Saturday, July 18, 2009

As Chuck Barkley would say, "Turreble"

Most of you know that OPS is the new era standard for excellence at the plate. Just look at the leaders in the majors and you will see all-stars all over the top 10 (Pujols, Mauer, Ibanez, Fielder, etc). It calculates OBP (how often you get on base) and SLG (how many total bases you produce). What is interesting, though, is looking at the bottom 20 and seeing how many big-time names are there (top 10 round fantasy type players).

We all know the woes of Jeff Francoeur (4th worst at .626 or almost half of Pujols), but what about Jimmy Rollins at .642? Jimmy is well under .100 points of his career OPS, and that includes the 1st 2-3 years of his career where he was below average at the plate. In the bottom tier, you usually see 1 trick pony's like base stealers, catchers, or defensive wizards. But to see what were considered top-tier shortstops like Rollins, Furcal, Cabrera, Hardy, and Eckstein all in the bottom 20 is pretty wild. Also included are all-or-nothing hitters like Chris Davis, Adrien Beltre, Chris Young, and Kevin Kouzmanoff. Former all-stars Magglio Ordonez and Russell Martin are also in the bottom 20.

Number 1 (or last) on the list? Willy Tavares with a .579 OPS and a .031 point lead over Jason Kendall. Turreble.

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