Jeff Bagwell: Hall Bound?

In what I hope becomes a regular feature for this site, I want to break down the stats of certain players who are right on the border of the Hall of Fame and see if their numbers stack up: do they belong in the Hall of Fame? For this post, the player I'll be looking at is Jeff Bagwell.

Bagwell is a player only sabermetric guys seem to like as Hall of Famer. As a first baseman who played in the Steroid Era, the bar is indeed set high for him, and the fact that he didn't reach 500 home runs seems to set many against him.

Before I begin, I think it's worth noting that Eddie Murray is the only HOF first baseman who played in the 90's, and he was at the end of his career; we're going to have to elect SOME of the mashers who played in the Steroid Era (unless of course they used steroids, i.e. McGwire).

If elected, Bagwell's stats would rank, amongst Hall of Fame 1B:

Home runs: 5th
RBI: 6th
OBP: 4th
Slugging: 5th
Total bases: 6th
OPS+: 5th

When you consider that there are fourteen Hall of Fame first basemen, it's clear that Bagwell stacks up with the historically great. But what about his contemporaries? How does Bagwell rank among the best of the 90's? After all, the 90's offensive explosion means that a lot of players who are "historically" great are actually only very good, only above average.

Bagwell played his first full season in 1991. Between 1991 and 1999, amongst only first basemen, Bagwell ranks, in the following categories:

Home runs: 5th (it is worth noting that two of the players ahead of him, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmiero, are steroid users, and another, Frank Thomas, is almost certainly a HOFer)
RBI: 3rd (again, Palmiero and Thomas are ahead of him)
OBP: 3rd (McGwire and Thomas)
Slugging: 3rd (McGwire and Thomas)
Total Bases: 3rd (Palmiero and Thomas)
OPS+: 3rd (McGwire and Thomas)

So, excluding two steroid users, Jeff Bagwell was the second-best first baseman in baseball during the 90's, and the best in the NL.

But what about players at all positions? After all, first basemen are not played for their defense: You get a 1B for his hitting. How does Bagwell compare to all players during the steroid era ('93-'04)?

Home runs: 6th
RBI: 3rd
OBP: 7th
Slugging: 14th
Total bases: 4th
OPS+: 6th

The numbers aren't as good for Bagwell.

So far, I have been sticking to mostly traditional stats. What about sabermetric stats?

The first thing I noticed about Bagwell's sabermetric stats is his incredible .323 career EqA; that's a jaw-droppingly good number, and far higher than I was expecting. His 90's EqA was .335, while his Steroid Era EqA is .326. He also has an exceptionally high career WARP3 of 135.5, with a 90's total of 93.8 and a Steroid Era total of 116.7. How do these numbers compare with his contemporaries?

For the following comparisons, I tried to include players of many different calibers, such as sure-fire Hall of Famers (Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas), players right on the border (Gary Sheffield, Jim Thome), players that clearly are not going to make the Hall (Fred McGriff, Luis Gonzalez), as well as, for good measure, steroid users (Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmiero) and a few others (Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa) in order to find out where Bagwell falls in.

(Since not everyone on the list had begun playing in 1991, and a few retired before 2004, I balanced the statistics so that they favored each player; for instance, when calculating the EqA for Fred McGriff, who retired before the 2002 season, I left the entries for those final years blank instead of putting a 0, so as not to drag down his numbers. A few players played games in the early 90's, but played sparsely and in few games, so their EqA numbers aren't very good; I excluded those years. For WARP3, since it is a counting statistic, I included all the numbers I could. Statistics used were taken from Baseball Prospectus. I used the "adjusted for season" numbers for EqA.)

The Data Charts

Bagwell's numbers stack up much more favorably than his "normal" stats might indicate. Instead of ranking sixth, seventh, or eighth, Bagwell consistently ranks second, third, or fourth.

