Using Leaderboard Splits
Did you know that FanGraphs leaderboards featured splits? It’s a feature I feel goes underutilized, and thus I wanted to devote a post to it. There’s a ton of interesting tidbits you can pull from using the split options, and while the “month” options are interesting, the “Past 3 Calendar Years” filter has my eye. Here’s some of what I’ve learned from using it.
Albert Pujols pretty much owns at everything. Pujols leads all qualifiers in WPA (21.04) while only Lance Berkman (16.22) sits over 15, and only two handful of others sit above 10. The anti-Albert is Ivan Rodriguez (-5.3), fellow senior citizen Omar Vizquel (-4.58) sits in “second”, fellow “pudge” Yuniesky Betancourt (-4.09), and Jeff Francouer (-4.06) round out players with -4 or less WPA.
Pujols also leads the league in wOBA (.442) and wRAA, and wRC, and basically everything that matters. Chipper Jones (.438) is second and the rest of the top five includes David Oritz (.438), Alex Rodriguez (.421), and Matt Holliday (.420). Following our theme of the good and the bad, the bottom five are Omar Vizquel (.295), Jason Kendall (.298), Pedro Feliz (.303), Yuniesky Betancourt (.307), and Khalil Greene (.308).
Some other offensive stats:
BB%
Best: Pat Burrell (17.7%), Adam Dunn (17.2%), Jim Thome (17.1%), Ortiz (16.5%), Todd Helton (16.1%)
Worst: Betancourt (2.9%), Bengie Molina (3.6%), I. Rodriguez (3.8%), Jose Lopez (4%), A.J. Pierzynski (4.2%)
K%
Best: Juan Pierre (5.7%), Placido Polanco (6.2%), Betancourt (8.9%), Kendall (9.1%), B. Molina (9.4%)
Worst: Ryan Howard (33.5%), Dunn (32.7%), Thome (30%), Bill Hall (29.6%), Mike Cameron (28.3%)
BABIP
Best: Derek Jeter (.367), Holliday (.365), C. Jones (.361), Ichiro Suzuki (.359), Miguel Cabrera (.353)
Worst: Andruw Jones (.255), Pedro Feliz (.261), Ken Griffey Jr. (.272), Greene (.273), Kevin Millar (.275)
LD%
Best: Mark Loretta (25.3%), Michael Young (24.8%), Freddy Sanchez (24.7%), Helton (23.7%), Chone Figgins (23.2%)
Worst: Gary Matthews Jr. (15.9%), Feliz (16%), Dan Uggla (16.1%), Luis Castillo (16.2%), Jason Bay (16.3%)
O-Swing%
Best: Castillo (12.9%), Brian Giles (14.8%), Bobby Abreu (15.7%), Troy Glaus (15.9%), C. Jones (16.2%)
Worst: Vladimir Guerrero (43.9%), Pierzynski (39.1%), I. Rodriguez (38.5%), Alfonso Soriano (37.3%), B. Molina (36.7%)
Contact%
Best: Pierre (94.5%), Castillo (94%), Polanco (93.6%), B. Giles (92.7%), Vizquel (91.9%)
Worst: Howard (66.4%), Thome (71.3%), Dunn (71.4%), A. Jones (72.1%), Brad Hawpe (72.3%)
Dollars
Best: Pujols ($100), Chase Utley ($93.1), David Wright ($84.5), Grady Sizemore ($81.3), Alex Rodriguez ($81.2)
Worst: Griffey Jr. ($0.8), Melky Cabrera ($1.8), Millar ($3.1), Jose Bautista ($3.5), Craig Biggio ($3.7)
Try using the leaderboards yourself to look at the last three years of defensive and pitching performances.
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Makes me wonder how much more impressive a guy like Vlad’s numbers could be if he cared at all about the strike zone.
Using the leaderboard splits, you learned that Albert Pujols, David Wright, Chipper Jones, Alex Rodriguez, and Matt Holliday are really good hitters, while Omar Vizquel, Jason Kendall, Pedro Feliz, Yuniesky Betancourt, and Khalil Greene are not.
These discoveries have turned my world upside down.
The best part is how you missed the point of the post.
I have added the B to my name so I am not associated with the other “Matt”!
Why do you guys use AB instead of PA for the denominator when calculating K%?
Intuitively, when I read that Adam Dunn’s K% is 32.7% over the last 3 seasons, I think that this guy strikes out once every three times to the plate. But that’s not exactly the case. There are over 350 other times he has come to the plate that you are ignoring in that timespan, which would lower his K% to something between to 26% and 27% (very rough estimate). That number is still a very high K% for any player, but I think there is a big difference between 32% and 26% or 27%. Dunn actually strikes out more like once every 4 times to the plate rather than once ever 3 times to the plate. Leaving walks out of the K% equation is a big deal for guys like Dunn or Burrell who strike out a lot but also draw a ton of walks.
Also, I noticed that not every PA is used in the BB% calculation even though you do incorporate AB + BB into that denominator. But the other PA’s are ignored I’m just curious, why you would leave out other PA’s like sac flies, for example.
K% and BB% are 2 of Voros McCracken’s 4 rates from his DIPS work along with HR% and BABIP-the idea behind the 4 rates is that they progressively build on each other and aren’t independent. Each rate eliminates the successes from the previous rate from its denominator. The order goes-
BB%-walks out of all PAs
K%-Ks out of all ABs
HR%-HR out of all batted balls
BABIP-hits out of all balls in play
The reasoning is that you can’t strikeout if you walk first, you can’t hit a HR if you strikeout first, and you can’t hit a ball in play if you hit it over the fence first, so each rate removes those previous events. Of course, you could order them differently, but this order is the most intuitive and simplest to use. The 4 rates together are pretty effective tools, and 3 of them are pretty commonly used on their own. HR% in this form is not very common, but the rest are. The K% here may come from that work, or at least share common reasoning on the progressive denominator for the successive rates.
It is pretty common to eliminate bunt attempts from the denominators because the hitter is essentially not even trying to hit or do anything he normally would at the plate. They would artificially depress a hitter’s numbers if they were included. Sac flies are probably eliminated because of similar reasoning (the hitter is trying to simply hit an outfield fly ball and not taking his usual approach, so it would also depress his true ability in the stats somewhat), although some statisticians include SF in the denominator because it’s not as extreme a circumstance as bunting.
Betancourt and Lopez two of the top (bottom) 5 in BB% The fact that Betancourt’s K% is also so low makes me think he could maybe be a much better hitter with some patience.
I mentioned your blog post to my co-worker and he appreciated it