A different look at the Royals hitting so far

by BHWick on Jul 2, 2009 12:51 AM EDT Comment 10 comments

How often you get on, and how far you go.

How often you get on can be measured with OBP. If you're content with the status quo, you can use slugging percentage to measure how far someone goes. But you overlook walks and HBP that way.

Instead, you could use Expected Bases, where the formula is (TB+BB+HBP)/(AB+BB+HBP+SF)

The current Royals leader in EB is Miguel Olivo with .539. Which means that every time he goes up, you can expect .539 bases. And in contrast to that number, his OBP is .285. The runnerup is John Buck, who has an EB of .510. The runnerup amongst non-DL players is Mark Teahen with .495 EB.

The rankings (EB, Times on Base, 1B, XBH, BB, HB)

Miguel Olivo: .539, 55, 26, 23, 2, 4
John Buck: .510, 30, 9, 10, 11, 0
Mark Teahen: .495, 103, 52, 26, 21, 4
Brayan Pena: .488, 15, 9, 4, 2, 0
Billy Butler: .488, 103, 52, 29, 22, 0
Alberto Callaspo: .486, 100, 51, 27, 21, 1
Mike Jacobs: .477, 80, 31, 22, 25, 2
Coco Crisp: .464, 71, 25, 16, 29
Jose Guillen: .460, 83, 41, 16, 21, 5
David DeJesus: .446, 91, 42, 27, 20, 2
Mitch Maier: .415, 42, 18, 9, 14, 1
Willie Bloomquist: .401, 65, 40, 9, 16, 0
Alex Gordon: .385, 7, 1, 1, 3, 2
Mike Aviles: .272, 26, 17, 5, 4, 0
Luis Hernandez: .208, 10, 8, 0, 2, 0
Tony Pena, Jr: .167, 6, 3, 1, 2, 0
Tug Hulett: .071, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0

Several notes on this list.

1) Yes, our 1/2 hitters are on the lower half of this list. It's a wonder how we don't score more often.

2) Billy Butler is turning into quite the offensive force. It'd be nice if some of his doubles came with men on base.

3) The only regular with a lower XBH percentage per PA than Jose Guillen: Willie Bloomquist

4) A team of 9 TPJ's would be expected to amass 4.5 bases (through hits or walks) per 27 outs.

5) Mark Teahen and Alberto Callaspo are turning into extra base threats, so it'd be nice if they were in the position to at least get knocked in by other batters (say Teahen batting in front of Butler).

6) Jose Guillen sure did turn into a pumpkin quickly. A guy without any XBH results gets to be in the middle of the order every day. Because if he isn't, he throws chairs, and scares Trey Hillman.

7) The big difference between Teahen and Butler: HBPs

This team's lineup suffers from a massive dysfunction, and perhaps the Mustache will figure out one day to put his best hitters in the position to make things happen.

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Comments

When was the last time Jose Guillen was a carriage?

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on Jul 2, 2009 1:49 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

when the weather got warm in 2008

by benfunke on Jul 2, 2009 12:23 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh yeah

How often has Olivo batted 8th this year?

How many teams have their best slugger batting directly in front of their worst slugger? (Olivo batted 8th, Teflon Pena Jr batted 9th on Tuesday)

Trey Hillman’s management of this roster is like having a really crappy cook with bland ingredients. The ingredients, if mixed right, can work. But the cook keeps throwing his shoe into the pot and mixing the foods in the wrong ways.

The defenders of the cook say that once the ingredients get better, the cook will stop sucking.

But lets face it, Trey Muser has to go

Still suffering from the greatest robbery of all time: The stealing of the 1994 AL Central title from the Royals

by BHWick on Jul 2, 2009 4:27 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs