The PrOPS-Star Team
I’m writing my All-Star break reflection piece a little later than most thanks to the timing of my summer travels, but that’s not really important. My purpose for looking back at the first-half of 2005 is to check on PrOPS (see Introducing PrOPS). I designed PrOPS back in May on a whim—I think there was some beer involved. My goal was to design a metric to estimate how well a hitter should be hitting based on the way he has hit the ball during the season. The outcome stats we commonly use to judge hitters (i.e., AVG, OBP, SLG, and OPS) are polluted by luck, as some hard-hit balls become outs and some dinkers become hits.
The PrOPS formula rewards batters for hitting the ball hard, and punishes them for weakly hit balls. I wanted a performance stat as opposed to an outcome stat, and I thought that the hit-type data (groundball/flyball ratio, line-drive percent, etc.) provided on The Hardball Times Stats Page might provide the information needed to generate such a metric; that’s how PrOPS was born.
PrOPS is in no way perfect–it does not remove all luck from batting outcomes. PrOPS (derived from Predicted OPS) is to OPS what component ERA is to ERA. After many suggestions, I refined the metric a bit to control for speed and divided PrOPS into components (PrAVG, PrOBP, and PrSLG). Below I present some general information about PrOPS, and generate a list of the best and worst PrOPS performers for the first-half of 2005, along with my first half PrOPS All-Stars.
General Trends
Here are the general trends in PrOPS for players with more than 150 plate appearances by league.
League PrOPS OPS PrOPS% PrOPS+ PrAVG PrOBP PrSLG AL 0.787 0.771 -2.56% -0.017 0.283 0.344 0.443 NL 0.798 0.784 -2.50% -0.014 0.282 0.351 0.447
Because The Hardball Times’ hit-type data is new, I only had the 2004 data available to generate my projections. Therefore, the PrOPS metrics simply indicate what players with similar batting performance in 2004 did in 2004. For 2005, PrOPS consistently overshoots actual OPS, which isn’t too surprising, as offense is down some this year. Nonetheless, the difference in predictions is small enough to make me happy.
On average, players seem to be doing a little worse in 2005 than they did in 2004, with the average player producing 2.5% less OPS than they did in 2004, based on hit-types. A player with a PrOPS+ (OPS – PrOPS) that is -0.015 OPS-points this year is performing about the same on batting outcomes as the rest of the league in terms of hit-types.
The Best and Worst PrOPS
There are no real surprises among the best and worst performances based on PrOPS (minimum 150 PAs).
Top-25 AL PrOPS
