Ryan Jeffers Is More Impactful Offensively Than Luis Arraez

[NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin]

How Do You Win a Baseball Game?

Despite what some people think, you win ballgames by scoring more runs than your opponent. Not having more base hits. Not striking out less. Thus, it would make sense for discussions about offensive values to be centered around run production. While the geriatric among you may think I am referring to counting stats like runs and RBIs, these stats do not tell the whole story of how impactful a player is for an offense. Weighted on-base average (wOBA) is a terrific stat for quantifying how impactful a player is when he's in the batter's box. The formula for 2023 is listed below.

One of my biggest gripes with slugging percentage is that it weighs extra-base hits disproportionately high compared to their impact on a baseball game. A triple, on average, is not 50% better than a double, nor is a double twice as impactful as a single, on average. This formula accounts for the true impact of certain plays on a baseball game, where a walk is 78.4% as valuable as a single, a double is 79.0% as valuable as a triple, etc. These coefficients are changed every year to reflect the impact/rarity of events. For example, in 2019 (the year of the juiced ball), the coefficient for HR was 1.940, a bit lower than it is today.

There are many run-based stats that are derived from wOBA, such as wRC (and wRC+) and RAA. These statistics ignore in-game factors (runners on base, inning number, etc) and focus on how many runs a player should create given their total offensive production. 

How This Relates to Arraez and Jeffers

The dichotomy between Arraez's perceived offensive value and his actual value illustrates that fans still care way too much about batting average. I am assuming that most fans would place Luis Arraez as one of the 20 best hitters in baseball right now, as he has the highest batting average. However, his good but not spectacular wOBA of .362 tells a much different story. His wRC+ is 128 (28% better than league average), which means that Joey Gallo (owner of a 103 wRC+) is 80.5% of the hitter that Luis Arraez is (in terms of weighted runs created). A wRC+ of 128 is very good, but noted offensive superstars like Kurt Suzuki (126 in 2017), Stephen Piscotty (126 in 2018), Chris Carter (125 in 2014), and Gregory Polanco (123 in 2018) have all had seasons with a wRC+ within 5% of Arraez's campaign. None of these players received an All-Star nod (in that season), a sliver slugger, or MVP votes, and I think it's important that we contextualize the season Arraez is having.

Ryan Jeffers, on the other hand, is having a season that's flown a little bit under the radar. His wOBA of .371 and wRC+ of 139 are both fantastic. For reference, Torii Hunter, Eric Chavez, and Andruw Jones never had any season with a wRC+ eclipsing 139. He does have fewer than half of the PAs that Arraez has had, but he's been more impactful on a per-PA basis. He strikes out close to 30% of the time, but his quality of contact is exceptional. A hard-hit rate of 43.9% and an average launch angle of 16.8 degrees means that he's consistently hitting hard line drives. In contrast, Arraez's 23.9% hard-hit rate (much lower than it was in '22) does not give him much ability to do damage in the same way that Jeffers does. He has grounded into a double play three times more often than he's homered, while Jeffers has homered almost twice as often as he's hit into a twin-killing. 

But... But... But...

Some of you may believe that keeping the line moving (not getting out) is very valuable, especially when you hit in front of power hitters. I am pleased to inform you that Ryan Jeffers' OBP is .377, very close to Arraez's .393. Arraez reaches base two more times over the span of 125 PAs, which is not exactly the difference you'd expect between the two players. 

They both have nearly identical foot speeds (Jeffers has actually been a wee bit quicker than Arraez in '23), and Jeffers has more stolen bases (3 vs 2) and is better in pretty much every baserunning statistic. Jeffers is not a good baserunner by any means, but Arraez's baserunning has been particularly atrocious in '23 (-2.1 BsR per Fangraphs).

Jeffers has Arraez beat in most categories except hitting for average, as his power, defense, baserunning, and arm are significantly better. Jeffers also walks enough for the difference between the two's batting averages to be made up. The only credible argument against Jeffers is his lack of PAs.

[KirbyDome89]

41 minutes ago, NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin said:

However, his good but not spectacular wOBA of .362 tells a much different story. His wRC+ is 128 (28% better than league average), which means that Joey Gallo (owner of a 103 wRC+) is 80.5% of the hitter that Luis Arraez is (in terms of weighted runs created). A wRC+ of 128 is very good, but noted offensive superstars like Kurt Suzuki (126 in 2017), Stephen Piscotty (126 in 2018), Chris Carter (125 in 2014), and Gregory Polanco (123 in 2018) have all had seasons with a wRC+ within 5% of Arraez's campaign. None of these players received an All-Star nod (in that season), a sliver slugger, or MVP votes, and I think it's important that we contextualize the season Arraez is having.

