Sometimes taking a look at advanced statistics can start to change the way one thinks about the game. An example is that one must come to terms with the fact that a walk is just as valuable as a single. Batting Average is referred to by some as a useless statistic and a final example is that sometimes baseball stats shouldn’t be looked at as a raw number, but more so as a percentage. This article will attempt to explain some of the advanced statistics used by many teams today.  Many front offices in baseball highly value advanced statistics when it comes to player evaluation.  Ever since the movie Moneyball was released, fans have been exposed to advanced statistics a little more. 

When I was about 12-years-old, my Uncle gave me The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract as a gift for Christmas. The near 1,000-page behemoth of a book gives information for each decade since the 1870's and attempts to rank each player who has ever played the game based on a system called win shares, which is derived from runs created.  A quick excerpt from the book helps to describe how the system works:

"A hitter's job is not to compile a high batting average. A hitter's job is not to maintain a high on-base percentage, not to create a high slugging percentage, not to get 200 hits. A hitter's job is not to hit home runs.  Some hitters might hit home runs as the primary part of their job, but only some hitters, and even those only some of the time; with a runner on second and two out, no manager wants any hitter up there looking for a home run."

So what is the job itself?

"The job itself is to create runs," James says."

James describes the formula as:  ((Hits+Walks) * Total bases)/(AB + BB's)

Running this formula for any team since 1920, and it will come within 5% of the actual runs scored nearly every time.

But how can one look at a struggling player and forecast their future? I like to look at a player’s percentages by plate appearance. One can think of a plate appearance like a mathematical probability.  Although this is a simplification, it still is quite accurate and when looking at player’s strikeout, walk and home-run rates, they seem to be fairly consistent from season to season.  Players who are younger seem to continue to show improvement in most areas, and then they hit a peak and start to decline in skills.

One last statistic that I really think makes sense to keep an eye on is Batting Average on balls in play or BABIP.  If you’ve read any of my articles before, you’ve seen me reference BABIP.  The way that I can put this into simple terms is; that I believe good things can happen when hitters put the ball in play.  But sometimes, some players are luckier than others.  Still, you can’t get a hit without putting the ball in play.  League Average for BABIP is typically around .330, but each player is certainly different.  The way to get a good idea of how lucky or unlucky a player has been, is to take a look at what type of hitter they are.  Is this a player who draws a large percentage of walks? Does their player strikeout a lot, but get a lot of extra base hits? Once you fit the players ratings into a season-by-season comparison, it makes it easier to make some predictions and analyses.

The formula for BABIP is: (Hits – HR)/ (AB – SO – HR + Sacrifice flies)

Although baseball players are not robots who react only based upon statistics, players still tend to follow consistent trends. It would be extremely rare to see someone who only hit a home run in 1% of plate appearances suddenly hit one in 7% during a full season.  The beauty of baseball is that it is full of players who slump and go on hot streaks, but some players are more consistent than others. In a short amount of time, it is difficult to tell if these statistics are an anomaly or if certain stats represent an increase in skills, however, over the course of season, it is easier to make these realizations.

A solid way to decide if a player will come out of a slump or not is to compare a player’s season-by-season BABIP for their career to that of their current season, also take a look at the player’s other percentages per plate appearance, if their BABIP is extremely low, when they’ve consistently had a better one, this probably means they have been playing the same way they have, but they just haven’t gotten any of their batted balls to find a hole.  You can’t make a sweeping generalization, so you want to make sure and sweat the small stuff and to try and see if there is another obvious explanation (I.E. injuries, teams learning to defend the player better).  These generalizations also can’t be made as quickly about younger players.

Like advanced statistics? Make sure and check out my future articles as well!  I will be bringing advanced statistics and on field observations together to try and predict the rest of the season.