Does Language Make Closers Overrated?

 It’s a general assumption, especially among sabermetric types, that closers are overrated. Most closers are just good relievers who weren’t good enough to start. Mariano Rivera excluded of course since he is super awesome.

 What does a closer actually do? Does he close games? He does but that’s not what we say. We say he ‘saves’ games – he gets the ‘save’. Saving a game implies that the game was in danger of being lost, but that’s not really the case with most saves. Very rarely does the closer come on with the go-ahead run on base or at the plate (unless he comes on during an inning as opposed to starting it. Even if we take saving meaning a lead is in danger of being lost that really should apply to the tying run being on base or at the plate, which doesn’t happen when a closer starts an inning with a 2 or 3-run lead.

 If we take save at this more literal meaning then other relievers should get saves, maybe instead of holds. Really a closer doesn’t ‘save’ a game, but rather he ‘finishes’ or ‘closes’. But these words aren’t as loaded as the word save. Even a failed save is loaded language – we call it a ‘blown save’? That sounds severe. What if we called an ‘incomplete’? That wouldn’t sound like such a big deal.

 Does this use of the word ‘save’ make closers more overrated? Possibly to some degree but I suspect the effect would be small. I think that even if we called them ‘closes’ or ‘finishes’ then baseball fans and players would start to attach a great severity of meaning to those words. But it is an interesting though exercise in how our use of words to describe things might affect our perception of these things.

I Don't Want Him To Beat Me

  What a crazy between Tampa Bay and Boston! First there was that blown call by the home plate umpire that denied the tying Red Sox run. Jose Molina is regarded as great at framing pitches – he seemingly can also frame tags.

 Then in the bottom of the ninth, after Dustin Pedroia (aka ‘Mini Jason Statham’) had grounded the Sox we’re 2 out with the tying run on second and first base empty. Joe Maddon decides to intentionally walk David Ortiz and pitch to Mike Napoli. This put the winning run on first – and a quick runner to boot (Ortiz having been pinch run for).

 Ortiz against a righty (Fernando Rodney) stood a much better chance of plating the tying run than Napoli (a righty) so it did increase the chances of Rodney closing out that inning. But walking Ortiz put the winning run on, meaning a double would have a high chance of getting that winning run home (a fast runner in Iglesias and with 2 outs he would be going on contact). Ortiz to walk-off would’ve needed a homer – against righties this year he’s hit 15 HR in 243 plate appearances. ‘Na-po-li’ in 284 PA has only 11 homers, but also 2 triples and 19 doubles as well. I can’t see how this move increased Tampa’s chance of winning, although I’ll leave the exact calculation to Fangraphs and the like.

 Maddon has a history of this – a few years back (2008) when playing against the Rangers he intentionally walked in a run by walking Josh Hamilton (who was awesome back then) with the bases loaded to make it 7-4 and bring the winning to the plate in Marlon Byrd. Byrd was no Hamilton but was having a good year and had hit a walk-off grand slam a week before AFAIK. And to tie the game he only needed a double (which would likely do it), while Hamilton needed a home run. Byrd hit 42 extra-base hits (doubles, triples, homers) compared to Hamilton hitting 32 homers (in 50% more AB’s).

 One of the things the Sox commentators said was that he done it because ‘he didn’t want Ortiz to beat him’. Which is a silly thing in my mind – how crazy is that? If you think about I’d much rather get beaten by the better player – I mean, given the choice I’d much rather get beaten by Miguel Cabrera than by Yuniesky Betnacourt. Although admittedly Maddon

Michael Morse: Not an Outfielder But Still Useful

 Michael Morse is an interesting player. He’s a player with some real obvious flaws but a guy who has potential to be very good, or at least useful. He also might be a guy who you could get very cheaply. But to get value out of him you must understand his limitations.

 Morse is a player with big power. He’s got a weird swing but I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone with more opposite field power. Morse has three glaring weaknesses though. Firstly he’s injury prone. He’s got a big fragile body – he spent a lot of time injured last year and has had some problems this year too. Secondly he doesn’t walk much, or at least as much as he should considering his power threat. Using PTW (explained here) he ranks similarly to a 2012 Alfonso Soriano or Josh Hamilton with a career PTW(HR) of 0.692 homers per walk and PTW(ISO) of 3.23 bases per walk. This means to get any decent OBP he needs to hit .300 or near it. He’s also slow, clogging the basepaths and making a liability when put in any fielding position where you need to run.

 As a Washington Nationals fan, I have some great memories of Morse at his best – that 2011 season was awesome. He started the year slow but when Adam LaRoche went down Morse went to first base and exploded, ending up hitting over .300 with 31 homers. But the next year the injury bug hit and LaRoche’s resurgence forced him back into the outfield. The Nats traded him to Seattle and they used him in the outfield. Morse is painful to watch in the outfield – he is slow and it hurts any potential gains from his bat, and after his hot start his bat has cooled down.