Final Prediction: Bagwell is obviously a great hitter, and ranks as a historically great first baseman. While the more regular stats seem to indicate that he is not Hall material, his EqA and WARP3 are borderline Hall caliber: for instance, he ranks second in both '91-'99 and Steroid Era WARP3, meaning he was the second most valuable player during his career span (after Barry Bonds). On the other hand, his EqA is fourth in every category, and his Career WARP3 is fourth as well; other than 1994, the strike-shortened year, Jeff Bagwell was never THE best hitter in baseball, and his lower Career WARP3 indicates that he didn't endure the way many of the greats did: he only played 14 full seasons, which is rather shorter than most superstars. The fact that Frank Thomas played the same position over the same span and was clearly better hurts his cause as well. Because he never reached a major career milestone (no 3000 hits, no 500 home runs, no 50 home run season), and because his "traditional" stats are good-but-not-great, Bagwell's sabermetric stats would have to overwhelm me in order to consider him Hall of Fame caliber, and they do not. I do not think Jeff Bagwell will get elected to the Hall, nor does he deserve it.

Glossary of Terms

I plan to throw around a lot of terms in this blog that many baseball fans may or may not be used to. So that I may avoid defining the same stat over and over, and in order to avoid any serious confusion, I'm going to create a glossary of terms for people to check out if they ever stumble across a phrase or stat that they are unfamiliar with.

• VORP: Value Above Replacement Player. A replacement player is definied as someone with the minimum threshold of talent necessary to be a professional MLB player. VORP is an all-in-one offensive statistic designed to figure out how many more runs a given player is worth compared to a replacement level player at the same position (very important). If a player has a VORP of 10, he is worth ten more runs than a replacement level player; on average, ten VORP runs equal one win for a team, so a player with a VORP of ten is worth one more win to his team than a replacement player. VORP allows for easy comparisons of players at different positions. VORP is a counting stat, much like home runs or RBIs, meaning the best players will see their totals steadily rise as the season progresses. VORP does not account for defense.
• EqA: Equivalent Average. A summation of a player's total offensive output (including steals), adjusted for league, era, and even ballpark, calibrated into a format similar to batting average. A .260 EqA is completely average; .300 is very good; .350 is Hall of Fame-level.
• FRAR: Fielding Runs Above Replacement. Much like VORP, only for defense. How many runs does a given player save with his defense compared to a replacement level player?
• FRAA: Fielding Runs Above Average. Same as FRAR, only the player's defense is compared to the average major leaguer at the same position, not merely someone good enough to only just make the majors.
• WARP (WARP1, WARP2, WARP3): Wins Above Replacement Player. An all-in-one statistic that attempts to quantify a player's contribution to his team. Like VORP, a player's position factors into the rating. WARP accounts for offense, defense, base-running, and pitching (if necessary). The difference between WARP 1, 2, and 3 is a series of adjustments: I will typically only use WARP3 on this website, because it has the greatest number of adjustments and allows for comparisons of players from any era. For more, visit http://www.baseballprospectus.com/
• Replacement Player: A concept I will refer to repeatedly on the site. A replacement player is a ballplayer with the minimum level of talent necessary to make the majors, and no more. A team comprised entirely of replacement players will be one of the worst teams of all time: We're talking 1899 Cleveland Spiders badness (in fact, it could be argued that the Spiders are the only baseball team in history that actually was made up of only replacement players; prior to the 1899 season, Cleveland's owners bought a team in St. Louis and shipped all the stars of the Spiders, incuding Cy Young, to St. Louis in exchange for swill; the Spiders posted a record of 20-134). For example, a replacement level pitcher will have an ERA of roughly 6.00.
• Enhanced OPS: A stat I invented as a means to figure out how steals impact slugging and how caught stealing impacts OBP. For more, see my "Return to Blogging" post.
• OPS+/ERA+: An adjustment to measure how much better or worse, percentage wise, a player is compared to league average in either OPS or ERA. An OPS+ of 100 is league average (and is always league average), while a player with an OPS+ of 101 is 1% better than the average player. The same is true for ERA.

I expect I'll update this list as I think of more terms to include.

The MVP and CY Young of the NL

And now for something completely different. Let's get right to it. First, the MVP:

Top 10 Leaders in NL OBP

Barry Bonds - .497
Todd Helton - .440
Chipper Jones - .424
Derrek Lee - .420
Albert Pujols - .412
Chase Utley - .405
Miguel Cabrera - .398
Aaron Rowand - .396
Brad Hawpe - .392
Mark Loretta - .392

Top 10 Leaders in NL Slugging

Prince Fielder - .616
Miguel Cabrera - .598
Chipper Jones - .596
Chase Utley - .583
Hunter Pence - .575
Matt Holliday -.574
Ryan Howard - .563
Barry Bonds - .557
Ken Griffey Jr. - .556
Chris Duncan - .555

Not as much jumps out at me: The numbers are closer together (the difference between the best slugger and the tenth best slugger is 61 points, while the difference between the best AL slugger and the second best is 48 points) and some of the guys on the leader boards don't have much of a chance: despite leading the NL in OPS, Barry Bonds has built up so much ill-will and plays (relatively speaking) so few games that is seems almost impossible he'll win MVP. The same goes for guys like Todd Helton and Matt Holliday; Helton is an obscene .329/.476/.507 at home but only .297/.407/.436 on the road (still great numbers, but not MVP-caliber), while Holliday's number are an average .299/.355/.478 on the road. The three players who stand out to me are Chipper Jones, Chase Utley, and Miguel Cabrera, who are each mashing and getting on base.

Top 10 NL Leaders in VORP

Chase Utley - 47.2
Hanely Ramirez - 46.4
Miguel Cabrera - 44.5
Chipper Jones - 39.6
Barry Bonds - 38.5
Jose Reyes - 38.2
Matt Holliday - 36.9
Russell Martin - 36.8
Edgar Renteria - 35.8
Prince Fielder - 35.2

Top 10 NL Leaders in EqA

Barry Bonds - .365
Chipper Jones - .344
Miguel Cabrera - .333
Albert Pujols - .326
Chase Utley - .326
Chris Duncan - .318
Prince Fielder - .318
Hanley Ramirez - .316
Todd Helton - .312
Ken Griffey Jr. - .311

...okay, look, I know Bonds is having another appallingly great season. I recognize that, if I had my choice of any one active player to come to bat with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, there is no one I'd rather take. But dammit! There is no way Bonds will win MVP. People just won't vote for him. Trust me. I think it is also worth pointing out that Bonds does not match up with the best when it comes to counting statistics, in part due to his limited playing time: for instance, he is not even in the top 10 in the NL for Runs Created, despite having the best OBP and EqA.

Excluding Bonds, I am left with Chipper Jones, Chase Utley, and Miguel Cabrera as the top contenders for MVP. However, it would be utterly hypocritical of me to exclude Bonds for only playing in 81 games...and then include Chipper Jones, who has only played in 68. Despite his monster stats, Jones will not be my pick for MVP.

Breaking Down Utley and Cabrera

Utley leads Cabrera in OBP and VORP, while Cabrera leads Utley in slugging and EqA. First, I want to take into consideration the players' base-stealing abilitiy.

Chase Utley's Enhanced OPS:

(210 + 5)/360 = .597 Expanded Slugging
(120 + 32 + 15 - 1)/413 = .402 True OBP x 3 = 1.205 Weighted OBP
.597 + 1.205 = 1.802 Enhanced OPS

Miguel Cabrera's Enhanced OPS:
(198 + -1)/331 = .595 Expanded Slugging
(108 + 40 + 2 - 1)/378 = .394 True OBP x 3 = 1.182 Weighted OBP
.595 + 1.182 = 1.777 Enhanced OPS

Chase Utley's stealing skills negate Cabrera's slight edge in slugging. But what about defense? Cabrera plays 3B, while Utley plays 2B; conventional wisdom suggests that Utley, due to the nature of his position, likely saves more runs with his glove than Cabrera. What do the stats say?

Statistic: Cabrera's stat/Utley's stat

FRAR: 7/16

FRAA: -1/1

The stats agree with conventional wisdom. Utley not only saves more runs with his glove, but is actually a slightly above average defensive 2B, while Cabrera is a slightly below average defensive 3B.