Rank First Last Team PrAVG PrOBP PrSLG PrOPS OPS 1 Manny Ramirez BOS 0.317 0.397 0.611 1.008 0.910 2 Brian Roberts BAL 0.334 0.402 0.567 0.969 1.007 3 Alex Rodriguez NYA 0.288 0.391 0.560 0.951 0.998 4 Mark Teixeira TEX 0.297 0.365 0.581 0.946 0.930 5 Miguel Tejada BAL 0.327 0.369 0.562 0.931 0.977 6 Vladimir Guerrero LAA 0.319 0.372 0.558 0.929 0.971 7 Tino Martinez NYA 0.284 0.373 0.550 0.923 0.780 8 Rafael Palmeiro BAL 0.312 0.379 0.534 0.913 0.800 9 Jason Giambi NYA 0.275 0.419 0.489 0.908 0.890 10 Jason Varitek BOS 0.307 0.370 0.535 0.906 0.892 11 Gary Sheffield NYA 0.284 0.390 0.513 0.903 0.920 12 Jermaine Dye CHA 0.291 0.348 0.552 0.899 0.860 13 Paul Konerko CHA 0.278 0.372 0.527 0.898 0.828 14 Alfonso Soriano TEX 0.293 0.323 0.564 0.888 0.840 15 Kevin Mench TEX 0.285 0.348 0.524 0.873 0.906 16 Trot Nixon BOS 0.302 0.384 0.489 0.873 0.861 17 Derek Jeter NYA 0.317 0.403 0.466 0.869 0.844 18 Michael Young TEX 0.315 0.355 0.510 0.865 0.906 19 Dmitri Young DET 0.295 0.350 0.511 0.861 0.781 20 Melvin Mora BAL 0.291 0.345 0.509 0.854 0.861 21 Eric Byrnes OAK 0.298 0.363 0.490 0.853 0.810 22 Richie Sexson SEA 0.253 0.355 0.489 0.844 0.865 23 Hank Blalock TEX 0.284 0.342 0.491 0.833 0.825 24 Bobby Crosby OAK 0.307 0.362 0.471 0.833 0.925 25 Jhonny Peralta CLE 0.283 0.336 0.497 0.833 0.874
Top-25 NL PrOPS
Rank First Last Team PrAVG PrOBP PrSLG PrOPS OPS 1 Derrek Lee CHN 0.315 0.399 0.653 1.052 1.186 2 Andruw Jones ATL 0.298 0.376 0.610 0.986 0.930 3 Albert Pujols STL 0.317 0.402 0.583 0.985 1.017 4 Adam Dunn CIN 0.260 0.400 0.570 0.970 0.935 5 Bobby Abreu PHI 0.305 0.427 0.541 0.968 0.955 6 Tony Clark ARI 0.311 0.339 0.607 0.947 0.983 7 Morgan Ensberg HOU 0.265 0.367 0.567 0.934 0.983 8 Cliff Floyd NYN 0.276 0.349 0.564 0.913 0.903 9 Hee Seop Choi LAN 0.297 0.371 0.539 0.910 0.777 10 Aramis Ramirez CHN 0.302 0.354 0.551 0.905 0.905 11 Reggie Sanders STL 0.275 0.337 0.568 0.905 0.897 12 Xavier Nady SD 0.291 0.350 0.550 0.901 0.839 13 Moises Alou SF 0.298 0.391 0.509 0.900 0.909 14 Preston Wilson COL 0.299 0.357 0.540 0.897 0.813 15 J.D. Drew LAN 0.270 0.400 0.497 0.897 0.931 16 Carlos Lee MIL 0.280 0.347 0.546 0.893 0.864 17 Brian Giles SD 0.296 0.428 0.463 0.891 0.942 18 Milton Bradley LAN 0.310 0.355 0.535 0.891 0.857 19 Carlos Delgado FLA 0.279 0.376 0.512 0.888 0.922 20 Jose Cruz ARI 0.259 0.376 0.512 0.888 0.796 21 Clint Barmes COL 0.326 0.361 0.525 0.886 0.886 22 Jim Edmonds STL 0.248 0.370 0.511 0.881 0.942 23 Ryan Klesko SD 0.280 0.381 0.498 0.879 0.846 24 Wily Mo Pena CIN 0.279 0.317 0.561 0.878 0.891 25 Julio Franco ATL 0.305 0.366 0.511 0.877 0.824
Bottom-25 AL PrOPS
Rank First Last Team PrAVE PrOBP PrSLG PrOPS OPS 1 Tony Womack NYA 0.266 0.302 0.329 0.631 0.542 2 Juan Castro MIN 0.267 0.290 0.373 0.663 0.620 3 Jeremy Reed SEA 0.267 0.333 0.343 0.676 0.681 4 Travis Lee TB 0.255 0.331 0.345 0.676 0.656 5 John Buck KC 0.246 0.290 0.386 0.676 0.629 6 Omar Infante DET 0.250 0.298 0.392 0.690 0.667 7 Nook Logan DET 0.283 0.327 0.365 0.692 0.665 8 Ruben Gotay KC 0.250 0.315 0.378 0.693 0.681 9 Mark Teahen KC 0.281 0.329 0.364 0.694 0.658 10 Scott Podsednik CHA 0.282 0.360 0.338 0.697 0.713 11 Julio Lugo TB 0.275 0.336 0.361 0.698 0.711 12 Mark Ellis OAK 0.283 0.339 0.362 0.701 0.694 13 Terrence Long KC 0.284 0.323 0.379 0.702 0.670 14 Michael