Washington Nationals: Out Rates and Other Stats
Earlier this week, I wrote a post on Federal Baseball that discussed Out Rates, and their impact on the Nats (lack of) run production. To see the post, click here. I received several questions regarding out rates and correlation to other stats – SLG, AVG, Runs per Plate Appearance, OPS, and OBP. Here are the answers to those questions.
How to Determine Correlation
For you linear regression fans, I used R-Squared to determine the correlation. For everyone else, R-Squared is a term used to show how well a math model can predict other values in the model. An R-Squared value of 1.0 means a perfect correlation. An R-Squared value of 0.0 means there is no correlation at all.
Slugging Percentage
As you may expect, there was very little correlation between SLG and Out Rate. R-Squared was 0.2834. The main variable here is that batters can have a high slugging percentage by getting a lot of extra base hits, while still making a lot of outs. Here’s the chart.
Batting Average
Out Rate had a little more correlation to AVG, but not enough to be predictive. The main variable that prevents AVG to correlate with Out Rate is walks. R-Squared was 0.3599.
Runs Per Plate Appearance
Runs per Plate Appearance had an R-Squared of 0.4206. There are too many variables in RPA (where you bat in the order, who bats behind you, number of outs when reached base, etc) for RPA to have any meaningful correlation to Out Rate.
OPS
The R-Squared for OPS was 0.5388. OPS does not correlate for the same reasons that we saw with SLG – batters can have a high OPS by getting a lot of extra base hits, while still making a lot of outs.
On Base Percentage
As you would expect, OBP had the highest correlation to Out Rate, with an R-Squared of 0.8118. The two variables that cause the correlation to drop are caught stealing, and Grounding in to Double Plays.
You can see here that the players who threw off the correlation are the players with the most CS’s and GDPs:
- Ryan Zimmerman – 8 GDP
- Cristian Guzman 4 GDP, 2 CS
- Pudge Rodriguez – 10 GDP, 1 CS
- Nyjer Morgan – 2 GDP, 8 CS
- Willie Harris 3 GDP, 2 CS.
You gotta start watching the O’s!
I’ve already followed a team that lost more than 200 games in 2 years. I don’t think I can do that again.