Sunday, June 12, 2011

An Update on the Average Major League Hitter

This is the promised update to my table of pretty good averages for everyday baseball players at the major league level. As before, I consider an everyday ball player to be one who was eligible for a league batting title in a given year, which from 1996-2010 means that he made at least 502 plate appearances in a given year.

The raw data for this study was taken from the mySQL database thoughtfully provided by the folks at Baseball-DataBank.org. As outlined in yesterday's post, I used mySQL to pull out the appropriate data, this time using the command:

select b.yearID as Year, m.nameLast as Last, m.nameFirst as First,
b.teamID as TEAM, b.G, b.AB+b.BB+b.HBP+b.SH+b.SF as PA, b.AB, b.R, b.H, b.2B,
b.3B, b.HR, b.RBI, b.SB, b.CS, b.BB, b.SO, b.IBB, b.HBP, b.SH, b.SF, b.GIDP
from Batting b inner join Master m
where b.playerID=m.playerID and b.yearID>1995 and
b.AB+b.BB+b.HBP+b.SH+b.SF > 502
order by b.yearID ASC, m.nameLast, m.nameFirst;

to get a list of all players from 1996 on who were eligible for a batting title. I then used mysql-query-browser to export all of the data into a spreadsheet, and there computed all of the averages and standard deviations. All the calculations are the same as in my original post, except:

  • I added the batting data for the 2009 and 2010 seasons.
  • My original post fraked up David Smyth's Base Runs statistic. I used the right formula (the second one on the page), but miscalculated total bases by forgetting that doubles, triples, and home runs are already counted as hits. So the numbers found in my earlier study are too high.
  • I dropped 1995 from the study this time because only 144 games were scheduled for each team, so the batting eligibility criterion was 144 × 3.1 = 447 plate appearances. Just lazy.

Here's how it works. For, say, Batting Average in 1996, I computed the batting average for each of the 137 players eligible for batting awards that year. I then computed the average of that average, which is the entry in the BA column for 1996. I also computed the standard deviation of those averages for the year, and put that number in the σ column. I did this for each year and each statistic listed. Finally, I found the average of all the batting averages over the 2168 player-years, and put that under All Years, along with its standard deviation. So, to use another example, we can see that from 1996-2010 the average everyday major league batter hit someplace between 11 and 31 home runs in a year. Obviously there were some notable (and ignoble) players who hit more than that, and many who hit less. But in general, if you can hit 20 home runs in a year off big-league pitching, this table tells you that you've probably got a job. I hear it pays pretty well.

The first table lists the traditional stats: Batting Average, Home Runs, and Runs Batted In (RBI).

Year Players
Eligible
Games Batting Average Home Runs Runs Batted In
    Avg. σ BA σ HR σ RBI σ
1996 137 147.336 10.285 0.288 0.027 21.358 12.814 84.993 29.394
1997 133 147.286 9.864 0.283 0.029 19.970 11.331 80.962 26.357
1998 148 148.574 10.217 0.287 0.026 20.926 13.012 82.500 28.442
1999 152 145.875 11.647 0.290 0.026 22.020 12.613 85.401 28.495
2000 150 146.553 10.817 0.288 0.030 22.007 11.733 85.700 27.728
2001 146 147.034 10.800 0.282 0.028 21.623 13.400 81.890 29.106
2002 144 147.417 9.630 0.278 0.027 20.750 11.188 78.819 24.090
2003 146 146.610 11.739 0.281 0.027 19.863 11.056 78.863 24.173
2004 154 145.877 10.302 0.284 0.026 20.786 11.012 79.117 23.576
2005 143 147.441 10.615 0.280 0.022 19.965 10.937 78.042 23.308
2006 146 147.116 10.302 0.286 0.024 20.459 12.181 80.952 25.700
2007 156 146.686 10.568 0.283 0.028 19.128 9.921 79.763 23.370
2008 137 146.657 10.834 0.280 0.025 19.620 9.758 78.029 22.900
2009 140 145.821 11.482 0.282 0.026 19.929 10.809 78.129 22.584
2010 136 147.213 10.235 0.274 0.027 18.728 10.276 75.125 22.502
All
Years
2168 146.890 10.635 0.283 0.027 20.491 11.531 80.595 25.671

