Quality At-Bats and Runs Created Defined
The following is our definition of a quality at-bat:
1. Any at bat where you hit the ball hard (even if it is an out)
2. Any time you execute a play as a hitter (sacrifice, moving the runner, hit & run, etc..)
3. Walk
4. Any at bat where you make the pitcher throw 6 or more pitches
Our goal is to have a quality at-bat in 2 out of 3 times (67%).
Runs created is a formula that calculates the “run value” of everything an individual hitter (or team) does in the batters box over a 7 inning game. For an individual player, the formula calculates the number of runs that you would score, if you took every at-bat for the team over 7 innings (21 outs).
The formula for Runs Created (RC) is rather complicated, but is based on statistical analysis of 30 years of MLB games. The formula is pretty accurate. Last year it predicted that our team would score 5.8 runs per game. We actually scored 6.0 runs per game.
This is a much better measure of each players contribution to run production than the traditional measure of “batting average”. Batting average does not include the contribution of walks and does not recognize that an extra base hit is worth more than a single.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
