THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, August 17, 2006

BaseRuns, Linear Weights, Runs Created

I’m just playing around with BaseRuns, Linear Weights, and Runs Created. 

First thing I do is come up with a baseline equation for each.  Doesn’t matter too much what you use, as long as it’s reasonable.  For RC specifically, I’m doing OBP * SLG * PA * .832.  So, for a standard batting line of:

PA___AB___H____2B__3B__HR__BB
625__565__150__30__4__16__60

I get 73 runs scored using any of the three methods.  Again, not too important what you use, so just use your own numbers, and baseline them to some reasonable number of runs.

Next, cause a 30 run change in BaseRuns, by changing the walk value.  In my case, the walk value is bumped from 60 walks to 156.5.  The run value expected by BsR is now 103, while LWTS gives us 104, and RC gives us 106.5.  Pretty good allround.  It makes us feel good that all three are handling the walk in a reasonable fashion.

Next, let’s try the HR.  If we bump our baseline, so that the HR is now at 37.8, we get 103 runs according to BsR.  LWTS says 104, and RC says 106.  Once again, all is well.

The double gets bumped to 68.9, and BsR gets us 103 runs, LWTS says 103, and RC says 108.  Doing great.

Triples?  33.5 triples gives us 103, 105, 109 for BsR, LWTS, RC, respectively.

Singles bumped from 100 to 160.2, gives us 103, 101, 106.5, respectively.  Pretty good allround.  So, we can see how, individually, they hold fairly well.

Modifying the out also gets us similar numbers.  So, if you can live with a few runs here or there, you can use any of these three measures for most cases.

(Note, the RC construction is slightly different than usual.)