Cuddyer MIN 0.258 0.336 0.370 0.706 0.719 15 Juan Uribe CHA 0.268 0.304 0.404 0.708 0.655 16 Toby Hall TB 0.274 0.313 0.397 0.710 0.680 17 Orlando Cabrera LAA 0.280 0.329 0.388 0.716 0.648 18 Alexis Rios TOR 0.271 0.314 0.402 0.716 0.739 19 Eric Hinske TOR 0.243 0.324 0.398 0.721 0.712 20 Angel Berroa KC 0.285 0.320 0.401 0.721 0.669 21 Darin Erstad LAA 0.281 0.342 0.378 0.721 0.749 22 Nick Punto MIN 0.271 0.336 0.386 0.723 0.749 23 Alex S Gonzalez TB 0.269 0.328 0.399 0.727 0.704 24 Tadahito Iguchi CHA 0.277 0.338 0.391 0.728 0.747 25 Aubrey Huff TB 0.261 0.325 0.403 0.728 0.702
Bottom-25 NL PrOPS
Rank Last Team Team PrAVE PrOBP PrSLG PrOPS OPS 1 Chris Burke HOU 0.229 0.288 0.309 0.597 0.585 2 Royce Clayton ARI 0.255 0.307 0.333 0.639 0.615 3 Alex Gonzalez FLA 0.246 0.299 0.349 0.648 0.708 4 Cristian Guzman WAS 0.261 0.299 0.355 0.653 0.530 5 Jose Reyes NYN 0.261 0.288 0.365 0.653 0.650 6 J.J. Hardy MIL 0.248 0.342 0.318 0.660 0.560 7 Vinny Castilla WAS 0.236 0.315 0.354 0.669 0.727 8 Brian Jordan ATL 0.259 0.310 0.362 0.672 0.627 9 Jamey Carroll WAS 0.281 0.334 0.338 0.673 0.585 10 Mike Lamb HOU 0.263 0.308 0.371 0.679 0.618 11 Mike Lowell FLA 0.262 0.316 0.367 0.683 0.632 12 Willy Taveras HOU 0.274 0.313 0.370 0.683 0.705 13 Chris Snyder ARI 0.256 0.334 0.355 0.689 0.633 14 Junior Spivey MIL 0.234 0.306 0.386 0.692 0.682 15 Kazuo Matsui NYN 0.267 0.318 0.379 0.696 0.604 16 Brad Ausmus HOU 0.276 0.356 0.341 0.697 0.621 17 Raul Mondesi ATL 0.247 0.307 0.391 0.698 0.630 18 Brad Wilkerson WAS 0.234 0.341 0.359 0.701 0.809 19 David Bell PHI 0.273 0.322 0.379 0.702 0.662 20 Cesar Izturis LAN 0.298 0.343 0.362 0.705 0.660 21 Quinton McCracken ARI 0.274 0.342 0.366 0.708 0.545 22 Jack Wilson PIT 0.281 0.315 0.396 0.711 0.614 23 Carlos Beltran NYN 0.248 0.307 0.405 0.712 0.754 24 Sean Casey CIN 0.291 0.344 0.368 0.712 0.761 25 Damian Miller MIL 0.267 0.336 0.379 0.715 0.728
The Over/Under-Performers
This is where PrOPS becomes fun. These are the guys who may be performing better or worse than their outcome stats indicate. In terms of PrOPS+ (absolute difference) and PrOPS% (percent difference) under-performance is good, and over-performance is bad. If PrOPS is right and these players continue to hit the ball as they did in the first half, the under-performers should improve and the over-performers should decline.
Top-25 AL Under-Performers
Rank First Last Team PrOPS OPS PrOPS+ PrOPS% 1 Aaron Boone CLE 0.781 0.628 -0.153 -24% 2 Tino Martinez NYA 0.923 0.780 -0.143 -18% 3 Rafael Palmeiro BAL 0.913 0.800 -0.113 -14% 4 A.J. Pierzynski CHA 0.833 0.722 -0.111 -15% 5 Richard Hidalgo TEX 0.801 0.691 -0.110 -16% 6 Victor Martinez CLE 0.802 0.692 -0.110 -16% 7 Manny Ramirez BOS 1.008 0.910 -0.098 -11% 8 Tony Womack NYA 0.631 0.542 -0.088 -16% 9 Casey Blake CLE 0.782 0.697 -0.086 -12% 10 Steve Finley LAA 0.778 0.695 -0.083 -12% 11 Edgar Renteria BOS 0.793 0.714 -0.079 -11% 12 Dmitri Young DET 0.861 0.781 -0.079 -10% 13 Sammy Sosa BAL 0.766 0.689 -0.077 -11% 14 Mark Bellhorn BOS 0.767 0.693 -0.075 -11% 15 Mark Kotsay OAK 0.822 0.748 -0.074 -10% 16 Paul Konerko CHA 0.898 0.828 -0.070 -8% 17 Orlando Cabrera LAA 0.716 0.648 -0.068 -11% 18 Joe Crede CHA 0.792 0.727 -0.066 -9% 19 Laynce Nix TEX 0.735 0.670 -0.065 -10% 20 Russ Adams TOR 0.793 0.734 -0.059 -8% 21 Orlando Hudson TOR 0.778 0.722 -0.056 -8% 22 Jason Kendall OAK 0.745 0.690 -0.055 -8% 23 Juan Uribe CHA 0.708 0.655 -0.053 -8% 24 Angel Berroa KC 0.721 0.669 -0.052 -8% 25 Kevin Millar BOS 0.763 0.711 -0.052 -7%
Top-25 NL Under-Performers
Rank First Last Team PrOPS OPS PrOPS+ PrOPS% 1 Quinton McCracken ARI 0.708 0.545 -0.163 -30% 2 Juan Pierre FLA 0.803 0.666 -0.137 -21% 3 Hee Seop Choi LAN 0.910 0.777 -0.133 -17% 4 Cristian Guzman WAS 0.653 0.530 -0.123 -23% 5 J.D. Closser COL 0.766 0.643 -0.122 -19% 6 Mike Lieberthal PHI 0.787 0.683 -0.104 -15% 7 J.J. Hardy MIL 0.660 0.560 -0.100 -18% 8 Damion Easley FLA 0.864 0.764 -0.100 -13% 9 Sean Burroughs SD 0.734 0.635 -0.099 -16% 10 Jack Wilson PIT 0.711 0.614 -0.097 -16% 11 Austin Kearns CIN 0.795 0.700 -0.095 -14% 12 Yadier Molina STL 0.750 0.656 -0.094 -14% 13 Ryan Langerhans ATL 0.833 0.739 -0.094 -13% 14 Rafael Furcal ATL 0.797 0.703 -0.093 -13% 15 Kazuo Matsui NYN 0.696 0.604 -0.092 -15% 16 Jose Cruz ARI 0.888 0.796 -0.092 -12% 17 Jamey Carroll WAS 0.673 0.585 -0.088 -15% 18 Preston Wilson COL 0.897 0.813 -0.084 -10% 19 Neifi Perez CHN 0.741 0.659 -0.083 -13% 20 Jason Phillips LAN 0.752 0.673 -0.079 -12% 21 Brad Ausmus HOU 0.697 0.621 -0.076 -12% 22 Aaron Miles COL 0.752 0.676 -0.075 -11% 23 Desi Relaford COL 0.715 0.642 -0.073 -11% 24 Jim Thome PHI 0.784 0.712 -0.072 -10% 25 Corey Patterson CHN 0.721 0.649 -0.072 -11%
Top-25 AL Over-Performers
Rank First Last Team PrOPS OPS PrOPS+ PrOPS% 1 Carlos Guillen DET 0.752 0.863 0.111 13% 2 Mike Sweeney KC 0.798 0.902 0.103 11% 3 Hideki Matsui NYA 0.823 0.915 0.092 10% 4 Bobby Crosby OAK 0.833 0.925 0.091 10% 5 Adam Kennedy LAA 0.730 0.803 0.073 9% 6 Johnny Damon BOS 0.799 0.858 0.060 7% 7 Brandon Inge DET 0.755 0.803 0.048 6% 8 Alex Rodriguez NYA 0.951 0.998 0.047 5% 9 Miguel Tejada BAL 0.931 0.977 0.046 5% 10 Garret Anderson LAA 0.752 0.795 0.043 5% 11 Vladimir Guerrero LAA 0.929 0.971 0.042 4% 12 Michael Young TEX 0.865 0.906 0.041 5% 13 Jhonny Peralta CLE 0.833 0.874 0.041 5% 14 Brian Roberts BAL 0.969 1.007 0.038 4% 15 Emil Brown KC 0.765 0.800 0.035 4% 16 Kevin Mench TEX 0.873 0.906 0.034 4% 17 Darin Erstad LAA 0.721 0.749 0.028 4% 18 Frank Catalanotto TOR 0.735 0.761 0.026 3% 19 Nick Punto MIN 0.723 0.749 0.026 3% 20 Alexis Rios TOR 0.716 0.739 0.023 3% 21 Richie Sexson SEA 0.844 0.865 0.022 3% 22 Bobby Kielty OAK 0.778 0.799 0.021 3% 23 Tadahito Iguchi CHA 0.728 0.747 0.019 3% 24 Gary Sheffield NYA 0.903 0.920 0.018 2% 25 Torii Hunter MIN 0.806 0.823 0.017 2%
Top-25 NL Over-Performers
