9 2.5 0.8 619 10.3 1.43
Marquis Grissom 1992 -0.3 6.5 2.1 0.1 1.8 567 10.2 1.19
Rickey Henderson 1984 0.9 2.4 2.1 3.9 0.9 599 10.2 1.31
Tim Raines Sr 1982 3.3 5.7 -0.2 1.2 0.1 626 10.1 1.25
Tim Raines Sr 1992 0.3 5.3 1.5 3.0 0.1 669 10.1 1.24
Al Wiggins 1983 0.3 4.1 0.9 0.4 4.4 582 10.0 1.29
Bert Campaneris 1969 1.3 5.8 -0.5 2.5 0.8 565 9.9 1.29
Kenny Lofton 1994 1.7 4.5 -1.1 3.4 1.4 574 9.9 1.23
Ron LeFlore 1978 2.3 5.2 0.6 2.3 -0.6 720 9.9 1.20
Chone Figgins 2006 2.1 0.8 1.6 4.9 0.4 577 9.9 1.48
Omar Moreno 1979 1.5 3.8 0.7 3.0 0.8 619 9.8 1.29
Scott Podsednik 2003 1.8 4.6 1.0 3.2 -0.6 542 9.8 1.34
Joe Morgan 1976 0.1 5.5 0.4 2.7 1.0 504 9.7 1.28
Tom Goodwin 2000 1.0 3.9 1.3 2.9 0.5 445 9.7 1.37
Milt Cuyler 1991 0.9 3.1 2.0 0.8 2.8 438 9.7 1.47
Davey Lopes 1976 0.6 7.3 0.5 1.7 -0.5 508 9.7 1.12
Willie Wilson 1984 1.7 5.1 2.1 0.8 -0.1 530 9.7 1.24
Tony Gwynn 1987 0.3 2.0 1.4 3.5 2.3 682 9.6 1.36
Luis Castillo 2007 1.0 0.6 1.1 3.1 3.8 528 9.6 1.51As you can probably tell most of these top 50 are driven by high EqSBR scores with Maury Wills 1962 season at the top of the heap. There were a few players though, like Lonnie Smith in 1985 who excelled despite pedestrian work stealing bases. Related to that point you'll also notice that the final column we have a rate statistic titled EqBRRate. I explained the idea behind it in the column cited above.
...it turns out that when many folks talk about baserunning, they're not really thinking about discretionary stolen base attempts, but instead that combination of speed, risk taking, and judgment that goes into evaluating situations, and that when aggregated leads us to assert that a particular player is a good baserunner. Since EqSBR is primarily comprised of stolen base attempts (with a few pickoffs thrown in) our new rate statistic, which we'll christen Equivalent Baserunning Rate (EqBRRate), will omit this aspect.So as you can see Smith's 1985 season actually comes out on top with a EqBRRate of 1.85 easily topping the 1986 season of Eric Davis at 1.55. The lowest rate out of the top 50 is Ron LeFlore's 1980 season where he was actually below 1.00 at 0.99 but made the top 50 by virtue of his 11.0 EqSBR.
So...we'll define EqBRRate as the ratio of actual or total runs to expected runs contributed across the four remaining metrics. Since both values for individual opportunities consider the context and are weighted appropriately (an EqOAR opportunity has both a lower expected and usually actual run value associated with it than an opportunity of EqHAR) and since we're eliminating EqSBR, both weaknesses discussed above addressed. To illustrate how this works, let's consider Chone Figgins' 2007 season:
Metric Opps TotRuns ExpRuns
EqOAR 314 0.1 1.2
EqGAR 31 3.2 2.6
EqAAR 44 5.7 4.7
EqHAR 53 10.1 5.6
442 19.0 14.2
Taking the context of the opportunities into account, we would have expected Figgins to net +14.2 runs across the four metrics, but he actually contributed +19.0 runs. When we divide the total by the expected we get a ratio of 1.34, indicating that he contributed, or manufactured if you will, 34 percent more runs than expected.
And now the bottom 50...
Name Year EqGAR EqSBR EqAAR EqHAR EqOAR TotOpps EqBRR EqBRRate
Carlos Delgado 2007 -0.4 -0.2 -2.9 -3.6 -0.4 394 -7.5 0.41
Jose Offerman 1992 0.5 -4.9 -1.3 -1.1 -0.7 505 -7.5 0.86
Eddie Murray 1990 -1.2 -4.2 0.2 -3.5 1.1 521 -7.5 0.82
Scott Cooper 1994 0.1 -2.3 -0.4 -5.2 0.3 306 -7.5 0.45
Rick Wilkins 1996 -0.4 -1.7 -1.3 -4.3 0.2 264 -7.6 0.41
Pat Burrell 2005 -0.5 -0.2 -0.7 -5.6 -0.7 368 -7.6 0.42
Randy Milligan 1991 -0.5 -3.7 -0.5 -2.1 -0.8 414 -7.6 0.67
Manny Trillo 1982 -0.1 -4.1 -1.9 -1.9 0.3 430 -7.6 0.72
Larry Sheets 1988 -0.7 -4.3 -0.8 -1.8 -0.2 286 -7.7 0.58
Bill Freehan 1971 -1.1 -3.1 -1.8 -1.7 -0.1 331 -7.8 0.43
Dave Parker 1977 -0.4 -6.4 -0.9 0.7 -0.8 531 -7.8 0.93
Jorge Posada 2007 -1.3 -0.1 -0.7 -4.2 -1.6 507 -7.8 0.59
Ted Simmons 1975 -1.5 -1.7 0.3 -4.8 -0.2 573 -7.9 0.72
Ed Bailey 1963 0.0 -3.9 -0.4 -3.3 -0.4 231 -7.9 0.35
Gene Richards 1982 -1.3 -4.8 0.0 -2.0 0.1 455 -8.0 0.81
Jim Thome 2004 -0.5 -1.4 -3.2 -3.2 0.3 436 -8.0 0.59
David Justice 1997 -0.7 -3.3 -0.3 -3.0 -0.7 398 -8.0 0.61
Dan Meyer 1977 -0.9 -2.0 -1.3 -4.6 0.7 409 -8.1 0.60
Jim Norris 1977 -0.1 -3.8 0.2 -2.9 -1.5 447 -8.1 0.73
Felix Jose 1991 -1.8 -3.5 -2.5 0.7 -1.0 482 -8.1 0.62
Lance Parrish 1979 0.0 -3.7 -2.6 -1.5 -0.4 361 -8.1 0.62
Steve Garvey 1980 -0.4 -5.5 -0.9 -0.8 -0.6 467 -8.1 0.78
Steve Henderson 1983 0.2 -7.5 0.6 -0.7 -0.8 362 -8.2 0.93
Carlos Delgado 2000 -0.6 -1.4 -1.4 -3.6 -1.1 618 -8.2 0.58
Al Oliver 1977 -0.1 -7.0 -0.2 -0.1 -0.8 474 -8.2 0.88
Tom Foley 1988 -0.1 -4.4 -0.4 -1.6 -1.7 279 -8.3 0.53
Dale Berra 1984 1.2 -2.8 -0.9 -5.2 -0.7 297 -8.4 0.57
Tommy McCraw 1972 -0.5 -5.9 -1.5 -0.5 0.0 299 -8.4 0.76
Joe Cunningham 1959 -0.8 -2.3 0.4 -5.3 -0.4 504 -8.5 0.60
Pete O'Brien 1984 -0.4 -3.1 -1.4 -2.9 -0.6 428 -8.5 0.52
Kenny Lofton 1997 0.4 -9.4 -0.1 0.6 0.0 539 -8.5 1.06
Frank Thomas 2000 -1.0 -1.6 -1.6 -3.4 -1.0 535 -8.6 0.47
Harold Reynolds 1988 -0.7 -7.8 1.0 -1.2 0.0 535 -8.7 0.95
Eddie Yost 1957 0.3 -5.4 -0.9 -2.8 0.0 394 -8.7 0.62
Joe Morgan 1980 -0.2 -2.0 -0.3 -6.5 0.3 434 -8.8 0.55
Clete Boyer 1970 0.6 -1.6 -0.2 -6.9 -0.8 307 -8.8 0.21
Ed Kranepool 1967 -0.8 -1.9 -0.1 -5.7 -0.4 323 -8.8 0.39
Mike Hargrove 1979 -1.8 -2.3 -0.2 -4.2 -0.5 522 -8.8 0.69
Jose Cruz 1977 -0.1 -8.3 0.5 -1.3 0.3 483 -8.9 0.95
Ernie Whitt 1989 -1.4 -1.0 -1.7 -4.0 -0.9 313 -9.0 0.34
Harmon Killebrew 1970 -0.8 -2.1 -0.7 -4.6 -1.0 435 -9.0 0.56
Tom Pagnozzi 1991 -1.5 -4.8 -0.7 -1.5 -0.8 391 -9.3 0.61
Bob Kearney 1984 -0.1 -2.6 -2.0 -3.8 -0.9 290 -9.4 0.29
Ryan Garko 2007 -1.0 -0.4 0.2 -7.7 -0.5 403 -9.4 0.32
Rod Carew 1982 0.1 -5.5 -0.2 -3.2 -0.7 558 -9.5 0.71
Tom Brunansky 1992 -0.6 -3.1 -1.8 -3.4 -0.7 373 -9.6 0.43
Todd Zeile 1997 -0.5 -4.8 0.0 -4.5 -0.4 484 -10.2 0.64
Mike Epstein 1971 -0.2 -2.5 -2.4 -4.4 -1.1 311 -10.6 0.38
Todd Zeile 1992 -0.7 -4.0 -1.1 -5.4 0.0 425 -11.2 0.52
Tony Bernazard 1984 -0.1 -6.9 -0.3 -3.4 -0.6 364 -11.2 0.62
There are some real "ice wagons" here (in the parlance of the dead ball era referring to poor baserunners) of course although many of these as well are here because they did so poorly in EqSBR (Tony Bernazard, Jose Cruz, and Kenny Lofton are three notable examples). The Indians Ryan Garko makes the list with his 2007 campaign primarily because he was thrown out trying to advance on hits five times - all at the plate - on his way to an historic -7.7 runs on EqHAR.
