MANIC BASEBALL

Having an On-base Percentage (OBP) higher than your slugging percentage (SLG) while qualifying for a batting title (min. 501 PA) is a rare feat. In the past six seasons, it has been accomplished only 18 times by 14 different players. Jason Kendall is the biggest repeat offender here, with three seasons between 2006 and 2011where he fell into this category. He did it in 2010 as well, but with just 490 PA, he did not qualify for the batting title. 2004 and 2005 were also OBP > SLG seasons for Kendall, giving him a grand total of six for his career. A long way down from a 24-year old who slugged .473 at age 24 back in 1998.

This feat is very rare to accomplish (suffer) because of the nature of OBP and SLG. OBP cannot possibly go above 1.000. Every walk, hit, or hit by pitch is added to both the numerator and the denominator of the OBP formula, and to make it even more difficult to increase, sacrifice flies are in the denominator, even though they are not counting as an at-bat. (This is because it is considered that a player does not intend to hit a sacrifice fly -- they hit a fly ball out while trying for a hit and that scores the runner. Unlike sacrifice bunts, the sacrifice fly only counts with a runner scoring. A sac fly that takes a runner from second to third is just a "productive" out.)

SLG is much easier to increase. It is simply TB/AB, with home runs counting as four, triples three, doubles two, and singles, of course, one. A slugging percentage can go as high as 4.000 (a player that hits home runs in every at-bat.) Thus, a SLG of .500 is decent, but not amazing. An OBP of .500 is very rare, and it requires a special case where pitchers fear giving a slugger a chance to get a big hit. Barry Bonds .6094 OBP in 2004 is the record. He also holds the highest SLG, with .8634 in 2001. Babe Ruth is second on that list with .8472.

Therefore, because of the nature of the two statistics, it is very hard for a player to have a season where his OBP is greater than his SLG.

The other players who have had multiple cases of this in the past six years are Chone Figgins and Luis Castillo. And those who did it in a single season are as follows: David Eckstein, Gregor Blanco, Jamey Carrol, Jason Bartlett, Juan Castro, Nick Johnson, Nick Punto, Reggie Willits, Russell Martin, Ryan Theriot, and Willy Taveras.

Generally, there are two types of players that can end up having a season with OBP > SLG. The rarer type is a player whose patience at the plate is so amazing, that even with some power; he still manages to produce an OBP higher than his SLG. Nick Johnson is the only player who solidly fits this. In 2009, he hit .291, yet managed to get an OBP of .426 and slugged .405, which is not powerful, but far ahead of the other players on this list in terms of Isolated Power (ISO) at .114. To a lesser extent, Chone Figgins' 2009 year also fits this category. With a .298 batting average, he had a .395 OBP and .393 SLG for a .095 ISO, still significantly higher than most of the players that classify as the second type of "OBP > SLG" player.

The second type is more common and much less desirable as a player. For them, they have such little power that even their modest patience at the plate is enough to push their OBP ahead of their anemic slugging percentages. Luis Castillo's 2007 season is a prime example of this. While he did hit .301, he had an OBP of just .362 (thus an "isolated patience" of .061). But his SLG was just .359 (ISO of .058) and thus, it was a lack of power more than excellent patience that put him on this list.

Overall, the 18 players that fit this category show some significant differences from the overall player base.

They are less likely to strike out, with 12.2% of plate appearances resulting in a strikeout. Players that do not fall into this classification strike out 16.1%, with the overall (all 757 players) at 16%

One of the biggest differences is in their Run/RBI ratio, which is just runs/RBI. These players have a run/RBI ratio of 1.95, with the others at 1.10 and the total at 1.13.

Some of the more obvious differences are in something I call the "Empty Average Check." This is something I developed to see how much of a player's OPS comes from his batting average. It is simply BA/OPS, with a .500 showing a player who only hit singles and never walked. It could conceivably go higher than .500 (where BA > OBP) if a player hit more sacrifice flies than he had walks and HBP. These 18 players show a ".396" Empty BA Check, with the total being .349, and the non "OBP > SLG" players at .348.

They are also much more likely to use the sacrifice bunts, 7.6 vs. 2.1 (2.2 for total.) The sacrifice hit is usually reserved for pitchers and weaker hitters, where the gain from moving the runner via sacrifice is more likely to be worth giving up the chance at getting a hit.

Most of the other statistics are too similar (or there are not enough players that fit this description) to really draw conclusions regarding the trends of the "OBP > SLG" players. There are some obvious differences as well, much lower SLG and lower RBI, but those are not as interesting to me as something that is not expected.

The pitches seen per plate appearance has a potential to be significant, with 3.97 vs. 3.82 for the total, but with our current data, it is slightly over half of one standard deviation over the norm. I would expect that difference to pan out with further data, and will be looking into it for the future.

The "Net Steals" (SB-CS) also shows itself to be potentially significant, with 13 for this group and 7 for those who do not fit it, and eight overall. However, with our current data, we cannot assume that will be a trend. Another Nick Johnson (or someone like him) could pop up and send it further to insignificance with getting caught stealing more than 50% of the time.

Generally, an OBP > SLG player is not desirable, but if it's the case of excellent patience pushing OBP above a decent SLG, then that player would be one worth pursuing.



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