Simple and Informative

Save percentage is a useful statistic for closers, but not for other types of relievers. It has minimal value when evaluating setup men. Relievers that protect leads in the seventh and eighth innings rarely close games. Therefore, they have few chances to earn saves, but can still get blown saves.

That explains how an outstanding setup man like Mike Adams could have a 50 percent save percentage (two saves in four save opportunities). The stat fails to demonstrate his ability to maintain leads, which he had shown by accumulating 24 holds this season.

Save plus hold percentage evens the playing for closers and setup men, showing how well all relievers maintain leads. It is simple to calculate, yet gets little attention in the mainstream sports media. A hold is a save situation that gets preserved and passed on to the next reliever. So a hold is basically a save that does not end a game.

To calculate save plus hold percentage, combine saves and holds and then divide by saves, holds and blown saves. Among relievers with at least 15 save and hold opportunities through August 16, these pitchers led the Major Leagues.

The top 10 includes four closers, five setup men and one pitcher (Antonio Bastardo) who has filled both roles.

Adams’ 92.9 save plus hold percentage left him just short of the top 10. But he easily surpassed the Major League average of 84.9 percent this season.

Since it’s easy to explain and informative, save plus hold percentage makes a great tool for agents in both arbitration and free agency.

In Defense of Win Totals

In a recent issue of ESPN the Magazine, Steve Wulf wrote about the debate over pitchers’ win totals. He summarized that wins have far more value when used to evaluate careers than individual seasons.

The Sports Resource put this to the test by comparing pitchers wins – which many statistical experts despise – to Wins Above Replacement (WAR), perhaps the best individual metric for quantifying a starting pitcher’s contributions.

During the 2010 season, the top 10 pitchers in wins had a 3.14 ERA. The best 10 pitchers in WAR posted an outstanding 2.60 ERA. Obviously, the latter group was much stronger. Phil Hughes made the wins group with a 4.19 ERA. The highest ERA in the WAR group was Jered Weaver’s 3.01.

As the timeframe expands, something interesting happens: the gap begins to narrow considerably. After the 0.54 ERA difference in 2010, it drops to just 0.19 over five seasons (2006-10). In a 10-year stretch (2001-10), the gap falls to 0.11 (see chart). While wins never match WAR as an evaluation tool, they become much more valuable.

While run support, defense and bullpen support impact win totals tremendously in one season, those factors tend to even out over time. Rarely will a pitcher receive horrible run support over a 10-year timeframe. His support/luck will eventually improve. Or, if he pitches for a poor team with consistent offensive problems, he could sign as a free agent or get traded to a higher scoring club.

The takeaway message is that agents shouldn’t dismiss win totals completely. Career and multi-year win totals can demonstrate value for starting pitchers, especially in the later arbitration and free agency seasons.

The Truth about Strikeouts

Managers hate when hitters strike out. The mainstream media often criticizes high-strikeout players like Mark Reynolds, much more than it should.

When it comes to winning and losing, strikeouts by hitters aren’t much more costly than other types of outs. While pitchers’ strikeouts have a major effect on run scoring, the same doesn’t hold true for hitters.

This insight comes from research using an advanced statistical technique called regression analysis. Without getting into the details, regression analysis determines how well statistics correlate with each other. Pitchers’ strikeouts have a much greater correlation with run prevention than hitters’ strikeouts have on run scoring.

How can this be? In general, hitters who strike out a lot also hit home runs and draw walks. On the other hand, strikeout pitchers limit offense better on average than pitchers who miss bats less often. They are also less dependent on their defense to make plays behind them.

Whether in arbitration or free agency, baseball agents can emphasize the value of high strikeout pitchers. And if you represent a high-strikeout batter, exhibits with this information provide hard evidence in his favor.

Caution: Falling Offense

Remember 1992? That was the last time National League offense had gone lower than the current level of 4.36 runs per game. The same goes for the American League, which has seen an even sharper scoring drop-off since last season. AL teams averaged 4.82 runs per game in 2009. That figure had plunged to 4.45 through September 14. The NL had a more gradual decline from 4.43 runs per game last year to 4.36.

This presents a challenge for agents with arbitration-eligible and free agent position players this offseason. Clubs will no doubt pull out comparables from recent seasons when the run context was substantially higher.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Agents can adjust for the decreased offense in the same way economists do so for inflation. The Sports Resource has built a statistical model that adjusts for run context, which helps your position player clients when scoring drops.

You can even turn the scoring trend into a positive for hitters: some of this season’s individual achievements will stand out even more at contract time. For example, should Jose Bautista reach 50 home runs, he will match a feat last accomplished in 1990. Look for another post on this topic in the weeks ahead.

