Run Production

All statistics tell only part of the story. That's why baseball people have been known to say about a weak swing that produces a blooper that falls in just the right spot to produce a base hit, "It'll look like a line drive in tomorrow's boxscore." Or, as Mark Twain said in his Autobiography, quoting British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Nonetheless, baseball revolves around statistics--the most important of which is a team statistic called the won-loss record--and some statistics can be revealing. But a proper understanding of what they also hide is important. So, with that introduction, let's consider run production, a subject that was mentioned briefly earlier in the season here.

The Sharks have produced runs in bunches this year. Thus far, the team has scored 174 runs in 20 games, or 8.7 per game. Not all of those runs have come at the right time, of course. Three of Malibu's six losses have been by one run; another loss (to Oak Park) was by two runs.

Where are all those runs coming from? Consider this measure of run production: If we take runs scored, add runs batted in, and divide by plate appearances (at bats plus sacrifices--including sacrifice flies--plus walks and times hit by pitch), we can derive a percentage that indicates the productivity of a hitter. (Earlier in the season, we used at bats rather than plate appearances as the denominator, but plate appearances should produce a more meaningful statistic.) The upper limit of the run production percentage would be 5.00, which could only occur if a player hit a grand slam (1 run plus 4 RBIs) every time he stepped up to the plate. (Actually, the percentage could go even higher for a player who scores runs as a pinch runner. Scoring one or more runs without ever getting a plate appearance would generate an infinite ratio of runs per plate appearance thanks to the impossibility of dividing by zero.)

Before we look at the numbers for the Sharks, consider what the statistics will not show. First, we've made no effort to separate runs scored as a pinch runner from those scored after reaching base by the runner's own effort at the plate. Nor, conversely, have we attempted to factor in the problem of being replaced on the bases by a pinch runner. (A player who hit a lot of triples only to be replaced on third base by a pinch runner would be badly cheated by what we're doing here. But as the team has only two triples all year and pinch runners have not been that common, this doesn't seem to be an issue worth trying to correct.)

Second, the statistics will not correct for the advantages (or disadvantages) of hitting in certain spots in the lineup. Ordinarily, players hitting first and second in the order score a lot of runs because they're followed by players who can hit the ball a long way. Not surprisingly, Daniel Williams and Brett Weinstock are tied for the team lead in runs scored with 25 apiece. Similarly, players hitting in the 3-4-5 spots tend to collect more RBIs thanks to the fact that they typically have players like Weinstock, Williams, and Roth on base frequently when they come to the plate. Players at the bottom of the order typically have neither advantage, except that the number eight and nine spots have been rather advantageous this season in terms of scoring runs because of the productivity at the top of the Sharks' lineup. (Of course, having the opportunity to be on base when Jamie Van Soelen is at bat is perhaps the biggest advantage of all. Batting behind him is a disadvantage because of the likelihood that he will have cleared the bases when he bats.)

With all of those disclaimers, let's look at the top ten in run production for the Sharks thus far.

	PA	R	BI	RP
J. Van Soelen	60	17	22	0.650
S. Williams	36	15	8	0.639
B. Weinstock	77	25	17	0.545
C. Bell	33	10	8	0.545
P. Johnson	69	14	23	0.536
D. Williams	81	25	18	0.531
B. Fitch	68	12	18	0.441
J. Puklus	70	18	12	0.429
G. Roth	71	15	11	0.366
M. Gwyn	49	9	5	0.286
J. Weinstock	35	7	2	0.257
A. Beck	26	4	1	0.192