Final Prediction: If the season ended right now, Utley would win MVP. I also expect him to keep up his numbers and win it at the end of the season. Unlike Magglio Ordonez, Utley is not playing completely over his head: while he is indeed posting career high numbers in every category, he is only 28 years old, and his numbers are not unreasonably better than years passed. For instance, his BABIP is .374 this year...but it was .349 last year. Not an unbelievable jump. Utley's superior numbers at a tougher defensive position will likely net him the MVP at the end of the year. That said, look out for Chipper Jones, who is tearing the cover off the ball and plays on a better, more highly-visible and popular team than either Utley or Cabrera.

The NL Cy Young

Top 5 in NL ERA

Chris Young - 1.97
Jake Peavy - 2.19
Brad Penny - 2.39
John Maine - 2.91
Derek Lowe - 3.05

Top 5 in NL WHIP

Chris Young - 1.02
Jake Peavy - 1.06
Ted Lilly - 1.06
Rich Hill - 1.14
Ben Sheets - 1.16

It's a two-horse race, with the top pitchers of San Diego going head to head. John Maine is a distant third, with the fourth best ERA and sixth best WHIP. I excluded Florida's Sergio Mitre from the ERA list because he hasn't thrown 100 innings yet. Here are the other major statistics to consider:

Statistic: Peavy's stat/Young's stat

K/9 innings: 9.45/8.78

K/BB: 3.68/2.97

Innings per HR: 39.6/27.4

Peavy tops Young in every category.

Final Prediction: I think that Peavy would win the Cy Young if the race ended today, and will win it at the end of the year. Chris Young seems to be playing well over his head: he has never even sniffed a sub-3.00 ERA until this year, while Peavy won the ERA crown in 2004 with a 2.27 ERA, and also posted an ERA of 2.88 in 2005. With his track record and far better strikeout rate, look for Jake Peavy to win the NL Cy Young.

Side note: All the statistics I used during these last two posts are courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Reference, and the Hardball Times. All of these sites are linked to over there, on the right, and I encourage every baseball fan out there to check them out. They're great websites and invaluable statistical treasure troves.

The MVP and Cy Young of the AL

The Cy Young and MVP races are pretty tight in the AL this year. Before I jump into the fray and pick my guys, I want to set out my criteria for MVP and Cy Young:

1.) The MVP cannot be a pitcher. That's what the Cy Young is for. Pitchers just don't play enough to be considered for the MVP award, especially in these modern times: While I do not begrudge Bob Gibson's MVP in 1968, the conditions in baseball have changed so much that no one is going to throw 28 complete games with 13 shutouts, or top 300 innings and post a 1.12 ERA. The MVP must be separate from the Cy Young.

2.) More than stats determine the MVP. I will not give the MVP to a player on a last place team, period. I don't care what his stats were, I don't think Alex Rodriguez deserved the MVP in 2003. On the flip side, I think the Cy Young should go to the pitcher with the best pure numbers, regardless of how well their team is doing.

3.) The position of an MVP candidate matters. A catcher who hits 30 home runs is more valuable than a first baseman who hits 40. A RF who hits 40 home runs is more valuable than a DH who does the same. This is what VORP is all about. That said, VORP will not be the be-all-end-all statistic; I will consider pure numbers, not just "most valuable per position".

I'm going to be throwing around some odd stats, so here are their definitions:

• VORP: Value Above Replacement Player. A replacement player is definied as someone with the minimum threshold of talent necessary to be a professional MLB player. VORP is an all-in-one offensive statistic designed to figure out how many more runs a given player is worth compared to a replacement level player at the same position (very important). If a player has a VORP of 10, he is worth ten more runs than a replacement level player; on average, ten VORP runs equal one win for a team, so a player with a VORP of ten is worth one more win to his team than a replacement player. VORP allows for easy comparisons of players at different positions. VORP is a counting stat, much like home runs or RBIs, meaning the best players will see their totals steadily rise as the season progresses. VORP does not account for defense.
• EqA: Equivalent Average. A summation of a player's total offensive output (including steals), adjusted for league, era, and even ballpark, calibrated into a format similar to batting average. A .260 EqA is completely average; .300 is very good; .350 is Hall of Fame-level.
• FRAR: Fielding Runs Above Replacement. Much like VORP, only for defense. How many runs does a given player save with his defense compared to a replacement level player?
• FRAA: Fielding Runs Above Average. Same as FRAR, only the player's defense is compared to the average major leaguer at the same position, not merely someone good enough to just make the majors.

