Houston Astros Baseball

Astros Stats Worth Mentioning

The 2008 Astros have shown us a new type of team than remembered in recent years. Our pithcing staff is barely adequate while our offense is one of the best in the league. Leading that charge is offensive monster Lance "Big Puma" Berkman. His accomplishments so far are astro-nomical! He deserves much more credit than he is getting. When we open our homestand tonight, the entire crowd should stand an applaud the efforts of possibly the best offensive Astro ever.

Here are a few interesting stats highlighting the positives of this team so far.

Stats Glossary

Win Shares

Lance Berkman not only leads the entire NL in total Win Shares for the 2008 season, he leads all of baseball, with 13.

Basically, Win Shares are a metric used to rate a players overall contribution to his team. The numerical number (13 in Lance's case) represents the numbers of Astros wins he is credited.

Interestingly enough, the top seven players in this category are ALL from The NL. So much for Arod and Big Papi!

Also high on that list is Miguel Tejada. He comes in 8th in The Nl and 9th in all of baseball with 9.

Both hunter Pence and Carlos Lee are much further down the list, with (HP)6 and (CL)5.

Win Probability Added

On a similar metric, Win Probability Added is very similar to Win Shares although WPA is designed in order to be able to predict the future success of a player/team. Like Win Shares, each play/At Bat is taken into consideration for each player.

Lance leads this list as well with 4.30. To take into consideration how good Lance has played, there are only two players in all of baseball with a WPA of over 2. (Berkman, Burrell 3.34)

Miguel is also on this list at 9th in all of MLB. (1.34)

Basic Batting Stats

Berkman leads all of baseball in OPS (On Base + Slugging) with 1.280.

Again, take into consideration the best career OPS numbers ever put up:

1) Babe Ruth 1.164
2) Ted Williams 1.116
3) Lou Gehrig 1.080
4) Barry Bonds 1.051
5) Albert Pujols 1.040

Currently, Lance is 17th on the all-time list (.971). Other Astros great, Jeff Bagwell is ranked 23rd all time.(.948)

Both are ahead of players like: Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Joe Jackson, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Mel Ott.


In a similar Stat (PrOPS)"Predicted OPS" PrOPS Info

Basically this metric is used to identify "lucky"/"un-lucky" players. Using certain stats such as:

* Line drives per batted ball
* Groundball-to-flyball ratio
* Walk rate
* Hit-by-pitch rate
* Strikeout rate
* Home run rate
* Home park of the player

With this info we can predict how a players stats (OPS) should look over the long term. Here is 2008's list.

1)Berkman 1.095
2)Johnson 1.059
3)Pujols 1.050
4)Utley 1.043

Using the same idea, we can predict a players slugging % as well. Just for kicks, here is the top 3.

PrSLG

1)Berkman .682
2)Utley .639
3)C.Jones .623

Slugging Percentage

Lance carries a huge lead in this category.

1)Berkman .804
2)C. Jones .679
3)Uggla .671
4)Utley .636
...
27)Tejada .522
32)C. Lee .515

Compared to best all time SLG %

1)Ruth .690
2)Williams .634
3)Gehrig .632
4)Pujols .620
...
21)Berkman .551
43)Bagwell .540


GPA

GPA (Gross Production Average)

Basically, again this stat accounts for a players contribution, however variables like ballpark are added. According to HBT, ".200 is lousy, .265 is AVG, and .300 is a star"

1)Berkman .415
2)CJones .387
3)Pujols .377

HR Stats

HR/FB (HR / Fly Ball)

1)Berkman 29%
2)Howard 25%
3)H.Ramirez 23.9%

Defense

With Ed Wade's decree to better our defense let's look at a few bright lights as far as range goes. There are several different metrics used to judge a players range, I chose to use RZR (Revised Zone Rating) because of it's simplicity and accuracy. Using RZR a player is judged by how many balls hit into his zone are converted into outs.

RZR

First Base

1)Pujols .911
2)Berkman .889


Shortstop

1)Escobar .881
2)Tejada .874

Centerfield

1)Bourn .953
2)Ankiel .953
3)Patterson .950

Right Field

1)Winn .958
2)Pence .928
3)Nady .928

Left Field (Oh, Carlos...)

Keep in mind, there where only 11 NL Left Fielders with the minimum amount of games to qualify, so Carlos got 2nd to last.

1)Byrnes .963
...
10)Lee .793

Clutch

This is a stat invented by Bill James trying to identify the best batters to have up with runners on/in scoring position. Basically, batting avg with runners on/in scoring pos. and xtra base hits with runners on/in scoring pos. are what matter here.

1)Pence 5.6
2)Johnson 5.1
3)Hudson 4.4

To keep the same "clutch" idea going here are the leading in Batting Average with runners in scoring position.

BA/RISP

1)Keppinger .424
2)Pence .404
3)Sanchez .400
4)Hudson .395
5)Berkman .390(This is crazy, because this is actually LOWER than his normal BA)

Runs Created

Last stat of the day. This stat is used to truly identify how many runs a particular player has accounted for his team. This stat is pretty complicated, using variables such as ballpark, OPS/RISP.

1)Berkman 52
2)McClouth 42
3)C.Jones 42
...
10)Tejada 34
21)Pence 29
39)C. Lee 25


After Thoughts

After going through all these different stats and seeing the impact of cartain players there are a few things I have taken away from all this info.

1) Lance Berkman is not a god, but greater than a man. What he is doing this year is truly, truly amazing.

2) Although Pence has struggled, his production and defense remain solid. This gives hope to us Astros fans that when he really turns it on and finds his power he will be a force.

3) Carlos Lee is NOT carrying his weight. It's pretty easy to see that something is wrong with El Caballo. He doesn't look the same at the plate. To me, it looks like he is pressing, or trying too hard to hit the ball. Like I guessed in early April, I believe this has alot to do with his slot as the #5 hitter. He is getting fewer "good" pitches to hit and is thus trying too hard to hit bad pitches. This results in a lower batting average and lower overall production. Sadly, there isn't an easy way to cure this. He is slotted there to best benefit the team and shouldn't be moved. My advice to him would be to be more patient. Make pitchers get into bad deep counts trying to pitch around him and wait for your pitch. Also, when Hunter stops striking out as much, pitchers won't want to pitch around Carlos quite as much. However, unless Carlos adjusts he is looking at a below average year for him offensively.

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