The Futility Infielder

Will Carroll keyed me in to some interesting work being done by a guy named Avkash Patel at his blog, the raindrops. Inspired by a line from Billy Beane in Moneyball ("Baseball is a game of attrition, and what's being attrited are pitchers' arms."), Patel took a look at a stat he's calling Attrition Rate (AtR) which involves pitches per plate apperances and on-base percentage.

The theory behind this is that a long at-bat which works the count has value, even if it results in an out, because it tires the pitcher. And even more valulable at tiring a pitcher is a batter's success in avoiding outs -- on-base percentage. So what Patel came up with is a way to combine these two skills and express them in a meaningful number. Patel figured pitches per out made (#Pitches / [(AB - H) + CS + SF + SH + GDP]) and then multiplied by 18, giving us a figure that tells us how many pitches it would take a pitcher to get through six innings (18 outs); in other words, to make a Quality Start. The median of Patel's four-year sample was 98.63 -- just about 100 pitches, a handy context any stat-minded fan can understand. Here 's the top ten for 2003:

147.65 B. Bonds, SF

126.58 N. Johnson, NYY

126.17 J. Giambi, NYY

126.09 T. Helton, Col

124.56 E. Martinez, Sea

124.46 B. Abreu, Phi

122.75 M. Mora, Bal

122.49 F. Thomas, CWS

122.04 C. Delgado, Tor

121.60 B. Wilkerson, Mon

Those are some damn good hitters, even though a couple of the names (Mora, Wilkerson) are unlikely. What this says is that it would take a pitcher nearly 150 pitches to get through 6 innings of facing Barry Bonds (of course, he'd have allowed 10 runs by then, based on his Runs Created per 27 Outs). The next two hittes on the list are no slouches either; they form the DH/1B combo for the AL champions. Statheads now have yet another reason to drool over Nick Johnson, and the rest of the world should be remnded that even in a down season, Jason Giambi is still a terrific hitter. For what it's worth, Giambi's RC27 of 7.92 was still 12th in the majors, and he was in the top 10 in Equivalent Average and Runs Above Replacement Level.

Here are the bottom 10, the most hacktastic players in the majors this past year:

82.12 K. Harvey, KC

81.46 R. Sanchez, Sea/NYM

81.08 A. Sanchez, Det/Mil

80.38 V. Castilla, Atl

79.81 B. Molina, Ana

79.73 R. Santiago, Det

79.67 R. Simon, ChC/Pit

77.75 B. Phillips, Cle

77.63 C. Izturis, LA

74.61 D. Cruz, Bal

Yargggh. Anybody who's played Hacking Mass will recognize a lot of those names; I had three of them (Castilla, Itzuris and Rey Sanchez) on my HM team, and the latter two were HM All-Stars. Suffice it to say that none of those guys are ever going to make much money for their stickwork. But what's surprising is that Nomar Garciaparra is 14th from the bottom at 83.07. Nomar's OBP in 203 was only .345 (25 points off of his career .370 mark), and he doesn't see many pitches. Which isn't to say that he's not valuable, just that this is a dimension of his game in which he falls short.

Cherrypicking the Yankees from the list and adding one of their notable postseason players who didn't have enough PA to make Patel's list:

126.58 N. Johnson

126.17 J. Giambi

113.74 J. Posada

105.29 D. Jeter

104.01 R. Ventura (NYY/LA)

102.72 B. Williams

 98.42 H. Matsui

 96.62 R. Mondesi (NYY/Ari)

 93.41 A. Soriano

 91.89 A. Boone (NYY/Cin -- 87.17 with Yanks)

 84.78 K. Garcia (NYY/Cle -- 94.02 with Yanks)

Well, there's one more indictment of two players (Sori and Boone) who caused Yankee fans to tear their hair out in October. Even the pinstriped version of Karim Garcia had more success in tiring pitchers out than Sori. More on this topic another time.

What's most exciting about Patel's work (which builds on work done by B-Pro's Keith Woolner and MLB.com's Cory Schwartz) is that it successfully quantifies one of the relatively intangible qualities we try to grasp. To use an example from my own recent baseball-watching past, consider Chuck Knoblauch during his first two seasons at the top of the order for the Yanks. Knoblauch was such a pest that I used to call him the Lil' Bastard, and I termed his skill at working the count to get on base the Lil' Bastard Instant Rally Kit. He was a huge factor in setting the tone for that Yankee lineup, seeing lots of pitches and wearing out starters so the Yanks could feast on the creamy nougat of the opposition's middle relief. Knoblauch's OBP in 1998 was .361, solid but not nearly as spectacular as the .424 and .448 he'd put up in 1995 and '96, or even his .390 in '97. He rebounded in 1999, with a .393, though it was downhill after that. Here's a simple chart for those years with his Attrition Rates (ATR) and his OBPs:

       OBP   ATR

1995  .424  112.78

1996  .448  129.64

1997  .390  113.82

1998  .361  108.87

1999  .393  111.11

The numbers show that with the exception of 1996 (when he posted an awesome .965 OPS) Knoblauch was pretty much the same pesky hitter all along, though his results varied a lot more than his approach. Damn, I miss the Lil' Bastard.

Anyway, I think Patel's done some fantastic work here just by bringing this simple, intuitive and elegant new tool to light. It will be interesting to see whether others pick up on it and how it gets used -- if I were a manager or a GM, I could see it informing my lineup choices, especially at the top of the order. Joe Torre, are you listening?