From a pure baserunning perspective Clete Boyer with his 1970 campaign ranks dead last at 0.21 with Bob Kearney in 1984 at 0.29 and Garko close behind. Lofton's 1997 season is the only one with a rate of 1.00 or higher at 1.06 but his EqSBR of -9.4 sinks him.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Tigers on the Run
A kind soul points out to me that Lee Panas over at Tiger Tales takes a look at the 2007 Tigers in terms of their baserunning. To augment his post I thought I'd offer the entire Tigers team in terms of the five baserunning metrics I created.
Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
Curtis Granderson 43 0.6 28 4.1 60 -0.1 74 2.2 426 -0.6 631 6.2
Gary Sheffield 16 -0.2 28 0.7 41 0.6 44 2.3 249 1.5 378 4.9
Ryan Raburn 6 0.1 2 0.3 4 0.4 17 0.6 79 0.7 108 2.1
Omar Infante 11 0.2 5 0.3 13 -0.2 14 0.1 107 0.6 150 1.0
Cameron Maybin 2 -0.2 5 0.8 1 0.0 3 0.4 26 -0.1 37 1.0
Marcus Thames 5 0.0 3 -0.2 11 0.1 15 1.2 97 -0.4 131 0.7
Placido Polanco 25 -0.3 10 0.4 49 -1.9 67 1.3 423 1.3 574 0.6
Timoniel Perez 9 0.1 2 -0.1 5 0.1 10 0.2 58 0.1 84 0.3
Brandon Inge 24 0.7 11 0.4 35 0.1 37 -1.1 257 0.1 364 0.2
Ramon Santiago 4 0.4 4 0.3 5 0.1 8 -0.6 47 -0.2 68 0.0
Mike Maroth 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 3 0.0 3 0.0
Jeremy Bonderman 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 6 0.0 6 0.0
Brent Clevlen 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 7 0.0 7 0.0
Mike Hessman 2 0.0 0 0.0 1 0.0 4 -0.1 20 -0.1 27 -0.2
Neifi Perez 1 0.0 0 0.0 5 0.0 3 -0.1 30 -0.1 39 -0.2
Carlos Guillen 31 -0.5 22 -1.5 42 0.4 40 1.6 285 -0.4 420 -0.5
Craig Monroe 15 -0.6 3 -1.1 11 0.0 30 0.4 115 -0.4 174 -1.6
Magglio Ordonez 39 0.5 4 0.0 49 -1.1 58 -0.8 409 -0.8 559 -2.2
Sean Casey 19 -0.2 4 -0.7 34 0.2 24 -1.5 240 -0.1 321 -2.2
Ivan Rodriguez 23 0.1 4 -1.0 33 0.1 38 -0.9 245 -0.6 343 -2.3
Mike Rabelo 10 -0.5 1 -0.4 9 -0.1 9 -1.0 92 -0.3 121 -2.3
285 0.1 136 2.1 408 -1.2 495 4.1 3221 0.3 4545 5.4
Keep in mind that the data Lee shows is really a subset of the EqHAR (Equivalent Hit Advancement Runs) shown here but as Lee points out Gary Sheffield did well in 2007 as did Guillen, Palanco, and Monroe.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
The Traffic Directors Addendum
By now SABR members should have received their copies of volume 36 of The Baseball Research Journal. For me receiving the journal in large part pays for the cost of the SABR membership as there are always more than a few interesting articles to peruse. Although I haven't read the entire journal yet the articles on strategy in Japanese baseball (titled "The Evolution of Japanese Baseball Strategy") by Robert K. Fitch and "A Manifesto for Defensive Baseball Statistics" by Dr. Jon Bruschke certainly caught my eye.
This year, however, I have another reason to be interested with the inclusion of an article by Neal Williams and me titled "The Traffic Directors". Some readers will be familiar with this topic since an online version of the article appeared in two parts last spring over on Rich Lederer's Baseball Analysts site. And so if you don't get the journal you can read about the methodology there.
In presenting the article to a group of SABRites here in Colorado a few weeks ago I went back and took a look 2007 data and at the rest of the data set that Neal had collected in response to a few questions by those assembled.
First, let's take a look at the 2007 third base coaches ordered by ratio.
Coach Non-Coach
Year Team Coach Opps OA EqHAR ExHAR Rate Opps OA EqHAR ExHAR Rate Ratio
2007 BOS DeMarlo Hale 240 6 0.4 47.0 1.01 450 9 -10.8 45.0 0.76 1.33
2007 COL Mike Gallego 266 4 8.5 62.2 1.14 429 12 -3.4 44.3 0.92 1.23
2007 HOU Doug Mansolin 230 8 -5.0 50.9 0.90 349 4 -8.1 32.5 0.75 1.20
2007 DET Gene Lamont 299 6 5.5 53.4 1.10 412 7 -2.7 43.0 0.94 1.18
2007 ATL Brian Snitker 245 5 1.8 50.3 1.04 400 4 -4.1 37.3 0.89 1.16
2007 TBA Tom Foley 229 2 4.0 45.1 1.09 386 6 -0.5 39.7 0.99 1.10
2007 SEA Carlos Garcia 246 3 2.5 55.0 1.05 476 9 -2.4 49.9 0.95 1.10
2007 SFN Gene Glynn 221 3 1.3 40.1 1.03 365 10 -2.1 40.2 0.95 1.09
2007 SDN Tim Flannery 197 5 3.3 44.0 1.07 347 6 -0.2 34.5 1.00 1.08
2007 MIL Nick Leyva 182 4 0.0 40.5 1.00 301 5 -1.7 33.1 0.95 1.06
2007 NYN Sandy Alomar 217 3 -0.2 49.6 1.00 359 11 -1.7 36.6 0.95 1.04
2007 PHI Steve Smith 263 8 -1.3 52.7 0.98 359 8 -2.0 38.2 0.95 1.03
2007 CLE Joel Skinner 235 6 0.1 55.0 1.00 391 6 -0.7 40.8 0.98 1.02
2007 ANA Dino Ebel 291 6 4.8 49.5 1.10 397 11 3.9 40.5 1.10 1.00
2007 KCA Brian Poldber 219 4 4.6 47.7 1.10 357 8 3.0 30.8 1.10 1.00
2007 OAK Rene Lacheman 242 4 -2.7 50.8 0.95 370 7 -1.9 39.5 0.95 0.99
2007 SLN Jose Oquendo 271 8 -1.0 48.5 0.98 387 7 -0.5 35.5 0.98 0.99
2007 NYA Larry Bowa 309 3 2.3 62.2 1.04 413 8 3.4 46.3 1.07 0.97
2007 LAN Rich Donnelly 258 5 3.4 49.9 1.07 419 5 4.7 42.0 1.11 0.96
2007 FLO Bo Porter 209 4 -4.2 39.4 0.89 361 7 -1.5 35.1 0.96 0.94
2007 PIT Jeff Cox 227 4 -1.7 45.5 0.96 375 6 1.8 44.5 1.04 0.92
2007 ARI Chip Hale 172 6 -2.9 42.5 0.93 336 8 1.7 31.7 1.05 0.89
2007 BAL Juan Samuel 231 4 -5.6 48.4 0.88 397 8 0.3 40.1 1.01 0.88
2007 CHA Razor Shines 194 5 -1.2 39.9 0.97 304 5 3.0 28.2 1.11 0.88
2007 TOR Brian Butterf 208 7 -6.6 38.7 0.83 374 9 -1.7 38.0 0.96 0.87
2007 CHN Mike Quade 241 6 -1.6 49.5 0.97 386 8 5.3 41.6 1.13 0.86
2007 MIN Scott Ullger 236 9 0.2 50.7 1.00 388 6 5.9 33.8 1.17 0.86
2007 CIN Mark Berry 209 8 -8.9 49.3 0.82 363 8 -1.3 38.1 0.96 0.85
2007 WAS Tim Tolman 203 7 -4.7 41.4 0.89 347 4 2.2 35.6 1.06 0.84
2007 TEX Don Wakamatsu 216 4 5.0 44.9 1.11 362 3 12.2 34.0 1.36 0.82
Both league champions bubble to the top of the list but those who've read the articles will know that this doesn't reflect much in terms of skill. This point was validated by looking at the careers of third base coaches and splitting the even and odd years in order to see if there was any persistence in ratio (defined as the ratio of the "coach-influenced" and "non-coach-influenced" opportunities). The plot below shows the career halves for the 35 coaches with the most experience from 1993 through 2007.
So again with a coefficient of determination of .03 there is no correlation for ratio indicating that there is precious little skill (or rather skill difference) between coaches at the major league level - assuming of course that the metric would capture the influence of a coach if it were present.
Finally then, here is the complete data set of the 125 coaches from 1993 through 2007 and how they did in terms of ratio.
