Bucs by Numbers: One stat to rule them all?
One offensive metric to rule them all?
Sometimes I wonder if there are too many baseball statistics.
That thought has nothing to do with sabermetrics. One can look at the back of any baseball card from older eras of the game and see a stat-line as long as the card. Those cards and those stat-lines tell a story about the player on the front, but in a dozen or more ways.
Player A has a low batting average, but look at that on-base percentage. Player B has 50+ home runs, yet had an average below .250. Of course, the best players had it all.
What if one offensive statistic existed that neatly and concisely tells us how well a hitter spends his time in the batter’s box?
That is not a late-night TV style pitch, meant to put the audience in a certain frame of mind before revealing a “revolutionary” product. The statistic already exists. It is Weighted Runs Created-Plus, or wRC+, and it is the focus of today’s Bucs by Numbers.
wRC+ aims to roll up each outcome for a hitter — such as a single, double, triple, etc. — rather than valuating all results the same, as it is with batting average.
Much like FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) aims to serve as a better mark for pitchers, wRC+ also discredits variables such as park factors or bad defense. wRC+ is an improvement upon legendary statistician Bill James’ wRC. Both statistics aim to quantify a hitter’s total offensive value and distill it down to runs.
wRC+ is a rate stat that is weighted so that the league average is 100. The idea is that observers can definitely proclaim that Batter X is better than Battery Y by Z amount of runs.
If you are reading this and feeling adventurous, feel free to google the exact formula. It really is a sight.
Now that we have a crash course in the metric, it is time to see how the Pittsburgh Pirates offense rates.
As a team, the Pirates rank 12th in the 15-team National League with a wRC+ of 85. The powerhouse Washington Nationals rank first with a 113 rate. wRC+ is meant to represent a more individual measurement, however, so we will focus today on some notable Pirates.
We start with Andrew McCutchen, whose wRC+ of 70 ranks dead last on the Pirates among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances. Second-year wunderkind Adam Frazier leads the way with a 159 rating.
In a stroke of brilliant coincidence, this piece comes after Pittsburgh took the final two games of the Braves series, two games in which their offense looked the part of a major league club. And those mini-explosions came with McCutchen seated firmly on the bench. McCutchen’s wRC+, and the team’s early returns without him occupying a vital batting order position, were not missed.
Perhaps the most surprising wRC+ find comes from Josh Harrison. Harrison has always been a free-swinger. He swings at more borderline pitches than most, sees less pitches than most, and — more often than not — connects on more “bad pitches” than most. His wRC+ of 116 is a pleasant surprise.
There are other highlights. Josh Bell’s early season mark of 116 shows a continuing maturation in progress. David Freese’s 122 — the second best on the club — is apropos of his professional approach.
There are disappointments. Francisco Cervelli (92), Gregory Polanco (91) and Jordy Mercer (78) are all below average. All are everyday players. There is a disconnect there telling the tale of the Pirates’ low team ranking. That has to change if the Pirates are to climb back in this thing — they are surprisingly still in the wild card and National League central division races.
The reasons for the Pirates’ lukewarm offensive start to the season are many. If those interested choose to stick to on-the-field matters, wRC+ is a fantastic starting point to explain the team’s troubles away.