 Morse could still be a good target for trade or to get as a cheap free agent next year. But understand that he sucks in the outfield. He should only be played at first base or DH. I think he’s got some potential at first base. His career UZR/150 is -1.5, slightly below average. But given more practice he could even end up above average. Watching him regularly play at first in 2011 he certainly passed the eye test. I think there’s some potential there and he might be got on the cheap – just don’t put him in the outfield. He's not a slam dunk but well worth the risk at the price.

Deciding World Series Home Field Advantage

Deciding World Series Home Field Advantage

 The All Star Game is coming up soon and even though it’s just a fun exhibition game it does count for something – the winning team gets World Series home field advantage for their league. Bud Selig introduced this to try to add some more buzz to the ASG. It’s been like this over 10 years and I don’t think it’s really added any interest or intensity to the ASG. The game is still played like it’s an exhibition game.

 I think we should abandon using the ASG to decide World Series home advantage. I don’t think it’s really fair to disadvantage a team just because the league it’s in lost an exhibition game in July. Previous to using the ASG to decide World Series HFA they used to alternate HFA between the leagues. That’s even but not really fair – under the old rules SF would have been disadvantaged in 2010 and 2012 (although neither series went the distance anyway).

 Admittedly HFA in the World Series doesn’t make a huge difference – since they used the ASG to decide HFA, only one series (2011) has gone to a game 7 anyway. But it still matters, even if it usually doesn’t.

 You could use the teams overall record – the team that has the better season record gets the advantage. It’s not perfect since teams don’t play the same schedule – one team might have played in a weak division in the weaker league – but it would still be a fine method to use.

 But I propose we use something else to decide World Series HFA. There are 300 interleague games scheduled this year (each team plays 20 games). The league that has the better record gets the HFA in the World Series. This is fairer since the league that does better in interleague is arguably the better league so the team that makes the World Series had a harder road and thus deserves HFA.

 One of the problems with interleague play is that, outside of playing your rivals (e.g. Dodgers-Angels, White Sox and Cubs, Yankees-Mets) these matchups mean very little since you aren’t competing against these teams for finals spots. If you play teams within your own league they are your own competitors, even more so with teams in your own division.

 With this system it adds a little more importance to interleague games – they do mean a little bit more. Also it adds a little to the contest in that you are representing your league against the other league and fighting for a real prize. MLB could keep a counter on their homepage and it would be meaningful and maybe add some interest to interleague. You might have people keeping an eye on the boxscores of interleague games their teams aren’t even involved in, especially if their team is likely going to the playoffs. It could get very interesting if records are close going into the last few days or weeks.

 If at the end of the season the record is tied at 150-150, the result of the ALG game could be used as the tiebreaker. A tie wouldn’t happen often – in 16 years of interleague play there’s never been a tie. Admittedly this wouldn’t add any interest to the ASG since it’s played midway through the year. If we had done this in previous years the AL would’ve had HFA in the last 9 World Series.

The Has-Been All Stars

The Has-Been All-Stars

  The All Stars Games rosters have been announced. We are celebrating the best in baseball. Should Puig make the team? Eh. Who cares about the stars? What about the has-beens? Those who used to be good but now suck and can barely even hold onto a major league roster spot anymore, let alone make an All-Star team. Of course let’s not be mean – even these rubbish players are still great ballplayers, but not what they used to be.

 Let’s limit the Has-Been All Stars to guys who are still in the Majors – the guys who are in AAA can play in the Triple-A Has-Been All-Star Game, and guys who are in Japan like Andruw Jones aren’t eligible. Also I’ll only pick a starting nine plus a couple of extra pitchers – unlike the 80-man rosters of the real ASG. Let’s ignore players who’ve fallen off the age cliff – Paul Konerko is a has-been but in his defence he is 37 years old. Also I’ll look for a more defined trend and try to avoid guys who’ve just had one bad year.

 Some positions have more depth than other – first base is loaded while catcher is weak (which means strong I suppose).

AL Has-Beens:

C: Geovany Soto (Tex): Soto burst onto the scene in 2008 with a 3.6 WAR season (Fangraphs) and had some more good Cub seasons and while he’s only 30 those days are behind him as the bat is gone.

1B: Albert Pujols (LAA): As a big fan of Pujols it pains me to see him like this, although it probably pains Angels fans more considering the 33-year-old has 8 years left on his mega contract. There were warning signs his last year in St. Louis and it’s gotten worse this year as he’s hobbled, slow and struggling to be above replacement level. The power’s down, the K’s are up and the walks are down. If you miss the old Pujols go watch Miguel Cabrera – he is basically the new Pujols.

2B: Dustin Ackley (Sea): I’m struggling to find someone here so I’ll take Ackley. He burst onto the scene with a great debut second half in 2011 but took a step back in 2012 but at least managed 1.1 WAR. This year he was below replacement and got himself dropped.