Coach Non-Coach
Name Season Opps OA EqHAR Opps OA EqHAR Ratio
Greg Riddoch 1 77 3 -1.1 200 9 -7.4 1.51
Billy Hatcher 2 387 6 5.5 573 21 -11.4 1.33
Eddie Rodriguez 1 165 4 -1.7 340 10 -9.7 1.32
Bill Dancy 2 528 15 4.3 736 17 -13.1 1.26
Christopher Bando 3 570 15 -3.1 926 23 -19.0 1.24
Lance Parish 1 189 5 0.9 243 8 -4.2 1.24
Michael Cubbage 2 494 12 3.6 706 15 -11.6 1.23
Gary Allenson 3 517 22 -15.2 786 27 -20.2 1.18
Terry Bevington 2 439 12 -3.5 544 11 -8.7 1.17
DeMarlo Hale 2 489 11 -6.8 874 17 -18.4 1.17
Brian Snitker 1 245 5 1.8 400 4 -4.1 1.16
Terry Francona 1 200 4 0.2 349 9 -5.2 1.16
Al Pedrique 1 223 2 5.7 308 4 -0.8 1.16
Bobby Floyd 1 173 5 -2.7 316 8 -5.9 1.15
Dave Myers 4 986 16 8.1 1463 35 -12.8 1.14
Tom Foley 6 1285 22 17.8 1995 49 -9.5 1.14
Ray Knight 2 341 5 7.0 562 15 -1.8 1.13
Rick Burleson 3 706 13 7.5 1081 33 -3.6 1.12
John Russell 3 672 19 -1.1 1096 24 -10.7 1.11
Jack Lind 3 556 12 3.3 1037 30 -8.6 1.11
Joe Amalfitano 6 1067 28 4.7 2097 56 -12.0 1.11
Eddie Rodriquez 2 475 11 -5.5 614 16 -7.8 1.10
David Oliver 2 507 6 4.2 786 14 -3.8 1.09
Nick Leyva 5 857 15 5.1 1524 30 -8.3 1.09
Jeff Datz 1 274 5 -0.4 400 7 -3.3 1.09
Willie Randolph 8 2001 40 18.4 2930 70 -6.1 1.09
Mike Gallego 3 753 12 10.8 1157 31 -2.6 1.09
Gene Lamont 7 1622 37 13.4 2496 61 -7.2 1.08
Gary Pettis 3 530 18 -3.4 741 17 -7.2 1.08
Ron Wotus 1 191 3 2.2 416 7 -0.9 1.07
Rene Lachemann 4 789 21 -12.7 1465 39 -14.9 1.06
Tom Trebelhorn 6 1323 32 4.4 2101 51 -4.8 1.06
Cookie Rojas 7 1392 38 -16.6 2374 56 -21.8 1.06
Jim Riggleamn 1 270 7 -1.5 308 11 -2.8 1.06
Juan Samuel 4 857 15 2.2 1373 31 -3.9 1.06
Ron Oester 2 407 11 0.4 571 20 -2.4 1.05
Sam Perlozzo 7 1564 31 5.0 2249 47 -3.6 1.05
Joel Skinner 6 1322 33 16.3 2041 47 2.6 1.05
Gene Glynn 8 1815 43 -16.4 2563 50 -17.3 1.05
Manny Acta 5 1032 17 15.7 1495 37 6.0 1.05
Ozzie Guillen 2 345 10 1.2 632 19 -1.9 1.04
Don Zimmer 1 147 4 0.3 262 6 -0.9 1.04
Joey Cora 1 234 9 -7.5 404 9 -6.9 1.04
Duffy Dyer 5 1039 26 7.8 1830 42 1.8 1.04
Carlos Garcia 2 472 9 1.3 853 22 -2.5 1.04
Ron Washington 8 1973 51 5.0 2590 45 -2.0 1.04
Tony Beasley 1 241 6 1.2 312 9 -0.4 1.04
Dino Ebel 2 529 9 15.8 770 20 8.8 1.04
Joel Youngblood 1 189 2 7.5 294 8 4.4 1.03
Steve Boros 3 570 14 1.6 901 28 0.5 1.03
Chuck Cottier 1 237 7 1.2 362 7 -0.2 1.03
Dale Sveum 3 789 18 -20.7 1201 26 -19.1 1.03
Cletis Boyer 2 478 13 -6.2 776 18 -6.8 1.03
Dave Bristol 1 194 9 -6.7 408 9 -6.3 1.02
Ron Jackson 2 515 8 1.6 778 20 0.2 1.02
Ron Hassey 1 186 3 0.1 342 8 -0.7 1.02
John Vukovich 7 1505 40 -7.3 2235 62 -5.3 1.02
Tim Foli 3 618 26 -0.8 844 27 -1.1 1.02
Sonny Jackson 4 843 25 -15.7 1241 31 -13.0 1.02
Al Newman 4 889 24 1.9 1384 28 1.5 1.01
Bobby Dews 2 397 17 -2.1 745 22 -3.6 1.01
John McLaren 2 507 7 -6.2 740 18 -5.8 1.01
Carlos Tosca 3 713 13 0.9 968 17 -0.6 1.01
Doug Mansolino 8 1769 40 4.9 2580 38 4.8 1.01
Jerry Narron 8 1788 35 23.1 2960 60 15.4 1.01
Luis Silverio 2 449 9 6.1 787 19 4.4 1.01
Rich Hacker 1 234 5 3.3 391 7 2.5 1.00
Matt Galante 6 1179 33 -3.2 1929 54 0.2 1.00
Bryan Little 2 411 4 11.0 700 16 8.8 1.00
Ken Macha 2 382 12 3.2 638 17 2.4 1.00
Brian Butterfield 7 1463 35 -5.6 2365 56 0.5 1.00
Brian Poldberg 1 219 4 4.6 357 8 3.0 1.00
Ned Yost 3 590 21 -7.6 797 24 -0.7 1.00
Mike Cubbage 7 1397 45 8.7 2383 65 13.0 1.00
Rob Picciolo 3 704 11 3.9 1163 24 7.3 0.99
Sandy Alomar 3 704 14 11.4 1042 26 10.7 0.99
Harry Dunlop 1 192 9 -5.5 398 8 -5.5 0.99
Perry Hill 2 401 10 0.3 684 21 1.5 0.98
Wendell Kim 9 1864 58 -27.1 3095 65 -6.5 0.98
Jose Oquendo 8 1887 41 23.8 2654 56 23.8 0.98
Dave Huppert 1 240 4 -1.3 318 7 -0.1 0.98
Steve Smith 7 1493 34 -5.8 2449 51 1.1 0.98
Jerry Royster 1 200 5 -2.3 366 11 -1.0 0.98
Bruce Bochy 2 381 9 -13.2 589 14 -7.9 0.97
Rich Donnelly 13 2868 84 -3.9 4287 92 8.1 0.97
Tommie Reynolds 4 719 14 6.4 1255 26 9.0 0.97
Tim Flannery 7 1526 39 4.2 2181 49 14.4 0.97
Jimmy Williams 4 841 26 -10.7 1208 30 -2.0 0.97
Glenn Hoffman 7 1541 42 -12.9 2019 47 -3.2 0.97
Larry Bowa 9 1870 37 -6.7 2866 55 5.8 0.97
Tim Raines 1 204 9 2.9 335 7 3.3 0.97
Jeff Newman 6 1313 32 -6.7 2143 43 6.2 0.97
Jerry Manuel 4 752 25 -18.4 1307 39 -8.1 0.96
Marc Bombard 1 170 1 6.8 301 5 6.8 0.96
Ron Gardenhire 5 1155 31 -2.4 1482 36 6.3 0.95
Bucky Dent 1 245 7 -0.5 401 9 2.0 0.94
Fredi Gonzalez 6 1249 25 0.6 2005 32 16.2 0.94
Rafael Santana 2 408 8 0.4 717 12 5.9 0.94
Jeff Cox 6 1246 32 -8.9 2057 36 5.0 0.94
Ron Roenicke 6 1538 40 4.0 1977 34 17.3 0.94
Bo Porter 1 209 4 -4.2 361 7 -1.5 0.94
Tom Gamboa 1 206 4 0.4 354 9 3.1 0.93
Dan Radison 1 227 4 2.1 331 8 4.1 0.93
Dave Oliver 2 406 4 8.0 621 11 11.3 0.92
John Mizerock 2 478 10 -0.5 790 13 6.7 0.91
Pete MacKanin 3 521 17 -4.6 846 20 5.1 0.91
Scott Ullger 5 1212 29 9.1 2058 40 26.4 0.91
Graig Nettles 1 236 8 -4.2 346 10 0.2 0.91
Gene Glenn 3 655 20 -10.9 1245 31 2.7 0.91
Tony Muser 3 557 16 -0.6 903 22 9.7 0.91
Luis Sojo 2 558 16 -5.6 718 12 5.3 0.91
Tony Harrah 1 272 11 -7.1 431 7 -0.9 0.91
Rich Dauer 5 1085 29 -1.3 1665 29 15.6 0.90
Tom Spencer 1 220 5 0.2 355 7 5.0 0.90
Chip Hale 1 172 6 -2.9 336 8 1.7 0.89
Mark Berry 4 893 26 -19.8 1274 25 2.0 0.88
Razor Shines 1 194 5 -1.2 304 5 3.0 0.88
Trent Jewett 2 354 10 1.4 454 10 7.1 0.87
Mike Quade 1 241 6 -1.6 386 8 5.3 0.86
Bobby Meacham 1 199 4 2.4 359 5 8.4 0.84
Tim Tolman 1 203 7 -4.7 347 4 2.2 0.84
John Sterns 1 206 10 -8.2 253 10 -0.1 0.83
Don Wakamatsu 1 216 4 5.0 362 3 12.2 0.82
Richard Tracewski 3 609 12 -3.1 1052 14 24.8 0.79
Chris Speier 4 865 22 -6.9 1160 15 25.1 0.78
For those scoring at home yes, Waving Wendall Kim did have the lowest overall EqHAR value at -27.1 runs with 58 runners caught on the bases in 9 seasons. However, when you consider non-coach-influenced opportunities he comes in just below an even ratio at 0.98 and 79th on our list.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Gammons and Cyberspace
A nice column yesterday by Peter Gammons on the impact of the Internet on the sports as well as the political culture (similar to another column he wrote back in 2006). Two quotes in the column in particular caught my eye (other than the mention of this blog, Baseball Prospectus, and The Hardball Times albeit sadly not in that order) that deserve a few comments.