Who is Today’s Jose Cruz?

I drove past the Astrodome last week, seeing the old stadium for the first time. Now dwarfed by the adjacent Reliant Stadium, it brought back memories of 1-0 victories thrown by great Houston pitchers like Nolan Ryan and J.R. Richard.

Through most of its history, the Astrodome was an awful place to hit a baseball. Jose Cruz had the misfortune to play there in the 1970s and 80s. Had Cruz played in Fenway Park or Wrigley Field back then, he may be remembered as one of his era’s greatest hitters.

Cruz hit 59 career home runs in his home parks and 106 in road games. Although he started with Cardinals and ended up with the Yankees, Cruz had 83 percent of his career plate appearances for the Astros.

During his peak from 1976 to 1986 – when he played exclusively for the Astros – Cruz had a 128 OPS+ according to BaseballReference.com. Since this metric adjusts for both the league average and a player’s ballpark, the Astrodome’s negative impact gets stripped away. Cruz ranked 24th in OPS+ among players with 2500 plate appearances from 1976-86, finishing in a group of more heralded players like Dale Murphy (129 OPS+), Cal Ripken Jr. (129), Kirk Gibson (128), and Dave Parker (128).

In that same timeframe, Cruz hit 100 homers and stole 250 bases. Only Andre Dawson, Rickey Henderson, and Davey Lopes joined him at those levels. Cruz reached base 2412 times, more than all but five other Major Leaguers from 1976-86.

While there are no stadiums like the Astrodome today, Safeco Field and PETCO Park have a comparable impact on offense. Although we now have tools that few knew about during Cruz’s playing days to adjust for run context, they still get limited attention.

Ballparks have a huge impact on statistics, yet many fail to take this into account in solving the value puzzle. Examining park effects is vital for not only showing a player’s true performance level, but where his career is headed.

The Power of Park Effects

Park effects have a huge impact on baseball statistics. Yet this area is confusing and often misunderstood. Here are some key points on park effects that agents may find useful for free agency and arbitration.

Beware of Reputations: Citizens Bank Park is thought to be a hitter’s paradise. Yet the numbers don’t back that up. According to the Bill James Handbook, the Phillies home ballpark increased home runs by just 1 percent last year. The impact was far greater from 2007 through 2009 when the park upped homer frequency by 14 percent. But even in this time frame, run production only increased by 3 percent. Now here’s the real shocker: After all the talk about the early season home run barrage in the new Yankee Stadium, the park decreased run production by 4 percent in 2009.

Avoid “One Size Fits All Park Factors”. Ballparks affect different players in different ways. Minute Maid Park is a good park for right-handed home run hitters, but not for left-hand hitters with power. Chase Field, which greatly increases doubles and triples, makes a great fit for gap hitters with speed.

Park Factors Change from Year to Year. Weather patterns and other factors influence park effects. Turner Field increased run scoring by 6 percent in 2008. Last season, when Atlanta had a cooler than usual summer, it decreased scoring by 10 percent.

Don’t Buy the Road Stats Argument. In some cases, teams may point out that a player had comparable numbers in both home and away games to show that his home park did not hurt his statistics. But most players have better numbers at home than on the road, probably due to park familiarity and the negative effect of travel on away stats. Ballparks impact statistics whether or not a player’s home and road numbers look similar.

Under the Radar

He is one of the game’s top home run hitters. He knocks balls over the fence at a greater rate per plate appearance than Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez. In fact, among active players with 1,000 career plate appearances, only Ryan Howard surpasses him in this category. Who is that player? Would you believe Marcus Thames?

Thames has drilled 37.2 career home runs per 600 plate appearances. That trails only Howard (42.3) among active players. Pujols (36.6), Rodriguez (36.6) and Jim Thome (35.8) round out the top five.

Thames gets little media attention because he has never received enough playing time to post a 30-homer season. This year, after missing a month and a half, he had launched 7 long balls in 119 plate appearances (through July 6). That projects to 35.3 home runs per 600 plate appearances, not far off his career figure.

While Thames’ limitations keep him from playing more often, baseball’s statistical conventions hurt him as well. When it comes to hits, baseball uses a percentage stat (batting average). However, home run power always gets expressed as a whole number. There’s no reason we can’t show it as a percentage or rate, besides the fact that years of conditioning have trained us to do otherwise.

Such a change also helps hitters like Luke Scott. His 16 home runs tied for 26th in the Major Leagues. But he ranked ninth with 39.2 homers per 600 plate appearances.

While the media won’t start expressing home runs this way any time soon, such rankings can help agents immensely in arbitration and free agency.