FanPost

We know the truth, but prefer lies: Baseball Stats for Dummies.


Vernon Wells' Adjusted OPS is .700. HUH?

Aaron Hills' wOBA is .353 but has a (-0.6) UZR. Say Whaaaa?

OPS, wOBA, UZR, VORP, WAR, BBQ, RSVP, RRSP, LOL, ROTFLMAO

Confused-full_medium

This was me last year. I knew I loved baseball, I love watching games, following my favourite teams and blogging about it on the wonderful Bluebird Banter. Unfortunately I had no idea what the hell Hugo and Tom were fighting about when they started yapping about Sabermetrics. So I went and gots myself educated.

Lucklily enough for me, I stumbled upon an article from my favourite Sports writer Bill Simmons (Waaaay too Bostoncentric for my likeing, but he's funny, knowledgeable and uses bizare 90s pop culture references to make me feel at ease). Bill broke down 6 stats that are routinely used around BBB so I thought I would share them with you so we can all have fights regarding Bautista's wonderful UZR when he is batting .091 against righties. Many of you probably already know what I'm about to share, but bear with me.

Stat #1 - OPS

The formula: on-base percentage plus slugging percentage.

The goal: Capture a player's ability to get on base and hit for power in a simple way so he can be compared to every other player.

Translation: "Let's stop relying on batting average, homers and RBIs; we're embarrassing ourselves."

The flaws:Besides weighing on-base and slugging the same (as Keri points out, "OBP [the ability of a hitter not to make outs] is far more important than SLG, since baseball is completely governed by outs"), there are times when the results just look dead wrong. Like Milton Bradley leading the AL in OPS in 2008, or Ichiro ranking 45th that season (one spot behind Ryan Garko) even though he had 213 hits and stole 43 of 47 bases (so clearly, he had SOME offensive value). Then again, is any stat perfect? Zack Greinke finished with one fewer win than Scott Feldman last season ... that's not a flawed stat?


My take: Easy one to start off with, even I knew what OPS meant before I started my "research". It's a great way to determine of someone is good, bad, or Encanacionic on offense. This stat is already readily available on most stat pages and probably didn't need explaining, I just wanted for feel better about myself that I knew at least something about baseball other than an uncanny ability to predict Vernon Wells pop ups.

Stat #2 - Adjusted OPS (OPS plus)

The formula:100 x (OBP / park-adjusted league OBP + slugging / park-adjusted league slugging - 1).

The goal: Adjust a player's OPS, including the effects of his home ballpark, so it makes sense in the context of that specific season/era.

Translation:"We need to figure out an effective way to throw some water on the steroid era hitters historically; otherwise, people will think Todd Helton was one of the 15 greatest hitters of all time."

The flaws:More complicated than it lets on; rates OBP and slugging the same; gets into murky territory with the whole "adjusting for parks" thing.

My take: Simply put, this is too confusing. Baseball stats aren't supposed to make your brain hurt. I manage a bank on a daily basis and run and crunch numbers all day, I don't want to do it at home when I am drinking a beer and sitting in my underwear watching baseball. First of all, the whole "adjusted ball park thing" floors me, isn't this completely subjective? What is this baseball or figure skating? Second of all, I don't like the way it is evaluated. Bill Simmons again:

Right now, everything plays off the number 100. If you have a 100 OPS-plus, you're average. From there, your OPS-plus increases by two points for every percentage point you're better than everyone else that season. When Albert Pujols led the National League in 2009 with a 188 OPS-plus, that meant he was 44 percent better than average (100 + 88 / 2) before correcting for park factors.

This just isn't relatable to the average fan. I'm by no means a genious (Other bloggers can attest to this) but if I have a hard time wrapping my brain around it, it might be too complicated. Oh well, moving on...

Stat #3 - UZR

The formula: Just split a baseball field into 64 zones, then do about 255 more things, and you're done. It's that easy.

(Just kidding. It's really, really complicated. The "How to calculate UZR" section of this post by Alex Remington breaks it down nicely. And even that took several paragraphs and a special grid.)

The goal: To calculate the batted balls cost or saved in each of those 64 zones during the course of the season, then determine each fielder's efficiency from his cost/saved total versus what it should have been. As creator Mitchel Lichtman says, UZR is "the number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs, outfield arm runs, double play runs and error runs combined."

Translation: "If a fielder stinks, we will know. If a fielder is mediocre, we will know. If a fielder is great, we will know. Just trust us."

The flaw:A tendency for wild fluctations in the year-to-year data. Like Carl Crawford's UZRs since 2003: 14.7, 23.3, 15.5, 9.4, minus-1.2, 19.1, 17.6. So, um ... what happened in 2007? Was he playing with a fake leg? Was he doing heroin? You're better off taking three-year samples with UZR over grabbing one season.

