BBTF's Newsblog Discussion :: SNY: Salfino: Small-market Rays are outclassing Yankees, Red Sox

Baseball Primer Newsblog
— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand

Thursday, July 03, 2008

SNY: Salfino: Small-market Rays are outclassing Yankees, Red Sox

A beacon that radiates throughout Tampa Bay and across the entire states of New York and Massachusetts!

Not many expected that the Fourth of July series that begins today in the Bronx would pit New York and Boston in a Wild Card scrum. But that’s where we stand because there’s little doubt the Rays are for real.

Yes, their run differential of 59 should give them 48 wins, or four fewer than they have. But no one on their team is hitting above expectations except for Eric Hinske and maybe Evan Longoria, a rookie with a 135 OPS+ (which means he’s about 35 percent better than an average hitter). Longoria, though, was viewed as one of the top hitting prospects in baseball, so there’s a chance he’s just a quick study and will hit even better.

Carl Crawford, B.J. Upton and Carlos Pena are all good bets to produce much better in the second half. Even if they don’t, the Rays are likely to play at that .570 rate their net-runs total suggests, and that would give them 96 wins, which should win the East given the questionable health of David Ortiz and myriad of injury problems for the Yankees.

Their pitching, which everyone should have seen as being very good heading into the season, is the reason the Rays’ middling offense has been good enough. Remember, Scott Kazmir and Matt Garza, so skillfully acquired for badly overhyped problem child Delmon Young (who hasn’t yet hit and maybe never will), missed seven starts so far due to injury. They’re both healthy now.

Repoz Posted: July 03, 2008 at 07:38 PM | 12 comment(s) | Login to Bookmark
Related News: General, Boston, NY Yankees, Tampa Bay

Reader Comments and Retorts

Go to end of page

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

Page 1 of 1 pages

1. bibigon Posted: July 03, 2008 at 07:56 PM (#2842279)

B.J. Upton is a good bet to be much better in the second half? Guy is outhitting his PECOTA and has the 7th highest EQR in the AL. I'd also take the under on Navarro.

They're still the class of the division probably.

2. Rich Posted: July 03, 2008 at 08:26 PM (#2842297)

Simply put, the Rays are already stocked with the high end young talent at the ML level that the Yankees and Sox are still trying to assemble.

The advantage the two latter teams still have is their respective closers (and the Sox have Beckett).

3. cardsfanboy

Posted: July 03, 2008 at 08:42 PM (#2842315)

Evan Longoria, a rookie with a 135 OPS+ (which means he’s about 35 percent better than an average hitter).

shouldn't that be 17.5% better.

I hate their new name (sorry but Devil was cooler) but love the team (I've had them in my sim now for 6 years, so have always had an attachment to them. Of course the funny part is that they have leap frogged the Blue Jays which can't be sitting well with Toronto's ownership.

4. The Kids Are Enright (1k5v3L)

Posted: July 03, 2008 at 08:47 PM (#2842322)

How does Oliver Perez fit into the picture?

5. Jim Wisinski

Posted: July 03, 2008 at 08:51 PM (#2842328)

Yes, their run differential of 59 should give them 48 wins, or four fewer than they have.

But a strong back-end of the bullpen is supposed to cause teams to outperform their run differential so that probably isn't much of an issue for the Rays.

6. The Kids Are Enright (1k5v3L)

Posted: July 03, 2008 at 08:56 PM (#2842332)

Francesspool on his favorite TV show on NBC a few days ago:

"Rays are a paper tiger. They're going where they've never been before, and they won't get there"

7. Social media assassin (Templeusox) Posted: July 03, 2008 at 09:00 PM (#2842336)

Kazmir is pitching hurt. So there's that to watch out for.

8. fret Posted: July 03, 2008 at 09:34 PM (#2842374)

shouldn't that be 17.5% better.

No.

Let’s define aOBA as OBA/LgOBA, aSLG as SLG/LgSLG, aOPS as OPS/LgOPS (this is what I called “SOPS+” in my earlier post), aR/P as (R/PA)/Lg(R/PA), and aR/O as (R/O)/Lg(R/O). OPS+ is OBA/LgOBA + SLG/LgSLG - 1, which is the same as aOBA + aSLG - 1.

When we regress OPS to estimate runs, what run rate should we regress to, R/PA or R/O? We can all agree that the most important thing to know about a team’s offense is its R/O, so that would seem to be the right choice. While this does not transfer perfectly to individuals, it is still true that R/O is more telling for them than R/PA is, and R/O is generally fine to use as an individual rate stat.

So let’s look at the equations to predict aR/O from aOPS and OPS+ for the sample in question:

aR/O = 2.06(aOPS) - 1.06
aR/O = 1.06(OPS+) - .06

Here we can see that OPS has a 2:1 relationship to runs scored. If you are 5% better than the league average in OPS, you will be approximately 10% better in runs scored per out (and, by extension, in runs scored). On the other hand, OPS+ has an almost 1:1 relationship to runs scored.

The practical implications of this are that if you see a player listed with an OPS+ of 125, you can interpret this as “the player is estimated to create 25% more runs/out than the league average.” It is of course an estimate, and it may not be as accurate as other estimates, but it does scale properly.

You cannot do the same thing with aOPS (and since aOPS is simply OPS divided by a constant, the same goes for OPS as well). If you have a batter with an OPS of 900 in a league with an OPS of 750, saying that his aOPS is 120 means nothing other than that his OPS is 20% higher than the league average. It does not mean that he created 20% more runs--in fact, he created something close to 40% more runs.

9. Chase Utley, Shooty's Favorite Robot (Joey Belle) Posted: July 03, 2008 at 10:34 PM (#2842436)

Enough with the Rays already I need me some Mets coverage.

10. Vegas Watch

Posted: July 04, 2008 at 12:25 AM (#2842775)

Rays are a paper tiger. They're going where they've never been before, and they won't get there.

He is really still beating this drum? Pretty unbelievable.

11. AROM Posted: July 04, 2008 at 01:11 AM (#2842922)

B.J. Upton is a good bet to be much better in the second half? Guy is outhitting his PECOTA and has the 7th highest EQR in the AL.

The Beej is hitting 278/392/411. He may be out-walking his projection, but he sure ain't out-hitting it. Any projection that has him less than .411 slugging is useless. He's a good bet to hit for a lot more power in the second half.

12. Chip Posted: July 04, 2008 at 01:14 AM (#2842930)

He is really still beating this drum? Pretty unbelievable.

He's a Yankee fan. All he's watched is paper tiger teams in recent years.

Page 1 of 1 pages

You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.

<< Back to main

Thursday, July 03, 2008

SNY: Salfino: Small-market Rays are outclassing Yankees, Red Sox

Reader Comments and Retorts

Support BBTF

Bookmarks

Hot Topics