Quick Plot Thoughts

I’ve got a quick plot I wanted to share today. I’m in between a few things on the site but, if you’re a reader of this site you know I love visual aids. I’ve been thinking about how several of our hitters did last year and decided to plot them out in regards to ISO and OBP. Why did I choose these two statistics? They represent qualities that are important in hitters; ie: the ability to get on base and to move people over — or score them — via extra-base hits.

Let’s check out the plot and then I’ll add a few words.

Isolated Power vs On-base Percentage:

I’ve included hitters with 250 PA’s or more, so that means you won’t be seeing Pablo Sandoval, Travis Ishikawa, or any of the other September call-ups from last season. The vertical and horizontal lines represent league averages for ISO and OBP. Because batting average considers every hit to be a ‘single’, ISO removes BA from SLG (ISO = SLG – BA) to give you an idea of how much “true” power a player hit for. The lower-left corner represents hitters with little power and little ability to get on-base. The upper-right corner represents hitters with very good power and the ability to get on-base. You want as many “upper-right corner hitters” as you possibly can get.

Thoughts:

• Fred Lewis is the only hitter to post both an above league average OBP and ISO. He looks pretty lonely in the upper-right corner all by himself. Burriss, Winn, and Durham all exceeded him in OBP but none hit for as much power as Fred did.
• Molina and Bowker both hit for league average ISO right on the dot. Molina had a better OBP. Bowker turned into a hacktastic hitter after his early success. In July, he struck out 23 times to just 5 walks. Bowkermania has cooled considerably but he’s still got some upside — albiet small.
• Winn posted a strong OBP but didn’t hit for a whole lot of power. That’s not his game anyways. Winn’s value is going to come from playing great defense in RF and putting up his usual batting line of: .290/.350/.420.
• Vizquel was terrible. Really, really, terrible. He’s all alone in the bottom left-hand corner. His ISO of .046 put him between Juan Pierre and Chone Figgins. As we learned yesterday, he can still defend but his bat has all but evaporated.
• You can see why Burriss might have some doubters. He posted a strong OBP but he has zero power. Burriss’ value comes from walking and slapping the ball on the ground and trying to beat it out. Will pitchers challenge him more next year? I think the answer is a resounding “Yes”.
• Aurilia hit well enough for a bench player but he’s really not a guy you want to give more than 200 AB’s in a season to — he got 400 AB’s with the Giants. He hit left-handed pitching well enough in 2008 that he’ll probably find a team needs a LHP bench-bat to acquire his services.
• Castillo and Velez share the same lower-left square of doom with Vizquel. Vizquel’s glove kept him around longer than most but neither Castillo or Velez have plus-gloves. Castillo is gone and Velez could follow him soon. The Giants have to be nearing the end of the Speedy No-Glove Experiment. True, Velez flashed something in the 2nd half of ’08, but I would feel better if he did something in a sample size of larger than 150 AB’s that didn’t come with a .350+ BABIP.
• Rowand was about an average hitter in terms of ISO, he was above average in OBP.

Comment Starter: Any thoughts? The Giants offense still has a ways to go but replacing Vizquel with Renteria is a large upgrade, even if Renteria repeats his 2008 performance.