With the doldrums of an offseason that will lack any real interest setting in, I've committed myself to playing around with Astros data to see if the numbers agree with my memories.
Last night and into today, I played around with the numbers in an attempt to answer: who's been the best Astro, offensively, in my life time? I chose wOBA as the measure of offensive prowess. For those of you unfamiliar with wOBA, here's brief description and you can click the link for the formula:
I was torn on how I would define Astro, so there are two tables: one in which the minimum AB as an Astros is 1500 (approximately three season) and one in which the minimum is 2000 AB (approximately four seasons); the cutoff for data inclusion coincides with my birth year, 1986. The envelope please:
I must admit, I was surprised by the table, but there are some great names listed here. Congrats Moises.
This table coincides a little bit more with my memory than the one above, but I'm shocked at how low Craig is on the list.
So there you have it, either Moises Alou or Lance Berkman have been the most offensively charged Astros bats in my life time. Thoughts? Reactions?
0 recs | 5 comments
You're not picking up base running / stolen bases.
If you had a stat like Win Shares (well, that includes defense too) which includes the running game, I suspect Biggio would score much better. Bill James said that Biggio was one of the greatest players of his time because he could do so many things well. Think about Biggio’s incredible ability to avoid hitting into double plays during the height of his career. If I recall, he went a whole season without a GIDP.
Also, OBP doesn’t include HBP, which discriminates against Biggio’s strength at getting on base somehow anyhow. Biggio is 16th all time at “times on base,” a stat which includes HBP, and ranks him higher than such OBP specialists as Wade Boggs.
Finally, Biggio played farther past his prime than just about anybody on your table. That undoubtedly hurt him, considering his atrocious OBP late in his career. At his peak, I would take Biggio as the best offensive player in Astros history. But it would be close with Bags at his prime.
By the way, I loved Alou as a hitter. Astros’ fans don’t give him enough credit. I hated it when Drayton let Alou go sign with the Cubs. But Alou’s defense was terrible after his knee surgery.
clack - November 24, 2008
I agree
As I get acclimated more in MySQL, I’ll start churning out something that includes base-running and possibly even defense.
The formula for OBP includes HBP, just not IBB.
Stephen Higdon - November 24, 2008
whoops, my error on OBP....
I think I got confused recalling that reaching base on errors doesn’t count in OBP. Somehow my mind got that confused with HBP. And, by the way, players’ speed probably has a lot to do with reaching base on errors.
clack - November 24, 2008
I always go the other way
And assume that IBB’s are in and HBP are out. It actually took me about thirty minutes of futzing with my formula in the query to realize that’s what was screwing up the result.
Stephen Higdon - November 24, 2008
astrodome effect?
widely regarded as a pitchers park, how much did it hurt biggio and bagwell? It probably hurt their slugging abilities more than their ability to get on base, but it’s something to consider.
Aron - November 24, 2008
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