SS: Alexei Ramirez (CWS): The thin-looking Ramirez put up some good power numbers in 2010 and 2011 but that power is gone and his walk rate has dropped accordingly. But his good fielding at a premium position still makes him a good player.

3B: Kevin Youkilis (NYY): While A-Rod is on the downslide at least he is old (almost 38), but Youk is younger (34) and he is no longer the force he was on those Red Sox squads of the late noughties. His brittle body hasn’t held up well and everything and every facet of his game has suffered.

LF: Vernon Wells (NYY): Great player and signed to a big contract, Wells deteriorated big time. But somehow the Blue Jays managed to get out of that contract and the Angels learned Wells had to learn he was not good the hard way. He had a great start for the Yankees this year but that was a dead cat bounce. At best he is a bench player.

CF: Josh Hamilton (LAA): This time last year Hamilton was a superstar – it’s incredible how far he’s dropped in such a short amount of time. The end of last year his swinging at everything got him booed by Ranger’s fans. He signed the big contract with the Angels but has managed to be barely above replacement level this year.

RF: Jeff Francouer (KC): The Natural burst onto the scene with hype and backed it up to a certain degree but was hardly a superstar. But he was young. Then he regressed into rubbish – his fielding was bad and he struggled to post an OBP over .300. A rebound year in Kansas got him a new contract but he returned to being even suckier than before – he is ‘Mr Negative WAR’.

P: Ubaldo Jimenez (Cle): Jimenez was very good in the Rockies’ rotation from 2008-2010 – in 2010 he had 2.88 ERA while pitching half his games at Coors Field. But his velocity declined and so did his overall performance.

P: Scott Kazmir (Cle): Another Indian Kazmir was a great young fireballer for the Devil Rays but fell so far he spent 2012 in an independent league. His fastball velocity has bounced back and he’s back in the majors but still a shadow of what he was.

P: John Lackey (Bos): Lackey signed a big contract but 2 years in when he had Tommy john surgery Red Sox were probably glad to get rid of him for the year although he’s bounced back so far this season.

NL Has-Beens:

C: Kurt Suzuki (Was): Suzuki had some decent years in Oakland but the bat has weakened losing average and power. He’s still a decent backup but his days as a first-string guy are already over at the age of 29.

1B: Ryan Howard (Phi): A selection to have sabermetrics types feel vindicated, Howard was a valuable, if overrated, major leaguer for a while, winning an MVP in 2006 with a .313/.425/.659. But that year was an outlier as his average dipped to a .250-.270 range and the power went down from that super high level and nowadays he walks half as often. His OPS has declined below .800 which is bad for a slow, bad fielding 1B. The torn Achilles didn’t help but he was on the decline anyway and is signed for another 3 years at 25mil/yr. Ouch!

2B: Rickie Weeks (Mil): Weeks is on the wrong side of 30 and already on the downslide – a low average is bringing his bat down from good to average and the fielding is declining.

SS: Hanley Ramirez (LAD): While Starlin Castro is having a season that’s putting some scares into Cubs fans, Hanley Ramirez gets the pick to give us two has-been Ramirez shortstops. Hanley was a superstar for the Marlins for a while, putting up seasons of 4.3, 5.3, 7.2, 7.1, 4.2 WAR. He wasn’t a great fielder, but provided everything with the bat and stole bases to boot. Injuries, concerns about attitude and a massive drop in production saw his stock fall but since being traded to the Dodgers he’s shown some signs of coming back.

3B: Ryan Zimmerman (Was): As a Nats fan it pains me to have him here but he’s no longer an elite guy. Earlier in his career he was as good as Evan Longoria but he’s no longer at that level, though he’s still a great player. He hasn’t missed a lot of games but he’s had a bunch of niggling injuries even though he’s still under 30. Tinkering with his throwing mechanics led to the throwing yips, reducing his great defense but he has been throwing better lately.

LF: Alfonso Soriano (CHC): Another case of a bad monster contract, Soriano actually was great in his first season for the Cubbies. Then he declined and by 2009 he was below replacement level. Since then he’s recovered a bit and actually had some decent season, although held back by a low OBP. If he wasn’t on such a big contract he probably wouldn’t seem so bad.

CF: Carl Crawford (LAD): He’s not really a CF, but I’ll play him a bit out of position. The long-time Ray signed a juicy contract with the Sawx … and then tanked big time. This looked like a bad contract a month into the first season. He had Tommy John surgery last year and got traded to the Dodgers where, like Hanley Ramirez, has shown some sides of rebounding.

RF: Jayson Werth (Was): Completing our trifecta of bad OF contracts is Werth. Hitting .232 in the first year of his contract wasn’t a good start and recent years have seen some injuries and combined with a loss of speed in the outfield making me worried about the last 4 years of this contract.

