Ichiro!, Infield Hits and Productive Outs. Options

[Taro]

Given the recent thread on Kotchman's baserunning, I thought it would be fitting to touch on Ichiro's infield hits and what kind of penalty they apply towards Ichiro's overall value.

Ichiro's career averages:

187 singles
751 PAs
58 Infield hits+bunt hits

The league average rate is 17.8% of singles as infield+bunt hits as opposed to Ichiro's 31%. This means Ichiro has 25 surplus infield hits+bunt hits per year over league-average. The advancement value between a regular single and an infield single is roughly somewhere around 0.05 runs (since an average single has more advancement potential than an infield hit/bunt hit).

Ichiro's infield+bunt hits cost him about 1.25 hidden runs per year. Ichiro actually has scored 15% of ROB in his career compared to a league average of 14% so his low RBI totals are a bit misleading, but we'll round up to 2 runs to be on the conservative end for his occasional "speed" driven triple or doubles.

The value of a productive out over a regular out is 0.044 runs. Ichiro averages 5% higher than league-average which comes out to a surplus of 2.5 productive outs over average per 751 PAs. Thats worth a mammoth 0.11 runs above-average per year. Yeah, productive outs don't matter much at all. I'm not sure why I went there.

Overall figure that Ichiro's speed hits are worth about -2 runs per year and now you get better picture of where he sits in non-WAR value.

+5 runs baserunning
+5 runs GIDP
-2 runs "speed singles"

Its a surplus of roughly 8 runs over his raw WAR.

I'd cover Ichiro's clutch hitting and positive outcomes vs power pitching, but I don't know I'd want to quantify that in something like this. +8 runs is about right.

[KingCorran]

Imagine how much more those infield hits would cost him if he didn't make them, and was thrown out instead.

[SABR Matt]

Given the recent thread on Kotchman's baserunning, I thought it would be fitting to touch on Ichiro's infield hits and what kind of penalty they apply towards Ichiro's overall value.

Ichiro's career averages:

187 singles
751 PAs
58 Infield hits+bunt hits

The league average rate is 17.8% of singles as infield+bunt hits as opposed to Ichiro's 31%. This means Ichiro has 25 surplus infield hits+bunt hits per year over league-average. The advancement value between a regular single and an infield single is roughly somewhere around 0.05 runs (since an average single has more advancement potential than an infield hit/bunt hit).

Ichiro's infield+bunt hits cost him about 1.25 hidden runs per year. Ichiro actually has scored 15% of ROB in his career compared to a league average of 14% so his low RBI totals are a bit misleading, but we'll round up to 2 runs to be on the conservative end for his occasional "speed" driven triple or doubles.

The value of a productive out over a regular out is 0.044 runs. Ichiro averages 5% higher than league-average which comes out to a surplus of 2.5 productive outs over average per 751 PAs. Thats worth a mammoth 0.11 runs above-average per year. Yeah, productive outs don't matter much at all. I'm not sure why I went there.

Overall figure that Ichiro's speed hits are worth about -2 runs per year and now you get better picture of where he sits in non-WAR value.

+5 runs baserunning
+5 runs GIDP
-2 runs "speed singles"

Its a surplus of roughly 8 runs over his raw WAR.

I'd cover Ichiro's clutch hitting and positive outcomes vs power pitching, but I don't know I'd want to quantify that in something like this. +8 runs is about right.

Are you counting reached on error, Taro? A lot of hidden production from speed-forced errors for Ichiro.

Also...the infield hits only cost him productivity if they happen with men on base...Ichiro's average plate appearance has about 6% fewer baserunners than league average...so you shouldn't deduct the full 1.25 runs...more like 1.19 runs.

This post has been edited by SABR Matt: Feb 2 2010, 09:45 AM

[Shaggy]

Will Chone & Ichiro's hitting style actually compliment one another? Those 25 infield singles could be affected if ichiro bats behind Chone.

[SABR Matt]

Ichiro will hit 1st...Figgins gets a lot of IF singles though too...so you're talking about a lot of innings starting with runners at first and second or first and third...both with good wheels.

