While trying to be a good baseball stat nerd and teach myself MySQL, I have dug back into the archives for a couple of older stats created by Bill James: power/speed number and secondary average (SecA). While both stats have been largely superseded by other stats, and both face the problem [easily fixed, I believe, although I have not done so here]) of not including times caught stealing, they are both interesting ways (especially SecA, at the time) of expressing important dimensions of player skill not always reflected in more traditional counting and rate stats.

The link above is to yet another Google Spreadsheet in which I've given the 2008 results for both SecA and power/speed number for the 2008 Royals for players with more than 75 ABs. The results probably aren't surprising, but interesting nonetheless.

Secondary Average is supposed to reflect in a rate stat everything a player does besides batting average. The formula is (TB-H+BB+SB)/AB. Albert Pujols had a .5076 SecA this season. The Royals' all-time best single-season secondary average is .5096, by Bob Hamelin in 1994.

Power/Speed Number is a combination rate/counting stat that is supposed to get at that "something" expressed in calling a player a "20-20" or "40-40" player. The formula is (2*HR*SB)/(HR+SB). As you can see, then, if a player has no home runs or no stolen bases, that player will automatically have a 0 for a P/S number. Grady Sizemore led that majors in 2008, with a power/speed number of 35.32. Hanley Ramirez was close behind with 33.97.

It's not all a young man's game, though. Carlos Beltran comes in #4 (right behind Matt Holliday) with 25.96. It will come as no surprise to most of you that Beltran has three of the top four Royals Power-Speed seasons, with 31.8 in 2003, 31.7 in 2002, and 27.1 in 2001. Bo Jackson has number 3 with 28.7 in 1989, and also has #6 with 25.96 in 1988. The under-appreciated Amos Otis is #5 with 26.1 in 1978.