Milwaukee Brewers Blog - The Junkball Blues : Ryan Braun

Plate Approaches II

radio silence — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:12:10 GMT

I'm going to try and update the plate approaches of our team every two weeks or so, and suggest different types of line ups based on our approaches.

As I did in the first post on this topic, I am using five stats to attempt to measure a good plate approach: OBP, NP/PA, H/PA, BB/PA, and XBH/H. Basically, I am assuming that with a good plate approach a batter looks to get on base (OBP), take some pitches to find his best pitch to hit (NP/PA), attempt to hit (H/PA) or be ready to take a walk (BB/PA) -- and perhaps know the balance between those approaches, and finally, drive the ball (XBH/H). Obviously not every one of those elements is evident in every single plate approach, but I imagine that if we constructed a list of players with good plate approaches, we would find most of them successfully complete tasks such as getting on base, having a balanced approach, and sometimes driving the ball. Not only do we want players that get on base, but we want players that get to second base safely.

So, with that said, here are the most recent stat listings of our regular 8 thus far:

OBP

1. Fielder .363

2. Hart .356

3. Kendall .344

4. Weeks .330

5. Braun .321

6. Hardy .321

7. Cameron .313

8. Hall .286

NP/PA

1. Hall 4.26 (779/183)

2. Cameron 4.23 (351/83)

3. Weeks 4.04 (820/203)

4. Hardy 3.98 (673/169)

5. Fielder 3.87 (747/193)

6. Kendall 3.69 (583/158)

7. Hart 3.59 (653/182)

8. Braun 3.55 (695/196)

BB/PA

1. Fielder 12.95% (25/193)

2. Weeks 12.81% (26/203)

3. Cameron 10.84% (9/83)

4. Hardy 10.06% (17/169)

5. Hall 8.74% (16/183)

6. Kendall 7.59% (12/158)

7. Hart 6.04% (11/182)

8. Braun 4.08% (8/196)

H/PA

1. Braun 28.06% (55/196)

2. Hart 27.47% (50/182)

3. Kendall 23.42% (37/158)

4. Hardy 21.89% (37/169)

5. Fielder 21.24% (41/193)

6. Cameron 20.48% (17/83)

7. Hall 18.58% (34/183)

8. Weeks 16.75% (34/203)

XBH/H

1. Cameron 52.94% (9/17)

2. Braun 50.91% (28/55)

3. Hall 47.06% (16/34)

4. Fielder 39.02% (16/41)

5. Weeks 35.29% (12/34)

6. Kendall 29.73% (11/37)

7. Hart 28.00% (14/50)

8. Hardy 21.62% (8/37)

Placing all of these stats together, and ranking the players, we get the following ranking of plate approaches:

Plate Approaches (total)

1. Fielder 16

2. Cameron 19

3. Weeks 22

4. Kendall 24 (.344)

5. Braun 24 (.321)

6. Hall 24 (.286)

7. Hart 25

8. Hardy 26

Fielder's plate approach is tops, and Cameron's is high despite a low OBP because of his relative balance between H and BB, his ability to hit extra bases with high frequency, and his patience. Then follow Weeks and Kendall, with Braun moving to fifth because of his OBP and patience, although he is the best pure hitter and near the top for extra base hits. Rounding out the bottom of the order are Hall, Hart, and Hardy. Hart is near the bottom, even though he has a high OBP, because he does not have a balanced approach between H and BB, he does not see a lot of pitches, and he is not hitting extra base hits frequently.

Here are some other variation line ups:

First, let's look at the best line up that takes into account nothing other than hitting (H/PA) and OBP.

H / OBP

1. Hart 4

2. Fielder 6 (.363)

3. Kendall 6 (.344)

4. Braun 6 (.321)

5. Hardy 10

6. Weeks 12

7. Cameron 13

8. Hall 15

This line up is my favorite: it considers OBP and XBH/H:

Power / OBP:

1. Fielder 5

2. Braun 7

3. Cameron 8

4. Hart 9 (.356)

5. Kendall 9 (.344)

6. Weeks 9 (.330)

7. Hall 11

8. Hardy 14

Finally, here's our best line up for patience (NP/PA) and OBP:

Patience / OBP

1. Fielder 6

2. Weeks 7

3. Hart 9

4. Kendall 9

5. Cameron 9

6. Hall 9

7. Hardy 10

8. Braun 13

Ryan Braun

radio silence — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:06:00 GMT

In celebration of Braun's 8-year contract, let's take a trip through the history of baseball and look at some of the greats that had seasons at age 23 that match Braun's rookie campaign...

I generally looked for guys that hit for high average, had OBP .400 or under, and had a very high SLG.

Here's what I found, with my favorites marked...