My Take: Again, very complicated but at least there is a link showing how one would calculate UZR. This is what always baffled me about Aaron Hills 2009. In my opinion he played near flawless 2nd base and if you asked me who deserve the gold glove at 2nd, I would have said Aaron. But low and behold, he had a negative UZR. I don't know, from this at least I know what UZR is, but I still prefer to give the players the eye test, and Aaron Hill definitely passes the eye test.

Stat #4 - VORP- Value Over Replacement Player.

The formula:Not nearly as complex as UZR, but complicated nontheless. Neyer does a good job of explaining it here (the stat was created by Baseball Prospectus).

The goal:Figure out someone's "value over replacement player" by weighing his ability to create runs (for hitters) or create outs (for pitchers) against the worst possible player who conceivably could have played the position (the replacement player, defined as someone who's 75-85 percent as good as the most average player in the league depending on position).

The flaw: Doesn't incorporate defense.

My Take: Again fancy numbers to basically prove what we already knew. Albert Pujols led the league with a 98.3 VORP meaning he was responsible for 98.3 more runs than a generic "replacement level" first baseman. Vernon Wells' VORP was 15.4 meaning if we would have grabbed some guy off the street and played him instead of Vernon Wells, the Jays would have scored 15.4 less runs last year. I have a funny feeling alot of 9-2 losses would have turned to 9-1 and 8-3 wins would have turned to 7-3. I'm not saying he wasn't clutch (because clutchness doesn't exist) but again, the eye test.

Stat #5 - WAR - Wins above Replacement.

The formula:Even more complicated than VORP. Jeff Aberle did an admirable job of breaking down the nuances last summer.

The goal:Take VORP to the next level by incorporating defense, then figure out exactly how many wins someone is worth (his WAR value).

Translation:"VORP on steroids and greenies if you also ate a lot of candy and had a 40-ounce coffee."

The flaws:Assumes talent between the leagues is always equal. And it would be ... if the National League didn't suck. Also, WAR doesn't work nearly as well for pitchers (the AL/NL issue again), and the corresponding WAR/salary values are just plain goofy ... unless you think Zack Greinke should make $42 million a year

My Take: Fantastic stat to evaluate players, unless you were the one asked to calculate it. Pretty much the all encapsulating stat that gives the all important defense component. Kind of makes VORP useless don't you think? That all being said who would you think the top 3 players in an "all encapsulating" stat would be? Well #2 and #3 were Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer. #1 was surprisingly enough Ben Freaking Zobrist. Now I know what all the screaming was about last year around allstar weekend when people said Zobrist was a better player than Aaron Hill. So far, this is my favourite stat.

Stat #6 - BABIP (Batting average with Balls in Play)

The formula: (hits - homers) / (at-bats - K's - HR + sac-flies).

The goal:Measure BABIP to determine whether a pitcher or hitter had good luck or bad luck. In 2009, the major league BABIP average was .299. If a pitcher's BABIP dipped well below that number, he might have had good luck. If it rose well above that number, he likely had terrible luck. The reverse goes for hitters.

Translation: Six words ... FANTASY! GAMBLING! FANTASY! GAMBLING! FANTASY! GAMBLING!

The flaw:I hate this stat for hitters -- too many variables can swing it, as Tristan Cockcroft pointed out on ESPN.com earlier this month. But the pitchers ... oh, yes, the pitchers.

My take: Another stat that is flung around BBB with great regularity. It does seem odd that pitchers aren't somehow worked into it as I'd say that the pitcher is the greatest variable, but whatever. It is a neat little stat, but I think there is too many variables such as the pitcher, ballpark, defence, etc etc etc to simply plug the numbers into the formula and say someone is lucky or unlucky.

So that is that. Again I have to admit, I still prefer traditional stats and the all important "eye test" when evaluating my favourite baseball players. I wanted to know what ya'll meant when you say "Overbay has a very good UZR" but in my head, I already knew Overbay already plays a good 1B. Too bad he can't hit a lefty to save his life.

I got the title of the post from NOFX's "The Decline" which is simply put, the greatest song ever recorded. It also summarized what I think about the whole Sabermetric movement. Nice numbers, but I chose to trust what I see while sitting on my couch with a cold beer in hand. Hopefully this year I won't be switching to too many 2 1/2 men episodes after the 5th inning.

Craig.

Editor's Note: This is a FanPost written by a reader and member of Bluebird Banter. It was not commissioned by the editors and is not necessarily reflective of the opinions of Bluebird Banter or SB Nation.