The Terrible Twenty: Offence

Tuesday, April 22 2003 @ 02:52 AM EDT

Contributed by: robertdudek

Through all the comical misplays in the field, the self-immolating bullpen, the lack of base-stealing and cautious running of the bases, the strength of the 2003 Blue Jays has been hitting.

The Blue Jays are currently 3rd in the AL in runs scored, and not far behind 3rd (in 5th) on a per game basis.


Team......Runs.....perGame.....XR.......net
NYY......134 .... 7.05 .... 137.9 .... -3.9
BOS......124 .... 6.53 .... 117.9 .... +6.1
ANA......104 .... 5.47 ..... 99.1 .... +4.9
OAK......102 .... 5.37 ..... 96.9 .... +5.1
TOR......106 .... 5.30 .... 103.4 .... +2.6
KCR.......90 .... 5.29 ..... 90.2 .... -0.2
CWS.......97 .... 5.11 .... 103.4 .... -6.4 
BAL.......87 .... 4.83 ..... 80.8 .... +6.2
SEA.......91 .... 4.79 ..... 95.5 .... -4.5
TBD.......89 .... 4.68 ..... 85.0 .... +4.0
TEX.......77 .... 4.05 ..... 97.7 ... -20.7
MIN.......73 .... 3.84 ..... 77.5 .... -4.5 
CLE.......73 .... 3.84 ..... 83.4 ... -10.4 
DET.......34 .... 2.00 ..... 30.1 .... +3.9

Extrapolated runs (XR) is a linear weights formula developed by Jim Furtado of Baseball Primer. It estimates how many runs a team should have scored based on the run impact of various offensive events. Accoring to XR, the Blue Jays have scored about as many runs as expected.


player....... PA .... pit/PA . H/BIP . Krate .. XR 
Stewart...... 100 .....  3.6   .333  .082 .... 14.2
Wells......... 93 ...... 3.5   .273  .183 .... 11.3
Delgado....... 88 .....  4.0   .404  .235 .... 17.7
Phelps........ 83 ...... 3.8   .304  .278 ..... 8.5
Hinske........ 75 ...... 3.9   .356  .320 ..... 7.6
Catalanotto... 74 .....  3.7   .351  .162 ..... 9.7
Hudson........ 66 .....  3.5   .256  .258 ..... 4.6
Woodward...... 62 .....  4.0   .302  .161 ..... 8.2
Wilson........ 42 .....  4.4   .435  .310 ..... 6.8
Myers......... 40 .....  4.1   .348  .250 ..... 6.1
Bordick....... 33 .....  4.2   .318  .212 ..... 3.1
Berg.......... 25 .....  3.6   .333  .160 ..... 5.3

I'm excluding Ken Huckaby and Reed Johnson from the above chart for lack of plate appearances. The Blue Jays have the highest batting average on balls in play in the AL so far at .326. Only Vernon Wells and Orlando Hudson are below .300 (2003 AL average = .289). Vernon has hit lots of hard ground balls at people (resulting in an incredible 6 GIDP so far) and likes to try to reach the outfield fences in centre and left-centre, which sometimes results in long fly outs.

Tom Wilson plus three youngsters - Hudson, Hinske and Phelps - are the most strikeout prone. Of these, Hudson can least afford to have a high strikeout rate. Wilson leads the team in pitches per PA and going deep into counts will usually result in lots of walks and strikeouts.

It's not hard to believe that Shannon Stewart is the toughest Blue Jay to strikeout - watching him foul off 2-strike pitches provides visual confirmation of the facts.

5 comments

https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030422025251999