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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 Rereading my old posts, I'm embarassed the way I touch on rather quaint, outdated notions, i.e. giving credibility to Gold Gloves and using stats like RBIs and fielding percentage for serious analysis.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...