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Last time, we looked at the Runs Created in its basic version. In order
to measure how many runs a hitter has created for his team, the product
of his on-base-percentage and his total bases is taken (OBP*TB), or, if
you like this better, the product of his on-base-percentage and
slugging percentage is multiplied with his at-bats (OBP*SLG*AB).
Runs Created however has some flaws. First of all, it does not take
stolen bases into account. Therefore, it did not take long for Bill
James to create a stolen bases version of Runs Created. Since being
caught stealing erases a hit or walk, it should decrease a players OBP
and indeed, in the new formula, the OBP part changes from (BB + H) /
(AB + BB) to (BB + H - CS) / (AB + BB). So far, so good. Now, the
successfully stolen bases are a little trickier. The first idea would
be to add them to a player’s total bases. But unlike hits, stolen bases
do not move other runners further along, e.g. while they help scoring
runs, they do not help cashing runners in. So maybe weighting stolen
bases with one half is a good idea. Then again, stolen bases get you
into scoring position and they take double plays away and this should
count for something. In the “official” stolen base version of Runs
Created, Bill James decided to weight stolen bases with the factor
0.55, only slightly higher than one half. Unfortunately, I can not
explain how he came to this particular number, but he explains this in
his 1984 Abstract (Source: Dan Agonistes), which, again unfortunately, is difficult to obtain outside the US.
Anyway, in the formula, stolen bases are added to total bases after
being weighted with 0.55, which leaves us with the final “stolen bases”
version of
(Now if this seems complicated to you, wait until we come to the next part.)
As you can imagine, including stolen bases was only the first step.
After all, there are plenty other stats available like sacrifice flies,
sacrifice bunts, grounded into double plays, intentional base-on-balls
and hit-by-pitches. Even strike outs have a (negative) effect (we will
later see why). However, as we have seen with stolen bases, it is not
always easy to determine how to weight those stats and as a result,
different versions of highly elaborate runs created formulas exist out
there. Let me give you the technical version of Runs Created from 1988,
which - although not the newest - is very useful to show a few
interesting points:
Ok, this looks quite complicated, so we break it down into smaller parts. The former OBP-part now looks like this:
This is a bit larger than before, but still pretty intuitive. A
hit-by-pitch pretty much works as a walk, while grounding into a double
play removes a runner. Under the fractions stroke, we simply have plate
appearances now after adding sacrifice bunts and flies.
Things get a little more interesting on the right side, the “slugging
side”, if you will. In addition to total bases and stolen bases
(weighed slightly different than before), we now have three other parts.
1) (BB+HP-IBB) * 0.24
At first, it is a bit surprising that walks and hit-by-pitches are
found next to total bases now, but if there is already a men on first,
these events do move runners along, apparently often enough to weight
them with about a forth of a hit (0.24). Intentional walk however are
subtracted, since they are usually only issued with first base empty
and therefore, do not move runners over.
2) (SH + SF) * 0.5
Sacrifices do pretty much the same as stolen bases, e.g. moving runners
up a base. In this formula, they are worth slightly less, but other
versions of Runs Created weight them equally (Personally, at first
sight, I thought you could make the case that the sacrifice bunt should
weight more since they are often used to move two runners over instead
of just one, but I have not really thought that idea through yet). If
you wonder why there is no negative effect of the out made when
sacrificing, remember that SF and SH are now found under the fraction
line on the OBP-part of the formula, too.
3) SO * 0.03
Lastly, there are strike outs, which have a small negative effect
because unlike ground outs and fly outs, they never move runners over.
Again, personally, I would have expected the effect to be bigger since
the “productive out” got so much press not that long ago when small
ball was so hot.
Anyway, I hope separating the formula helped understanding the idea
behind it (at least that’s what it did for me), although we are still
pretty much left in the dark about where the different weights come
from exactly.
Of course, this is not the last conclusion of wisdom. For example, the
2002 version of Runs Created has different weights for singles,
doubles, triples and home runs and has a much more complicated
structure (see the Wikipedia entry if you want to know the details).
There is even a version that includes situational hitting. However, we
are not going to get any deeper into this here now. Instead, I just
like to get back to the fact mentioned in the last part: Runs Created
is not very useful to compare the “inherent” talent of players. Runs
Created “favors” hitters that play many games and hit at the top of the
order, amassing many at-bats. To compare players, Runs Created needs to
be expressed as a rate stat. Therefore, RC/27, i.e. Runs Created per 27
outs has been developed. It measures how many runs a hypothetical
line-up of the same nine individuals (e.g. nine Chase Utleys) would
score of average. To calculate RC/27, Runs Created is divided by the
total number of outs (AB - H + CS + GDP + SH + SF) and then multiplied
by 27.
For fun, lets check some stats from last season. You will see that
there was only one player in the National League (or the Majors for
that matter) who was even close to Albert Pujols when he took the
field. (Stats are taken from fangraphs.com, who use a only slightly different RC version from the one described above)
| Name |
Runs Created
|
| Albert Pujols |
160
|
| Manny Ramirez |
143 |
| Lance Berkman |
137
|
| Hanley Ramirez |
136
|
| David Wright |
135
|
| Chase Utley |
130
|
| Matt Holliday |
127
|
| Chipper Jones |
123
|
| Jose Reyes |
122
|
| Ryan Ludwick |
121 |
These are the Senior Circuit Top 10 in Runs Created from 2008. As you
can see, judging by RC, Albert Pujols was simply otherworldly and
should run away with the MVP award if the world was fair. On the above
list, only one man can give Albert a run for his money looking at
RC/27. Make your guess now and then look at the following table:
| Name |
RC/27
|
| Albert Pujols |
11.84 |
| Chipper Jones |
11.21 |
| Manny Ramirez |
9.92 |
| Lance Berkman |
9.55 |
| Matt Halladay |
9.08 |
| Hanley Ramirez |
8.47 |
| Ryan Ludwick |
8.18 |
| David Wright |
7.79 |
| Chase Utley |
7.79 |
| Jose Reyes |
6.36 |
Yes, a team of nine Chipper Joneses would score more than one whole
run more than any fictional 2008 team with players not named Albert
Pujols. Too bad he got injured after starting the season red-hot and
chasing .400 for a while.
Ok, we are finished with Runs Created now, I hope you enjoyed diving a
little deeper into the sabermetrican jungle and you are going to come
back on our next trip behind the Mendoza line into the great unknown of
modern baseball statistics.
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Locksmith Hampton
These are all great comments here. Very cool article.