THE MIKE
NUMBER 2014 in review
Let me
begin by saying that I am in no way scientifically minded. Nor am I anything
close to a mathematician. In fact, if it weren't for spreadsheet formulas, I
doubt that I would have even devised any of these formulaic solutions.
That being
said, and with the proliferation of SABRmetricians around the interwebs, both
professional and amateur, numbers have gotten to be more imprtant than the
players and games themselves. And that bothers me.
I have been
a baseball fan since the early 1970's, and I get the statistical aspect of the
game. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I never did get into the
fantasy/rotisserie baseball craze. I know the allure of it, and see the
numerous annual reviews and statistical compilations that appear every winter
on your bookselves. There are statistics for everyone and everything. Some are
basic, some extremely advanced. And they all tell you the same thing. Exactly
nothing.
Sure, one
could project what a player is supposed to do, depending on their past
performance their age, their home ballpark, what their diet consists of, who
they sit next to on the charter, etc. But they don't account for them turning
their ankle getting off the team bus. Or the spoiled mayo an their pre-game
sandwich. It's all subjective.
That being
said, I have devised a statistic that I think (in my own egotistical way) gives
a truer measure of a player's performance.
I thought
about the basic baseball statistics that we all grew up with...Batting Average,
Slugging Percentage, On Base Percentage. That was where I started. Then I
started to think...what wins games? Runs. Score more runs than the other guys
and you will win. That's what it's all about. So I weighted in an old statistic
that I don't think ever truly caught on...runs created. A basic runs created
statistic (runs + Runs batted in - homeruns) gives a good measure of a players
contribution to the day to day progress of his team.
So, how
does one create runs? By getting on base, and getting key hits to drive in
runs. So I weighted a factor involving stolen bases (which generally gets a
runner into a better scoring position) and sacrifices. Adding them back in to
the aforementioned basic numbers, gives a pretty good reflection on a player's
performance. I tinkered with the number formula, adjusting for a few other
variables, not adding as much to the stolen bases as the sacrifices, until I
got a more comfortable number to use as a guide.
I am still
trying to come up with a similar blanket formula for pitching, and one that
might hopefully line up numerically with these numbers for an ever truer feel
for outstanding performances. So as of right now, the formula is only for
offensive production.
Then,
before the big unveil, I tried to come up with a catchy name for this new
statistic, some sort of fancy acronym or something of that ilk. But I stayed
with the MIKE number. If it makes you feel better, we can pretend it stands for
Magical Integer with Knowledgeable Experience.
Okay,
you've made it this far. I will give you now my top 10 players in the American
League for 2014. For the sake of fun, I will include those with 300 or more
plate appearances. I ran their individual numbers, and then ran a league
average. These are the players with the highest number over the league average:
11. Danny Santana MIN 1.3935% to lg
10. Yeonis
Cespedes BOS/OAK 1.3953% to lg
9. Alexei Ramirez CHW 1.42% to lg
8. Torii Hunter DET 1.44% to lg
7. Edwin Encarnacion TOR 1.496%
to lg
6. Michael Brantley CLE 1.499% to lg
5. Jose Abreu CHW 1.51% to lg
4. Jose Bautista TOR 1.523% to lg
3. Victor Martinez DET 1.524% to lg
2. Miguel Cabrera DET 1.55% to lg
1 Mike Trout LAA 1.62% to lg.
Interesting to note that Yeonis Cespedes' numbers with Oakland would have placed him tenth on this list, but his
performance with Boston
lowered his overall performance. With the A's, he was at 1.41% to the league
average, but was only 1.36% with the Red Sox.
UPDATE:
Revisiting the numbers (as this is a
work in progress), and coming up with a formula that I think accurately
measures the impact based on at bats spent with each team, and pro-rating that,
Yeonis Cespedes' combined number for both teams does in fact place him tenth on
the list...
How much does the runs created factor into the final
numbers, you might ask? Well, here are the top ten in the AL for runs created:
Mike Trout
Miguel Cabrera
Ian Kinsler
Michael Brantley
Jose Bautista
Albert Pujols
Josh Donaldson
Brian Dozier
Victor Martinez
Nelson Cruz
(If I were to be
playing fantasy baseball, I would probably pick up Brian Dozier or Danny
Santana if they were available and reasonably priced)
Now, for the National League numbers:
10. Corey Dickerson COL
9. Adrian Gonzalez LAD 1.509% to lg
8. Anthony Rendon WAS 1.513% to lg
7. Russell Martin PIT 1.53%
6. Andrew McCutcheon PIT 1.56%
5. Buster Posey SF 1.57%
4. Giancarlo Stanton MIA 1.612%
3. Devin Morosco CIN 1.614%
2. Paul Goldschmitt ARI 1.66%
1. Troy Tulowitzki COL
If we only
use the qualifiers (500 plate appearances) the Stanton is in the top spot. The league's MVP
was pitcher Clayton Kershaw. Stanton 's
number was actually 2.03% to the rest of his team, whereas Trout was only 1.42%
to the Angels.
And the top
run producers in the National League were:
Anthony Rendon
Adrian Gonzalez
Giancarlo Stanton
Hunter Pence
Matt Holliday
Freddie Freeman
Jayson Werth
Justin Upton
Matt Carpenter
Andrew McCutcheon.
Another
good variety of players, showing that my MIKE formula doesn't necessarily rely
on the players with the highest batting averages, the most homers, the most
stolen bases. It encompasses many ingredients that make up a season.
For the
fantasy players out there, I will make a list of the top overall offensive
players, those who had the highest overall MIKE number, which may vary slightly
from the list above. This is the raw number that I initially calculate. The
list above compares that number to the constant league number, and I have also
calculated a constant team number as well.
When I say
constant, I mean in regards to that particular team's overall season's
performance. So that 'constant' number can vary from team to team, and from
season to season.
For grins
and giggles*, here are each league's top 10 qualifiers in overall individual
offensive performance:
Mike Trout 2.1553
Miguel Cabrera 2.0642
Victor Martinez 2.0242
Jose Bautista 2.0229
Jose Abreu 2.0077
Michael Brantley 1.9909
Edwin Encarnacion 1.9882
Torii Hunter 1.9079
Alexei Ramirez 1.8874
Yoenis Cespedes 1.8835
NL
Paul Goldschmitt 2.0881
Giancarlo Stanton 2.0347
Buster Posey 1.9844
Andrew McCutcheon 1.9645
Anthony Rendon 1.9089
Adrian Gonzalez 1.9046
Corey Dickerson 1.8963
Anthony Rizzo 1.8874
Jayson Werth 1.8792
Jonathan Lucroy 1.8503
More of a
departure in the National League performances...
