Yesterday, during a long talk with my dad about Cleveland sports, I came to the realization of just how much the conversation about sports has evolved since I was a kid and especially since my dad was a kid.
In covering the Cavs and the Indians (not much to say about the Browns right now), and discussing things like OPS and production per 48 minutes, I was stricken by the fact that my dad and I never could have had this same conversation when I was growing up. I’m not really sure how we defined talent and value, and how we came up with our favorite players back then - maybe it was more pure, in a sense, because it was less informed…the ignorance is bliss principle…but if I were to look at my favorite players then, I’m sure I liked them more because how their game looked, how it was publicized, and who they were then for anything tangibly worthwhile.
Although, me being heavy into the Jose Canseco Starting Lineup figure shows some insight - Canseco had a career OPS of .867 - which is good.
What I most enjoy writing about on this blog are things that I start the piece knowing very little about, and then, by the end of the article, I’ve investigated the situation deeply enough to form an educated, cohesive opinion. In other words, I like to use this space to learn more about the games I love.
And when that opinion happens to differ from one that’s dictated by the people who control public opinion on Cleveland sports, then it makes me even happier. What can I say, I’m a healthy skeptic.
A large part of my conversation with my dad centered around OPS, which I’ve loosely written about previously, in regards to why it’s a better indicator of a hitter’s worth than batting average alone.
Much of this can be found in Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball, which I recommend you reading, but to outline those thoughts more briefly, you can also look at this Wiki page.
In short, OPS - or on base percentage plus slugging percentage - is a better measure of a hitter’s value because it more closely indicates how that hitter produces runs. The reasoning lies in the fact that a team would score an infinite amount of runs if every batter got on base…but since this is impossible, slugging percentage is also important because extra base hits produce runs more quickly than singles, walks, or getting hit by a pitch (reaching base on an error could go either way, depending on how many bases the error costs the defense).
This philosophy, which the Indians subscribe to, puts an emphasis on home runs and walks and is critical of sacrifice bunts, strikeouts, and stolen bases attempts - in the long run, giving up outs is statistically proven to produce a fewer amount of runs. Stolen bases are great if you don’t get caught - but they’re only worthwhile if your team gets caught no more than 30% of the time.
One problem with this methodology is that a team can some times get trapped playing the wrong percentages. For instance, giving up an out to bunt a runner from first to second is normally a bad long term percentage play when trying to score as many runs as possible - but bunting a runner from first to second in the bottom of the 9th inning in a tie game is a different story because you don’t need four runs, you just need one.
Obviously, that’s an extreme example, but you get the idea.
The other issue with OPS is that on base percentage is, on average, lower than slugging percentage - so a high slugging percentage can inflate an OPS - when, really, getting on base as frequently as possible is a more valuable action than hitting a home run every once in a while, due to the infinite runs formula mentioned above.
So, by no means, is OPS a perfect stat, but it does help us understand - more deeply - how good of a hitter a player is. Notice that we totally ignore stats like RBI which place far too much emphasis on what players other than the one we’re trying to evaluate have done. You can’t get a RBI, after all, unless the player in front of you found his way into scoring position.
OPS then is one stat - the other is OPS+ which is the designation for adjusted OPS, a statistic that takes into consideration a player’s league and ballpark when calculating on base and slugging. This make sense - it’s easier to hit a home run in Coors Field than it is in Comerica Park, or really anywhere else.
Infamous stat geek, Bill James laid out OPS into seven categories, with above .9000 at the top and .5666 at the bottom (the entire chart is on the Wiki link). In 2008, the average MLB OPS was .749 - this varies some from year to year.
OPS+ is really a better gauge because it mitigates the advantage a guy like Todd Helton has playing in Coors Field, which inevitably has helped him become the player with the 10th best career OPS in the history of MLB (.9976 - and also on the Wiki link).
With OPS+ 100 is average, 125 is very good, and 150 is excellent. Barry Bonds had the highest single year OPS+ in 2002 with a 268. Incidentally, that was the year after he broke the single season HR record.
The most compelling reason to talk about all of this now is that it gives us a good place to start if the Indians make any trades this week. Of course, since most of those trades will involve pitchers, I’ll have to break down a whole different set of stats - but together we’ll get there.
I know that understanding all of this helps me grasp and enjoy the game more than I did a year ago - even if I am late to the party. As a kid, I don’t think I would’ve cared, but as an adult it’s exciting to reach a more complex level of comprehension - and fun to listen to how dumb the analysts on Baseball Tonight sound when they talk about a player being great because he turns corners on the base paths.
I’ll be in Anaheim tomorrow with Tim watching Carl Pavano pitch what could be his last game as an Indian.