First, Gammons says:
I make no bones about my strong feelings about the human element. Pure numbers cannot do justice to character and drive and energy. They cannot measure the impact Robin Yount had on teammates when he ran down the first-base line at the same breakneck speed (one scout had nearly 90 Yount games in a six- or seven-year period and claimed he never got Yount faster than 3.9 seconds, or slower than 4.0).
What a wonderful anecdote and one that relates to what I found when looking at the baserunning exploits of Yount in last week's column. To summarize, Yount was the only player who was a career leader (from 1956-2007 anyway) in multiple of the five baserunning metrics. Overall Yount contributed +54 theoretical runs ranking him 13th in total number of runs. However, he was first in advancing on hits (EqHAR) at +39 runs and first in advancing on fly balls (EqAAR) at +17 runs. He did this despite costing his team 7 runs in stolen bases (EqSBR) and a half run in advancing on passed balls, balks, and wild pitches (EqOAR).
Below you'll find Yount's career baserunning statistics.
Year Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqRuns
1974 24 0.8 15 -3.0 19 1.0 38 2.1 203 1.2 299 2.1
1975 42 -0.9 17 0.1 37 -0.2 42 1.1 317 0.1 455 0.3
1976 33 0.6 31 -3.9 49 -0.7 42 2.2 311 -0.6 466 -2.2
1977 39 0.0 24 -0.5 49 0.5 63 0.4 397 -0.1 572 0.4
1978 27 -0.4 21 0.5 32 0.4 41 0.9 278 -0.7 399 0.7
1979 30 0.9 23 -1.1 47 2.5 43 2.6 311 2.0 454 6.9
1980 39 1.2 27 0.7 46 1.7 46 2.5 353 0.0 511 6.0
1981 26 -0.2 5 0.1 30 0.8 29 1.5 199 0.0 289 2.2
1982 46 0.9 17 0.9 60 2.5 47 3.5 399 0.3 569 8.0
1983 29 -0.8 15 -0.4 53 0.9 47 3.3 343 -0.8 487 2.3
1984 43 -0.7 18 1.1 56 0.9 64 2.6 386 -0.1 567 3.8
1985 20 -0.2 15 -0.7 24 0.1 51 3.5 252 -0.8 362 1.9
1986 40 0.7 20 0.6 42 1.8 47 1.8 367 -0.4 516 4.6
1987 39 0.0 26 -2.2 50 1.0 32 1.3 406 0.9 553 1.1
1988 25 0.2 24 2.4 49 -0.6 45 1.1 397 0.1 540 3.2
1989 29 1.5 21 1.6 53 0.5 61 0.4 402 -0.9 566 3.1
1990 23 0.7 21 -1.6 46 2.1 52 2.6 360 0.6 502 4.4
1991 16 0.5 9 -1.2 43 0.5 39 2.1 277 -1.2 384 0.7
1992 32 0.0 20 -0.7 47 0.9 44 2.3 311 -0.6 454 1.9
1993 16 0.3 11 0.4 30 0.2 48 1.5 258 0.4 363 2.7
618 5.3 380 -6.8 862 16.7 921 39.4 6527 -0.5 9308 54.1
Yount managed to turn in a positive run value in EqHAR in each of his 20 seasons - a rare feat to say the least.
I was also interested by this comment in Gammons' piece.
Bill James is trying to define clutch, what made George Brett so different, or sets David Ortiz, when healthy, apart in swagger and presence. You can present me with 4,765 pages of anti-Derek Jeter material; it won't work, I watch him too much.
Although he mentions in the column that he was reading The Hardball Times apparently he didn't let Tom Tango's excellent piece titled "With or Without Derek Jeter" sink in. In that article Tom uses Retrosheet data to demonstrate without a doubt (at least to me) that Jeter is among the worst fielding shortstops of his generation by showing that when Jeter is on the field, regardless of the other context which Tom does a great job of neutralizing, fewer batted balls are turned into outs. Period. And one would think that should be the bottom line when evaluating defense.
In tomorrow's Schrodinger's Bat at Baseball Prospectus I go one more round with the fielding system dubbed Simple Fielding Runs (SFR) that I developed for use with Retrosheet style play by play data. In the article I compare SFR to UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) as well as John Dewan's Plus/Minus system. Not coincidentally both Plus/Minus and SFR rate Derek Jeter as the worst shortstop in baseball from 2005 through 2007 and of course UZR is no fan either. For my part, here are Jeter's SFR numbers since 2002 (ExR is expected runners, Rn is actual runners, and Balls are the number of balls allocated to Jeter's area of responsibility).
Year Balls ExR Rn Diff SFR
2002 461 14 10 4 3
2003 479 119 139 -20 -15
2004 637 154 151 3 2
2005 721 183 195 -13 -9
2006 625 163 174 -11 -8
2007 615 168 194 -26 -20
3538 800 863 -64 -47
So over the course of six seasons Jeter is worth -47 runs by handling 64 fewer balls than would have been expected.
What I find interesting about Gammons' comment (and his take on Jeter is of course not a rare one and so I'm not just picking on Gammons) is the almost absolute faith in observation over other evidence when the evidence from every analytical tool available concurs as to the quality of Jeter's defense. Perhaps people are simply wired differently with some inherently more skeptical of what they see (or think they see) and therefore more willing to let other kinds of input shape their opinions. I'll admit it's kind of a mystery to me.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Running and Tulo
Just a head's up for those interested that I posted responses to a few reader questions on BP's Unfiltered blog in response to last week's Schrodinger's Bat column.
Also just read the six-year deal with a club option for 2014 that Troy Tulowitzki signed with the Rockies. At $30M the deal seems like a good one for the Rockies, especially the club option that would take him through his age 28 season and buy out his second year of free agency. Certainly investing in any young player involves risk (and perhaps more so for hitters in Colorado) but in Tulowitzki the upside for the club is substantial because of his contributions on both sides of the ball. As for his fielding I had him at +18.6 runs using my Simple Fielding Runs (SFR) system, ranking second behind only Omar Vizquel.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Willie, Mickey, and Hank
My column this week on Baseball Prospectus titled "For the Sake of Completeness" ties up some loose ends with the baserunning framework by showing the results from more or less all Retrosheet years (1956-2007). To that end I not only look at the aggregate leaders and trailers and discuss the merits of Lou Brock and Dave Parker but also develop a new rate statistic that incorporates four of the five metrics. This new rate (Equivalent Base Running Rate or EqBRR) is a more "pure" measure of baserunning and using this I develop an aging curve for baserunning as a whole and by position and finally examine baserunning as a skill and its persistance across career halves.
You'll need to read the column to get the details but in researching the article I took a look at more than a few old-timers and so I thought I'd share the baserunning exploits of Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle.
First, the Say Hey Kid.
Year Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1956 22 0.3 36 1.3 30 -1.8 21 3.1 189 -1.0 298 2.0
1957 24 -0.1 46 -1.1 43 -2.5 30 2.6 276 1.1 419 0.0
1958 29 0.0 41 3.3 51 1.0 35 0.1 341 1.6 497 5.9
1959 21 -0.3 37 1.1 27 1.0 54 3.3 308 1.1 447 6.2
1960 20 -0.3 40 -0.7 35 1.9 45 1.6 308 -0.2 448 2.3
1961 30 0.7 29 -2.2 38 0.4 37 2.5 308 0.4 442 1.7
1962 26 0.4 25 1.0 44 2.2 53 0.5 313 -0.2 461 3.9
1963 37 0.5 19 -2.1 34 2.0 50 -0.2 357 1.3 497 1.6
1964 24 0.2 28 0.5 38 2.0 39 2.7 317 0.0 446 5.4
1965 22 0.2 16 0.0 20 0.6 36 -0.7 284 1.5 378 1.5
1966 23 -0.7 8 0.2 24 -0.9 34 -0.6 292 -0.5 381 -2.5
1967 16 -0.6 7 1.2 19 0.7 38 2.5 235 0.9 315 4.7
1968 17 0.8 18 -0.3 35 1.7 49 -0.4 269 0.4 388 2.3
1969 15 0.0 8 -0.6 23 0.3 26 0.3 228 -1.0 300 -1.1
1970 12 0.1 6 0.1 26 0.7 29 1.9 308 0.6 381 3.3
1971 26 1.4 24 2.0 34 -0.1 33 0.8 308 0.5 425 4.6
1972 22 0.3 9 -1.8 30 -0.8 21 0.9 144 0.4 226 -0.9
1973 12 0.0 1 0.1 10 0.1 18 -1.4 80 0.1 121 -1.1
398 2.9 398 2.0 561 8.5 648 19.4 4865 7.0 6870 39.9
Mays finished 23rd in aggregate EqBRR (and of course his 1951-1955 seasons are missing) and led the league in 1958 although doing better in 1959 and pretty well in 1964 and somewhat surprisingly 1971 thanks to some high percentage base stealing. In terms of pure baserunning Mays contributed 19% more runs than an average runner which is a little on the high side for centerfielders. He seemingly was pretty good at advancing on fly balls (EqAAR), fairly average on grounders (EqGAR) and held up his own both in advancing on hits (EqHAR) and balks, passed balls, and wild pitches (EqOAR).