Let's start with the major statistics:

Top 10 AL Leaders in OBP

David Ortiz - .439
Magglio Ordonez - .437
Gary Sheffield - .418
Vladimir Guerrero - .414
Kevin Youkilis - .414
Reggie Willits - .412
Jorge Posada - .407
Alex Rodriguez - .407
Brian Roberts - .406
Derek Jeter - .404

Top 10 AL Leaders in Slugging

Alex Rodriguez - .658
Carlos Pena - .617
Magglio Ordonez - .586
Justin Morneau - .571
David Ortiz - .569
Gary Sheffield - .564
Carlos Guillen - .563
Curtis Granderson - .563
Torri Hunter - .551
Victor Martinez - .549

Two things immediately jump out at me when I look at these lists: One, A-Rod's slugging is insane. Two: Magglio Ordonez is having a monster year, as he is second in OBP and third in slugging.

More important statistics:

Top 10 AL Leaders in VORP

Alex Rodriguez - 54.5
Magglio Ordonez - 48.9
David Ortiz - 42.0
Gary Sheffield - 41.1
Ichiro Suzuki - 41.1
Vladimir Guerrero - 40.2
Victor Martinez - 39.1
Jorge Posada - 38.5
Grady Sizemore - 37.1
Brian Roberts - 36.2

Top 10 AL Leaders in EqA:

Alex Rodriguez - .338
Magglio Ordonez - .337
Carlos Pena - .332
David Ortiz - .327
Gary Sheffield - .322
Vladimir Guerrero - .321
Jorge Posada - .311
Carlos Guillen - .308
Victor Martinez - .307
Justin Morneau - .305

I excluded Jim Thome and Mark Teixiera from the EqA list due to lack of plate appearances. The more I stats I look at, the more clear it becomes that Alex Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez are the cream of the crop. Ichiro Suzuki is worthy of MVP considerations, but is not in the same class as the former two; and while Sheffield is having a great year, he is pretty much a full-time DH, meaning his statistics would have to be far and away the best for me to consider him.

Breaking Down Rodriguez and Ordonez

Rodriguez leads Ordonez in three of the four categories I looked at: slugging, VORP, and EqA. Ordonez, however, has a significant lead in OBP, and in fact Rodriguez's leads in VORP and EqA are negligible. I want to look at more stats to find out how they match-up. First up: Enhanced OPS.

Magglio's Enhanced OPS:
(191 + 1)/324 = .592 Expanded Slugging
(116 + 46 + 2 - 1)/375 = .435 True OBP x 3 = 1.304 Weighted OBP
.592 + 1.304 = 1.896 Enhanced OPS

A-Rod's Enhanced OPS:
(217 + 7)/330 = .678 Expanded Slugging
(103 + 49 + 9 - 2)/393 = .404 True OBP x 3 = 1.213 Weighted OBP
.678 + 1.213 = 1.891 Enhanced OPS

Well that's incredibly close. A-Rod has a .001 edge in EqA, Magglio has a .005 edge in Enhanced OPS.

How does each player's defense impact his team?

Statistic: A-Rod's stat/Magglio's stat
FRAR: 12/3
FRAA: 4/-3

Now we begin to see a significant difference. Alex Rodriguez's defense is magrinally above average, while Ordonez's defense is maginally below average.

