Unique Baseball Statistics

For tracking the 265 baseball games in my database since I started listing them on May 30, 2007, I have tracked various stats that are not familiar to baseball fans.

One major stat that I am tracking in baseball is one that I call "Sloppiness". In general, I find baseball games more fun to watch when the batters hit the ball well against good defense. Too often however especially at the lower levels of Small Time Sports baseball teams fall victim to sloppiness, and create run opportunities themselves for the other team. I define Sloppiness by what I see as a sloppy play: a play primarily by initiated by the defense that allows the opposing offense to either reach base or advance on the basepaths with little effort exerted by the offense on the play. As a result, the only way in which a batter can reach base without it being considered a sloppy defensive play is in the form of a hit or a fielders' choice. And once on the basepaths, the advancement of the runner is considered sloppy unless it came off of a hit by a batter, advancing on a throw, or a stolen base.

The play most universally considered sloppy in baseball is the error, which factors into a team's Sloppiness total. However, the most common sloppy play is the walk. Many people in baseball do not consider the walk sloppy, as often it is the result of a pitcher trying to avoid giving up a big hit. But nevertheless it only serves to add an extra base runner, which can create more runs and slow the game down, which is not fun to watch. When I was 10 years old, I just about never got a hit but I walked a fair amount, because it's easier to walk than to hit for a batter.

Other common sloppy plays include hit batters, wild pitches, and passed balls. Due to the complexity of the game, there are also a good number of plays that aren't very common but can be considered sloppy when they occur, such as a balk or catcher's interference.

Let's take a look at a sample game, last night's Columbia-Fayetteville game:

Columbia:
6 walks
2 hit batters
1 error
Sloppiness Total: 9

Fayetteville:
5 walks
2 wild pitches
1 hit batter
1 balk
1 error
Sloppiness Total: 10

Typically, a well-played performance will give a team a sloppiness total of 5 or less. A poor performance leads to a Sloppiness of 10 or more. Only three times in 265 games has a team finished with no sloppy plays. These rare occurences were: Last July 3, when the Columbia Blowfish won an exhibition over the USC Alumni team 4-1; last August 8, when the Thomasville Hi-Toms beat the Peninsula Pilots 8-1 in a CPL tournament game; and on May 19 when High Point beat Charleston Southern 2-1. The highest sloppiness total ever in the 265 games is 21, which has been done four times: By the Florence Freedom of the independent Frontier League on July 15, 2007 in a 10-9 18 inning loss to the Southern Illinois Miners; by Wake Forest in a 12-6 loss to UNC Asheville on March 25, 2008; by the Camden American Legion team on June 16, 2008 in a 12-11 10 inning win over Bishopville; by Irmo on August 1, 2008 in a 22-21 win in the American Legion State Tournament over Spartanburg.

Sloppiness is a good way to measure how the runs are being produced alongside hits. In an effort to make the game more watchable and to reduce runs, curbing sloppiness is important for the game of baseball.

Another statistic I am using is the batter rating, which will be used to select the Hitter of the Game. The rating formula is one I copied years ago from the MLB.com Fantasy Baseball page, which is the following:

Total Bases (1 for a single, 2 for a double, 3 for a triple, 4 for a home run) multiplied by 5
RBIs X 5
Runs X 5
Walks/getting hit X 3
Stolen Bases X 10
5 point penalty each time caught stealing
3 point penalty for striking out
2 point penalty for having a 0 for 1 plate appearence where the ball is put in play.

Typically, a negative rating is a bad game for the player. A positive single digit performance is considered a so-so outing, a rating between 10 and 19 is a productive outing, a rating between 20 and 49 is considered to be a good outing, a rating between 50 and 99 is considered to be an outstanding outing, and a rating of over 100 is a career night. Only 5 times in the 265 games I have seen over the past two years has a batter had a rating over 100. However it is not very common for no batter to have a rating under 20, the lowest rating by a batter to win Hitter of the Game was an 11 in a 1-0 game. The highest rating by a batter so far in the 265 games was by Bryn Henderson of Winthrop on a May 22 drubbing of Radford 21-3. Henderson's rating was 126, with the following stat line: 5 for 6, 2 HRS, 7 RBIs, 5 runs scored, and a stolen base with a walk.

The formula for pitchers, to determine Pitcher of the Game, is as follows:

Innings pitched X 15 (or outs made by defense while you were pitching X 5)
Strikeouts X 3
10 point penalty for each earned run
5 point penalty for each it allowed
3 point penalty for each walk or batter hit
30 point bonus for earning the win or save
15 point penalty for taking the loss.

The highest rating ever for a pitcher is 184 by Tyler Christman while with the American Legion Sumter P-15's. Christman beat Lake City 10-0 in a playoff game last July 21 throwing 8 shutout innings, allowing only 1 hit and four walks, while striking out 17.

These stats will be a regular feature in game reports here on Small Time Sports, and hopefully it will allow fans to see baseball in a new way.