What is power in the Brewster Baseball Association? How do you define it? There’s the scouting ratings of Home Run Power and Gap Power, which sure are handy. Clearly Home Run Power is going to provide a greater definition of a hitter’s power than Gap Power, so we’ll go with that and moving forward, when discussing “scout’s Power rating,” it’s the HR variety.
So we know how to definite it on a sliding scale, but how do you measure it, statistically? How about old school back-of-baseball card stats like hits, doubles, triples, home runs and RBI? Nah, too rudimentary and we all know runs-batted-in are a product of luck and environment rather than a fair judge of a player’s power. How about total bases? A single number that’s easier to figure out than a handful of data, but a counting stat isn’t going to help us. Oh, there’s slugging percentage, right? Decent, but we can do better. How about ISO? Better and generally considered a measure of raw power as it removes singles from the equation.
But what if we improve on that just a bit? Instead of figuring out extra bases per at bat, what if we looked at total bases per hit? Let’s just call this RAW, which is simply total bases divided by hits, or slugging percentage divided by batting average (whereas ISO is SLG minus AVG). This simple calculation has been looked at before (sabermatrician Eric Walker calls it ‘Power Factor’), so I’m not expecting an invite to the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference any time soon, but it is a valuable statistic that isn’t available in your weekly reports from your baseball operations department. In fact, RAW might be the best way to judge and measure a scout’s Power ratings.
Let’s take a look at some of the top power hitters (amongst qualified batters) so far in the 2044 season:
This list makes up the current top 20 (and ties) in SLG, ISO and RAW. The darker the green, the higher ranking in that statistic that player is. Any stats not shaded in green were outside the top 20.
Since this is about RAW/Power Factor/SLG ÷ AVG, it’s sorted by the top 20 in that metric. Here are some general observations:
- There are currently four players in the major leagues with a scouting rating of 10 Power and they find themselves 12th or better in RAW. As the RAW metric gets smaller, you’ll see Power ratings of 8s and 7s, with even a 6 (Wilson Andrade) thrown in there.
- Tops in slugging percentage (by a long shot) is Theo Bourges, who also makes the top five in ISO, but “only” ranks tied for 13th in RAW. Impressive raw power, but why the discrepancy? Well, Bourges is just too good of a hitter, as he tallies up a ton of hits in general, including singles, so while he’s incredible with the bat and has tremendous power, he doesn’t have the most elite raw power, by textbook definition.
- Top ISO man Lucio De La Cruz also is tops in RAW and is one of the only four aforementioned players with a current 10 Power rating. Safe to say he may have the most raw power in the majors. (Louisville’s Hugh Mangrouthormone actually tops De La Cruz in RAW, 2.326 to 2.323, but does not qualify due to only 285 plate appearances. No one would argue if HGH was given the honor of the Brewster’s greatest raw power.)
- 2044 breakout Jim Antolin isn’t even in the top twenty in slugging despite 42 homers, tied for fifth in the league, however he’s second in RAW thanks to a .239 batting average and very few non-home run base hits.
- Speaking of non-home run base hits, one of the most interesting names is Yellow Springs Javier Rodriguez. Yes, he sports a Power rating of 9, but he’s never hit more than 29 home runs in his first two-plus seasons (on pace for 32 this year), owns a lifetime batting average of only .223 and has never topped 1.6 WAR in a season. But as a strong-side platoon stud at DH for the Nine -- anyone shocked at Ron’s roster construction savviness? – Rodriguez goes yard a third of the time he gets a hit (33.25%), the fourth best percentage among qualified batters.
- Note to Vancouver: Despite Brad Parkinson’s struggles this year (.210/.279/.442 in 518 PA and currently in Triple-A), playing him every day behind a lineup that currently ranks 4th in Frick League on-base percentage could pay dividends, considering Parkinson’s RAW number.
- In the most recent BBA Today episode, the conversation about Des Moines’ unheralded, if not completely surprising, figure of hitting the sixth-most home runs in the Johnson League is somewhat apparent here. Top dog De La Cruz and teammate Chua-kah Yang boost incredible raw power. There’s some silver lining on Des Moines’ ugly season…now all they need is some guys to get on-base in front of them, add some defense and pitching and look out!
Final thoughts:
So is RAW the best way to measure power production? Is RAW the best way to measure Power, the scout’s rating? Here’s the correlation coefficients comparing slugging percentage, ISO and RAW versus Power scouting ratings:
| POWER | |
|---|---|
| SLG | .621 |
| ISO | .813 |
| RAW | .855 |
Useful statistic? Meaningless (except for some PP and cutting into my company’s productivity) ramblings of a mad man? Nits (or bones, depending on your preference) to pick?