Final Prediction: Ordonez is playing WAY over his head. His career batting average is .309 and he's never had an OBP of .400 or better, while he is hitting .358 with an OBP of .437 this year. His batting average on balls in play (i.e. non-home run hits) is an astounding .386. He is due for a serious slump any day now. As his batting average falls, so will his OBP, and thus any sort of edge he has on Rodriguez. Rodriguez, on the other hand, isn't doing anything superhuman (by his standards): his current .407 OBP would only be the fourth-best of his career, and he even posted an EqA of .350 in 2005 (which led the majors). He's twice topped 50 home runs, so his gaudy home run total so far is not necessarily unexpected. If the season were to end today, Magglio Ordonez would win the MVP because he and A-Rod essentially have identical stats, but the Tigers are so much better than the Yankees and players on better teams overwhelming tend to win the MVP. That said, expect Ordonez's numbers to drop off soon and for A-Rod to win the award at the end of the season.

The AL Cy Young Award

Unlike the MVP, there are more straightforward statistics to consider here.

Top 5 AL Leaders in ERA

Dan Haren - 2.30
Johan Santana - 2.60
Mark Buehrle - 2.98
John Lackey - 2.98
Kelvim Escobar - 3.04

Top 5 AL Leaders in WHIP

Jeremy Guthrie - 0.99
Johan Santana - 1.02
Dan Haren - 1.03
James Shields - 1.05
Mark Buehrle - 1.08

Dan Haren, Johan Santana, and Mark Buehrle are the frontrunners for the Cy Young. Here are some other important statistics to consider:

Statistic: Haren's stat/Johan's stat/Buehrle's stat
K/9 innings: 7.02/9.35/5.16
K/BB: 3.15/4.29/3.08
Innings per HR: 11.75/7.52/8.24

Buehrle is obviously the least of the three, trailing Santana and Haren in every category other than innings per HR. As for the other two, they trade stats: Haren has a better ERA and HR rate, but Santana strikes out a significantly greater number of batters, has a better K/BB rate, and has a better WHIP.

Final Prediction: This is much like the MVP vote. While, if the season ended today, Haren would win the Cy Young, look for Johan Santana to win it...again. History has shown that Santana only gets better and better as the season progresses, and Haren's ERA and WHIP ought to rise, considering that he doesn't strike out a lot of batters and doesn't have Santana's track record. If Johan Santana pitches true to form, he will win the 2007 AL Cy Young.

Return to Blogging

So, uh, yeah. I took a few year hiatus from blogging. What can I say. I'm clearly not cut out for day-by-day blogging. That said, I hope I can get a post up once a week or so. I enjoy being able to ramble on about baseball, and this blog gives me a good forum to do so whenever I want (even if no one is listening).

Since I last posted, I've gotten more heavily into sabermetrics. Rereading my old posts, I'm embarassed the way I touch on rather quaint, outdated notions, i.e. giving credibility to Gold Gloves and using stats like RBIs and fielding percentage for serious analysis. For instance, if I were to re-write my 'Best All-Time' post, I'd mention what a slam-dunk Williams is as the LF choice, as he has a better OBP, better slugging, better batting average, and a better strikeout rate than Barry Bonds. Bonds' only advantage is his longevity (in turn fueled by steroids).

It is because of sabermetrics that I've gotten more interested in newer statistics. One thing, recently, that has really interested me, is creating a stat that factors in the benefits/drawbacks of steals.

For instance, if a player reaches first and then steals second, it is essentially the same thing as hitting a double. On the other hand, if a player is thrown out attempting to steal, it is as though he never was on base in the first place. These notions have a clear implication for slugging and OBP totals.

It took me a few days to figure out how to modify a player's slugging. Despite creating several different formulas, I kept running into the drawback that a player would merely have to be successful on more than 50% of his attempts to see an increase in his offensive numbers, something known to be false: a player must be successful at least 72 to 73% of the time to add to his team's run production.

I eventually realized that I was thinking too small: I had only been trying to modify slugging, when in reality I should tackle OPS. Add a player's net number of steals (successful steals minus times caught) to his total base count (giving you a new slugging percentage [it is worth mentioning that, short of shifting through a player's entire career, it is impossible to get a perfect slugging percentage using this formula: a player who is thrown out trying to steal second is costing himself a time on base and one total base, while a player getting thrown out trying to steal third costs himself a time on base and two total bases. That said, since the overwhelming majority of steals and times caught stealing occur as a player attempts to steal second, I will treat every steal and time caught as though the player were heading from first to second]) and subtract the times caught stealing from his times on base (giving you a "true" OBP); add them together and you'd have an OPS that accounted for a player's base-stealing ability.

