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Judge Offensive Bases Affected
by Drew Duffy 1/12/23
After embarking on my summer research project regarding errors within Major League Baseball, I came to find another discovery within the game as well. Following the publishing of my “Weighted Errors 2022 Season” article, I noticed that I had begun to grow a liking towards the idea of “bases”. Now, it is not a perfect solution to calculating total output, though I think it is an interesting notion that can be followed with enough data.
Here, as it was with the defensive output while calculating my new spin on “errors”, I placed value on certain outcomes with each at bat that a player has. This should make sense to most as at bats throughout the game are treated differently than others. A walk-off home run is much more impactful to a team’s performance than a homerun in a blowout game. Clearly, there should be yet another distinction made while dissecting these two plays. I have created another idea and model that places value to each outcome of an at bat based on the leverage index, the result of the plate appearance, as well as the bases that runners moved.
To simplify, I have begun to think that bases are a great quantifier in treating at bats individually. For example, I have taken every at-bat from Aaron Judge’s MVP season and shown all three criteria.
While I do not have a strong background in coding or computer science, this process becomes easier with code and a more efficient way to calculate individual plate appearances. I believe that this evaluation of a player is more indicative of the effect of each plate appearance. Maybe this could enhance wOBA, as it is a very good indicator of the effectiveness of an at bat when determining how a player reached base, though it is not as specific as my new statistic.
I have looked at each of Judge’s plate appearances and used my model combined with FanGraph’s wOBA constants on each situation to give the play a weighted value. Many could say that some player’s numbers will be inflated or deflated based on a number of different criteria, namely the effectiveness of their teammates. Does Judge benefit from having people ahead of him reach base so his chances at affecting more bases increases? Yes. But I do not think it is so black and white. We evaluate baseball games on the basis of wins and losses and while there is a lot of individual attention placed on players, it is a team game. If Player A can affect more bases in the game, his team has a better chance to win. If Player B hits 3 solo home runs but his team loses, maybe there is a difference in who we value more.
I am not here to say that this statistic is perfect, in fact quite the opposite. I believe there is huge potential with this statistic in terms of growth and adjustment. There can be different values based on batting order placement, positional values, and even the incorporation of “productive outs”, or outs where players move bases. My goal in publishing this is to get the ball rolling on this idea and hope to convince some that we should start looking at what I would call “bases affected” as a way to evaluate players.
I will continue to work on other player’s total output numbers for comparisons but I hope you enjoy looking at Judge’s affect in my model. As always, please feel free to leave comments or questions with me at duffydigest@gmail.com.
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