Double Play Stats...
This post goes out to my Baby Brother, Jacob. For without him, I probably wouldn't have found the link to the blog post this blog post is about. That statement really don't make much sense, but really, it does.
Shawn wrote an article on his blog about a new stat he was working on coming up with. I think his stat has a legitimate point, but I think the execution of calculating it still needs work.
Shawn pointed out that guys who hit into double plays hurts his team. Thus, he calculated a stat that took the on-base percentage and subtracted an out for each double play the hitter hit into.
Here's where the problem comes in for me. Let's say Tom, Dick, and Harry bat in order during a game. Tom and Dick have excellent on-base percentages but very little power. This means Harry is likely to often come up to bat with Tom or Dick on first base. Poor Harry has a lot of opportunities to hit into double plays, and therefore, likely has hit into a lot of them.
On the other hand, Huey, Dewey, and Louie bat in order. Huey and Dewey have pretty good power, but their on-base percentages are pretty poor. Therefore, when Louie comes up to the plate, it's not very likely that there's someone on first base, so he doesn't really hit into that many double plays.
Here's the thing: both Harry and Louie could hit the ball exactly the same in every at-bat. But Harry's on-base percentage would be much lower than Louie's based on the stat Shawn presented us with. To me, it strikes me as unfair. It's simply a matter of where Harry and Louie are in the line-up. If you'd switch them, they'd likely be hitting exactly the same. (In fact, Dick is probably fairly vulnerable to the double-play, too, while Tom is probably not at all, when in reality all three are similar hitters in my hypothetical line-up.)
I told my cousin who was begging for the Twins to trade Joe Mauer to his team: "Why, do you need more guys to hit into double plays?" The reality is that Mauer is often like Harry in our hypothetical example: Span and Hudson typically get on base often, and Mauer is somewhat of a ground-ball hitter, making him vulnerable to double plays, putting him on the leader board for grounding into double plays. But people who know stats also point out that based on opportunities, his double play percentage isn't on the leader board.
I think there should be some way to account for double plays in stats. Right now, the only one I'm in favor of is the double play percentage, which calculates the percentage of double plays based on the opportunities to hit into them (runner at first, less than two outs). I wouldn't mind seeing the two stats (OBP and GDP%) combined, actually. I haven't worked out the science, but I'd like to see the math that Shawn figured out, but not straight-out subtracting a hit for every double play. With that, players get penalized when they have more opportunities, when really it's the manager's fault for putting him in that place in the line-up.
Shawn wrote an article on his blog about a new stat he was working on coming up with. I think his stat has a legitimate point, but I think the execution of calculating it still needs work.
Shawn pointed out that guys who hit into double plays hurts his team. Thus, he calculated a stat that took the on-base percentage and subtracted an out for each double play the hitter hit into.
Here's where the problem comes in for me. Let's say Tom, Dick, and Harry bat in order during a game. Tom and Dick have excellent on-base percentages but very little power. This means Harry is likely to often come up to bat with Tom or Dick on first base. Poor Harry has a lot of opportunities to hit into double plays, and therefore, likely has hit into a lot of them.
On the other hand, Huey, Dewey, and Louie bat in order. Huey and Dewey have pretty good power, but their on-base percentages are pretty poor. Therefore, when Louie comes up to the plate, it's not very likely that there's someone on first base, so he doesn't really hit into that many double plays.
Here's the thing: both Harry and Louie could hit the ball exactly the same in every at-bat. But Harry's on-base percentage would be much lower than Louie's based on the stat Shawn presented us with. To me, it strikes me as unfair. It's simply a matter of where Harry and Louie are in the line-up. If you'd switch them, they'd likely be hitting exactly the same. (In fact, Dick is probably fairly vulnerable to the double-play, too, while Tom is probably not at all, when in reality all three are similar hitters in my hypothetical line-up.)
I told my cousin who was begging for the Twins to trade Joe Mauer to his team: "Why, do you need more guys to hit into double plays?" The reality is that Mauer is often like Harry in our hypothetical example: Span and Hudson typically get on base often, and Mauer is somewhat of a ground-ball hitter, making him vulnerable to double plays, putting him on the leader board for grounding into double plays. But people who know stats also point out that based on opportunities, his double play percentage isn't on the leader board.
I think there should be some way to account for double plays in stats. Right now, the only one I'm in favor of is the double play percentage, which calculates the percentage of double plays based on the opportunities to hit into them (runner at first, less than two outs). I wouldn't mind seeing the two stats (OBP and GDP%) combined, actually. I haven't worked out the science, but I'd like to see the math that Shawn figured out, but not straight-out subtracting a hit for every double play. With that, players get penalized when they have more opportunities, when really it's the manager's fault for putting him in that place in the line-up.
Labels: G-g-g-girl, MLb, Statistics
posted by thisisbeth | 6:56 PM
2 Comments:
It's certainly an interesting exercise to be sure, but I disagree with the assertion that it's the manager's fault for putting someone in a certain spot in the lineup. If you look at Shawn's stats, someone like Mauer, who you are critical of for his double plays, is doing so at a rate similar to almost all the top hitters in the league. If anything, I would say that Mauer's DP rate is up through no fault of his own, but rather because Orlando Hudson and not, say, Carlos Gomez or Nick Punto, is batting ahead of him in the lineup.
I just saw your write-up on my double play stat idea. I am going to link this to the post. I think there should be a way to penalize double play rate and the response I have gotten to my post will be used when I follow up.
Ryan mentions double play rate not being a fault of the batter. I'd agree, but say a high double play rate hurts a team. Essentially, a ball hit up the middle vs 5 feet in either direction is not really the fault of a hitter either, but the ball up the middle is probably a hit and the balls a few feet in each direction are outs.
I've had a lot of fun with the discussion.
Thanks Again!
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