Explaining Sabermetrics: 10 Stats You Need to Know

More than any other sport, baseball is defined by statistics. Off the top of your head, you may not know how many touchdowns your favorite quarterback threw this season, or how many three-pointers Steph Curry made this year. However, I can almost guarantee that most baseballs fans can tell you how many home runs their team's 1st baseman has this year. Despite the historical emphasis on statistics in the game, baseball has been famously stubborn in welcoming new statistics onto its portfolio. Players have always been judged the same way, and baseball seems reluctant to change the way things have always been. However, over the last 15 years or so, there has been a revolution in terms of statistics in baseball, where new ways of measuring player's performance are becoming as popular as the traditional statistics. These new player evaluation tools are called sabermetrics.

Before I discuss the intricacies of sabermetrics, I should explain why they are needed in the first place. For decades, two stats have dominated player evaluation. For batters, that stat is Batting Average. Batting Average is extremely simple: you just divide the number of hits a player has by the number of at-bats that he has. So, for example, if a player has 150 hits in 500 at-bats his Batting Average would be .300. While Batting Average (BA) was its uses, it is a very narrow-minded way of looking at a player's contributions. For example, a player might have a very high BA of .350, but that does not tell us anything about the quality of that player's hits. If all of the player's hits are singles, then he is not a very effective player, despite his high BA.

For pitchers, they have always been judged by their Earned Run Average (ERA). ERA is not as weak of a stat as Batting Average, but it too does not tell the whole story about a pitcher's contributions. ERA only calculates how many earned runs a pitchers allows per every 9 innings that he pitches. Now, a pitcher's job is to allow as few runs as possible, so in many ways ERA can tell you a lot about a pitcher. However, ERA also leaves a lot to be desired. It is more than possible for a pitcher to be ineffective, yet still have a good ERA, if he is fortunate enough to have good luck. Good luck for a pitcher could entail batters hitting the ball hard right at fielders. A low ERA could also be the product of pitcher having a great defense behind him, while a more effective pitcher with less luck might have a higher ERA if he plays for a bad defensive team. Again, ERA can be very useful to judge a pitcher's performance, but their are other statistics that give you a better idea of how he is actually performing.

It is a common misconception by older baseball fans that sabermetric stats are here to replace traditional stats like BA and ERA. As a result, they refuse to accept these stats as legitimate barometers for player performance. This is a shame, because they are completely missing the point of what sabermetrics are for. Sabermetrics are used to support traditional baseball stats, not replace them. They are designed to fill in the hole that are left open by stats like BA, ERA, and fielding errors. I strongly encourage anyone who is interested in baseball to take the time to learn the basic sabermetrics stats. So, without further ado, here are the 10 sabermetric stats that every baseball fan should be familiar with:

1. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is a stat designed to combine all of player's contributions into one stat. The resulting number is how many wins a player will add to their team compared to a replacement player (a replacement player is typically understood to be a below-average player). So for example, a player with a 3.2 WAR is worth 3.2 more wins to his team as opposed to a replacement-level player. In regards to WAR, 2.0 and above is considered to be a starting-caliber player, while 5.0 ad above is considered to be all-star worthy
2. On Base plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) is unique in that it combines two traditional stats (on base percentage and slugging percentage) into one new stat. The stat is very simple as it just adds the two percentages together. So an player with a .350 OBP and a .450 SLG will have an .800 OPS. OPS is a great barometer for a player's offensive contributions, it counts how often the player gets on base and how many bases he gets on his hits (a double, for example, is more valuable than a single).
3. OPS+ is very similar to OPS, except that it is ballpark-adjusted. This means that the stat is adjusted to incorporate the effect that ballparks have on the player. For example, Yankee Stadium is widely considered to be beneficial to hitters, while Petco Park in San Diego is considered to be a pitcher's park. So if a player on the Yankees and a player on the Padres each had an OPS of .800, the player on the Padres' OPS+ would be higher because he plays in a more difficult ballpark. The league-average number for OPS+ is always 100, so anything above that is above-average, and vice-versa.
4. Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) measures how many runs a player creates for his team in comparison to other players. Similar to OPS, it combines a player's ability to get on base with his ability to hit for extra bases. However, unlike OPS and OPS+, wRC+ places more value on simply getting on base, whereas OPS values the quality of those bases (with singles and doubles being less valuable than triples and home runs). Similar to OPS+, the league average for wRC+ is always 100, and it is weighted in regards to ballpark factors. So, a player with a 150 wRC+ will produce 50% more runs than a player with a 100 wRC+.
5. Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is a simple, yet very useful stat. Simply put, it shows the batting average that a player has on balls that he makes contact with. So for example, strikeouts are not included in this statistic. BABIP is useful because it shows how lucky a player has been, which standard BA will not show. So, if a players BABIP is significantly higher than his standard BA, it probably means that he has been extremely lucky and is due for a regression.
6. Earned Run Average Plus (ERA+) is a stat that puts a pitcher's ERA in the context of the ballpark that he pitches in. Obviously, a pitcher who pitches in a bigger ballpark will benefit from that ballpark. So, ERA+ helps judge how good a pitcher has been while including the factor of the stadium that he pitches in. The league-average for ERA+ is always 100.
7. Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) is a stat that helps fill in the holes left by ERA. As stated before, a pitcher can benefit or suffer from the defense around him, so FIP completely eliminates fielding from the equation. FIP measures a pitchers ability to strike out batters, while preventing home runs, walks, hit-by-pitches, and strikeouts. Pitchers generally do not have control over balls that need to be fielded, so FIP tells us how good a pitcher is at controlling the outcomes that only he can affect.
8. Walks and Hits divided by Innings Pitched (WHIP) tells us how good a pitcher is at preventing baserunners. As a general rule, a pitcher will be more successful if he allows less baserunners. In a similar way to FIP, WHIP offers an alternative to ERA to see how effective a pitcher has been, and if he is due for a regression. So, for example, if a pitcher has a low ERA and a high WHIP, he is almost certainly due to regress. 
9. Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) is a stat designed to measure how good of a fielder a player is. Historically, a player has always been judged on his fielding by his fielding percentage. However, fielding percentage is probably the worst stat in sports, as it only factors plays in which a fielder reaches the ball. Fielding percentage does not count balls that player should have gotten to, so it is essentially useless. UZR attempts to combat this problem. UZR divides the baseball field into zones, and assigns each player on the field as being responsible for every ball hit in that area. So, UZR is calculated by determining how many plays a player successfully makes in his zone on the field. The average for UZR is always 0, so anything above that is considered to be above-average. 
10. Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) is very similar to UZR in that attempts to calculate how good of a fielder a player is. However, DRS calculates how many runs a player saved or cost their team on defense relative to an average player. The calculation of DRS revolves around the difficulty of plays that a player makes. So for example, if he makes an incredibly difficult catch, his DRS will go up. If he makes a routine play, his DRS will be unaffected.  If he misses an easy play, his DRS goes down significantly. However, if he misses a very difficult play, his DRS will go down only slightly. Like UZR, the average DRS is 0. 

Settling the Harper-Trout Debate

While its always fun to watch sports with a friend, its even more fun to have a heated argument about sports with a friend. In many ways, it seems that sports like baseball only exist so they can spark arguments and disagreements. Of these arguments, the most common among baseball fans is arguably the "who is better" argument. It is not enough for a player to be great. Instead, he must be compared to other players in order to be judged. This argument has always existed in baseball, and will exist as long as baseball is played. In the 1960s, I'm sure every baseball fan spent substantial time arguing over who was a better player: Micky Mantle or Willie Mays. The same discussion exists to day, except that it involves the two best young players in the game today: Mike Trout and Bryce Harper.

Through no fault of their own, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper will always be tied to one other. The "rivalry" between the two began on April 28, 2012, when they were called up from the minor leagues on the exact same day. That year, they established themselves as being two of the better players in baseball despite being absurdly young in age (Trout was 20 and Harper was 19).That year, they became only the 39th and 40th rookies to ever play in the MLB All Star Game, Harper being the youngest position player to ever appear in the game. They would both go on to win Rookie of the Year in their respective leagues, putting up 2 of the best rookie seasons of all time.

Since then, Trout and Harper have gone on to be the two biggest stars in baseball, despite being years younger than most major leaguers (the average age for an MLB player is 29.3). Despite their similar production on the field, their off the field reputations have become polar opposites of each other. Trout is widely viewed as the All-American boy. He keeps a smile on his face, doesn't say anything controversial, and plays an old-fashioned style on the field. As a result, Trout is one of the most well liked players in the game. Harper however, is widely viewed as a villain. He curses at umpires, showboats after he hits home runs, and acts like he doesn't give a damn about what anyone thinks of him. Harper has cultivated a "bad boy" image, and thus has become one of the more disliked players in baseball. When he plays on the road, it is not uncommon for Harper to be loudly booed by opposing fans.