Next, we have Hammerin' Hank.
Year Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1956 32 -0.6 3 -1.7 30 0.5 32 0.6 234 0.6 331 -0.7
1957 28 0.7 3 -1.5 37 -1.6 42 0.3 328 1.1 438 -1.0
1958 44 1.1 4 -0.2 49 -0.5 48 1.7 321 0.3 466 2.4
1959 25 -0.1 8 1.4 47 1.3 52 3.2 355 -0.6 487 5.2
1960 24 1.3 23 -0.6 33 -0.6 31 1.8 228 0.2 339 2.2
1961 23 -0.7 31 -0.4 32 1.4 37 1.2 274 1.7 397 3.2
1962 34 -0.6 21 -1.2 34 0.6 39 0.8 296 -0.5 424 -0.9
1963 21 0.5 39 2.7 51 0.2 45 3.7 359 -0.4 515 6.7
1964 30 0.7 26 1.6 25 0.1 42 0.7 278 1.6 401 4.6
1965 12 -0.2 29 -0.1 27 1.0 38 1.5 281 2.0 387 4.3
1966 25 -0.3 24 1.5 39 1.8 53 1.6 323 0.3 464 4.8
1967 28 1.6 24 0.1 38 1.6 45 1.3 297 -0.9 432 3.7
1968 14 0.2 32 1.9 25 -2.7 36 1.6 226 -0.4 333 0.6
1969 15 -0.5 21 -2.7 29 0.7 38 2.3 263 0.0 366 -0.2
1970 21 -0.5 11 1.5 28 0.0 43 -0.5 277 -0.7 380 -0.2
1971 15 -0.5 2 0.0 30 0.1 44 -0.7 262 -0.1 353 -1.2
1972 18 -0.4 3 0.5 36 0.7 42 -0.1 265 -0.2 364 0.5
1973 6 0.2 2 -0.4 19 -0.2 31 -0.7 174 -0.2 232 -1.2
1974 12 0.3 1 0.1 17 0.1 20 -3.1 121 -0.5 171 -3.1
1975 19 -1.0 1 -0.4 38 0.0 29 0.0 237 -0.5 324 -1.9
1976 8 -0.1 1 -0.7 11 -0.6 11 -1.1 79 -0.4 110 -2.9
454 1.1 309 1.4 675 4.1 798 16.1 5478 2.5 7714 25.2
Hank does pretty well overall and was well above average runner from 1958 through 1967. He apparently slowed considerably after that though which depressed his career total substantially. Had he simply treaded water those final few years he would have been at something like +35. He led the league in 1963 with his +6.7 runs and was consistently effective in advancing on hits (EqHAR).
Finally, The Mick.
Year Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1956 24 0.1 13 0.7 44 -0.3 49 1.0 376 1.1 506 2.5
1957 27 -0.4 20 1.4 49 -0.9 61 1.1 399 0.4 556 1.7
1958 37 -0.1 23 1.9 49 0.2 57 2.9 375 0.1 541 5.0
1959 22 -0.3 26 1.9 31 1.0 43 2.2 286 -0.9 408 4.0
1960 26 -0.3 21 -0.3 46 -0.2 49 1.7 299 1.8 441 2.7
1961 26 0.1 15 0.5 58 0.7 47 0.6 369 0.9 515 2.8
1962 23 -0.7 8 1.5 39 0.1 44 0.6 290 0.6 404 2.0
1963 13 -0.2 4 -0.9 9 -0.1 12 1.0 93 -0.4 131 -0.6
1964 29 -0.2 9 -1.5 28 1.1 35 1.7 254 -0.9 355 0.1
1965 12 -0.2 6 -0.2 22 -0.5 26 -0.2 173 -0.3 239 -1.4
1966 11 -0.3 2 -0.4 20 0.3 20 -1.4 168 0.3 221 -1.4
1967 20 -0.2 4 -1.3 33 -0.2 27 -1.0 237 -0.4 321 -3.0
1968 23 -0.6 7 0.1 26 0.7 34 0.1 268 -0.3 358 0.0
293 -3.3 158 3.5 454 1.9 504 10.3 3587 1.9 4996 14.4
After 1962 Mantle's knees didn't hold up and that is reflected in his running. Before that, though he was above average and inline with most centerfielders contributing plus runs from 1956 through 1962. Interestingly, he always did poorly on advancing on ground outs (EqGAR) but could seemingly take the extra base on hits (EqHAR).
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Will Raines Run into the Hall?
Probably not but Dan Rosenheck of the New York Times makes a case today in his Keeping Score column titled "Raines Could Slide Safely Into the Hall on First Try" based in part on my baserunning metrics. From everything I've read and am hearing Raines will garner roughly 50-55% of the vote and will fall short of the 75% required for induction into the Hall of Fame announced next Tuesday.
From all accounts it appears Goose Gossage is in, Bert Blyleven is likely (on that score I heard an Sports Illustrated writer interviewed on MLB.com the other day crediting Rich Lederer and the internet for boosting Blyleven's candidacy in the past few years although he mistakenly associated Rich with Baseball Musings and not Baseball Analysts) and Jim Rice and Andre Dawson are very close. In my opinion Rice is not a Hall of Famer and I'll admit that I'm not unbiased on Dawson since I have a soft spot for "The Hawk" having watched him so much and rooted for him so often as a member of the Cubs in the 1980s.
But in getting back to Raines Rosencheck makes the point that Raines, primarily by virtue of his extremely high stolen base percentage in an era where stolen base percentages were lower, contributed over 100 runs or 10 additional wins with his legs when measured by Equivalent Baserunning Runs (EqBRR) which is a total of all five of the core baserunning metrics. Here are his numbers sans 1999.
Year Team Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1979 MON 3 0.1 2 0.4 1 0.0 0 0.0 11 0.2 17 0.6
1980 MON 1 0.0 6 0.1 7 -0.2 2 0.0 17 -0.1 33 -0.2
1981 MON 31 1.0 84 5.8 26 0.3 20 -0.8 224 0.9 385 7.3
1982 MON 55 3.3 97 5.7 50 -0.2 32 1.2 392 0.1 626 10.1
1983 MON 71 0.9 113 7.6 66 1.8 46 2.7 466 0.6 762 13.6
1984 MON 49 -0.8 86 9.2 56 -1.7 48 1.8 431 -1.1 670 7.3
1985 MON 41 1.6 82 9.4 72 0.8 55 -0.6 476 0.0 726 11.2
1986 MON 46 -1.4 81 9.2 52 0.7 38 0.4 416 0.1 633 9.0
1987 MON 31 -0.5 57 7.2 41 0.3 48 2.5 390 0.9 567 10.4
1988 MON 29 0.1 40 2.4 35 0.1 27 0.0 256 0.7 387 3.2
1989 MON 40 0.8 49 1.4 48 2.1 34 1.2 326 -1.6 497 3.9
1990 MON 20 0.6 63 -0.2 35 1.1 36 1.1 260 0.9 414 3.5
1991 CHA 45 0.6 66 -0.6 47 -0.4 55 1.5 403 0.6 616 1.7
1992 CHA 41 0.3 50 5.3 66 1.5 75 3.0 437 0.1 669 10.1
1993 CHA 47 1.2 29 0.6 36 1.4 30 0.7 303 1.1 445 5.0
1994 CHA 21 -0.2 13 2.1 35 0.0 38 1.7 268 -0.7 375 3.1
1995 CHA 23 -0.1 15 1.1 53 -0.6 48 0.4 388 -0.9 527 -0.1
1996 NYA 10 -0.4 11 0.7 22 0.2 29 0.4 153 -0.7 225 0.2
1997 NYA 23 0.2 13 -1.0 24 0.8 23 1.5 173 1.6 256 3.1
1998 NYA 14 0.2 11 0.0 21 -0.1 33 -0.8 192 0.5 271 -0.3
1999
2001 BAL 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 2 0.0 2 0.0
2001 MON 12 0.0 1 0.1 6 -0.2 8 -0.4 75 -0.1 102 -0.6
2002 FLO 5 0.1 0 0.0 3 0.1 8 -0.7 62 0.6 78 0.1
658 7.6 969 66.5 802 7.7 733 16.8 6121 3.8 9283 102.5
The interesting thing about Raines is that he contributed with his legs so consistently for so long not turning in a sub-par season until 1995 at the age of 35. In fact, at the age of 33 he contributed 10.1 runs primarily by stealing 45 of 51 bags for the White Sox in 1992 and turning in his best season advancing on hits and contributing +3 runs. At his peak (1982-1987) Raines contributed +10.3 runs on average over a six year span and average +7.4 runs over a 15-year span from 1981-1993. He led the league in EqBRR in 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1992. Of course 1981 should be pro-rated and in a full season that +7.3 translates to more like +10. While his peak contribution and the overall run value of his baserunning in and of itself doesn't make him a Hall of Famer, when combined with his overall productivity and when noted in comparison to players like Wade Boggs it certainly casts him a better light.
There's no doubt Raines did well on the bases but how did he stack up against the other great runners of his era? Let's start with Rickey Henderson.
