Right now at MLB.com you can vote for the 2005 Hank Aaron Award. The award is given to the best overall offensive performer in both leagues. The brewers have three nominees. So, who would or did you vote for? Let's do a poll...
Lyle Overbay has had a solid year batting out of the 5th and 3rd spots in the lineup. He leads the Brewers in BBs with 60.
Brady Clark has been an excellent leadoff hitter. His .309 BA is good for 16th overall. He leads the Brewers in Hs, with 150, despite missing over two weeks of action.
Carlos Lee has been an RBI machine. He's flirted with or dated the MLB lead in RBIs all season. His .504 SLG and 29 HRs lead the Brewers.
Click read more to see my vote and probably the poll.
Geoff Jenkins
It's an easy vote, too, and it's a shame MLB.com overlooked the player who has contributed the most to the Brewers offense this year. Remember how terrible his first half was? Imagine how great he's been in the second half to make up that difference. Shouldn't it have been that much easier to notice him? His .373 OBP, and .863 OPS leads the Brewers. Those are big stats, OBP and OPS, but even more importantly, his RC/27 which is 6.55 leads active Brewers.
RC/27?
Yeah, RC/27, the most important offensive statistic there is. This statistic literally says, if you put 9 Geoff Jenkins' out on the field that team will score, on average, 6.55 runs per game. RC/27 stands for Runs Created per 27 outs.
It's a super sweet statistic. Seriously. Check it out, current top three in RC/27
Derrek Lee 10.89
Albert Pujols 9.57
Alex Rodriguez 9.13
Who's having a better year than those three guys offensively? Nobody. That's why this is the best offensive statistic.
Let's Break it Down
Runs Created = (On Base Factor * Advancement Factor) / Plate Appearances
That makes sense right? That the number of runs you create is a factor of getting on base and advancing along the base paths.
Here's the same equation expanded out.
Runs Created = ((H + BB + HBP - CS - GIDP) * (Total bases + .26(BB - IBB + HBP) + .52(SH + SF + SB))) / (AB + BB + HBP + SH+ SF)
It has been shown that the runs you score have a huge correlation with winning percentage. It has also been shown that this Runs Created formula has a very large correlation with runs scored. That is, if you calculate the RC stats for all the players and compared it to actual runs scored they'd be very close. Let's look.
2005 Milwaukee Brewers through 8/28
Runs Created: 595
Actual Runs Scored: 581
Not bad, not bad at all. And you know what else, I think those 14 runs missing makes sense given the feeling we have that this team is slightly under performing.
3TO
You may have noticed the hype here about Russ Branyan. He's a ballplayer. An underrated ballplayer. He's underrated because people place too much value in the strikeout. You may have also noticed that when I said Jenkins leads the team in RC/27 I qualified it with active Brewers. That's because Branyan has an RC/27 of 6.98 which leads all Brewers hitters. However, he's only amassed 176 ABs I that's why didn't count him. It'd be tough to give the offensive player of the year award to someone who has fewer ABs as a Brewer this year than Junior Spivey.
Brewers Runs Created per 27 outs (including 3TO)
NAME RC RC27
R. Branyan 34.7 6.98
Geoff Jenkins 79.6 6.55
Carlos Lee 84.8 5.95
Wes Helms 22.9 5.78
Jeff Cirillo 25.3 5.69
Lyle Overbay 70.1 5.68
P. Fielder 4.7 5.52
T. Durrington 2.2 5.45
Brady Clark 72.2 5.33
Bill Hall 58.1 5.18
Rickie Weeks 38.4 4.84
Junior Spivey 21.1 3.91
Damian Miller 35.4 3.82
J.J. Hardy 27.7 3.22
C. Magruder 11.0 2.83
Corey Hart 3.6 2.81
Chad Moeller 12.2 2.31
J. Mosquera -0.1 -2.70
Dave Krynzel -0.7 -2.79
It's all about the Ws
So if you have a stat that says how many runs a player is going to contribute and you know how runs correlate into wins (we do with the Pythagorean Winning Percentage) then, really, you can very accurately gauge a players offensive contribution. And this year, thus far, Jenkins leads the crew.
Recommended Reading
Tangotiger on Runs Created
Bill James via Baseball Think Factory
Wikipedia on Runs Created
Poll
Brewers 2005 Hank Aaron Nominee
This poll is closed
-
0%
Lyle Overbay
(0 votes) -
50%
Brady Clark
(3 votes) -
33%
Carlos Lee
(2 votes) -
16%
Other
(1 vote)