FanPost

Offensive Ability Rating Rankings for 2009

Some may remember last year when I posted a few articles here about a stat I cooked up over the last two hot stove seasons, called OAR. I brainstormed an idea while reading this encyclopedia of baseball history (which was interesting enough, but for some reason all I could think of was stats and sabermetrics, and how it works, which I'm still not entirely certain, but I have made a lot of progress I think). I got it to the point where it was more accurate, but still not quite what it could be.

Anyway, I realized a few things since I wrote that and started working on the stat again, this time correcting a few things that I think distorted the rankings. For those who didn't read last year, Offensive Ability Rating is an idea to incorporate as many offensive stats as possible into one rating, roughly similar to a quarterback rating. OAR is based mainly on what is very close to Power Factor, an old stat that basically shows how many bases to expect if a person hits the ball, or how efficient they are with their hits. I call this component of the rating BEF, or Base Efficiency Factor. What makes it different from power factor is that I also include stolen bases (but not quite as much as a regular hit)... but they are also penalized by caught stealing. So if someone steals a lot of bases, they can be near the same level as a power hitter in this area of the stat. I also think this accounts for speed to some extent, a valuable asset in a ballplayer (as well as baserunning abilities).

The parallel stat to BEF is called BEA, which is simply multiplying that factor by batting average. While batting average isn't the most important stat, I still think many people pay attention to it and it does have some value in judging a player's offensive performance. I think perhaps that this might be an area that needs revision in the ratings, but I'm not entirely certain, it just seems like a really simple way of seeing how often someone gets and hit and how much power (and to a lesser extent, speed) they have as a hitter.

So that's basically half the stat, the other half is more convoluted.... Eye/Discipline Factor, or EDF measures many things, mainly how often a hitter gets on base when he basically has the bat taken out of his hands. Walks, hit by pitch, as well as when he is told to hit a sacrifice fly, if he can get the run in and an out of course. Also, I wanted to penalize for striking out, since you are basically not putting the ball into play at all, which is not good imo. When you strike out, you don't have the chance of causing an error, etc. Granted you also might not hit into a double play, but I also include a penalty for grounding into double plays in the stat.

Here's where it gets a little weirder, I really wanted to incorporate BABIP into the stat also, so ELF is the next component of OAR, aka Eye Luck Factor. ELF is basically EDF and BABIP combined, or a really weird type of on base stat.

Besides those major components of the stat, I also included pitches per plate appearance, which is sort of a tie breaker if two players are really closely rated. Before I go further, I just want to state that I don't think this is the most scientific or advanced stat, it's more like just for fun and to start conversation about different aspects of baseball. Hopefully some good philosophical or critical discussion of stats in general will come of this. But without further adieu, here's the OAR rankings for 2009:

