| 5th May, 2010 - 10:19 pm
 By Nick Obergan
Thanks to the enormous advancements in Sabermetrics, and people like Bill James and websites like Fangraphs.com, baseball statistics have come a long, long way. There is now a stat for virtually every aspect of the game that takes fans beyond the numbers seen in a box score.
The problem with some of these stats, is that they are too advanced and sometimes too complicated for basic fans who don?t have the desire or time needed to wrap their minds around the endless formulas and calculations.
That is not meant to downplay the effectiveness of these new stats. It allows fans, and even players and the minds in the front office, to better understand the effect that even the smallest of stats can have on a game. The biggest advancements have come in defensive statistics, such as Ultimate Zone Rating.
But just because we have new ways of understanding the game, doesn?t mean there aren?t still smaller statistics out there that can help us get a clearer picture of a team or a player. That is exactly what Unearned Run Cost (URC) aims for, and it?s goal is to show how many extra runs a team gives up due to their errors or how successful the team is in not allowing those errors to cost them on the scoreboard.
In relation to the team stat, it can show which players? errors end up being more costly than others. Just because a player leads the league in errors, doesn?t mean he is costing his team the most runs. In essence, the final number indicates the number of runs it costs per error, the lower the better.
Team URC formula = (Total Runs - Earned Runs = Unearned Runs)/Total Team Errors
Player URC formula = Individual Errors*Team URC
Team URC Rankings for 2009
(Unearned Runs / Team Errors / URC)
1. Texas Rangers: 42 / 106 / 0.396
2. San Francisco Giants: 88 / 40 / 0.455
3. Colorado Rockies: 87 / 40 / 0.460
4. Philadelphia Phillies: 76 / 36 / 0.474
5. Milwaukee Brewers: 98 / 48 / 0.490
6. Boston Red Sox: 82 / 41 / 0.500
7. Minnesota Twins: 76 / 39 / 0.513
8. Cincinnati Reds: 89 / 46 / 0.517
9. Chicago Cubs: 105 / 56 / 0.533
10. Los Angeles Dodgers: 83 / 46 / 0.554
11. St. Louis Cardinals: 96 / 54 / 0.563
12. Arizona Diamondbacks: 124 / 71 / 0.573
13. Washington Nationals: 143 / 83 / 0.580
14. New York Yankees: 86 / 52 / 0.605
15. Cleveland Indians: 97 / 59 / 0.608
16. Chicago White Sox: 113 / 69 / 0.611
17. Houston Astros: 78 / 48 / 0.615
18. Pittsburgh Pirates: 73 / 45 / 0.616
19. Los Angeles Angels: 85 / 53 / 0.624
20. Atlanta Braves: 96 / 60 / 0.625
21. Detroit Tigers: 88 / 55 / 0.625
22. Seattle Mariners: 105 / 67 / 0.638
23. Baltimore Orioles: 90 / 59 / 0.656
24. Kansas City Royals: 116 / 77 / 0.664
25. Toronto Blue Jays: 76 / 51 / 0.671
26. New York Mets: 97 / 66 / 0.680
27. San Diego Padres: 94 / 65 / 0.691
28. Tampa Bay Rays: 98 / 68 / 0.694
29. Florida Marlins: 106 / 76 / 0.717
30. Oakland Athletics: 105 / 76 / 0.724
So as you can see, Texas was the best at not letting their errors cost them runs (under 40% of the time), while Florida and Oakland allowed those unearned runs to score over 70% of the time. The Nationals had the most errors in the league last year while Pittsburgh had the fewest, but both were ranked near the middle as far as letting those errors cost them runs.
How do those numbers affect the players with the most errors last year? Here are the top-20 error-prone players from last season, followed by their error total and number of runs it cost their team
(Player, URC).
1. Orlando Cabrera, MIN / 25 / 12.829
2. Everth Cabrera, SD / 23 / 15.094
3. Chipper Jones, ATL / 22 / 13.750
4. Elvis Andrus, TEX / 22 / 8.717
5. Miguel Tejada, HOU / 21 / 12.923
6. Jason Bartlett, TB / 20 / 13.878
7. Brandon Inge, DET / 20 / 12.500
8. Rafael Furcal, LAD / 20 / 12.471
9. Alexei Ramirez, CWS / 20 / 12.212
10. Christian Guzman, WSH / 20 / 11.608
11. Mark Reynolds, ARI / 19 / 10.879
12. Yuniesky Betancourt, KC / 18 / 11.948
13. David Wright, NYM / 18 / 10.884
14. Alberto Callaspo, KC / 17 / 11.284
15. Ryan Zimmerman, WSH / 17 / 9.867
16. Felipe Lopez, MIL / 17 / 8.327
17. Dan Uggla, FLA / 16 / 11.427
18. Adam Dunn, WSH / 16 / 9.287
19. Pedro Feliz, PHI / 15 / 7.105
20. Jose Lopez, SEA / 15 / 9.571
So as you can see with Elvis Andrus, the number of errors often doesn?t mean you are costing your team more runs than a player with fewer errors than you ? out of these 20 guys, his URC was third best after Feliz and Felipe Lopez.
Don?t think that URC is meant to replace or exceed any other stat you may find; view it simply as another means to look at errors ? which can be a very misleading statistic.
Nick Obergan is RealGM's hockey writer. Send him an an e-mail at nickobergan@hotmail.com or follow him on twitter at @nickobergan |