Formula:

-New slugging: (Singles + (2 x Doubles) + (3 x Triples) + (4 x Home runs) + Net steals)/AB
-"True" OBP: H + BB + HBP - CS/PA
Since OBP is really suppossed to be a measure of how often a player gets out, "True" OBP seems to be a better stat than normal OBP, as it factors in outs on the basepaths. Add the two together for a modified OPS.

Simple, right? Wrong. Again, it became clear to me that, using this formula, once again I would run into the problem that any player who was successful on greater than 50% of his attempts would see an increase in his OPS. It was then that I realized how flawed a statistic OPS is.

On base percentage is a more important statistic than slugging. They are not equal, and the fact that OPS treats them as such means that it is flawed. Clearly, I would have to go a step further in calculation.

Just how much more important OBP is, though, is up for debate. I am going to modify OPS based on the assumption that OBP is three times more important than slugging, meaning that a player must be successful on 75% or more of his attempts to benefit his team. So I'll stick with the previous formula, only this time I'll weight OBP to be worth three times as much:

-"True" OBP: H + BB + HBP - CS/PA
-Weighted OBP: (H + BB + HBP - CS/PA) x 3
Add the weighted OBP together with the normal slugging percentage to get a Weighted OPS. The league average for Weighted OPS in 2006 was 1.443, while Travis Hafner led the majors with a 1.976 Weighted OPS. The 2006 average for "True" OBP was .327

Now to see how steals influence those numbers:

-Expanded Slugging: (Singles + (2 x Doubles) + (3 x Triples) + (4 x Home runs) + Net steals)/AB
-Weighted OBP: (H + BB + HBP - CS/PA) x 3
Add them together for Enhanced OPS. In 2006 the MLB average for Expanded Slugging was .441, while the average for Enhanced OPS was 1.424. Enhanced OPS is designed to be a quick-and-easy assessment of a hitter's skill at the plate, accurately weighting OBP against slugging and considering a player's skill on the basepaths as well.

I am comfortable with these statistics, and think they are useful tools in analyzing players. I originally set out to create these statistics because I wanted to analyze players with no power but lots of speed. Specifically, I wanted to use them to analyze Ozzie Smith, especially to answer the question: "Should Ozzie Smith have won MVP in 1987?"

In Ozzie's best year, 1987, he had an OBP of .392, slugged .383 (meaning he had a .775 OPS) and stole 43 bases with 9 times caught stealing (82%). The league averages that year were .331 OBP, .415 slugging, and .747 OPS. He ultimately finished second in MVP voting to Andre Dawson. First question: How did Ozzie's steals impact his lowest average, his slugging percentage?

Ozzie Smith's 1987 Expanded Slugging:
(138 + (40 x 2) + (4 x 3) + (0 x 4) + 34)/600 = .440

How did his times caught stealing impact his OBP?

Ozzie Smith's 1987 Weighted OBP
(182 + 89 + 1 - 9)/706) x 3 = ..372 x 3 = 1.117
Weighted OPS: 1.500
Enhanced OPS: 1.557

Here's a chart to simplify things:

Stat: Ozzie's statistic/MLB average for 1987
Expanded slugging: .440/.429
"True" OBP: .372/.318
Enhanced OPS: 1.577/1.384

Clearly, the Oz is above league average. But what about compared to Andre Dawson's 1987 stats?

Stat: Dawson's Statistic/Ozzie's Statistic
Expanded slugging: .581/.440
"True" OBP: .323/.372
Enhanced OPS: 1.550/.1577

So there you have it. Ozzie Smith was actually a better hitter than Andre Dawson in 1987. Combined this with Smith's all-world defense at shortstop, and I think it is unquestionable that Ozzie was a better MVP choice than Dawson. Now, Jack Clark on the other hand...