Brewer Batters: Projected vs. Actual Production

[rluzinski]

It ain't pretty:

http://i30.tinypic.com/24y2qvk.jpg

 

The only batter with a significant number of ABs (Cameron has only 34) doing better than his projection is Kendall. Unfortunately, the majority of that production occured over the first 8 games of the season. Since then (79 AB): .203/.292/.266/.588. Amazingly, the remaining 6 starters are all hitting over .100 OPS points less than projected! Wow.

 

What they are doing is pretty amazing. You have to expect some significant improvement from this offense if only by accident.

[jazzytrav]

I sure hope so. It's much easier to leave a pitcher in when he's struggling in the 6th when it's 7-1 as opposed to 2-1.

 

Thanks for posting this, Rluz. It's been easy lately to not pay as much attention to how putrid the hitting is because everything else seems to be going wrong. I sure hope things turnaround, because it seems like other areas of the team will fix themselves once the hitting comes. Oh God, please bring us some hitting.

[jason21nl]

wow..Thats pretty amazing. I think they need to go over to someones house, and have a big bonfire and burn all their bats. Or something.

[mls4]

Sorry but what's GPA in this context?

[rluzinski]

GPA just tries to weigh OBP to SLG, with regard to how each contributes to runs scored. The equation is:

 

GPA = (1.8 x OBP + SLG) / 4

 

It's works a little better than OPS as a one-number representation of offensive value. It's by no means a mainstream stat, so I should have posted an explanation.

 

The offense hasn't been focused on as much because, until recently, they were still scoring runs. That's because they were doing so well with runners in scoring position (their OPS w/RISP is still almost .100 points higher than overall). You can't really expect that to continue, however. They are going to have to start hitting better as a whole.

[And That]

What would be considered a "run of the mill" GPA? Like, for instance, a 750-800 OPS.

[DrWood]

maybe they need to break out the pink bats. Sunday is mother's day, isn't it?

[rluzinski]

What would be considered a "run of the mill" GPA? Like, for instance, a 750-800 OPS.

 

It's divided by 4, so that it is roughly scaled to BA. The average AL batter (including backups, of course) last year had about a .330 OBP and a .425 SLG, which works out to a .255 GPA. A very good hitter (.350 OBP, .500 SLG) would have a .283 GPA. Perennial All-Star (.380/.550) has a .309 GPA.

[pitchleague]

I understand the function of GPA, but what do the letters stand for? I can't figure that one out.

 

I also don't understand how a pitcher is struggling in a 7-1 game that the Brewers are leading (as in jazzytrav's post). Unless you meant it's a 7-1 game but the starter is constantly walking guys and leaving them on base in addition to a very high pitch count, which constitutes a lot of luck to still be leading 7-1. Is that what you meant?

[logan82]

I am not sure how to feel about this team right now. On one hand they are hitting pretty poorly and are really hard to watch. On the other hand they are hitting so poorly they can only get better.

[rluzinski]

GPA = Gross Production Average

 

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/statpages/glossary/#gpa

 

Really, it's nothing special. Just think of it as OPS but a little better and scaled to BA.

 

I also don't understand how a pitcher is struggling in a 7-1 game that the Brewers are leading (as in jazzytrav's post).

 

He just means that, if your offense is producing, a pitcher doesn't have to be so darn perfect just to have any chance of winnings. When the offense can't muster up more than 2 or 3 runs, the Brewers have little chance of winning unless Sheets is pitching.

[jazzytrav]

I understand the function of GPA, but what do the letters stand for? I can't figure that one out.

 

I also don't understand how a pitcher is struggling in a 7-1 game that the Brewers are leading (as in jazzytrav's post). Unless you meant it's a 7-1 game but the starter is constantly walking guys and leaving them on base in addition to a very high pitch count, which constitutes a lot of luck to still be leading 7-1. Is that what you meant?

I was just saying that if Villy or Bush are pitching in the 6th and they let a few runners on, it feels like we have to pull them in close games because we have to salvage the lead somehow. But if it's a larger margin, there's a better chance they'll be able to work out of it with the lead intact, and they'll have much less pressure on them while working out of that trouble. I was basically just drawing a correlation between our hitting and the combination of short outing by the starters/overuse of relievers.

Basically, "struggling" probably wasn't the best word for me to use. It was more that if we have a larger lead, there won't be as much struggling.

[pitchleague]

ah, I see. I guess I was misinterpreting that part. Russ, I understood the 2-1 reference though.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Maybe Brewerfan.net can start a trend and use GPA as their main statistcal measure for a hitter. Other message boards will follow. Even northsidebaseball.com!

[endaround]

The fact that everyone is doing poorly is why a manager change might be in order. It points to something systematic. Now it could just be Midwest has suspended serving chocolate chip cookies on their charter flights to save money but I think its probably something more baseball related.

[rluzinski]

When it's over only 35 games, I would say it's much more luckly a result of random chance than anything else. Unless the coaching staff has insisted on those 6 batter changing whatever approach gave them success in the first place, I can't even fathom what they could do to cause such an effect.

[TerraceReserved]

The fact that everyone is doing poorly is why a manager change might be in order. It points to something systematic. Now it could just be Midwest has suspended serving chocolate chip cookies on their charter flights to save money but I think its probably something more baseball related.

 

I don't know. I mean, last year Brewer's hitters were excellent and under the same management.

[rluzinski]

It's been about a month since I last looked at this. At that point, just about the entire team was grossly underperforming, offensively. We would have expected that to improve itself as time went on and that's exactly what we see:

 

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/projectedvsactual0606-1.jpg

Braun is now exceeding his projection. Fielder, Hart and Hardy are all moving in the right direction Weeks and Hall are spinning their wheels with below-expected production. After an incredible start, Kendall has regressed right to his preseason projection. Cameron still hasn't really gotten it going.

[steve267268]

So since the OBP in GPA counts for 1.8 times what SLG counts for, that roughly means that getting hits or getting on base is more important than the type of hits you are getting? Or is it just accounting for the fact that slugging is always a higher number and GPA makes it more of a 1:1 type deal?

[rluzinski]

Roughly speaking, with regard to scoring runs, 1 point of SLG is equal to around 1.8 points of OBP on average. For instance, Hall's numbers are REALLY bad since he's making SO many darn outs.