In the introduction, I went over what the heck this project is all about. In part one, I broke down all of the possibilities of the batter-influenced hit numbers. In part two, I went over the error and rare play numbers and found out that everything was pretty much the same. Now we can move on to the parts of the card that won’t help you, the outs.
As I explained in the In the introduction, the APBA card in a “pure” state would consist of a 12, a 31, a 35, the position-determined error and rare play numbers, and a mélange of 26s through 30s and 32s and 34s. A player’s hits, walks and hit by pitches will slowly remove the mélange. However, there are other batter actions that will not remove numbers, but at least change them from one out to another:
- Strikeouts are the most obvious, basically 1 per 36 PA minus 1.1. So if someone had 5.6 K per 36 PA, that would go down to 4.5, which would round back up to 5. The subtraction is to account for strikeouts obtained through pitcher subratings and hits into outs.
- 24s come into play for generally every .0125 GDP per 36 PA, or .0035 GDP per PA.
- Players with a good hit-and-run reputation receive a second 31. Players with an excellent reputation receive 3 31’s (only 5 in 2012).
- 33s and 34s used to be based on a straight batting average formula, .250 and above meant you got one or the other, under .250 you got both. That no longer seems to be the case as there are some (but not many) players on both sides of the line. It does not seem to be a function of outs needed or something to do with bat control, as Juan Pierre has the intriguing combo of 3 31’s but both a 33 and a 34, the latter two are DPs on a hit and run. Nor does it seem to tie to bunting.
- The good bunt numbers (26, 28, 30 and 32) are given more to good bunters while the bad bunt numbers (27 and 29) are given to the poorer bunters.
- Extra numbers can also be pull related, with righties tending to get extra 27s, 28s and 30s and lefties 26s, 29s and 32s.
This phase of the project proved to be a little more difficult to implement. Unlike adding hits, which was merely replacing one out result with the desired hit, adding an out would involve recalculating the card. I really didn’t want to do that. So what I did instead was removing 1-11, 14, 22 and 42 proportionally off everyone’s card so that there would be about 7% less of each over the course of the set, replaced by the out number being tested.
However, the numbers when they came back were not usable, since the deductions added up to more than the additions, plus the true penalty of the 24 and 25 was blunted a touch with the loss of runners to double off. I then tried a simulation where I did replaced the most common out with the new out. Although that would give me results of little difference, it would give me better comparisons. So I decided on a compromise set of numbers based on both tests:
| Test | Base | 12 | 13 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 |
| Add Out | 4.04 | 4.15 | 3.58 | 3.52 | 3.51 | 3.50 | 3.52 | 3.58 | 3.57 | 3.60 | 3.64 | 3.55 | 3.61 | 3.53 | 3.66 |
| Replace Out | 4.04 | 4.16 | 4.04 | 4.02 | 4.02 | 4.03 | 4.06 | 4.09 | 4.02 | 4.03 | 4.12 | 4.08 | 4.02 | 4.03 | 4.13 |
| Score | 0.00 | -.25 | -.39 | -.41 | -.41 | -.39 | -.36 | -.33 | -.40 | -.39 | -.361 -.282 |
-.38 | -.39 | -.39 | -.28 |
| 11st 31 22nd and subsequent 31s | |||||||||||||||
The numbers I chose were basically what the average out should be (-.37) and comparing it with the difference between the baseline and the ‘replace out’ test. I modified it a little bit with the differences found in the ‘add out’ test. I made 13-33-34 consistent at -.39, since they should be the same. I made 24-25 a little worse at -.41 and balanced 30 and 32 to be -.39 and -.38. I would also made a split for 31 to properly account for how a hit-and-run would normally be played.
One thing I noted is that outfield assists in general are too high even in the baseline:
| Test | LF/36PA | CF/36PA | RF/36PA |
| MLB | .05 | .04 | .06 |
| Baseline | .07 | .06 | .10 |
So with the values set, let’s take a look at Jay Bruce and Torii Hunter. When we last left them, Bruce’s runs produced per 36 PA was 8.40, and Hunter’s 8.68. We now have to start deducting the outs.
Each of them have at least one of a 12, 25-32 and a 35. That adds up to a deduction of 3.65 when all of the run differentials are accounted for. This knocks Bruce down to 4.85 and Hunter to 5.03.