Rank First Last Team PrOPS OPS PrOPS+ PrOPS% 1 Derrek Lee CHN 1.052 1.186 0.134 11% 2 Nick Johnson WAS 0.819 0.952 0.133 14% 3 Ryan Church WAS 0.811 0.924 0.114 12% 4 Brad Wilkerson WAS 0.701 0.809 0.108 13% 5 Miguel Cabrera FLA 0.854 0.958 0.104 11% 6 Mike Cameron NYN 0.781 0.879 0.099 11% 7 Marcus Giles ATL 0.772 0.853 0.081 10% 8 Todd Walker CHN 0.746 0.827 0.080 10% 9 Jason Bay PIT 0.866 0.930 0.063 7% 10 Jeff Cirillo MIL 0.746 0.809 0.063 8% 11 Wilson Betemit ATL 0.807 0.870 0.063 7% 12 Jim Edmonds STL 0.881 0.942 0.061 6% 13 Alex Gonzalez FLA 0.648 0.708 0.061 9% 14 Vinny Castilla WAS 0.669 0.727 0.058 8% 15 Kenny Lofton PHI 0.773 0.830 0.057 7% 16 Brian Giles SD 0.891 0.942 0.051 5% 17 Sean Casey CIN 0.712 0.761 0.050 7% 18 Morgan Ensberg HOU 0.934 0.983 0.049 5% 19 Chipper Jones ATL 0.876 0.923 0.048 5% 20 Jose Guillen WAS 0.853 0.899 0.046 5% 21 Antonio Perez LAN 0.768 0.813 0.044 5% 22 Carlos Beltran NYN 0.712 0.754 0.042 6% 23 Olmedo Saenz LAN 0.810 0.850 0.040 5% 24 Larry Walker STL 0.824 0.862 0.038 4% 25 Tony Clark ARI 0.947 0.983 0.037 4%
The PrOPS-Star Teams
Finally, I generated All-Star teams for both leagues based solely on PrOPS. I’ll call them the PrOPS-Star Teams for fun. Note that these are based solely on offense for the first-half of 2005. I picked the top-three PrOPS players by position regardless of injury status. A player was eligible for the team if he had more that 150 plate appearances and logged more than 200 innings at that position. Outfielders were picked at each position not as a whole.
2005 PrOPS-Star Teams
AL NL Pos. Player Team PrOPS Player Team PrOPS C Jason Varitek BOS 0.906 Michael Barrett CHN 0.831 C A.J. Pierzynski CHA 0.833 Mike Matheny SF 0.803 C Ben Molina LAA 0.819 Jason LaRue CIN 0.789 1B Mark Teixeira TEX 0.946 Derrek Lee CHN 1.052 1B Tino Martinez NYA 0.923 Albert Pujols STL 0.985 1B Rafael Palmeiro BAL 0.913 Tony Clark ARI 0.947 2B Brian Roberts BAL 0.969 Jeff Kent LAN 0.875 2B Alfonso Soriano TEX 0.888 Damion Easley FLA 0.864 2B Jorge Cantu TB 0.824 Chase Utley PHI 0.858 3B Alex Rodriguez NYA 0.951 Morgan Ensberg HOU 0.934 3B Melvin Mora BAL 0.854 Aramis Ramirez CHN 0.905 3B Hank Blalock TEX 0.833 Chipper Jones ATL 0.876 SS Miguel Tejada BAL 0.931 Clint Barmes COL 0.886 SS Derek Jeter NYA 0.869 Felipe Lopez CIN 0.873 SS Michael Young TEX 0.865 Bill Hall MIL 0.824 LF Manny Ramirez BOS 1.008 Adam Dunn CIN 0.970 LF Kevin Mench TEX 0.873 Cliff Floyd NYN 0.913 LF Eric Byrnes OAK 0.853 Reggie Sanders STL 0.905 CF Hideki Matsui NYA 0.823 Andruw Jones ATL 0.986 CF Mark Kotsay OAK 0.822 Xavier Nady SD 0.901 CF Vernon Wells TOR 0.813 Preston Wilson COL 0.897 RF Vlad Guerrero LAA 0.929 Bobby Abreu PHI 0.968 RF Gary Sheffield NYA 0.903 Moises Alou SF 0.900 RF Jermaine Dye CHA 0.899 J.D. Drew LAN 0.897
There are a few surprises here, but nothing mind-blowing. While this was all fun for me, I’m still not certain how good the information PrOPS provides is. Hopefully, at the conclusion of the season I’ll have a better grasp on it. As always, I welcome suggestions for improving the metric.
References & Resources
Introducing PrOPS