The Pecan Park Eagle

Thank You, Chris Chestnut!

Without being asked, SABR colleague Chris Chestnut has done a wonderful thing here. ~ In all humility ~ and in great respect for the loss we all suffered in the recent death of analyst/colleague Bill Gilbert, Chris tonight has submitted his own version of the Most Productive Offensive Players in 2018 that Bill Gilbert did for us annually for years prior to now.

Thank you, Aggie Man! ~ Your Aggie pulse for getting things done the right way now has served us proudly too. We can only hope that you may choose to do something like Bill Gilbert did for us here at the Pecan Park Eagle in the future ~ on a regular basis~ and in your own way, based on your own time availability.

We will not expect you to be Bill Gilbert. We’ll be most happy to settle for a guy who is 100% Chris Chestnut.

Gig ‘Em! ~ The Pecan Park Eagle.

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The Most Productive Offensive Players in 2018 – The Bill Gilbert Method

A couple of years ago, Bill Gilbert introduced his method for measuring offensive performance – Bases per Plate Appearance (BPA). In honor of his memory, I’ve performed the calculations for 2018.

I made a slight tweak to his original formula by including pick-offs and triple plays. I also used a different data source – Retrosheet. They have detailed play-by-play data for all seasons from 1921 to 2018.

The formula I used is

BPA = (TB + BB + HBP + SB – CS – PO – DP – 2xTP) / (AB + BB + HBP + SF)

Where:

The numerator accounts for all the bases accumulated by a player, reduced by the number of times he is caught stealing, picked off, or erases other runners by grounding into a double or triple play. The denominator accounts for the plate appearances when the player is trying to generate bases for himself. Sacrifice hits are not included as plate appearances, since they represent the successful execution of the batter’s attempts to advance another runner.

The chart below shows the Major League BPA for the past fifteen years and the number of players with BPA over .550 and .600:

To compare a player’s performance across different seasons, I developed a percentage calculation called the Relative BPA (rBPA). A player achieves a score of 100 if he matches the season’s BPA. An above-average performance would result in an rBPA of greater than 100. Conversely, an rBPA below 100 represents a below-average season.

The benchmark for an outstanding individual season is .600. Following is a list of the six players with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title (502) and a BPA of .600 in 2018.

Near misses were Matt Carpenter with .593, Paul Goldschmidt at .591, and Bryce Harper at .587. Max Muncy was 21 plate appearances short of qualifying with a BPA of .642.

Looking at the other end of the spectrum, eight players who earned enough playing time to qualify for the batting title had a BPA less than .400 in 2018.

In 2018, five Houston Astros qualified with enough plate appearances, but none broke the .600 barrier. Except for Alex Bregman, all these players showed a drop-off from the 2017 season.

Carlos Correa did not have enough plate appearances in either 2017 or 2018 to qualify. In 2017, his BPA was .567 (123 rBPA). In 2018, he fell to below average with a .425 BPA (95 rBPA).

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Great job! ~ Thanks again, Chris Chestnut! All of us appreciate you running into the public analysis breech that came along with our recent loss of the wonderful Bill Gilbert!

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle