Archive for Bryce Harper

When discussing Bryce Harper’s year, the challenge is not to try and show that it’s been great. Rather, the challenge is to show how great his season has been. Harper leads the National League in home runs, and he leads all of major league baseball in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage, as well. The last player to lead the majors in every triple-slash category was Barry Bonds in his 13-win 2002 season. Only a lack of RBI will prevent Harper from winning a traditional Triple Crown. Perhaps the most impressive number for Harper this season is 204 — that his, his current weighted batting line (wRC+) where 100 equals average. Harper is seeking to become only the 12th player in the last 100 years to hit the 200 makr, and only the 10th in a non-strike season, potentially joining Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds.

Before getting to wRC+, a discussion of Harper’s offensive runs above average should be helpful to frame the discussion. Harper’s offensive runs above average this season, shortened to “Off” on the FanGraphs leaderboards and player pages, is 74.2 — currently the 53rd-best mark over the past 100 seasons — and he will have shot to get in the top 40 by the end of the year. Off is a counting number and, due to its fairly direct relationship with wRC+ (Off adds BsR), we can get a general idea of how many runs different wRC+ is worth. From the FanGraphs Glossary:

Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) measures how a player’s wRC compares with league average after controlling for park effects. League average for position players is 100, and every point above 100 is a percentage point above league average. For example, a 125 wRC+ means a player created 25% more runs than a league average hitter would have in the same number of plate appearances. Similarly, every point below 100 is a percentage point below league average, so a 80 wRC+ means a player created 20% fewer runs than league average.

The chart below shows Off, wRC+ for a small collection of players this season.

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As we move into May and people start to check our WAR leaderboards, there will inevitably be a discussion about why certain players rank highly, especially if they aren’t putting up big offensive numbers. Most of the time, that discussion revolves around the player’s defensive value; For example, last August, Alex Gordon sat on top of our WAR leaderboards, which generated a fair amount of controversy at the time.

Here at FanGraphs, we use Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) as the fielding component of WAR. UZR is one of two defensive run estimators we host here on the site, the other being Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). Both metrics go beyond traditional fielding stats using the same Baseball Information Solutions (BIS) data set to assign runs to players by dividing the field into different areas and then comparing each play to a league average. At FanGraphs, we don’t have UZR values for catchers or pitchers, so those positions are simply removed from any data visualizations in this post. We also have great library entries that go over the minutiae of the metrics better than I can in this post.

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So here’s what we know:
1) Bryce Harper, a phenomenally talented 19 year old who also occasionally does annoying things, got plunked by Cole Hamels on May 6.
2) Cole Hamels admitted doing it on purpose, “to continue the old baseball… that old-school prestigious way of baseball.”

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Yesterday, the Cubs traded superfluous lefty starter Tom Gorzelanny to the Nationals for two fringe prospects. Though the Nationals don’t look like a competitor in a tough National League East in the upcoming season, the move, coupled with other moves by the team, does seem to suggest that there’s a near-term destination in mind for the team in our nation’s capital.

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Episode Thirty-Five
In which the panel is a little drafty.

Headlines
Reflecting on Strasburg
Projecting on Harper
Draft-as-Event: More Nerdier?

Featuring
Dave Cameron, Full-Time Employee
Eno Sarris, Rogue Fantasy Contributor

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop.

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