Year Team Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1979 OAK 34 -0.2 45 0.2 35 -0.4 26 0.0 222 -0.3 362 -0.8
1980 OAK 60 0.8 135 -0.6 51 2.1 72 2.7 477 -0.6 795 4.4
1981 OAK 31 2.4 87 -3.6 46 0.1 40 0.7 309 1.0 513 0.6
1982 OAK 47 4.1 176 -0.2 43 0.9 29 2.6 352 0.9 647 8.3
1983 OAK 35 0.9 132 7.8 56 1.3 41 0.1 345 1.6 609 11.7
1984 OAK 37 0.9 86 2.4 57 2.1 51 3.9 368 0.9 599 10.2
1985 NYA 44 2.6 97 9.8 70 1.0 48 3.1 404 2.3 663 18.8
1986 NYA 47 0.8 115 3.8 49 1.8 31 0.6 329 2.3 571 9.2
1987 NYA 34 -0.6 51 2.3 37 -1.1 26 1.8 236 -0.4 384 2.0
1988 NYA 51 2.3 114 9.0 50 1.3 51 -2.0 384 3.8 650 14.4
1989 NYA 25 0.0 41 -0.9 14 -0.2 28 0.1 141 1.2 249 0.1
1989 OAK 24 0.3 62 3.6 40 0.2 30 1.5 148 1.2 304 6.8
1990 OAK 44 0.7 82 4.9 45 -0.1 63 1.1 373 -0.2 607 6.5
1991 OAK 38 -0.1 79 1.6 43 -0.6 43 2.8 324 -1.0 527 2.6
1992 OAK 53 0.2 58 1.6 49 -1.0 34 2.9 312 -0.7 506 2.9
1993 TOR 14 -0.7 24 3.1 21 0.1 17 0.4 100 0.6 176 3.6
1993 OAK 32 -0.3 39 1.7 44 0.5 40 -0.8 226 0.3 381 1.5
1994 OAK 34 -0.8 31 0.3 38 0.9 43 2.6 259 0.4 405 3.4
1995 OAK 41 -0.3 46 -0.5 31 -0.4 34 0.5 256 -0.1 408 -0.9
1996 SDN 55 -0.6 55 -2.3 48 -1.1 61 2.5 402 0.8 621 -0.7
1997 SDN 19 0.0 35 1.0 40 0.2 39 1.7 192 -0.4 325 2.5
1997 ANA 4 -0.2 10 -0.5 4 0.2 8 0.5 16 0.2 42 0.2
1998 OAK 38 -0.5 74 1.9 41 -1.1 50 0.3 363 0.5 566 1.1
1999
2000 SEA 27 0.1 43 -2.3 32 1.3 26 0.3 212 -0.1 340 -0.7
2000 NYN 16 0.4 7 -0.6 8 0.2 8 -0.6 37 0.1 76 -0.5
2001 SDN 22 -0.3 33 0.3 36 -0.1 39 0.9 267 0.3 397 1.2
2002 BOS 20 -0.3 12 -1.0 19 -1.1 22 1.2 161 0.1 234 -1.1
2003 LAN 4 0.1 4 0.0 5 -0.4 5 0.0 45 0.0 63 -0.3
930 11.7 1773 42.9 1052 6.7 1005 31.2 7260 14.6 12020 107.1
Overall Henderson contributed five additional runs while playing in about 500 more games. In his peak seasons (1982-1988) Henderson was at +10.6 runs and averaged +7.6 from 1982 through 1993. He led the league in EqBRR in 1984, 1985, and 1988. Interestingly both Raines and Henderson were productive runners through the 1994 season which for Raines was his age 34 season and for Henderson age 35.
As noted by Rosencheck Henderson, although the career leader in stolen bases, actually contributed more in other areas like advancing on hits and passed balls etc. than did Raines. The following table compares the four elite baserunners of the 1980s in terms of percentage of career totals in each of the five metrics.
Name EqGAR EqSBR EqAAR EqHAR EqOAR
Raines 7.4% 64.9% 7.5% 16.4% 3.7%
Henderson 11.0% 40.0% 6.2% 29.1% 13.6%
Wilson 5.9% 52.3% 12.8% 23.8% 5.3%
Coleman 11.0% 55.9% 6.3% 15.3% 11.6%
Raines and Vince Coleman got the most out of their stolen bases while Henderson advanced on hits more frequently, Henderson and Coleman advanced on ground outs, and Willie Wilson did so on fly balls.
Moving on, let's look at Willie Wilson.
Year Team Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1976 KCA 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 8 0.0 8 0.0
1978 KCA 16 1.6 59 1.6 25 -0.1 19 1.9 169 0.3 288 5.3
1979 KCA 46 2.1 99 9.2 39 0.7 46 2.8 333 0.9 563 15.7
1980 KCA 49 0.5 93 10.0 75 4.2 61 3.9 463 0.5 741 19.1
1981 KCA 29 -0.3 42 3.6 56 -0.6 40 0.5 309 0.5 476 3.7
1982 KCA 46 -0.6 48 1.2 50 1.2 39 1.6 382 0.2 565 3.6
1983 KCA 42 1.9 69 7.0 42 -0.6 39 1.4 340 1.5 532 11.2
1984 KCA 38 1.7 55 5.1 49 2.1 48 0.8 340 -0.1 530 9.7
1985 KCA 39 1.2 58 4.3 50 1.7 31 -1.1 315 -0.5 493 5.6
1986 KCA 25 0.1 44 2.4 50 1.2 36 0.0 337 -1.0 492 2.7
1987 KCA 60 0.4 69 7.1 47 0.6 36 3.9 369 0.7 581 12.6
1988 KCA 35 0.2 42 2.2 43 0.8 48 3.8 309 1.8 477 8.8
1989 KCA 18 -0.7 33 1.3 36 1.9 35 1.9 230 0.6 352 5.0
1990 KCA 14 -0.7 30 1.3 30 0.5 28 1.7 175 0.0 277 2.8
1991 OAK 18 -0.3 25 0.9 24 -0.1 19 1.0 185 -0.5 271 1.0
1992 OAK 22 0.1 36 -0.6 33 -0.3 28 0.7 246 0.2 365 0.1
1993 CHN 25 -0.3 9 0.2 16 0.7 17 1.0 122 0.5 189 2.1
1994 CHN 3 -0.5 1 0.2 4 0.1 4 0.1 19 -0.1 31 -0.2
525 6.4 812 56.9 669 13.9 574 25.8 4651 5.7 7231 108.7
Wilson recorded the highest single-season total in my database that goes back to 1970 with his +19.1 for the AL Champion Royals in 1980 and he average +9.1 runs from 1979 through 1988. His peak was spread out a little and he led the league in 1979 and 1980. Overall he has the highest career EqBRR value at +108.7 and so for an overall package just in terms of baserunning Wilson is probably the best of the bunch in the 1980s.
Finally, here are Vince Coleman's career totals.
Year Team Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1985 SLN 43 1.2 147 10.7 41 0.7 51 0.6 383 -1.4 665 11.8
1986 SLN 57 0.0 135 11.0 35 0.3 32 0.9 368 4.2 627 16.4
1987 SLN 59 2.5 142 7.1 60 1.2 56 2.4 406 0.8 723 14.1
1988 SLN 44 0.3 119 4.1 37 0.9 45 0.9 370 -0.2 615 6.0
1989 SLN 59 1.0 84 3.5 47 -0.3 49 1.2 373 0.2 612 5.6
1990 SLN 38 0.5 100 2.7 34 -0.2 39 0.6 306 1.3 517 4.9
1991 NYN 28 0.8 54 -2.5 28 0.9 22 0.7 181 1.2 313 1.1
1992 NYN 20 1.9 37 -0.5 21 1.1 19 1.2 172 0.4 269 4.1
1993 NYN 31 1.6 53 -0.8 33 0.1 27 1.0 216 0.2 360 2.1
1994 KCA 34 -0.6 64 3.2 24 0.5 31 1.3 244 0.4 397 4.8
1995 SEA 10 -0.5 26 -0.6 20 -0.6 11 0.4 91 0.3 158 -1.0
1995 KCA 28 -0.9 36 0.2 19 -0.3 25 0.1 133 0.5 241 -0.4
1996 CIN 5 -0.1 14 1.0 10 0.2 8 -0.7 59 0.1 96 0.5
1997 DET 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 1 0.0 1 0.0
456 7.7 1011 39.1 409 4.4 415 10.7 3303 8.1 5594 70.0
Coleman obviously had a peak that was more brief than the others and average +14.1 runs from 1985 through 1987 and led the league in 1986 and 1987. By 1995 at age 33 he was no longer a productive runner as he finished his career bouncing around from Kansas City, to Seattle, Cincinnati, and Detroit. Overall he contributed 30 fewer runs than the others.
When you look at these guys in terms of EqBRR per 550 opportunities they stack up this way:
Wilson 8.3
Coleman 6.9
Raines 6.1
Henderson 4.2
Friday, December 28, 2007
The Bottom of the Pile
After my post the other day on the "Daily Double" for the Cubs in 1984 I got to thinking about who might be the worst baserunner of the last 40 or so years. I've run baserunning numbers back to 1970 (excluding 1999 of course) and the two players with the lowest overall numbers were Todd Zeile and Wade Boggs. Zeile narrowly edged Boggs at -48.4 to -48.1. What's interesting about Zeile is that he had two seasons of -10 runs or lower in 1992 and 1997 because he attempted to run more frequently than Boggs. However, Boggs was more consistently a drag on his team and managed to record a negative Equivalent Baserunning Runs (EqBRR) in each of his 17 seasons (it would be interesting to see if he actually made it 18 years but again 1999 is missing).