Bruce has 7 13’s, Hunter has 6. Take away .39 for each 13, and Bruce falls to 2.12, while Hunter increases his lead to 2.59.
The final check is to see what extra outs they have. Bruce has an extra 26, 29, 33 and two extra 32s. That’s a deduction of 1.94, finishing Bruce at 0.18. Hunter has an extra 31, but also has two 24s. That’s a deduction of 1.10, giving Hunter a larger lead and a final score of 1.49.
So in a full draft league, Hunter is definitely your choice. However, my league is not a draft league. It only has 12 teams. That may change the balance a bit. We’ll discuss that in another series.
Moving on to other players, who do you think has the best card in the set. Is it Cabrera? Is it Trout? It’s neither — it’s Joey Votto. His card is clearly the class of the 2012 lot, and he may have benefited from an over-carding. Here are the top 10 regular cards in the 2012 set:
| Player | Score | Card AVE | Card OBP | Card SLG | MLB AVE | MLB OBP | MLB SLG | Card |
| Votto | 5.66 | .364 | .468 | .606 | .337 | .475 | .567 | 1-0-0-0-0-7-8-8-8-9-9-22-6 14s |
| Ortiz | 4.25 | .326 | .420 | .629 | .318 | .415 | .611 | 1-1-0-0-0-8-8-8-8-9-9-5 14s |
| Posey | 4.13 | .358 | .435 | .575 | .336 | .408 | .549 | 1-0-0-0-7-7-8-8-8-9-9-22-4 14s |
| Moss | 4.00 | .323 | .387 | .633 | .291 | .358 | .596 | 1-1-0-0-0-8-8-8-8-9-9-22-3 14s |
| McCutchen | 3.58 | .328 | .392 | .556 | .327 | .400 | .553 | 1-0-0-0-11-7-8-8-8-8-9-9-22-3 14s |
| Encarnacion | 3.55 | .298 | .384 | .573 | .280 | .384 | .557 | 1-1-0-0-10-8-8-8-9-9-22-4 14s |
| Trout | 3.44 | .320 | .402 | .557 | .326 | .399 | .564 | 1-0-0-0-11-11-10-8-8-9-9-22-4 14s |
| Cabrera | 3.37 | .336 | .395 | .616 | .330 | .393 | .606 | 1-1-0-0-0-7-8-8-8-9-9-3 14s |
| Ruiz | 3.24 | .349 | .413 | .599 | .336 | .395 | .616 | 1-5-6-6-7-7-10-8-8-8-9-9-42-22-2 14s |
| Beltre | 3.23 | .330 | .375 | .579 | .321 | .359 | .561 | 1-1-6-6-7-7-8-8-8-8-9-9-22-2 14s |
It looks like Votto got an extra 7. Posey looks like either an extra 7 or a 7 that should be an 8, and Moss looks like he got an extra 8. Both Votto and Posey have extreme platoon splits in the MG (-9/+1 and +12/-6 respectively).
Some other card score miscellany:
- The best card not to appear in the list above is Dan Johnson, whose 1-1-5-6-7-8-8-8-9-9 with 7 14s is good for a 4.55.
- The best card for a pitcher belongs to Zach Britton, whose 1-1-6-6-7-7-7-7-8-8-8-8-9-9 with 1 14 is good for a 3.96. This is entirely based on his 5-8 with a double and a home run from 2011, as he did not bat in 2012.
- The worst card belongs to Rick van den Hurk, whose 8-14 with 20 13s is “good” for a -10.01.
- The worst card for a non-pitcher belongs to Luke Hughes, whose 11-10-8-8-9-9 with no 14s scores a -7.37.
- The worst card for someone who got at least 100 plate appearances was Brooks Conrad, whose 1-5-6-8-9 with 2 14s and 13 13s scores a -5.57. Having an offense of just Votto and Conrad in theory should be average.
- The worst card for someone who qualified for a batting title is Mark Trumbo, whose 1-5-5-7-8-8-8-9-9 with 2 14s scored a -2.30.
- Replacement level (position-agnostic) is about -1.12. Justin Smoak’s 1-6-7-8-8-8-9-9 with 3 14s is the closest regular at -1.10.
- The closest regular to 0.0 is Jhonny Peralta with 0-0-0-8-8-8-8-9-9 with 3 14s.
The next step will be to look at pitching grades in the next series.