1. Albert Pujols: 158.27

2. Chase Utley: 144.93

3. Kevin Youkilis: 144.31

4. Jason Bay: 144

5. Adam Dunn: 143.5

6. Adrian Gonzalez: 143.37

7. Prince Fielder: 142.93

8. Ben Zobrist: 142.74

9. Carlos Pena: 142.14

10. Alex Rodriguez: 141.03

11. Joe Mauer: 140.12

12. Joey Votto: 139.27

13. Lance Berkman: 138.71

14. Shin-Soo Choo: 137.63

15. Jason Werth: 137.57

16. Nick Swisher: 137.33

17. Derrek Lee: 137.12

18. JD Drew: 136.51

19. Mark Texeira: 136.28

20. Ryan Howard: 135.36

21. Russell Branyon: 134.29

22. Mark Reynolds: 133.33

23. Nick Johnson: 132.44

24. Todd Helton: 132

25. Brad Hawpe: 131.1

26. Troy Tulowitzky: 129.44

27. Hideki Matsui: 129.38

28. Chipper Jones: 129.08

29. Justin Morneau: 128.51

30. Ryan Braun: 128.41

31. Bobby Abreau: 127.52

32. Matt Holliday: 127.47

33. Raul Ibanez: 127.09

34. Hanley Ramirez: 126.86

35. Mike Cameron: 126.8

36. Justin Upton: 126.36

37. Jack Cust: 126.16

38. Jason Bartlett: 126.15

39. Dan Uggla: 125.7

40. Evan Longoria: 125.61

41. Adam Lind: 125.47

42. Johnny Damon: 125.47

43. Jason Kubel: 125

44. Andre Ethier: 124.39

45. Nelson Cruz: 123.79

46. Casey Blake: 123.64

47. Ryan Zimmerman: 123.59

48. Ian Kinsler: 123.12

49. Torii Hunter: 123.05

50. David Ortiz: 123.02

51. David Wright: 122.78

52. Chone Figgins: 122.71

53. Kosuke Fukudome: 122.54

54. Miguel Cabrera: 122.44

55. Dexter Fowler: 122.41

56. Pablo Sandoval: 122.4

57. Luke Scott: 121.81

58. Nate McLouth: 121.54

59. Brian Roberts: 121.54

60. Marco Scutaro: 121.28

61. Adam Laroche: 121.23

62. Victor Martinez: 121.03

63. Kendry Morales: 120.43

64. Grady Sizemore: 120.18

65. Paul Konerko: 120.04

66. Derek Jeter: 118.51

67. Denard Span: 118.34

68. Chris Coglan: 117.96

69. Scott Rolen: 117.59

70. Matt Kemp: 117.33

71. Carl Crawford: 117.33

72. Michael Cuddyer: 116.33

73. Jermaine Dye: 115.74

74. Curtis Granderson: 115.73

75. Dustin Pedroia: 115.62

76. Brian McCann: 115.57

77. Michael Bourn: 115.42

78. Michael Young: 114.9

79. Shane Victorino: 114.8

80. Felipe Lopez: 114

81. Billy Butler: 113.27

82. Nick Markakis: 111.63

83. Jacoby Elsbury: 111.51

84. Ryan Ludwick: 111.43

85. Orlando Hudson: 110.64

86. Marlon Byrd: 110.13

87. Stephen Drew: 110.13

88. David Dejesus: 108.59

89. Mark Derosa: 108.57

90. Ichiro Suzuki: 108.53

91. Brandon Inge: 108.22

92. Luis Castillo: 108.2

93. Adam Jones: 108

94. Nyjer Morgan: 107.77

95. Alberto Callaspo: 107.73

96. Yunel Escobar: 107.58

97. Asdrubal Cabrera: 107.42

98. James Loney: 107.15

99. Jorge Cantu: 107.14

100. Hunter Pence: 106.74

105. Alfonso Soriano: 106.43

106. Skip Schumaker: 105.55

117. Colby Rasmus: 101.55

Btw, Miguel Tejada still sucks: 92.1 (#137)

Next, I just wanted to show some leaders in the different component stats:

  • BEF leaders are Carlos Pena, then Mark Reynolds, Russell Branyon, Nelson Cruz, Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez, Ian Kinsler, Albert Pujols, Nick Swisher, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Adam Dunn, & Jason Werth
  • BEA leaders: Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Joe Mauer, Derrek Lee, Ryan Howard, Joey Votto, & Mark Texeira
  • EDF leaders: Nick Johnson, Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, Chipper Jones, Lance Berkman, & Adrian Gonzalez
  • ELF leaders (heh): Nick Johnson, Albert Pujols, Kevin Youkilis, Chase Utley, Shin-Soo Choo, Adam Dunn, Prince Fielder, Lance Berkman, Ben Zobrist, Chipper Jones, Todd Helton, Chone Figgins, Adrian Gonzalez
  • P/PA leaders (or wear down the pitcher award): Jason Bay & Jason Werth (4.5 pitches per plate appearance!), Kevin Youkilis, Nick Johnson, Adam Dunn, Casey Blake, Todd Helton, & Nick Swisher
  • the unlucky slowass awards go to (GDP leaders): Miguel Tejada, Yadier Molina, Evan Longoria, & Hunter Pence (Skip and Colby hardly grounded into any DPs
  • stolen base leaders: Jacoby Ellsbury, Michael Bourn, Carl Crawford, Nyjer Morgan, Chone Figgins, BJ Upton
  • big whiffers: Mark Reynolds, Ryan Howard, Jack Cust, Adam Dunn (btw, Yadi struck out the least of anyone!)
  • take one for the team award: Chase Utley, Shin-Shoo Choo, Jason Kendall, Brandon Inge, Kevin Youkilis
  • the walk-takers: Adrian Gonzalez, Adam Dunn, Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Chone Figgins, Chipper Jones

So basically, I hope it's more accurate than last year's OAR rankings, and that some insights might be gained on seeing what players are doing overall offensively... instead of procrastinating longer, here's the formula I came up with (as a creative-type bass playing accounting clerk non-statistician dude):

EDF=BB+HBP+.8*SF-.9*GDP/PA+.8*SO

ELF=EDF*4+BABIP/2

BEA=BEF*BA

BEF=TB+.8*SB/H+CS

OAR=EDF+ELF+BEA+.1*BEF+PPA/30*100

I came up with that basically as an educated guess/guesstimate, I'm sure it has some pretty loud distortion in the numbers... I think it would be interesting to see if this is more accurate than last year's version of OAR, or if my revisions are helping. Also, whoever wants to help out with this project, be my guest. I think it would be cool to see after park adjustments after another revision or two. What do you guys think?