Table Setters & Big Knockers

The Cubs like to stay in the cellar where it's nice and cool.

- Serafino Porcaro, summer of '57

 

 

I grew up in the fifties as a Milwaukee Braves fan, but I was surrounded by friends and relatives who were die hard Chicago Cubs fans.  One of them was my maternal grandfather, whom I've quoted above.  The 2016 World Series starts tonight, and the opponents are the Cubs and the Cleveland Indians.  The Tribe fans have only had to endure a dry spell of nineteen years since their team last appeared in the Series.  But Cleveland has not won a Series since 1948.  That is peanuts compared to the North Siders' futility.  The Cubs have not participated in the World Series since 1945, and have not been world champions since 1908, eight years before the Cubs played their first game in what is now called Wrigley Field.  It's amazing enough to realize that the Cubs have come this far, but what's equally improbable is that they are favored by most of the gurus to capture the title.

 

The World Series is the biggest stage for the world's best sport.  Given the history leading up to tonight, I am pumped.  To help set the mood and pass the time while waiting for the first pitch, I have written this post.

 

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There are two frequently cited individual statistics in sports which I find particularly opaque and annoying.  One is a quarterback's rating (QBR).  In the NFL, a QBR can range from 0 to 158.3.  The formula used to determine the exact number can only be understood by two groups of people, Mensa members and graduate students at Cal Poly.  QBR is not something you can calculate in less than seven minutes, and if the game is in progress your data is probably obsolete by the time you figure out the answer.  QBRs are only useful when making quick comparisons.  For example, if Tom Brady's QBR is 141.2 and Aaron Rodgers' is 126.9, I can surmise that Brady is the better QB, at least at that moment.  But don't ask me how those two figures were arrived at.  I prefer a measurement that's much more digestible such as yards per pass attempt.  Just give me those two relevant starting numbers (passing yardage and pass attempts) and I can calculate that in seconds while simultaneously downing an Oktoberfest.

 

In baseball I've decided that W.A.R. is not the answer.  A player's W.A.R. number, which stands for "wins against replacement," purports to tell us how many extra wins that individual provides his team in comparison to some make believe replacement player who would assume his position.  The concept and goal of such an idea are noble, but the execution is a combination of pie in the sky poppycock, what-ifs and guesswork.

 

I caution you not to look up either the QBR formula or the W.A.R. formula unless you've got a bottle of Excedrin handy.

 

Despite my misgivings about W.A.R., admittedly the young breed of new baseball executives are all about sabermetrics, of which W.A.R. is a popular component.  The Twins' recently-hired executive vice president, Ivy League educated thirty-three year old Derek Falvey, is a sabermetrician.  Sabermetrics have been in the forefront of statistical analysis at least since noted author Michael Lewis published Moneyball: The Art Of Winning An Unfair Game in 2003.  The non-fiction book featured Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane.  Beane helped make his small market team playoff qualifiers for several years despite a very low budget.  His use of sabermetrics in analyzing both major league and minor league players was the main ingredient to his success.

 

I maintain that the most useful individual statistic in measuring a non-pitcher's offensive value to a team is not his W.A.R.  Rather, it is his OPS.  If you watched the baseball playoffs for the last three weeks, you might have observed that OPS is a statistic which both television networks, TBS and FS1, flashed on the screen.  So, what is OPS?  It is an acronym for the sum of  On-base percentage Plus Slugging percentage.  On-base percentage tells the media and the fans how good the player is at getting on base, either by means of a base hit, a walk or being hit by a pitch (HBP).  If a player reaches base through a fielder's choice (e.g., he hits the ball to a fielder who throws to a base other than first for a force out) or an error, the batter does not get credit.  Similarly, he does not get credit for reaching first base if the ball gets by the catcher on a strikeout.  To calculate on-base percentage, divide the sum of the number of base hits plus walks plus HBP by the number of times that batter has come to the plate, aka "plate appearances." Not to complicate things, but successful sacrifice bunts do not count against the batter as plate appearances, but sacrifice flies do.

 

The players who have high on-base percentages are good table setters.  They would make Billy Beane's A List.  When a batter reaches base, new pressures are placed not only on the pitcher but on the other fielders as well.  The stage is set for subsequent action.  But a team needs more than those table setters; it needs guys who can finish the job by driving in those runners.  That's where slugging percentage comes in.

 

Slugging percentage is easier to calculate than on-base percentage, because it is very similar to batting average.  When you are determining a player's batting average, you divide the number of base hits by the number of at bats.  All extra base hits count the same as singles; either the batter got a base hit or he didn't.  By comparison, when you are determining a player's slugging percentage, a double counts as two hits, a triple counts as three hits, and a home run counts as four hits.  Thus, to calculate a slugging percentage, divide total bases by the number of at bats.  Did you notice that a player could have a slugging percentage greater than 1.0?  Some all-stars do.

 

The players who have high slugging percentages are sometimes called "the big knockers."  Their job is to drive in the baserunners, i.e., the table setters.  Baseball is a game that offensively usually relies upon stringing together a bunch of base hits.  The more extra base hits a team gets, the shorter that "string" has to be.  Former Baltimore Orioles manager, the highly quotable Earl Weaver, once said, "My favorite play in baseball is a three run homer."  Playoff caliber teams like the Cubs and Indians almost always have a good combination of table setters and big knockers. Consider these rankings:

 

The Cleveland Indians' on-base percentage, excluding pitchers, is .329 (ranked 4th in the fifteen team American League), their slugging percentage is .430 (ranked 5th) and OPS is .759 (ranked 4th).  Their top OPS guys with at least 100 plate appearances are Tyler Naquin (.886), Carlos Santana (.865), Jose Ramirez (.825), Jason Kipnis (.811) and Mike Napoli (.800).

 

The Chicago Cubs' on-base percentage, excluding pitchers, is .352 (ranked 1st in the fifteen team National League), their slugging percentage is .444 (ranked 4th) and OPS is .796 (ranked second).  Their top OPS guys with at least 100 plate appearances are Kris Bryant (.939), Anthony Rizzo (.928), Willson Contreras (.845), Dexter Fowler (.840) and Ben Zobrist (.831).

 

As you can see, the Cubbies have more fire power than the Indians, both in terms of getting on base and smashing extra base hits.  The only ways the underdog Indians can compensate is by out-pitching the Cubs and by playing nearly flawless defense.  Pitching is arguably the most important ingredient, but the Cleveland starting rotation has been decimated by injuries.  If the Indians can get the Series to Game 6, it will be a moral victory.