The next table has the modern statistics: On Base Percentage (OBP), Slugging Average (SLG), and what's now a standard statistic for overall batting prowess, On Base Plus Slugging (OPS = OBP + SLG). Looks like if you can keep your OPS above about 0.750 won't have to worry about the kid's college tuition:

Year Players
Eligible
On Base % Slugging OPB + SLG
    OBP σ SLG σ OPS σ
1996 137 0.361 0.041 0.472 0.085 0.833 0.117
1997 133 0.354 0.041 0.460 0.075 0.815 0.108
1998 148 0.355 0.036 0.467 0.081 0.822 0.108
1999 152 0.364 0.039 0.479 0.077 0.843 0.107
2000 150 0.362 0.041 0.479 0.085 0.841 0.119
2001 146 0.353 0.040 0.470 0.092 0.823 0.127
2002 144 0.351 0.044 0.461 0.080 0.812 0.118
2003 146 0.351 0.039 0.461 0.075 0.812 0.108
2004 154 0.355 0.039 0.468 0.073 0.822 0.104
2005 143 0.348 0.034 0.458 0.069 0.806 0.095
2006 146 0.355 0.035 0.469 0.073 0.824 0.100
2007 156 0.354 0.036 0.458 0.066 0.812 0.095
2008 137 0.350 0.033 0.457 0.065 0.807 0.089
2009 140 0.353 0.032 0.461 0.066 0.814 0.090
2010 136 0.343 0.032 0.444 0.070 0.787 0.095
All
Years
2168 0.354 0.038 0.464 0.076 0.819 0.106

And finally, this table has two other batting ability figures of merit. Bill Jame's Runs Created, using the technical version and David Smyth's Base Runs, using the version that includes stolen base and grounded into double play data. For each of these I also included a per Game category, where a batter is considered to have played a game every time he makes twenty-four (24) outs. Outs are defined as

Outs = At Bats - Hits + Caught Stealing + Sacrifice Hits + Sacrifice Flies + Times Grounded into Double Plays

even though Smyth's formula does not include Sacrifice data.

Year Players
Eligible
Runs Created Runs Created/Game Base Runs Base Runs/Game
    RC σ RC/G σ BsR σ BsR/G σ
1996 137 96.600 28.370 5.617 1.738 89.402 24.627 5.195 1.494
1997 133 91.108 26.341 5.330 1.624 84.905 22.644 4.962 1.385
1998 148 94.738 26.595 5.431 1.576 88.110 23.177 5.048 1.354
1999 152 97.993 26.840 5.749 1.619 91.017 23.332 5.337 1.389
2000 150 97.624 30.106 5.740 1.905 90.290 25.426 5.302 1.596
2001 146 93.714 32.514 5.468 2.006 86.611 27.214 5.048 1.656
2002 144 90.261 27.370 5.294 1.970 84.007 23.490 4.920 1.672
2003 146 90.263 26.200 5.291 1.663 83.832 22.653 4.908 1.406
2004 154 92.899 25.243 5.440 1.805 86.339 21.569 5.050 1.521
2005 143 89.551 23.903 5.160 1.389 83.377 20.729 4.803 1.198
2006 146 93.534 24.146 5.420 1.446 86.664 20.849 5.018 1.231
2007 156 91.098 24.147 5.292 1.387 84.725 20.931 4.920 1.191
2008 137 89.927 21.584 5.197 1.315 83.891 18.794 4.846 1.133
2009 140 90.753 22.379 5.299 1.308 84.578 19.630 4.935 1.131
2010 136 85.296 21.911 4.894 1.296 79.946 19.000 4.584 1.114
All
Years
2168 92.424 26.167 5.379 1.632 85.902 22.523 4.996 1.387

So there you have it. From now on, if someone says that a player has an OBP/SLG/OPS of 0.350/0.425/0.775, or some other string of statistics, you can use these tables to see how that fits in with the average (i.e. really, really good, compared to you or me) every-day Major League batter.

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