P: Barry Zito (SF): Barry is my favourite player – but he sucks. Slowest fastball in the majors. Zito won the Cy Young in the Oakland Moneyball year of 2002 (although he was ignored in the movie – scandalous). He had declined a bit since then but he was under 30 and durable so the Giants gave him a huge contract (7-year, 126 million) and despite pitching in a pitcher’s park has never had an ERA under 4. At least his performance in last years’ postseason gave Giants fans some nice memories of him.

P: Tim Lincecum (SF): He won two Cy Youngs but now he’s lost speed, the walks are up and he doesn’t have the command anymore – he’s starting to get hit hard even though he’s still striking guys out. He’s 29 and off contract but I’m not sure he’s a starter anymore – he showed promise as a reliever last year and could be great as a 2-inning reliever.

P: Carlos Marmol (CHC): Marmol had some decent years as a closer walking heaps of guys but striking out heaps too. But walking that many people is not a good formula and the Cubs run out of patience with him and got rid of him.

Power-to-Walk Ratio (PTW)

Power-to-Walk Ratio (PTW)

 Walks are generally thought of as a function of plate discipline – to get a walk you need to not swing at pitches out of the zone. If you are good at recognizing pitches and being disciplined to not swing at bad pitches you will get walks. Another factor is passivity – if you don’t much at all you’ll get more walks. This is the Adam Dunn approach. The problem with swinging is that you might make contact and put the ball in play – thus ruining your chance to walk.

 But there is another factor in walk rates – power. The threat of power can result in more walks.  If you get behind in the count against a guy 40-homer power you’re hardly going to groove a fastball over the plate. Yet if behind in the count against Ben Revere or Jamey Carroll I’m not going to nibble around the edges – I’m going to make them hit if they want to get on, since they can’t really hurt me with extra-base hits.

 To illustrate this idea let’s look at some examples from last year by playing around with Fangraphs leaderboards in 2012. According to Fangraphs 143 batters qualified for the batting title. Josh Hamilton, that man renowned for his swinging ways, walked in 9.4% of his plate appearances, enough to rank him 51/143. ‘The Greek God of Walks’, Kevin Youkilis, only ranked slightly ahead at 39^th (10.0% walk rate). Hamilton was way ahead of Adrian Gonzalez at 111^th (6.1%). Hamilton received walks because pitchers we’re being careful with him – if you put a fastball in his hitting zone it was likely going over the fence.

 Let’s have some fun with inventing a new metric to separate the power out of walk rate to see who has the real skill in drawing walks. Let’s use isolated slugging percentage – ISO – and compare it to BB%. ISO is (Extra Bases)/AB, BB% is walks/PA. Let’s call our little stat ‘Power-To-Walk Ratio’ (PTW). Let’s call it PTW(ISO) – which is ISO/BB%(being expressed as a decimal). But that’s including doubles and triples as well as homers. But maybe batters don’t fear doubles but do fear giving up the long ball – they fear the big monster more than guy with gap power. So let’s have another form of PTW – PTW(HR)  – which is HR%/BB%. With these numbers the lower the number the more the batter walks compared to their power – the less extra-bases or homers per walk.

 The average of all position players (non-pitchers) in MLB in 2012 for BB% is 8.1%, PTW(HR) is 0.338 and PTW(ISO) is 1.895. The full table for all 2012 batting title qualified players is at the bottom of this article.

 Now let us go back to 2012 and the 143 batting title qualifying batters.  Going back to Josh Hamilton (BB%: 9.4% (51^st/143) – his PTW(ISO)= 0.292/0.094= 3.106 (meaning he gets 3.106 extra bases per walk). That ranks him 122^nd/143 (pretty low). With PTW(HR) his value is 6.76/9.4=0.719 (he hits 0.719 homers per walk) – by this measurement he’s even closer to the bottom at 132^nd/143. This gels with what we know – Josh Hamilton has some of the worst plate discipline of anyone in the Majors but he needs to pitched carefully since he can do a lot of damage. Also you can pitch him outside and might get him to swing at outside pitches.

 What about another whiffer, Adam Dunn. He strikes out a bunch like Hamilton but for different reasons – not swinging that much and having trouble hitting it when he does swing. He actually had the highest BB% at 16.2% but ranks middle of the table (76) with a PTW(HR) of 0.390. But he’s 36^th in PTW(ISO) with 1.623 extra bases per walk. This is because he didn’t hit many doubles last year, and judging by his .204 batting average he didn’t hit many singles either.

 At the other end of the table the guy with the lowest walk rate, Alexei Ramirez, doesn’t fare much better in PTW, with ranks of 136^th (PTW(ISO)) and 116^th (PTW(HR)).

