Hello and salutations! Welcome back to Baseball with Matt, the only baseball blog that refuses to do viral “list” posts… until now! In my last published piece on BwM, I introduced you to my brand new stat, earned run average against. ERAA, as I’ll be referring to it, aims to quantify how potent a lineup would be over a nine-inning contest if the same batter was able to take every plate appearance. Using some savvy statistical savagery, I was able to recreate the ERA calculation using hitter statistics, giving you a visualization of the ERA of a pitcher that must face the same hitter nine times in a row. After some Excel sorcery, I presented you with a spreadsheet of all-time and 2022 ERAA leaders, which you can find below.
Now that you’ve had some time to digest the sheet and its formulas, here are seven initial takeaways I have regarding ERAA.
#1: Babe Ruth is really good. Yes, this is obvious, but the all-time leader in ERAA deserves some more respect on his name. He leads second-place Ted Williams by almost a full run in this category, which says a lot, given their unjustifiably equal statuses in conversations about the greatest hitters to ever live. Despite my hatred of the Red Sox, there’s no doubt that Ted Williams was awesome, but he gets listed as the number one hitter in history way too often. To me, the discussion starts and ends with Babe Ruth. I’m not going to go into the specifics of the argument because that’s not the point of this post, but to look at the ERAA of Ruth, Williams, and some other great hitters is pretty illuminating. For example, while Babe and Ted are #1 and #2, Willie Mays is #41, Hank Aaron is #60, and Lou Gehrig is #3. Just something to think about.
#2: Todd Helton is also really good. We go from should-be-unanimous Hall of Famers to someone who’s been on the ballot for way too long. I’ve been high on Todd Helton’s induction into Cooperstown for a while because of how good a career he has under his belt. As if his 2,519 career hits, .316 lifetime batting average, and 133 career OPS+ weren’t enough (for me, a Hall of Fame OPS+ is 125, obviously with exceptions), he sits at #32 on the all-time ERAA list at 7.4, which equates to an all-time ERAA+ of 149 (meaning his ERAA is 49% better than the lifetime average).
#3: The 2022 MVP front-runners deserve to be the 2022 MVP front-runners. Aaron Judge and Paul Goldschmidt have reigned supreme in the MVP conversations of their respective leagues since May, and the 2022 ERAA rankings (min. 50 PAs) explain why. Judge and Goldy sit #1 and #2 in the category if you don’t count Matt Carpenter (even though you should because Matty Mustache is the GOAT), meaning that these two All-Stars are the top hitters in the league when it comes to run production by ERAA standards. When I drafted the spreadsheet for ERAA, I expected stars to sort of be littered across the rankings, but to see the top MVP candidate in each league right at the top of the list made justifying the idea of ERAA that much easier. I don’t think I’ve seen clearer MVP races in a while, which I guess means that your ERAA leaders in each league each season should just win the MVP. Plain and simple.
#4: Strikeouts are so bad for an offense. Luis Arraez, Alejandro Kirk, and DJ LeMahieu all seem like they’re too high on the ERAA leaderboard, but one of the key parts of the runs created calculation, which sits as the numerator of ERAA, is strikeouts, and all three of these hitters have great strikeout rates. I’ve said previously that strikeouts are the worst thing a hitter can do at the plate. I know, call me Nostradamus, but in all seriousness, there’s a reason why Eugenio Suarez and Patrick Wisdom appear so low on the ERAA leaderboard. A “K” deflates a batting order like nothing else.
#5: Ty France is the real deal. This past offseason, before I knew that the Mariners were going to hit the gas pedal for the 2022 season, I really wanted the Yankees to trade for France to solve their first base problems (which didn’t need to be solved in hindsight). He was great last year and is even better this year. And if you don’t want to look at his Baseball Reference page, then just look at the ERAA leaderboards. With an ERAA of 5.69 (and an ERAA+ of 130), he sits right below Francisco Lindor and Josh Bell in the category, and both of them are having career years. I would say that’s good company in a stat that measures average run production.
#6: Ken Griffey Jr. and Albert Pujols are overrated. Allow me to hold everyone’s collective horses for this one, but hear me out. The Kid and the Machine both had awesome first decades in baseball. All-Star Games, MVPs, overall stardom, et cetera. Basically, you name any accolade, and they achieved it. But whether due to a trade (in Junior’s case) or free agency (in Pujols’s case), their careers took a massive dive on the back nine. ERAA won’t show that decline in run production in one figure, but given their perceived legacies, you would expect these two Hall of Famers (Pujols obviously in the future) to be high atop the career ERAA leaderboards. Well, color yourself surprised, because Griffey Jr. is at #89 and Pujols is at #110 (right ahead of Earl Combs, of all people). I’m not saying these guys aren’t awesome, and I really do love them both, but there’s something to be said for where they are on this list. Now, you want me to really make you angry? Cal Ripken Jr. is at #813 on the all-time ERAA leaderboard.
#7: ERAA is no perfect science. From the formula itself to the practicality of the stat to its interpretation, there are a lot of things wrong with ERAA. At least I’d like to think there are, because then that leaves room for improvement. But I’m still really proud of myself for coming up with this fun Excel project that turned out to be an informative experience. I’ve experimented with stat creation before, but this is probably the most detailed I’ve ever gotten with it, and I have to say that I really enjoyed the process. I implore you to try to create your own stat to try to make sense of this beautiful and mysterious game we call baseball. But until you concoct the next wins above replacement, let me leave you with this. Theoretically, the average ERAA for a given season, based on my definition, should equal the average total runs scored per nine innings. Per my calculation, 2022’s average ERAA comes out to 4.318. Per Baseball Reference, the average amount of runs scored by a team per nine innings in 2022 is 4.385. That difference is only a little over 1.5%. I think I’m on to something here.
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