[M's Watcher]

Imagine how much more those infield hits would cost him if he didn't make them, and was thrown out instead.

Or if all those IF hits were walks instead, there would be no complaints. That would be 90 BB!

[KingCorran]

But... but... but... then the runner on second would NEVER advance!!! O_o

[M's Watcher]

But... but... but... then the runner on second would NEVER advance!!! O_o

[Taro]

Are you counting reached on error, Taro? A lot of hidden production from speed-forced errors for Ichiro.

Also...the infield hits only cost him productivity if they happen with men on base...Ichiro's average plate appearance has about 6% fewer baserunners than league average...so you shouldn't deduct the full 1.25 runs...more like 1.19 runs.

ROE is already accounted for in wOBA, so I ignored it in this case.

One thing that wasn't accounted for that I think could have big impact is errors AFTER an infield hit. We've all seen Ichiro get errors with fielders rushing to make a throw after an infield hit. I don't know the league-average rate for this, or how many Ichiro is above-average, but if Ichiro has even 3 or 4 plays per year above-average in this category then that ITSELF is worth around 1 run, and would basically cancel out the negative advancement value with infield hits+bunts.

Your second point is a good one..although we're dealing with such a small fraction of a run at this point.. Given that run value for infield hits is my best educated guess (a conservative one though), its not going to be 100% accurate but probably at least between 0.50 runs of being accurate.

[Taro]

I didn't go into Ichiro non-infield hit singles, doubles, and triples, but given my conservative estimate on his infield hits I find it hard to see how that would add up to another run.

I might calculate my estimates at another time, but I just rounded it all up to 2 runs to be on the conservative end again (also in case you'd prefer to set the difference of average singles+infield hits at 0.06 or 0.07 runs)

At the other extreme are 1b/dh slugs like Edgar who at times hit long singles that have the effect of weaker double in advancing runners, doubles that are triples for average players, etc. The most run value I could find for such hitters is a little over +3 runs over average and that required being pretty generous.

This post has been edited by Taro: Feb 2 2010, 06:00 PM

[SABR Matt]

Yeah...and I guess the point really is...who the heck cares? Quantifying the negative value of Ichiro's infield hits tells you how pointless it is to worry about the negative value of Ichiro's infield hits...the run differences are tiny and won't amount to more than a win or two over the course of his entire career. Which is of course valuable information to have when someone whines about Ichiro's value being overstated because of his infield hits.

Incidentally...I included errors-after-play in my forced-error estimates the last time I attempted to calculate them back in 2006. At that time, Ichiro (2005) reached on an error 11 extra times compared to league average rates and forced post-play errors 6 times (and those six bonus advances were worth a total of 1.49 runs above the normal result of an infield single...it turns out that that those throwing errors seemed to happen disproportionately when there were two outs and runners already on base (4 out fo the 6 examples)...so run expectancies went from less than 1/3 of a run in all four cases to over a run in at least two of those cases).

Forced errors seem to happen in high leverage at bats - another possible reason why Ichiro has a high clutch score by fangraphs that has absolutely nothing to do with any clutch HITTING skill - when the defense knows they really NEED that out...they are more likely to try a risky throw and miss.

[Taro]

The other thing that all this digging showed me was a little perspective to the ranges of non-SB baserunning, GIDP, and power hits vs speed hits.

Overall I found that the spread between the BEST performers and WORST (average of 5ish guys on each end) was around as follows over 155-160 games:

12-14 run spread in non SB-baserunning

10-12 run spread in GIDP

6-8 run spread in power hits vs speed hits (singles, doubles, triples).

This is close the absolute MAX in spread betwen the best and worst performers though. Most players will only see very marginal adjustment in their overall values.

It makes sense that the value to consistently advance YOURSELF is higher than the value to slightly move runners over, since batters aren't always hitting with runners on base.

Overall in the value of hidden bases (for WAR) speed wins over power.