 The Best and Worst of PTW

 So who is the best walker – who shall be Mr Walker*, the master of the plate? Well not Neil Walker – he ranks 51^st in PTW(HR) and 40^th in PTW(ISO). Our king of power-to-walk is Jamey Carroll – a man who walks way more than he should considering his power output. He ranks 1^st out of all 143 qualified batters in PTW(ISO) with a score 0.505 extra bases per walk – he has almost twice as many walks as extra bases. He ranks 2^nd in PTW(HR) with .019 homers per walk (he hit 1 homer in 537 plate appearances).
 The only reason he’s 2^nd in PTW(HR) is because Ben Revere hit 0 homers and thus gets a PTW(HR) of zero. Jamey Carroll had an OBP bigger than his SLG (0.343 OBP, 0.317 SLG). Which is not what we are used to seeing. He’s the only guy who has this, although some of our other PTW leaders come close. Jamey Carroll, along with many of the PTW leaders, achieves such a good score due to a severe lack of power rather than insanely high walk rates. Carroll only ranks 48^th in walk rate and Ben Revere was all the way down at 130^th.

  Here we see a limitation (probably one of many) with this PTW stat. In seems to be biased to low power guys. These guys slap at the ball so have decent contact rates and even if they inspire little fear in pitchers they still get walks. Even major league pitchers have trouble throwing a ball at high speeds at a small target – they will miss sometimes. And it’s not like they can lob in a 60mph fastball down the middle – even the weakest MLB players can jack the ball in batting practice (i.e. Jamey Carroll has no power but could whip me in an arm-wrestling match no trouble).

 Looking at the best PTW guys there is one guy who also has a very high walk rate – Joe Mauer. 6^th in PTW(HR), 3^rd in PTW(ISO) and he’s 6^th in BB% as well. This means he really does walk a lot and his high PTW is not due to a lack of power.

 In terms of worst PTW of 2012 we have a few candidates. Adrian Beltre  (5.5BB%, 120th) is last in PTW(HR) with 1.001 – he hit 36 HR and walked 36 times. He’s also 140^th/143 in PTW(ISO) with 4.364. Alex Rios is last in PTW(ISO) – 5.171 extra bases per walk. He’s 141^st in PTW(HR) with 0.953.

 Interestingly some of the other bad PTW guys are, like Rios, White Sox players – Pierzynski is 142^nd/143 in PTW(HR) and 139^th/143 in PTW(ISO) and Dayan Viciedo is 136^th and 133^rd. But at the other end the Twins have several good guys – along with Mauer, Carroll and Revere (who’s now in Philly) and Denard Span (now in Washington) all in the top 6 of PTW(HR).

 A few final points about Power-To-Walk ratio:

- What about intentional walks? Obviously no.8 NL hitters getting walked has little to do with fear of power but there is something to IBB and fear – as an extreme example looking at the Barry Bonds insane years those intentionally free passes were certainly due to fear of his power.

- Logically there might be some lag with PTW, especially in situations where guys have breakout power seasons. They might not get walked much in the year they flash power but then later on their reputation will catch up with them. It should also happen with older guys whose power disappears – if you’ve hit 400 homers in your career you’ll still be perceived as a power threat even if nowadays you struggle to get to 15 homers.

- Is there a linear relationship between walk rate and ISO or HR%? PTW does seem to be biased towards no-power guys – Ben Revere has an unbeatable score in PTW(HR) since he gets 0 HR. Could we maybe come up with an expected PTW – how much walks would we expect for a certain HR% or ISO?

- PTW, while a little bit interesting, is more useful as a tool to show us that walk rates are not a perfect indicator of plate patience or discipline. Statistics like swing rates at pitches outside the zone (O-Swing%) and total swing rates are probably a better way to determine if someone has good plate discipline and pitch identification tools.

  

• MLB 2012 Batting Title Qualified Batters:

