Originally posted at The Tenth Inning Stretch

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I have been creating dashboards to look at the progression of the Spring Training battle for the 3 bullpen sports for the Twins (You can read about the rationale and details here.) I decided to create a dashboard for the 2-3 bench position battles. To quantify position players performance I am using another Bill James' measurement, the "Batting Game Score", as modified by Baseball Reference. I made 2 changes on the BR way of calculating Batting Game Score: I took away the bonus points for multi-HR games and for hitting for the cycle and I am adding a point for a catcher when he throws out a runner trying to steal a base.

Here is the way it is calculated (again, one needs a box-score and a calculator) :

Start with 0 points (unlike the pitching Game Score that starts with 50)

Add 1 point for each Run, RBI, 2B, SB, BB, and HBP recorded.

Add 2.5 for each hit, 3 for each 3B and 4 for each HR.

Subtract 1 for each CS and GIDP,

subtract 1 for each error,

for catchers add 1 for each CS

Subtract 0.2 for each SO and 0.5 for each AB.

Again, as in the Bullpen Battle Dashboard, the Bench Battle Dashboard is color coded based on average, above average and below average performances, where:

Average is Batting Game Score between 0 and 2

Above average is Batting Game Score higher than 2

Below average is Batting Game Score less than 0

Also the Dashboard, is broken down by catchers, infielders and outfielders

One comment before I present the Bench Battle Dashboard: Before Spring Training, I thought that Luke Hughes was a lock. However, based on his continuous below average performances (actually the worse by any position player in the team), I think that his position might be in jeopardy, so I am tracking his performance as well:

Here is what the Dashboard looks like after today's game against the Pirates:

And the rankings by position:

Catchers:

J.R. Towles 3

Rene Rivera 2.6

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Daniel Rohlfing 1.25

Chris Herrmann 0.433333333

Danny Lehmann 0.4

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Drew Butera -0.4

Danny Rams -0.566666667

Infielders:

Chris Parmelee 3.65

Mike Hollimon 2.2

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Ray Chang 1.5

Tsuyoshi Nishioka 1.466666667

Aaron Bates 0.95

Sean Burroughs 0.02

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Brian Dinkelman -0.04

Brian Dozier -0.433333333

Pedro Florimon -0.55

Steve Pearce -0.733333333

Luke Hughes -1.525

Outfielders:

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Wilkin Ramirez 0.95

Matt Carson 0.76

Darin Mastroianni 0.375

Rene Tosoni 0.35

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Oswaldo Arcia -0.58

Joe Benson -0.04

I will be updating this daily and posting updates here close to daily. As always you can find all Spring Training coverage at The Tenth Inning Stretch here.

I haven't really had a chance to look at this, which I will, but if you know, I was wondering if there are stats for unproductive outs. Delmon Young and Danny Valencia I swear have the most unproductive outs on the team, (when Delmon was here) I think those are really important to look at. e.g. Men on 1st and 2nd, 1 out or less and he gets out w/o moving the runners over, there are a lot of examples like that, but I think it is really an important number to look at. I sometimes think "outs" are over rated, but they are obviously under rated when it comes to bunts, SB vs getting thrown out, and things like that. Watching and reading moneyball has my thoughts indifferent about some of those things, but what was really annoying with Valencia and Young is I don't think they ever tried to take pitches that would allow at least runners getting over and driving the ball the other way. I think Spring Training is such a small sample size, it is tough putting numbers on just "outs", I think how hard they are hitting the ball, and productive outs need to be a part of the conversation, an avg could be a .075 swing easily if not more on a couple bloop hits for one guy and some hard line drives right at someone for someone else, then taking one for the team for productive outs should have some weight. Any comments

What you are describing is actually captured by a couple of different stats: Win Probability Added (or WPA for short) and the newer "Clutch" stat that fangraphs has created. Those are not readily available for ST games and it would take me a long time to calculate them .

Btw, the king of "unproductive outs" and "meaningless HRs" for the Twins the last few years has been Mike Cuddyer...