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Total Average:
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Jason Michael Barker
I'm in a fairly serious baseball fantasy league, so I'm always looking for better ways to evaluate players. It's a computer simulation league -- my team plays against other teams -- rather than one in which you simply get points for hits, RBI and wins. As you might know, I favor OPS (on-base plus slugging percentages) as a handy way to evaluate players. OPS has its flaws, but it is much easier to compute than RC/27 (Runs Created per 27 outs) which is only a slightly superior statistic.
The other day a friend of mine, who also happens to be in the same fantasy league, e-mailed me and mentioned that he measures players using Total Average (TA). I had heard of TA, but wasn't familiar with it or what it measured. My friend (we'll call him Charles) explained TA to me, and I had to admit that it sounded pretty good. Basically, TA measures the number of bases a player gains per out recorded. It includes walks and stolen bases, not to mention double plays hit into and times hit by pitch.
As Charles and others have mentioned, OPS overvalues high SLG, low OBP players. In OPS the two numbers are treated as equal, but they're not, for two reasons. First, slugging percentage is almost always higher than on-base percentage, and it has a larger range. Players might slug as high as .700 in a season, but you'd never see a player with a .700 OBP. Secondly, getting on base is the most important thing a hitter can do, and should be valued as such.
Charles' basic problem with OPS (and its undervaluing of OBP) hinges on two players, Kenny Lofton and Glenallen Hill. Who's the better offensive player? I don't think it takes a detailed statistical analysis to show that Lofton is a superior player, who contributes more to his team on offense. He walks more, does a better job getting on base, and is a tremendous base-stealer. Yet according to OPS, Hill comes out ahead, .898 to .784.
Let's take a look at the two compared by Total Average...carry the one, factor in pi...yes, here we go. Lofton .850, Hill .843. It's a small difference, but much more representative of the two players. Lofton comes out ahead, despite his off-year and Hill's career-year.
Before we go any farther, here's the formula: TA = [(Total Bases + HBP + BB + SB) - CS] / [(AB - H) + CS + DP]
As far as I can tell from a search (albeit brief) of the web, there are no sites which keep track of Total Average. If you know of one, e-mail me.
When looking at players' TAs, keep the following in mind: .800 is approximately a league-average player, .900 is All-Star level, and a TA of 1.000 is superstar level. In baseball history there have been less than 100 1.000 TA seasons, although there have been disproportionately more such seasons this decade.
As a final thought in this discussion of TA, we turn to the National League MVP voting. Sammy Sosa won a land-slide victory, despite Mark McGwire leading the majors in both OBP and SLG. In case you needed even more proof that McGwire was robbed, consider each player's Total Average. Sosa checks in at a robust 1.052, representing an incredible season. McGwire? 1.512. That's right -- Big Mac was worth nearly HALF A BASE per out more than Sosa. Case closed.
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