									Ranks
Name	PA	HR	OPS	ISO	HR%	BB%	PTW(HR)	PTW(ISO)	BB%	PTW(HR)	PTW(ISO)
Ben Revere	553	0	0.675	0.049	0.00%	5.20%	0.000	0.942	130	1	4
Jamey Carroll	537	1	0.660	0.049	0.19%	9.70%	0.019	0.505	48	2	1
Jemile Weeks	511	2	0.609	0.083	0.39%	9.80%	0.040	0.847	45	3	2
Elvis Andrus	711	3	0.727	0.092	0.42%	8.00%	0.053	1.150	85	4	12
Denard Span	568	4	0.738	0.112	0.70%	8.30%	0.085	1.349	72	5	21
Joe Mauer	641	10	0.861	0.127	1.56%	14.00%	0.111	0.907	6	6	3
Michael Brantley	609	6	0.750	0.114	0.99%	8.70%	0.113	1.310	66	7	19
Rafael Furcal	531	5	0.671	0.082	0.94%	8.30%	0.113	0.988	71	8	5
Michael Bourn	703	9	0.739	0.117	1.28%	10.00%	0.128	1.170	43	9	14
Yonder Alonso	619	9	0.741	0.120	1.45%	10.00%	0.145	1.200	42	10	16
David DeJesus	582	9	0.753	0.140	1.55%	10.50%	0.147	1.333	27	11	20
Carlos Lee	615	9	0.697	0.102	1.46%	9.40%	0.156	1.085	55	12	8
Daniel Murphy	612	6	0.735	0.112	0.98%	5.90%	0.166	1.898	116	13	61
Angel Pagan	659	8	0.778	0.152	1.21%	7.30%	0.166	2.082	95	14	71
Martin Prado	690	10	0.796	0.136	1.45%	8.40%	0.173	1.619	70	15	36
Marco Scutaro	683	7	0.753	0.098	1.02%	5.90%	0.174	1.661	115	16	44
Jose Reyes	716	11	0.780	0.146	1.54%	8.80%	0.175	1.659	65	17	43
Jose Altuve	630	7	0.740	0.109	1.11%	6.30%	0.176	1.730	108	18	49
Alberto Callaspo	520	10	0.692	0.109	1.92%	10.80%	0.178	1.009	22	19	6
Cameron Maybin	561	8	0.656	0.107	1.43%	7.80%	0.183	1.372	89	20	24
Alcides Escobar	648	5	0.721	0.098	0.77%	4.20%	0.184	2.333	137	21	93
Dexter Fowler	530	13	0.863	0.174	2.45%	12.80%	0.192	1.359	10	22	23
Alex Gordon	721	14	0.822	0.160	1.94%	10.10%	0.192	1.584	37	23	33
Alejandro De Aza	585	9	0.760	0.130	1.54%	8.00%	0.192	1.625	84	24	38
Carlos Santana	609	18	0.785	0.168	2.96%	14.90%	0.198	1.128	3	25	11
A.J. Ellis	505	13	0.786	0.144	2.57%	12.90%	0.200	1.116	9	26	10
Dan Uggla	630	19	0.732	0.164	3.02%	14.90%	0.202	1.101	2	27	9
Dustin Ackley	668	12	0.622	0.102	1.80%	8.80%	0.204	1.159	64	28	13
Miguel Montero	573	15	0.829	0.152	2.62%	12.70%	0.206	1.197	11	29	15
Shane Victorino	666	11	0.704	0.128	1.65%	8.00%	0.206	1.600	83	30	35
Ben Zobrist	668	20	0.848	0.202	2.99%	14.50%	0.206	1.393	5	31	25
Jason Kipnis	672	14	0.714	0.122	2.08%	10.00%	0.208	1.220	41	32	17
Darwin Barney	588	7	0.653	0.100	1.19%	5.60%	0.213	1.786	119	33	54
Carlos Pena	600	19	0.684	0.157	3.17%	14.50%	0.218	1.083	4	34	7
Shin-Soo Choo	686	16	0.815	0.159	2.33%	10.60%	0.220	1.500	24	35	27
Jordan Pacheco	505	5	0.762	0.112	0.99%	4.40%	0.225	2.545	135	36	102
Norichika Aoki	588	10	0.787	0.144	1.70%	7.30%	0.233	1.973	94	37	63
Austin Jackson	617	16	0.856	0.179	2.59%	10.90%	0.238	1.642	21	38	41
Michael Young	651	8	0.682	0.093	1.23%	5.10%	0.241	1.824	131	39	56
Coco Crisp	508	11	0.742	0.158	2.17%	8.90%	0.243	1.775	62	40	53
Eric Hosmer	598	14	0.663	0.127	2.34%	9.40%	0.249	1.351	54	41	22
Yunel Escobar	608	9	0.644	0.091	1.48%	5.80%	0.255	1.569	117	42	32
Kelly Johnson	581	16	0.678	0.140	2.75%	10.70%	0.257	1.308	23	43	18
David Wright	670	21	0.883	0.186	3.13%	12.10%	0.259	1.537	16	44	29
Jhonny Peralta	585	13	0.689	0.145	2.22%	8.40%	0.265	1.726	69	45	48
Justin Upton	628	17	0.785	0.150	2.71%	10.00%	0.271	1.500	40	46	26
Howie Kendrick	594	8	0.725	0.113	1.35%	4.90%	0.275	2.306	133	47	91
David Murphy	521	15	0.859	0.175	2.88%	10.40%	0.277	1.683	31	48	45