Although Harper is routinely despised by most baseball fans, none of those fans would be foolish enough to say that Harper is not a great baseball player. The question is whether or not he is the best player in the game. The honorary title of "Best Player in Baseball" had long been held by Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers. However, as Cabrera has aged, he has clearly been surpassed by Trout and Harper. The question now is whether Harper or Trout should be considered to be the "Best Player in Baseball". Up until last year, Trout was considered to be superior to Harper. However, Harper's historic 2015 season has led many people to change their minds. Here, we'll do a definitive side-by-side comparison of the two players to finally decide who the better player is.

Bryce Harper

• 2012 National League Rookie of the Year
• 2015 National League Most Valuable Player. Yongest winner to ever be selected by unanimous decision.
• 2015 Silver Slugger Winner. 2015 Hank Aaron Award Winner
• Led the major leagues in almost every offensive category last year, including runs, home runs, on base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, and OPS+.
• Has been selected to the All Star Game in 3 out of his 4 seasons in the major leagues. 
• 3rd youngest player to be selected to the All Star Game. Youngest non-pitcher to ever be selected
• Is a year older than the average college senior, and already has 112 career home runs.
• Led the major leagues with a 9.9 Wins Above Replacement score, highest in the National League since Barry Bonds in 2004.
• Has a saved 32 runs in his career on defense, making him an above-average defensive right fielder.
• Had struggled to stay healthy before 2015.
• Career stats: .284/.386/.513
• Current 2016 stats: .254/..401/.480  1.8 WAR

Mike Trout

• 2012 American League Rookie of the Year
• 2014 American League Most Valuable Player (unanimously selected)
• 2012-2015 Silver Slugger Award Winner. 2014 Hank Aaron Award winner
• 2nd player to ever win Silver Slugger in each of his 1st 4 seasons
• 4-time All-Star (has been selected in each of his 4 MLB seasons)
• 2014, 2015 All Star Game Most Valuable Player
• Has had at least 7.9 WAR in each of his 4 seasons (8.0 is considered MVP-level)
• Led the American League in strikeouts in 2014
• Has a career Defensive Runs Saved of exactly 0 in CF., which means that he is considered to be an average center fielder.
• Career stats: .306/.399/.560
• Current 2016 stats: .319/.415/.572

As we can see, Harper and Trout each can fill a trophy case with the awards they have won in their young careers. In order to decide who is the better player, you must decide which is more valuable: quantity or quality. Trout has certainly had a more consistently great career so far, but Harper's 2015 season was better than any season that Trout has had so far. From my perspective, I'm inclined to take Trout's consistent greatness over Harper's unreal 2015 season. If Harper were to repeat the numbers that he put up last year, then this would be a very different conversation. However, Harper is having a mediocre season by his standards while Trout is having another MVP-type season. With that being said, I think Harper's mediocre stats can be attributed to the fact that he is not seeing good pitches to him due to the fact that he is in a poor Washington lineup. However, the fact remains that his numbers pale in comparison to Trout's. Add in the fact that Trout plays a more demanding defensive position in center field, and I think it is clear that Mike Trout is currently a superior player compared to Bryce Harper. 

Evaluating Moneyball

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis, is probably the most famous book ever written (with the possible exception of Ball Four, by Jim Bouton). Since 2003, it has been a must-read for any baseball fan, and has reached an even wider audience after a movie based on the book was released in 2011, starring Brad Pitt.

Brad Pitt (top) starred as Billy Beane (bottom) in the 2011 film adaptation of Moneyball, which is still the biggest compliment Beane has ever received.

While the movie has helped bring Moneyball to a larger audience, I personally wish the movie had never been released. While it is entertaining and slightly informative, it completely misses the theme of the book, which is that there are multiple ways to construct a baseball roster.

The book itself chronicles Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's unorthodox methods of  building a successful baseball roster. Baseball, unlike the other major sports, does not have a salary cap. This means that a team can sign as many players as they want for as much money as they want. This puts teams with smaller budgets like the A's at a significant disadvantage compared to richer teams such as the New York Yankees or Los Angeles Dodgers. This made it difficult for small market teams to achieve sustained success, as they would lose their best players in free agency to teams who could afford to pay the players more money. This issue is documented in the beginning of the book, when the A's lose 3 of their best players (Jason Isringhausen, Jason Giambi, and Johnny Damon) to free agency. It is at this point that Beane realizes that he needs to find different methods to keep his his low-budget team competitive, despite the loss of his best players.

Beane's new approach to roster construction is what is now known as Moneyball, in which Beane successfully found "undervalued" players that did not cost a lot of money, yet were still able to perform at a high level. In 2002, baseball decisions were still made based off a player's batting average, speed, and home run totals. However, Beane became convinced that these were not the best barometers to judge a players value. Beane and his his assistant, Paul DePodesta, believed that the most important statistics to judge a player's value were On Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage. Equally as important, Beane believed that the players that hit this criteria were undervalued by baseball executives, and therefore were easier and cheaper to acquire.