Braun (23, 2007): 146 H, 26 2B, 6 3B, 34 HR, 15/20 SB, 112/29 K, .324/.370/.634 (1.004)

Greenberg (23, 1934): 201 H, 63 2B, 7 3B, 26 HR, 9/14 SB, 93/63 K, .339/.404/.600 (1.004)

Juan Gonzalez (23, 1993): 166 H, 33 2B, 1 3B, 46 HR, 4/5 SB, 99/37 K, .310/.368/.632 (1.000)

Jeff Heath (23, 1938): 172 H, 31 2B, 18 3B, 21 Hr, ¾ SB, 55/33 K, .343/.383/.602 (0.985)

Mize (23, 1936): 469 PA, 414 AB, 136 H, 30 2B, 8 3B, 19 HR, 1 SB, 32/50 K, .329/.402/.577 (0.979)

Aaron (23, 1957): 198 H, 27 2B, 6 3B, 44 HR, ½ SB, 58/57 K, .322/.378/.600 (0.978)

V. Guerrero (23, 1999): 193 H, 37 2B, 5 3B, 42 HR, 14/21 SB, 62/55 K, .316/.378/.600 (0.978)

F. Robinson (23, 1959): 168 H, 31 2B, 4 3B, 36 HR, 18/26 SB, 93/69 K, .311/.391/.583 (0.974)

DiMaggio (23, 1938): 215 H, 35 2B, 15 3B, 46 HR, 3 SB, 37/64 K, .324/.386/.581 (0.967)

Lynn (23, 1975): 175 H, 47 2B, 7 3B, 21 HR, 10/15 SB, 90/62 K, .331/.401/.566 (0.967)

Bottomley (23, 1923): 194 H, 34 2B, 14 3B, 8 HR, 4/10 SB, 44/45 K, .371/.425/.535 (0.960)

M. Ramirez (23, 1995): 149 H, 26 2B, 1 3B, 31 HR, 6/12 SB, 112/75 K, .308/.402/.558 (0.960)

Conseco (23, 1988): 187 H, 34 2B, 42 HR, 40/56 SB, 128/78 K, .307/.391/.569 (.960)

W. Clark (23, 1987): 163 H, 29 2B, 5 3B, 35 HR, 5/22 SB, 98/49 K, .308/.371/.580 (0.951)

H. Ramirez (23, 2007): 212 H, 48 2B, 6 3B, 29 HR, 51/65 SB, 95/52 K, .332/.386/.562 (0.948)

Duke Snider (23, 1950): 199 H, 31 2B, 10 3B, 31 HR, 16 SB, 79/58 K, .321/.379/.553 (0.932)

Mattingly (23, 1984): 207 H, 44 2B, 2 3B, 23 HR, ½ SB, 33/41 K, .343/.381/.537 (0.918)

Don Hurst (23, 1929): 179 H, 29 2B, 4 3B, 31 HR, 10 SB, 36/80 K, .304/.390/.525 (0.915)

A. Jones (23, 2000): 199 H, 36 2B, 6 3B, 36 HR, 21/27 SB, 100/59 K, .303/.366/.541 (0.907)

Bob Meusel (23, 1920): 151 H, 40 2B, 7 3B, 11 HR, 4/8 SB, 72/20 K, .328/.359/.517 (0.876)

*** Allen (23, 1965): 187 H, 31 2B, 14 3B, 20 HR, 15/17 SB, 150/74 K, .302/.375/.494 (0.869)

The Value of Ben Sheets

radio silence — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:42:00 GMT

With Sheets' walk year in full effect, there are numerous debates about what the Brewers should do with their ace right hander. Some say trade, some say let him walk, and some say sign, and there's a lot of in-between.The issue is often complicated by comparing Sheets' production to a position player's, or pointing out that we need to keep our position players (perhaps more than we need to keep Sheets).

So, I dove into Sheets' post-breakout game logs, and asked myself this question: how many batters does a pitcher that pitches better than 2/3 quality starts face during those quality starts throughout a season.

Here's what I found:

2004: 23 QS, 641 PA

2005: 16 QS, 473 PA

2006: 11 QS, 297 PA

2007: 14 QS, 381 PA

Quality starts: 64 QS, 1792 PA

Total: 97 GS, 2592 PA

The value in Sheets, I take it, is that in a full season he is likely to pitch well over 20 quality starts, and during those quality starts he will face almost as many batters as an everyday player that bats 1-3 (ex., Prince Fielder went to the plate 681 times in 2007).

So, not only does a starting pitcher face more batters in an entire season than an everyday player accumulates PA; a high quality start pitcher like Sheets will face almost as many batters in his quality starts alone as most batters face in an entire season (or very near that number...)