There are three distinct components that make a batter successful, (a) hitting for average, (b) hitting for power and (c) getting on base by other means. I explored the relative value of each, within a team context, in this article:
Traditionally, these 3 components have been represented with the triple slash line of AVG/OBP/SLG, or batting average, on base percentage and slugging. I’d like us to move towards BAPP, which strips out batting average from OBP and SLG.
What is BAPP?
BAPP stands for Batting Average, Patience, Power.
Patience = BB % (or BB% + HBP% if you prefer, though BB% is easily accessed on every FanGraphs page and what I recommend to use)
Power = ISO% (also easily accessed on every player’s FanGraphs page). Isolated slugging, or ISO% is simply Slugging% - Batting Average (the first component of BAPP).
A Few Clarifications
I want to re-iterate a few points. First, if you want an accurate measure of a player’s value, you want DRC, wOBA, wRC+ (or similar), or WAR if you want an all-in-one metric. BAPP in no way claims to be superior to those metrics in terms of providing a precise valuation. In fact, it is unequivocally inferior as a precise measure of value.
BAPP’s goal is to leverage easy to calculate/acquire statistics to paint a picture of what type of hitter the batter is, while also giving you a good estimation of their value, and how they produce said value.
I excluded HBPs from BAPP, though this is more of a stylistic/philosophical choice. BB% is easily seen on every batter’s FanGraphs page, as is their ISO. I personally would take the hit in precision, for the ease of getting BA/BB%/ISO. Including HBPs will perhaps give you more accuracy, and if you prefer that version, I won’t argue too hard.
Some BAPP benchmarks:
An average BAPP is roughly .500, (technically slightly lower). For simplicity, .500 is a great benchmark, and one of the reasons I love BAPP. A .250/.080/.170 is about average in everything, and a good bet to be an average offensive contributor.
For batting average, we can use all the rules of thumb we are used to; .240 to .250 is roughly average, .300 is really good, and .200 is pretty bad.
For walk percentage (or walk + HBP percentage if your prefer, but would need adjusting), .080 to .085 is about average, with anything over .100 roughly top 30, .150 elite level. Anything below .050 is bottom 30.
For ISO, .210 is the benchmark for a top 30 slugger, .170 is roughly average, .300 is top of the scale and .100 is pretty poor (with 0.050 the bare minimum).
If you’re a .300/.100/.200 hitter, you’re about 20% better than league average by BAPP.
If you’re a .300/.100/.100 hitter, you’re a slap hitter that’s good at drawing walks and about league average.
If you’re a .200/.100/.200 hitter, you’re a patient slugger that’s also approximately a league average batter.
If you want to know where any of the 3 components rank for an individual batter, you can find out quite easily using a FanGraphs leaderboard.
Is a .300 hitter always good?
Perhaps, perhaps not. The average BAPP is roughly .500, so if a batter draws zero walks, and hits for absolutely no power, they will be providing roughly 60% of the value of an average hitter, which is not very good. Ben Revere is a great example of this; he has a career .285/.045/.058 BAPP, good for a .388 aggregate BAPP line, roughly 78% of the way to an average hitter. His wRC+ over his career? 82. Lines up pretty well, and clearly shows his strength (getting base hits) and his weaknesses (not drawing walks and not hitting for power).
Can a .200 hitter be any good?
Perhaps, perhaps not. Let’s take a look at Adam Dunn, the classic case of a low batting average, great patience and power hitter; the polar opposite of Ben Revere. Dunn’s career BAPP is .648, or about 30% above average, with a BAPP triple slash of .237/.158/.253; his wRC+ clocks in at 123, or about 23% above average. Keep in mind that BAPP will over-value walks (singles are better than walks), which is why Dunn will look better by BAPP than by a more accurate measure such as wRC+ or wOBA.
Now Adam Dunn isn’t quite a .200 hitter, so let’s look at career .199 hitter Joey Gallo. Gallo’s BAPP is .199/.148/.270 = .617, with a corresponding 110 wRC+, lower than his equivalent BAPP+. Perhaps ironically, BAPP undervalues high batting average hitters, compared to high walk hitters. There are many paths to success, and you absolutely can hit below the Mendoza line, and still be a very productive batter.
Eloy Jiménez
Eloy is a high-power, high-average slugger, with average to below average patience. He clocks in with a .276/.067/.228 BAPP, good for an aggregate .571 / 114+, compared to his wRC+ of 124. What I love about BAPP is that I can quickly see he’s above average (.571 is higher than .500) and I can also see that he’s a +average, -patience, +power guy.
Concluding Thoughts
I really like BAPP as a plug-in replacement for the traditional triple slash line. My hope is that we can move towards this, and make it part of the baseball vernacular. We can also then be clear about the relative value of each component of BAPP, and what trading one component for another will mean in terms of value.
Please help promote BAPP!