Saturday, June 30, 2007

The Bottom Line

For all the writing about the big three (professional) sports in the United States, I've really only ever been drawn to two - baseball and football. I will admit, for me, football is king.

I enjoy baseball, and as a Red Sox lifer, I can hold my own with the most knowledgeable of fans. But to me, football is a game in which strategy is much more important. Sure you have your pitching and hitting match-ups, fielding shifts, but if the right fielder takes a few plays off...hell, even a few innings off...during a game in which the pitcher is lighting it up, that player's mini-vacation can go largely unnoticed.

On the grid iron, if a player takes a few plays off, well, it could get the quarterback killed, it could mean a quick six, or it could mean a running back with no room to run. It will not go unnoticed.

No, the bottom line with baseball is it's an exercise in math...statistics. It's a chance for the fans and the press to wrap their minds around numbers in a sports context, in an effort to make those numbers meaningful. We look for trends, eye batting averages, pour over ERA's, and we use these numbers to argue and debate a player's worthiness. We check the pitching match-ups to see what sort of ground our team can make-up on or gain distance on a rival.

The Red Sox, based on April (16-8) and May (20-8), it can be said have experienced a slump in June (13-13, tonight's game determines whether or not the Sox have a winning record this month). In three more games, we hit the halfway mark of the season for Boston, and, based on career numbers, it can be opined that both David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are having off seasons as they are both on a pace for only 100 RBI's each.

In light of Baseball's predeliction towards the mathematic, production is gaged often in arcane ways - Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP), On Base Percentage combined with Slugging Percentage (OPS).

I present another way. Something a little less arcane, and maybe a little more accurate in regards to a player's production - Runs Scored and Runs Batted In Per Game, or as I call it; RSBIG. Yes, it does cause for a "production overlap," but it also gives a sense of how much of the scoring the player has been involved in.

This is the (regular) Red Sox line-up based on OPS -

David Ortiz






























1.004
Kevin Youkilis






























.902
Mike Lowell






























.866
Manny Ramírez






























.862
Dustin Pedroia






























.851
Jason Varitek






























.805
J.D. Drew






























.751
Coco Crisp






























.680
Julio Lugo






























.540

Based on Batting Average -

Kevin Youkilis
























.325






Dustin Pedroia
























.321






David Ortiz
























.319






Mike Lowell
























.296






Manny Ramírez
























.290






Jason Varitek
























.266






Coco Crisp
























.262






J.D. Drew
























.257






Julio Lugo
























.190






RBI's -

Mike Lowell














54
















David Ortiz














48
















Manny Ramírez














43
















Kevin Youkilis














41
















Julio Lugo














34
















Jason Varitek














33
















J.D. Drew














32
















Dustin Pedroia














23
















Coco Crisp














22

















Runs -

David Ortiz




49


























Kevin Youkilis




46


























J.D. Drew




43


























Coco Crisp




41


























Manny Ramírez




40


























Julio Lugo




33


























Mike Lowell




33


























Dustin Pedroia




30


























Jason Varitek




29


























Now my statistic - RSBIG

David Ortiz......................1.33
Mike Lowell ...................1.19
Kevin Youkilis.................1.19
JD Drew...........................1.10
Manny Ramirez..............1.09
Julio Lugo........................1.08
Jason Varitek.................0.98
Coco Crisp.......................0.88
Dustin Pedroia................0.83

As much as Julio "What Mendoza Line" Lugo has struggled, offensively he has been almost as important this season to the Sox pushing runs across the plate as Manny Ramirez by either getting on base and scoring, or by knocking them in (he only has 9 fewer RBI's and has scored 7 fewer runs, in spite of batting .191 to Ramirez's .290), and in baseball, producing runs is the bottom line.

2 comments:

Dave said...

Interesting stat. I have one question; doesn't this undervalue a player at the front of the lineup? If someone is batting first or second, they have less chances (on average) to knock in a run that someone later on in the lineup, since no one is on base at the start. And that will be the case in each game.

I just can't accept Lugo being more valuable than Pedroia, even though we've discussed Lugo's bizarre RBI numbers before.

Kevin Smith said...

In theory, however, the guy at the front of the lineup should make up for the lack of RBI's with runs scored. As I recall, Johnny Damon had a season with over 100 runs scored and 80+ RBI's, which, over 162 games is pretty respectable in regards to this stat.

Honestly, I don't know that this stat really means a hell of a lot of anything...but is it necessarily any less valid than OBP? Lugo has proven that it's not how often you get on base, but how often you cross the plate once you make onto the basepaths.

Personally, I think Pedroia's slow start hurt him, but at the end of the season, all the other stats will end up jiving.

That said, tonight's eighth inning base running gaff was brutal, I just wish I knew if it was his decision or if the coaches gave him the green light. Either way, how do you take the bat out of Youk's hands in that situation?