Des Jennings	563	13	0.702	0.143	2.31%	8.20%	0.282	1.744	75	49	51
Rickie Weeks	677	21	0.728	0.170	3.10%	10.90%	0.285	1.560	20	50	31
Neil Walker	530	14	0.768	0.146	2.64%	8.90%	0.297	1.640	61	51	40
Asdrubal Cabrera	616	16	0.762	0.153	2.60%	8.40%	0.309	1.821	68	52	55
Dustin Pedroia	623	15	0.797	0.160	2.41%	7.70%	0.313	2.078	91	53	70
Nick Swisher	624	24	0.837	0.201	3.85%	12.30%	0.313	1.634	15	54	39
Mark Reynolds	538	23	0.763	0.208	4.28%	13.60%	0.314	1.529	7	55	28
Ian Kinsler	731	19	0.749	0.166	2.60%	8.20%	0.317	2.024	74	56	69
Brett Lawrie	536	11	0.729	0.132	2.05%	6.20%	0.331	2.129	109	57	74
Derek Jeter	740	15	0.791	0.113	2.03%	6.10%	0.332	1.852	112	58	58
Paul Goldschmidt	587	20	0.850	0.204	3.41%	10.20%	0.334	2.000	34	59	67
Drew Stubbs	544	14	0.610	0.120	2.57%	7.70%	0.334	1.558	90	60	30
Buster Posey	610	24	0.957	0.213	3.93%	11.30%	0.348	1.885	17	61	60
David Freese	567	20	0.839	0.174	3.53%	10.10%	0.349	1.723	36	62	46
Prince Fielder	690	30	0.940	0.215	4.35%	12.30%	0.353	1.748	14	63	52
Alex Rodriguez	529	18	0.783	0.158	3.40%	9.60%	0.354	1.646	49	64	42
Matt Holliday	688	27	0.877	0.202	3.92%	10.90%	0.360	1.853	19	65	59
Freddie Freeman	620	23	0.796	0.196	3.71%	10.30%	0.360	1.903	33	66	62
Chase Headley	699	31	0.875	0.212	4.43%	12.30%	0.361	1.724	13	67	47
Erick Aybar	554	8	0.740	0.126	1.44%	4.00%	0.361	3.150	139	68	124
Danny Espinosa	658	17	0.717	0.155	2.58%	7.00%	0.369	2.214	102	69	84
Jimmy Rollins	699	23	0.743	0.177	3.29%	8.90%	0.370	1.989	60	70	65
Kevin Youkilis	509	19	0.745	0.174	3.73%	10.00%	0.373	1.740	39	71	50
Matt Wieters	593	23	0.764	0.186	3.88%	10.10%	0.384	1.842	35	72	57
Justin Smoak	535	19	0.654	0.147	3.55%	9.20%	0.386	1.598	57	73	34
Justin Morneau	570	19	0.773	0.172	3.33%	8.60%	0.388	2.000	67	74	68
Starlin Castro	691	14	0.753	0.147	2.03%	5.20%	0.390	2.827	129	75	113
Adam Dunn	649	41	0.800	0.263	6.32%	16.20%	0.390	1.623	1	76	37
Carlos Gonzalez	579	22	0.881	0.207	3.80%	9.70%	0.392	2.134	47	77	76
Bryce Harper	597	22	0.817	0.206	3.69%	9.40%	0.392	2.191	53	78	82
Gordon Beckham	582	16	0.668	0.137	2.75%	6.90%	0.398	1.986	103	79	64
Andre Ethier	618	20	0.812	0.176	3.24%	8.10%	0.400	2.173	78	80	79
Ichiro Suzuki	663	9	0.696	0.107	1.36%	3.30%	0.411	3.242	142	81	125
Torii Hunter	584	16	0.817	0.139	2.74%	6.50%	0.421	2.138	105	82	77
Hunter Pence	688	24	0.743	0.172	3.49%	8.10%	0.431	2.123	77	83	72
Adrian Gonzalez	684	18	0.806	0.164	2.63%	6.10%	0.431	2.689	111	84	109
Kyle Seager	651	20	0.738	0.163	3.07%	7.10%	0.433	2.296	100	85	89
Ryan Zimmerman	641	25	0.824	0.196	3.90%	8.90%	0.438	2.202	59	86	83
Michael Saunders	553	19	0.738	0.185	3.44%	7.80%	0.440	2.372	88	87	97
A. McCutchen	673	31	0.953	0.226	4.61%	10.40%	0.443	2.173	30	88	80
Hanley Ramirez	667	24	0.759	0.180	3.60%	8.10%	0.444	2.222	76	89	85
Mark Teixeira	524	24	0.807	0.224	4.58%	10.30%	0.445	2.175	32	90	81
Mike Trout	639	30	0.963	0.238	4.69%	10.50%	0.447	2.267	26	91	87
Brennan Boesch	503	12	0.659	0.132	2.39%	5.20%	0.459	2.538	128	92	101
Josh Willingham	615	35	0.890	0.264	5.69%	12.40%	0.459	2.129	12	93	73
Paul Konerko	598	26	0.857	0.188	4.35%	9.40%	0.463	2.000	52	94	66
Jason Heyward	651	27	0.814	0.210	4.15%	8.90%	0.466	2.360	58	95	94
Jeff Francoeur	603	16	0.665	0.143	2.65%	5.60%	0.474	2.554	118	96	103
