I was perusing Rob Neyer’s excellent sub-site on espn.com’s baseball pages today when I noticed something remarkable on the OPS leaderboards.
Here are the top 5 hitters in each league: AL board:
Jason Varitek, Bos 1.630
Jose Valentin, CWS 1.578
Erubiel Durazo, Oak 1.487
Hank Blalock, Tex 1.472
Alfonso Soriano, NYY 1.388
NL board:
Reggie Sanders, Pit 1.585
Alex Gonzalez, Fla 1.575
Brad Ausmus, Hou 1.433
Ivan Rodriguez, Fla 1.376
Austin Kearns, Cin 1.350
Anybody notice what I noticed? 3 catchers in the top 10 MLB hitters through the first week of games. More amazingly, the #6 guy on the list in each league is also a catcher (Brent Mayne 1.363 and Mike Lieberthal 1.322). More amazingly, we get two more catchers rounding out the NL top 10 (Jason Kendall 1.214 at 8th and Benito Santiago 1.170 at 10th). That’s 2 out of the top 6 AL hitters and a full 5 out of 10 NL hitters behind the plate.
I’d be more concerned about the topsy-turvy craziness of the universe except for a couple other factors weighing in on the business-as-usual side of things. The Tigers are losing (and don’t they feel silly, watching other sad-sack teams like the Royals, Pirates, and to some extent even the D-Rays enjoy some early season success while they just go on losing), Junior’s hurt (at this point I just feel bad for the guy. I couldn’t even laugh about it. Adam Dunn put it best when he said “If he didn’t have bad luck, he would have no luck at all.”), Pedro’s unhittable (too bad about the 'pen, though). At least some things never change.
So, that was just a mundane and pointless thing I noticed. Let’s all play Jayson Stark and add our own observations to this SDMB “Useless Info Dept.”
Out of that top ten (or two top 5’s) I betcha only one of em will finish in the top 20 in his respective league (Soriano). And you forgot to mention that the freakin Yankees are going to win the World Series again.
Also, I think the Cubs are going to be GOOD. Patterson’s living up to the hype, Choi looks good, Sosa has a few years in him, and the pitching looks like its going to be nasty- it already is, so far this year. If they ever get a closer and a few more bats, they could really be something.
I’ll take that bet. I’ll go you one better and pick 3 guys from that assortment of 10 that will each finish in the top 20 in OPS in his respective league: Soriano, Durazo, Kearns.
I think it’s too early to make any judgements on the Cubbies. Patterson and Choi have been good so far, but that’s through only 6 games played. Patterson was stunning on Opening Day (and he hasn’t gone hitless in a game since, either, I’ll give you that), but he’s batted a pedestrian .285 since then and is striking out a lot (6 Ks to 1 BB so far in '03). The important question for them is whether Wood and Prior can go the 200 innings they’ll each need for the team to compete, and whether Clement can keep up. Patterson’s been hitting, but he’s streaky, and he doesn’t have the tools to stay consistent when he’s not hitting well. He (and others) are going to have to be getting on base a lot for Sammy if that team is going to score any runs.
I categorically deny that the Yankees will win the Series this year. They won’t even win the AL pennant.
Yes, it’s WAY too early for the Cubs. I speak as one born on the north side.
Do I think they show promise? Yes. Are they a year away? Yes.
Of those five I’ll say Durazo (free at last!) and Soriano have the best chance to finish in the top five. The rest will all drop out of the top 5 by May.
G. Maddux 11.00
C. Park 15.88
B. Radke 8.38
J. Lackey 8.10
J. Jennings 11.00
And all of them have two starts.
Greg Maddux’s OPS against is 1.204. Most of that is due to a SLG against of .795. Basically, hitters are slugging like Barry Bonds against him.
Good news for Greg, though - if he throws a shutout next time out, his ERA drops to 5.50. If he throws a perfect game, his OPS against drops to .756
The above are not the top 5 hitters in each league. No one can bat higher than 1.000. The above is the on base percentage, which is the total number of bases per at bat. This also takes into accounts walks and hit by pitches too.
The top 5 in hitting according to MLB.com at this moment are:
AL:
1 B Mayne KC C .600
2 G Anderson ANA OF .542
3 H Blalock TEX 3B .500
4 J Varitek BOS C .471
5 A Soriano NYY 2B .452
NL:
1 M Grudzielanek CHC 2B .500
1 M Matheny STL C .500
3 A Gonzalez CHC SS .480
4 B Ausmus HOU C .467
5 M Lieberthal PHI C .450
If you go by batting average, there are even more catchers. I would also be willing to bet it will not look like this in a few months though.
Actually, racer72, it’s not OBP, it’s OPS (on-base plus slugging pct) (nobody can have an OBP above 1 either). And OBP isn’t actually total number of bases per at-bat (I think SLG is TB per AB), it’s a pure percentage of hits+walks per plate appearance (or something close; see below). I don’t recall if OBP counts HBP or other rare occurrences[sup]1[/sup] (though I’m fairly confident it doesn’t include catcher interference or reaching base on a third strike dropped by the catcher, and I know it doesn’t count reaching base on an error in the field). Sorry for not being more explicit about specifying OPS the first time around.
And the reason I used the phrase ‘top 5 hitters’ is because I’d argue that OPS is a much better reflection of a batter’s skill than pure batting average. This is pretty well accepted among baseball statheads. So much so, in fact, that OBP is starting to be reported onscreen in some telecasts and is becoming much more widely used in various mainstream media sources as well (sorry, no cite).
[sup]1[/sup]: Upon checking into it, you’re right, OBP does count HBP. ESPN defines it as (H + BB + HBP) divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SF).
Oh, I will further predict that Soriano will not finish in the top 5 in the AL in OPS. He just never walks. He won’t hit .300 again this year so his OBP should finish out at .325 or less. The last 2 years, the 5th spot on the AL OPS list scored .979 (M. Sweeney in '02) and .966 (E. Martinez in '01), so his SLG would have to be .600+ to even have a shot at it. That’s only been done in 7 instances over that same span in the AL (twice by Thome, Manny, and Arod, once by Giambi and he just missed (.598) in '02).
So I predict he will be in the top 20 in the AL in OPS this year but not the top 5.
Other than that I agree with JC’s comments. Furthermore, I will predict that Durazo not only will finish in the top 5 in the AL in OPS, but that he will finish ahead of Soriano by at least the margin he enjoys over him as of this writing, ie at least .99 on the OPS scale.
Oh, and because I just love seeing my name on the screen, I’ve got another long-winded and self-indulgent post coming. I composed a critique of an item from Peter Gammons’ latest column but didn’t have time to post it before I left work. So somebody please save me from the shame of posting three times in a row to my own thread and say something before I do it again.