[Taro]

Yeah...and I guess the point really is...who the heck cares? Quantifying the negative value of Ichiro's infield hits tells you how pointless it is to worry about the negative value of Ichiro's infield hits...the run differences are tiny and won't amount to more than a win or two over the course of his entire career. Which is of course valuable information to have when someone whines about Ichiro's value being overstated because of his infield hits.

Incidentally...I included errors-after-play in my forced-error estimates the last time I attempted to calculate them back in 2006. At that time, Ichiro (2005) reached on an error 11 extra times compared to league average rates and forced post-play errors 6 times (and those six bonus advances were worth a total of 1.49 runs above the normal result of an infield single...it turns out that that those throwing errors seemed to happen disproportionately when there were two outs and runners already on base (4 out fo the 6 examples)...so run expectancies went from less than 1/3 of a run in all four cases to over a run in at least two of those cases).

Forced errors seem to happen in high leverage at bats - another possible reason why Ichiro has a high clutch score by fangraphs that has absolutely nothing to do with any clutch HITTING skill - when the defense knows they really NEED that out...they are more likely to try a risky throw and miss.

Excellent stuff on his forced post-play errors. I was wondering about that, but I didn't know where to find the data.

In that case, it pretty much completely cancels out the negative value of Ichiro's speed hits (whether they be of the infield or triple variety).

So now we're back to giving Ichiro +10 runs to his value in hidden bases. Good Stuff.

This post has been edited by Taro: Feb 2 2010, 06:07 PM

[SABR Matt]

A baseball-prospectus (I believe) article on the subject of Ichiro's hidden offensive value estimated that he created roughly 35-40 extra bases per year by his speed (not counting steals) compared to an average player...that's all of his extra ROE, extra forced errors, extra baserunning advances and fewer GIDP per ground ball out with men on base. 35-40 bases = roughly 15-20 runs...so their figures seem to match your rough guesses at the widest range (+/- 15-20 runs).

So, if you assume Ichiro is missing maybe a full win every year from his WAR...you can certainly see how much of a bargain he is for the club.

[SABR Matt]

Excellent stuff on his forced post-play errors. I was wondering about that, but I didn't know where to find the data.

In that case, it pretty much completely cancels out the negative value of Ichiro's speed hits (whether they be of the infield or triple variety).

So now we're back to giving Ichiro +10 runs to his value in hidden bases. Good Stuff.

Yeah...basically, one would assume that Ichiro's real value is about a win better than it looks on paper and the reverse extreme would be trtue for guys like Piazza, Edgar Martinez and maybe Casey Kotchman.

[Taro]

A baseball-prospectus (I believe) article on the subject of Ichiro's hidden offensive value estimated that he created roughly 35-40 extra bases per year by his speed (not counting steals) compared to an average player...that's all of his extra ROE, extra forced errors, extra baserunning advances and fewer GIDP per ground ball out with men on base. 35-40 bases = roughly 15-20 runs...so their figures seem to match your rough guesses at the widest range (+/- 15-20 runs).

So, if you assume Ichiro is missing maybe a full win every year from his WAR...you can certainly see how much of a bargain he is for the club.

Ya, given that WAR only accounts for errors on reaching base and SB+CS, that would come to a similar conclusion that Ichiro is worth somewhere around 10 runs beyond his WAR (subtracting around 2 runs for speed hits).

I might have to look that study up.

[Taro]

Yeah...basically, one would assume that Ichiro's real value is about a win better than it looks on paper and the reverse extreme would be trtue for guys like Piazza, Edgar Martinez and maybe Casey Kotchman.

Piazza and Edgar would hit for power too though, so they'd gain a couple runs or three in "power hits over average hit run value". Still its not impactful enough to save the run they lose on the bases (They'd still lose 5-8 runs a year). A guy like Kotchman who combines the negative baserunning skills of slow sluggers with a lack of power loses the most value.

[lisa mariner]

Slightly off topic, but didn't want to start a new thread...
Brock and Salk on now discussing this article from yesterday's Times

Must-see TV: Ichiro's hit parade makes for popular viewing in Japan