Others who did poorly include Ted Simmons (-47.8), Mike Piazza (-47.5), Lance Parrish (-45.7), and Eddie Murray (-44.7).
The case of Mike Piazza is also worth mentioning since I read Tom Tango's excellent piece "With or Without You" in the 2008 Hardball Times Annual. In that essay Tango looks at the defensive value of catchers and not suprisingly Piazza finds himself second to the bottom in defensive contribution per 5,000 batters at -9.6 runs. Over the equivalent of 10.5 seasons that almost exactly 100 runs worse than average (Dick Dietz was easily last at -13.2 runs). When you combine his baserunning and defense that means that Piazza lost 150 runs for his teams, a fact that highlights just how good an offensive player he is. Not many players (think Derek Jeter) would get enough playing time to cost his team 15 wins in secondary skills.
But I digress. Here are our trailers career lines in terms of baserunning...
Todd Zeile
Year Team Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1989 SLN 4 0.2 0 0.0 6 0.0 6 -0.4 44 -0.2 60 -0.4
1990 SLN 29 -0.5 7 -2.9 41 -0.2 39 0.0 256 0.6 372 -2.9
1991 SLN 33 -0.4 29 -3.2 44 -1.3 46 -0.5 329 -1.0 481 -6.3
1992 SLN 23 -0.7 17 -4.0 43 -1.1 55 -5.4 287 0.0 425 -11.2
1993 SLN 19 -0.4 10 -1.9 36 0.6 53 -2.0 328 1.3 446 -2.4
1994 SLN 24 -0.2 5 -1.1 29 0.3 30 -1.3 249 -1.2 337 -3.6
1995 CHN 12 -0.3 1 0.2 27 -0.3 20 1.0 122 -0.3 182 0.3
1995 SLN 5 0.0 1 0.1 8 0.4 12 0.4 63 -0.1 89 0.8
1996 BAL 6 -0.9 2 -0.1 9 0.4 9 0.3 50 0.8 76 0.5
1996 PHI 22 -0.2 1 -0.4 35 -0.7 43 -1.6 239 -0.4 340 -3.3
1997 LAN 33 -0.5 17 -4.8 25 0.0 61 -4.5 348 -0.4 484 -10.2
1998 FLO 11 0.2 5 -1.8 16 0.3 23 -0.5 76 -0.1 131 -1.9
1998 LAN 5 -0.4 1 0.1 12 0.4 9 0.2 40 0.2 67 0.4
1998 TEX 9 -0.4 1 0.1 10 0.8 13 0.5 80 0.6 113 1.6
2000 NYN 19 -0.5 8 -1.4 35 0.6 33 -2.1 279 0.7 374 -2.7
2001 NYN 31 -0.7 3 0.2 51 -1.1 55 -1.6 327 0.2 467 -3.0
2002 COL 23 -0.2 2 -0.2 26 -0.7 31 0.3 244 0.1 326 -0.7
2003 MON 2 0.1 1 0.3 5 0.0 12 0.0 51 0.4 71 0.8
2003 NYA 5 0.2 0 0.0 6 0.1 20 -0.3 97 -0.2 128 -0.2
2004 NYN 16 -0.5 0 0.0 14 -0.8 26 -1.0 203 -1.6 259 -3.9
331 -6.2 111 -20.7 478 -2.4 596 -18.6 3712 -0.4 5228 -48.4
Wage Boggs
Year Team Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR Opps EqBRR
1982 BOS 32 0.7 0 0.0 22 -0.5 33 -0.1 250 -0.5 337 -0.3
1983 BOS 52 -2.0 6 -0.8 68 -0.5 57 -0.7 506 -1.0 689 -5.1
1984 BOS 50 -0.2 5 -0.5 49 -1.3 71 -0.8 528 0.3 703 -2.5
1985 BOS 49 -0.7 4 0.0 91 -0.3 101 1.1 579 -0.5 824 -0.4
1986 BOS 64 0.2 5 -2.4 96 0.4 52 -1.9 535 -0.6 752 -4.3
1987 BOS 37 -1.8 4 -1.8 54 1.4 49 0.6 409 -0.4 553 -1.9
1988 BOS 63 1.7 5 -0.8 82 -0.9 91 -1.5 600 -1.5 841 -3.0
1989 BOS 60 -0.4 11 -3.1 60 0.5 84 -0.3 529 -1.2 744 -4.5
1990 BOS 48 -1.1 2 -0.6 57 0.5 82 -2.9 453 -1.2 642 -5.2
1991 BOS 55 -1.2 3 -0.8 44 -0.9 75 -2.7 489 -0.2 666 -5.8
1992 BOS 19 0.0 4 -1.8 51 0.3 50 0.7 328 -0.2 452 -1.0
1993 NYA 40 -1.3 3 -1.0 57 -1.5 72 1.4 424 0.1 596 -2.4
1994 NYA 22 -0.3 3 -0.4 41 -1.8 46 -0.9 279 0.0 391 -3.4
1995 NYA 37 -1.0 2 -0.8 51 0.0 70 2.2 380 -0.7 540 -0.2
1996 NYA 47 0.5 3 -1.0 52 0.9 67 -2.7 406 -0.4 575 -2.6
1997 NYA 26 -0.4 1 -0.4 21 1.3 41 -3.0 221 -0.4 310 -2.9
1998 TBA 7 -0.5 4 -1.3 5 0.0 16 -0.8 111 -0.2 143 -2.7
708 -7.7 65 -17.6 901 -2.2 1057 -12.2 7027 -8.5 9758 -48.1
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Moving the Ball Forward
Just wanted to create a link to this BP Unfiltered post by Nate Silver related to my baserunning framework. As Nate says, the numbers for both major and minor leaguers will be in this year's Baseball Prospectus and it'll be nice to see them included in things like PECOTA and perhaps someday in measures that reflect total player performance.
The correlations that Nate mentions are similar to what I found in the past and Nate is right in removing EqSBR from the picture if you want to look soley at baserunning, as opposed to basestealing, skill. Using a rate statistic is also appropriate since the number of opportunities does vary considerably, although of course it can't account for the quality of those opportunities. That's the reason I typically use a rate statistic based on the ratio of runs to expected runs (the difference being the metrics like EqHAR etc.) and then simply use a cutoff for the number of opportunities (or times on base would work as well).
In any case, it's gratifying to see this work being systematized and calculated for both historical seasons and during the season.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Baserunning in a Minor Key
This week on Baseball Prospectus my focus on baserunning turns to the minor leagues as I present the leaders and trailers at the four top levels of the minors (AAA, AA, high and low A) and then an aggregate total to account for players who moved between leagues.
Braves fans may be interested to learn that Gorkys Hernandez fared particularly well and finished second in the minors by contributing +10.2 runs overall on the bases. He was excellent at going from first to third and second to home on hits (easily tops at the level in EqHAR), and stole bases at an 83% rate, good for +2.5 runs. On the other hand former Moneyball pinup Jeremy Brown was the clear winner of the "Triple-A Plodder Award", giving up 8.8 runs, 7.6 of those while attempting, or not attempting, to advance on hits (EqHAR). His total in that category was almost 2.5runs worse than anyone else at his level as he managed to get thrown out four of the six times he tried to advance on hits in 30 opportunities.
I thought it might also be interesting to take a look at how a few of the other top prospects going into 2007 fared. So below we have a table of those players who made it into the top 20 of Baseball America's Top Prospects list published at the end of February.
Name Team Lg Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR EqRuns
Andrew McCutchen ALT EAS 33 1.0 18 1.8 19 -0.1 38 1.3 260 -0.4 3.6
Andrew McCutchen IND INT 3 0.2 9 0.5 3 -0.1 2 0.4 40 0.1 1.0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy LaRoche LAN MJ 4 0.0 3 0.1 0 0.0 9 0.7 59 -0.1 0.8
Andy LaRoche LVG PCL 11 0.5 7 -1.1 16 0.8 22 0.9 153 -0.5 0.8
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brandon Wood ANA MJ 2 0.1 0 0.0 1 0.0 0 0.0 10 0.0 0.0
Brandon Wood SLC PCL 16 0.2 13 1.1 19 0.5 35 1.9 236 0.1 3.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cameron Maybin ESW EAS 1 0.0 0 0.0 3 0.0 2 0.1 18 -0.1 0.0
Cameron Maybin LAK FSL 18 1.2 32 0.0 18 0.6 27 0.4 192 0.1 2.4
Cameron Maybin TGR GCL 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 6 -0.1 -0.1
Cameron Maybin DET MJ 2 -0.2 5 0.8 0 0.0 3 0.4 26 -0.1 1.0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evan Longoria DUB INT 3 -0.2 0 0.0 5 -0.7 11 1.2 61 -0.3 0.0
Evan Longoria MON SOU 21 -0.2 4 0.6 23 1.2 44 0.8 257 -1.2 1.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Bruce SAR FSL 7 0.4 10 0.3 15 -0.3 25 -0.1 145 -0.4 0.0
Jay Bruce LOU INT 10 -0.2 4 -0.6 10 0.4 14 -1.2 114 0.1 -1.5
Jay Bruce CNG SOU 2 -0.1 4 -0.2 5 0.2 6 0.4 43 -0.3 -0.1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reid Brignac MON SOU 16 -1.1 21 0.2 20 1.3 51 1.8 277 -0.4 1.9
While on the subject of baserunning I wanted to point out that I posted a comparison of the baserunning numbers published in the latest Bill James Handbook to my system both at the individual and team level on BP Unfiltered.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away...
