USA Today: Shandler: Some stats still anomalies one-quarter into season

Mike Napoli second in taters!...When do the stats become meaningful!?

A study done at the “Statistically Speaking” blog at mvn.com determined that a batter’s contact rate (at-bats minus strikeouts, divided by at-bats) becomes meaningful at 150 plate appearances. This is fairly close to the May 15 date. It is also the only batting stat that becomes meaningful that early. Home run rates take twice as long. Batting averages never reach a level at which we can consider them statistically meaningful, at least not within 650 plate appearances.

However, contact rates can give us a good sense of batting average potential. Both Howard (61%) and Cano (89%) are within a reasonable variance from their history, which means they should be able to put .200 in their rearview mirror soon.

On the pitching side, strikeout rate takes only 150 batters faced, or about five or six starts to become a statistically reliable measure of performance. That means Chien-Ming Wang’s rate of 6.2 strikeouts per nine innings probably needs to be taken seriously, even though his previous seasonal high was only 4.7. Lee’s 7.4 rate, a strikeout higher than he posted during his 2005 breakout season, is probably for real at some level as well.

Conversely, Fausto Carmona’s 3.3 strikeout rate has to be of concern after he posted a 5.7 in 2007. Warning flags must be up for Justin Verlander (5.5 this year, 8.2 in 2007) and Ian Snell (5.7, 7.7) too.