To briefly summarize the book, the 2002 Oakland A's ended up being one of the best teams in baseball, despite having the 3rd-lowest payroll in the league. They were led by contributions by acquisitions of players that had previously been undervalued by the rest of the league. These players included Scott Hatteberg, Chad Bradford, and Billy Koch. The team succeeded despite being led by players that the casual fan might not have even heard of. In many ways, this was revolutionary, as the team won games despite having a roster of mostly castoffs or unknowns.

The most important theme of the book is the juxtaposition of the "new" ideas of Beane and DePodesta compared to the established, traditional rules of player evaluation. DePodesta was a Harvard graduate who did not play baseball, and used mathematical formulas to come to conclusions. This type of analysis was (and still is) ridiculed by scouts and baseball traditionalists, who believe that you have to have played baseball to understand the game and evaluate players. This conflict still exists today, where "baseball lifers" refuse to accept sabermetrics as a way to run a baseball team.

While there is no doubt that Beane's revolutionary methods led to his team having a successful season in 2002, it has to be mentioned that he has been the GM in Oakland since 1998, and yet has not won a World Series. That is a major caveat when reviewing Moneyball. While Beane's ideas have influenced other championship teams like the Boston Red Sox, the fact that Beane has never won himself does put a damper on the book. 

The book also spends a substantial amount of time talking about Beane's strategy in the MLB draft. Beane believes that college players are much more likely to succeed in the major leagues than high school draftees. As a result of this, Beane almost exclusively drafts college players over high school players. The book devotes a lot of time to this strategy, and portrays it as revolutionary. However, it turns out that Beane has not been particularly successful at drafting major league players. Here is every first round pick of the Oakland A's from 2002-2012 (it is too early to evaluate players drafted after 2012, as most are still in the minor leagues). During this period, the A's made 21 picks in the first round. Of those 21 picks, only 6 (Nick Swisher, Joe Blanton,  Mark Teahen, Huston Street, Cliff Pennington, and Sonny Gray) have gone on to be successful major leaguers. 9 of those picks made it to the major leagues, but did not have successful careers. 6 of those picks did not make it to major leagues at all. This is not an impressive draft record, and it makes the reader wonder if Beane's draft strategy is the correct one. For example, the 3 best players in baseball right now (Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Clayton Kershaw) were not college players. 

Despite the fact that Beane's career has been up and down, this does not change the fact that he was responsible for changing the way that baseball players are evaluated. He is one of the few general managers in sports to be a household name, and this is exclusively due to Moneyball. The book, to this day, remains extremely influential to the baseball community. Namely, it serves as a tool to teach fans that there are different ways to evaluate baseball players besides traditional statistics like batting average. 

Introduction

Welcome! This a blog dedicated to America's Pastime, aka the wonderful game of baseball. Major League Baseball was founded in 1903, which makes it the oldest major professional sports league in the United States. In many ways, baseball's seniority as a major American sport has become a blessing and a curse. On one hand, baseball boasts a rich and celebrated history that is in a class of it's own compared to other sports such as football and basketball. This history has allowed baseball to become part of the fabric of American culture, but has contributed to baseball's recent "decline" as well. A common theme in sports media today is that baseball is a "dying sport" due to it's refusal to modernize and adapt to competition from faster, more exciting sports like football, basketball, hockey, and to a lesser extent soccer and lacrosse. There have been calls throughout sports media for baseball to make itself more exciting so it does not become redundant. While I personally do not believe that baseball is "dying", I do believe that baseball must modernize, yet do so in a way that does not compromise the identity that it has built up over the last century-plus.

This blog will explore the challenge that baseball has at hand. It must adapt to the new world of social media, which demands sports to produce 15 second highlight clips that can go viral on Twitter or Instagram. This is a significant challenge for baseball. Other than a home run, it will struggle to produce plays that can compete with an athletic dunk in basketball or an 80-yard touchdown pass in football. There is no doubt that baseball moves at a slower pace than other sports, which has contributed to the narrative that baseball cannot connect to Millennials. As a Millennial myself, I strongly disagree with this notion. This blog will serve as way to highlight baseball as a sport that can connect to younger generations without sacrificing the traditions that it's built up over the years. The blog will discuss the relationship between baseball's past and present, and how they will affect the game's future. This will include comparisons of past and present players, the debate about Sabermetic statistics (this will be explained later for the uninitiated), analysis of games, and discussing the changes that have been occurring in baseball over the past few years. All of this will fit under the theme of connecting baseball with younger fans while still maintain the traditions that make it popular with older fans.