Zack Cozart	600	15	0.687	0.153	2.50%	5.20%	0.481	2.942	127	97	118
Chris Johnson	528	15	0.777	0.170	2.84%	5.90%	0.482	2.881	114	98	115
Yadier Molina	563	22	0.874	0.186	3.91%	8.00%	0.488	2.325	82	99	92
Adam LaRoche	647	33	0.853	0.238	5.10%	10.40%	0.490	2.288	29	100	88
Colby Rasmus	625	23	0.689	0.177	3.68%	7.50%	0.491	2.360	93	101	95
Carlos Beltran	619	32	0.842	0.227	5.17%	10.50%	0.492	2.162	25	102	78
Nelson Cruz	642	24	0.779	0.200	3.74%	7.50%	0.498	2.667	92	103	104
Aaron Hill	668	26	0.882	0.220	3.89%	7.80%	0.499	2.821	87	104	112
E. Encarnacion	644	42	0.941	0.277	6.52%	13.00%	0.502	2.131	8	105	75
Mike Moustakas	614	20	0.708	0.171	3.26%	6.40%	0.509	2.672	107	106	105
Cody Ross	528	22	0.807	0.214	4.17%	8.00%	0.521	2.675	81	107	107
Jesus Montero	553	15	0.685	0.126	2.71%	5.20%	0.522	2.423	126	108	98
Jason Kubel	571	30	0.833	0.253	5.25%	10.00%	0.525	2.530	38	109	100
Ike Davis	584	32	0.771	0.235	5.48%	10.40%	0.527	2.260	28	110	86
Pedro Alvarez	586	30	0.784	0.223	5.12%	9.70%	0.528	2.299	46	111	90
Yoenis Cespedes	540	23	0.861	0.214	4.26%	8.00%	0.532	2.675	80	112	106
Billy Butler	679	29	0.882	0.197	4.27%	8.00%	0.534	2.463	79	113	99
Robinson Cano	697	33	0.929	0.238	4.73%	8.80%	0.538	2.705	63	114	111
Jay Bruce	633	34	0.841	0.263	5.37%	9.80%	0.548	2.684	44	115	108
Alexei Ramirez	621	9	0.651	0.099	1.45%	2.60%	0.557	3.808	143	116	136
Mike Aviles	546	13	0.663	0.131	2.38%	4.20%	0.567	3.119	136	117	123
Omar Infante	588	12	0.719	0.144	2.04%	3.60%	0.567	4.000	140	118	138
Curtis Granderson	684	43	0.811	0.260	6.29%	11.00%	0.572	2.364	18	119	96
Albert Pujols	670	30	0.859	0.231	4.48%	7.80%	0.574	2.962	86	120	119
Josh Reddick	673	32	0.768	0.221	4.75%	8.20%	0.580	2.695	73	121	110
J.J. Hardy	713	22	0.671	0.151	3.09%	5.30%	0.582	2.849	124	122	114
Allen Craig	514	22	0.876	0.215	4.28%	7.20%	0.594	2.986	97	123	121
Aramis Ramirez	630	27	0.901	0.240	4.29%	7.00%	0.612	3.429	101	124	131
Ryan Doumit	528	18	0.781	0.186	3.41%	5.50%	0.620	3.382	122	125	130
B.J. Upton	633	28	0.752	0.208	4.42%	7.10%	0.623	2.930	99	126	117
Brandon Phillips	623	18	0.750	0.148	2.89%	4.50%	0.642	3.289	134	127	127
Ryan Braun	677	41	0.987	0.276	6.06%	9.30%	0.651	2.968	56	128	120
Miguel Cabrera	697	44	0.999	0.277	6.31%	9.50%	0.665	2.916	50	129	116
Corey Hart	622	30	0.841	0.237	4.82%	7.10%	0.679	3.338	98	130	129
Kendrys Morales	522	22	0.787	0.194	4.21%	5.90%	0.714	3.288	113	131	126
Josh Hamilton	636	43	0.930	0.292	6.76%	9.40%	0.719	3.106	51	132	122
Alfonso Soriano	615	32	0.821	0.237	5.20%	7.20%	0.723	3.292	96	133	128
Garrett Jones	515	27	0.832	0.242	5.24%	6.40%	0.819	3.781	106	134	135
Ian Desmond	547	25	0.845	0.218	4.57%	5.50%	0.831	3.964	121	135	137
Dayan Viciedo	543	25	0.744	0.188	4.60%	5.20%	0.885	3.615	125	136	133
Chris Davis	562	33	0.827	0.231	5.87%	6.60%	0.890	3.500	104	137	132
Mark Trumbo	586	32	0.808	0.222	5.46%	6.10%	0.895	3.639	110	138	134
Delmon Young	608	18	0.707	0.145	2.96%	3.30%	0.897	4.394	141	139	141
Adam Jones	697	32	0.839	0.218	4.59%	4.90%	0.937	4.449	132	140	142
Alex Rios	640	25	0.850	0.212	3.91%	4.10%	0.953	5.171	138	141	143
A.J. Pierzynski	520	27	0.827	0.223	5.19%	5.40%	0.962	4.130	123	142	139
Adrian Beltre	654	36	0.921	0.240	5.50%	5.50%	1.001	4.364	120	143	140

 

*For ‘The Ghost Who Walks’.