Baseball Sabermetrics: Home Run Decimal
By Brian Draus
I love Sabermetrics, and not just in baseball, but in all sports! As a follow-up to my previous article on sabermetrics, I’ve detailed the value of hitting home runs in any situation
The next sabermetric formula I am going to introduce to you is called Home Run Decimal. This is original work that I calculated. It has some of the same principals as the previous formula I wrote, which was called RBI Decimal. For example, all of it’s values are written in decimal, hence the name Home Run Decimal. There is one major difference. Instead of using the level of pitcher difficulty as the key variable, I used the count.
I did this for one reason: that being the fact in order to hit a home run, you need maximum contact. In that case, a hitters count is key. I realize a home run can be hit on any count, but if a hitter knows a fastball is coming, he can crush it. Or if a pitcher throws a breaking ball just to get it over, it is to the hitters advantage. On top of that, if a hitter is down in the count, he is more likely to take a defensive swing lowering his chance at driving the ball.
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Now, it is time to explain Home Run Decimal. It is pretty much the same as RBI Decimal when it comes to calculating the formula. Except, there is no failure, due to the fact there would be too many chances in which the player would fail. Now, I want to explain the part of the formula where there are “1” and “2” next to the variables. Any number “1” refers to bad hitters protecting the home run hitter, and any number “2” refers to a good hitter protecting the batter that went deep. As far as the three main variables for each part of the formula (at the top, no numbers next to them), they can only be used once per home run. There should be two variables added together when valuing each home run, one from the main three and one from the part with “1” or “2”.