Today on Baseball Prospectus my column walked down memory lane back to 1977 and after reliving a few memories of the Cubs and their collapse after holding a 7.5 game lead on July 1st, look at the best and worst baserunners of that year similar to what I did for 1987.
One of the points I made in the article followed the revelation that runs contributed via stolen bases and pickoffs (EqSBR) were often much larger in the negative range thirty years ago than we see today.
"Not all managers or players were aware of the costs of allowing Gary Templeton and Enos Cabell to run with abandon, leaving a trail of broken innings in their wake. As a result, stolen base percentages were relatively low, just 62.9 percent overall. When noting the general rule that a 67-70 percent success rate is required to break even (yes, it varies by the base/out situation, and that's taken into account by EqSBR), you can see how teams left a lot of runs on the field. In fact, the aggregate EqSBR for the majors stood at a staggering -418 runs for the 1977 season, or over -16 runs per team."A very smart reader (Guy Molyneux) correctly pointed out that while it's probably true that managers allowed marginal stolen base threats to run too frequently, they also employed the hit and run more often which look, from the perspective of EqSBR, exactly like stolen bases attempts that are only visible when the runner is thrown out. In fact I had noted in the piece that Mike Vail of the Mets was 0 for 9 (with two pickoffs) costing his team 4.6 runs but there's little doubt that a good proportion of those were broken hit and run plays. Guy supports his point by noting that in 1977 there were fewer double plays grounded into per ground ball hit than in 2007 (.75 versus .82) and there is a pretty strong negative correlation between stolen bases per game and GIDP per game (-.7 from 1970 through 2007). Most interestingly, this would also have an effect on runners advancing from first to third (a topic I also mentioned briefly). With additional runners moving, they should be more successful in advancing and indeed that is what we see as there has been a declining advancement rate since 1970.
In the final analysis the more aggressive baserunning of the 1970s certainly cost teams in terms of runs via caught stealing but some of that is offset by their ability to advance more frequently. While you might imagine that my metric that tracks advancement on hits (EqHAR) would compensate, that is not the case. EqHAR compares each runner against the average advancement for the year in question and so there is no absolute baseline against which it is compared as is done with EqSBR. Unfortunately the data we have doesn't allow us to totally disambiguate the two.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Around the Bases in 2007 (and 1987)
Last week in my column at Baseball Prospectus I revealed the 2007 numbers in my five baserunning metrics. Somewhat suprisingly Juan Pierre took the top spot at +11.47 runs by recording positive values in all five categories but doing especially well in runs on stolen bases (EqSBR) and advancing on hits (EqHAR). Together those accounted for over nine runs with EqSBR at +3.93 and EqHAR at +5.09. Other leaders included Luis Castillo (+9.41), Coco Crisp (+8.60), Brian Roberts (+8.43), and Jose Reyes (+7.90). Readers of the original article will note that there Castillo was credited with +8.42. However, upon further inspection his EqOAR (other advancement including wild pitches, passed balls, and balks) was incorrect dues to overcounting his opportunities because of his playing for both the Twins and Mets and so that went up from 2.78 to 3.77.
On the other end of the spectrum the Tribe's Ryan Garko recorded a -8.83, -7.25 coming on hit advancement by virtue of being thrown out five times (most in the majors) but otherwise not advancing very frequently. His poor showing in that metric easily bested the previous low set by Pat Burrell in 2005 (-5.60).
As mentioned in the article these are essentially counting statistics and so the number of opportunities does matter. For that reason I also have rate statistics for these metrics that I'll break out again in a future column. Also look for team results at that time as well.
Although I haven't run the numbers for all Retrosheet seasons, in honor of the 2007 numbers I thought I'd take a look back 20 years and run the 1987 top and bottom 20.
Name Opps EqGAR Opps EqSBR Opps EqAAR Opps EqHAR Opps EqOAR EqRuns
Vince Coleman 59 2.41 140 6.55 50 1.74 56 2.39 406 0.83 13.92
Willie Wilson 60 0.41 69 7.06 39 0.08 36 3.90 369 0.70 12.15
Tim Raines 31 -0.41 56 6.92 34 0.41 48 2.38 390 0.91 10.21
Tony Gwynn 52 0.26 65 1.95 40 1.35 58 3.54 458 2.34 9.44
Eric Davis 36 1.23 58 2.59 20 0.81 24 2.14 248 1.17 7.94
Lenny Dykstra 38 1.86 35 2.58 33 0.53 37 1.36 272 1.35 7.68
Ozzie Smith 50 0.82 50 2.28 53 1.61 66 2.48 522 0.18 7.37
Ozzie Guillen 43 1.77 34 0.80 27 0.60 23 2.05 299 1.99 7.20
Milt Thompson 38 1.26 57 3.11 28 0.68 37 1.28 336 0.86 7.19
Luis Polonia 29 1.44 37 1.74 34 0.17 32 2.94 319 0.86 7.15
Joe Carter 25 1.04 38 2.89 26 0.51 21 1.22 262 1.25 6.90
Phil Bradley 51 -0.28 49 2.91 43 0.60 43 -0.07 451 3.63 6.80
Billy Hatcher 35 0.25 69 2.69 41 1.04 24 2.64 355 -0.12 6.50
Gary Redus 39 0.49 64 4.15 28 0.78 35 1.35 286 -0.62 6.16
Oddibe McDowell 32 1.01 28 3.84 24 0.93 25 -0.34 224 0.37 5.81
Lou Whitaker 49 -0.44 20 -0.08 36 0.20 57 1.67 432 3.83 5.18
Steve Sax 47 0.71 49 2.33 44 0.10 44 2.15 376 -0.27 5.01
Dick Schofield 33 0.60 22 2.53 17 0.08 15 0.73 261 0.50 4.45
Ellis Burks 38 0.79 33 1.87 41 -0.01 40 1.28 345 0.27 4.20
Paul Molitor 34 -0.35 58 5.11 0 0.00 0 0.00 332 -0.63 4.13
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Pendleton 35 0.60 30 -4.23 29 -0.96 38 0.65 352 -0.12 -4.06
Alvin Davis 26 0.00 1 -0.23 30 -0.81 41 -2.25 340 -0.81 -4.10
Alfredo Griffin 20 -1.05 42 -2.46 28 0.74 30 -0.42 238 -0.95 -4.14
Shane Mack 15 -0.09 11 -3.27 4 -1.00 17 -0.19 132 0.20 -4.35
Bo Diaz 34 -1.48 1 0.16 13 -0.67 32 -1.68 220 -0.75 -4.41
Eddie Murray 28 -0.46 4 -1.51 35 -1.81 25 0.06 340 -0.79 -4.51
Harold Baines 13 -0.60 0 0.00 20 -0.16 34 -3.48 285 -0.49 -4.74
Keith Moreland 21 -0.50 6 -2.15 17 -0.56 33 -0.40 238 -1.18 -4.79
A Galarraga 32 -0.70 17 -3.37 18 -0.16 29 -0.30 277 -0.28 -4.81
Casey Candaele 37 0.14 18 -4.61 35 0.71 49 -0.69 310 -0.52 -4.97
Mike Young 20 -0.60 18 -2.67 23 0.29 7 -1.24 197 -0.77 -4.99
Benito Santiago 28 0.30 34 -2.17 12 -0.11 29 -2.64 251 -0.43 -5.05
Dave Parker 24 0.18 11 -0.88 28 -0.19 37 -4.11 265 -0.07 -5.07
Mike Kingery 28 -0.90 17 -3.02 19 0.06 21 -0.54 188 -0.75 -5.16
Carlton Fisk 17 -0.47 5 -2.25 27 -0.55 37 -1.29 234 -0.79 -5.35
Joey Cora 27 0.02 26 -2.66 13 -1.51 20 -0.50 150 -0.88 -5.53
Keith Hernandez 13 -0.30 2 -1.03 29 -0.36 41 -3.89 356 -0.10 -5.67
Mike Pagliarulo 29 -0.50 5 -1.78 18 -1.35 25 -1.44 239 -0.68 -5.76
Cal Ripken 24 -0.43 8 -1.50 24 -1.64 29 -1.14 330 -1.15 -5.85
Will Clark 30 -1.23 22 -8.41 22 -0.35 42 1.81 284 0.90 -7.28
Not surprisingly Vince Coleman takes the top spot at +13.92 runs largely powered by his 109 stolen bases in 131 attempts. But he also scored well in all other categories. Both Willie Wilson and Tim Raines crack 10 plus runs with great stolen base percentages (Wilson at 59 steals in 70 attempts and Raines at 50 of 55) and their advancement on hits. Many of the others in the top 20 aren't big surprises although Lou Whitaker and Phil Bradley are both there courtesy of advancement on wild pitches, passed balls, and walks that while reflecting some skill, is more prone to small samples and luck than advancing on hits.
On the flip side Will Clark is down over seven runs despite doing decently in many of the metrics. His -8.41 in stolen base runs was the killer as he was caught stealing no less than 17 times in 22 opportunities and remarkably was caught stealing twice at home and three times at third base. Perhaps some of those were broken hit and run plays but one would think that either Clark himself or Roger Craig would have given up the strategy at some point. The others on the bottom are pretty much what you might expect as well with Mike Pagliarulo, Cal Ripken, Carlton Fisk, Eddie Murray, Harold Baines, Keith Moreland, and Andres Galarraga all making an appearance.
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