Is Arraez overrated or are we judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree?

[NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin]

39 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Is Arraez overrated or are we judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree?

wOBA (and wRC+, by extension) encompasses most aspects of offensive production and weighs them according to how much they help an offense score runs. 

It turns out that hitting .350 without walking and having no HR power does not help your team score runs as much as hitting .280 while walking 10% of the time and having serious power.

I am not dissing Arraez, he makes due with a limited physical profile, and I much prefer him offensively to other slap-hitters like Willians Astudillo. However, his style does not lend itself to helping the offense score runs in the way that a HR hitter can.

[KirbyDome89]

18 minutes ago, NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin said:

wOBA (and wRC+, by extension) encompasses most aspects of offensive production and weighs them according to how much they help an offense score runs. 

It turns out that hitting .350 without walking and having no HR power does not help your team score runs as much as hitting .280 while walking 10% of the time and having serious power.

I am not dissing Arraez, he makes due with a limited physical profile, and I much prefer him offensively to other slap-hitters like Willians Astudillo. However, his style does not lend itself to helping the offense score runs in the way that a HR hitter can.

I get all that, what I'm asking is what else should be expect a stat that heavily weighs power production to say about Arraez?

By wRC+ Gallo is an average or slightly above average offensive contributor. To me that points to something you touched on earlier, disproportionately assigned value. You could certainly argue that Gallo is an outlier, and I'd be inclined to agree, but that's the point of my fish analogy with Arraez.

[NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin]

49 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

I get all that, what I'm asking is what else should be expect a stat that heavily weighs power production to say about Arraez?

By wRC+ Gallo is an average or slightly above average offensive contributor. To me that points to something you touched on earlier, disproportionately assigned value. You could certainly argue that Gallo is an outlier, and I'd be inclined to agree, but that's the point of my fish analogy with Arraez.

The whole point of wRC+ is that every offensive contribution is weighed in proportion to how beneficial certain actions (single, walk, HR, etc) are to an offense. 

That's why I was not using OPS, SLG, OBP, AVG, etc in my post, because singles are more valuable than walks, and two singles are more valuable than a double and a strikeout.

wRC+ doesn't give Gallo, or Arraez any extra boost in the way that other stats do. You win baseball games by scoring runs. If Gallo helps you score runs better than ~50% of MLB hitters, then his offensive contribution is league average. Similarly, if Luis Arraez is helping the Marlins score runs as much as Chris Carter helped the Astros score runs in 2014, maybe we should not be singing his praises to the moon just because he has the highest batting average in baseball.

[Linus]

Interesting article. 

[Nine of twelve]

What would be more revealing is to somehow compare Arraez to Julien and Solano, since they are the main ones who replaced him. Also, I understand that you are comparing these two as hitters, but because Jeffers plays a much more important role on the field it starts to become apples vs oranges. 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

1 hour ago, Nine of twelve said:

What would be more revealing is to somehow compare Arraez to Julien and Solano,

At one point this summer, someone on this site did take pains to compare Julien to Arraez. Julien was deemed to be the superior player, of course. 

[Muppet]

I'm not concerned about who is ultimately 'better.' Not everyone can be a power hitter, situational hitter, high obp hitter, etc... I'm more concerned with how you try to make sure you have Arraez (or maybe in the 2023 Twins case, Solano) have a chance to get on base before someone like Jeffers comes to bat and NOT before someone like Correa comes to bat and guarantees a double play. 

[LonelyseatinMOA]

20 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Is Arraez overrated or are we judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree?

We are judging baseball players by their ability to create runs 

[USAFChief]

2 hours ago, LonelyseatinMOA said:

*We are judging baseball players by their ability to create runs 

*By one measure for a partial season 

....

Arraez has scored or driven in 108 runs minus HRs so as not to count that run twice)

Jeffers, 50.

Which is "more impactful" when measuring things that actually impact games, rather than spreadsheets?

 

[chpettit19]

29 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

*By one measure for a partial season 

....

Arraez has scored or driven in 108 runs minus HRs so as not to count that run twice)

Jeffers, 50.

Which is "more impactful" when measuring things that actually impact games, rather than spreadsheets?

 

How many opportunities has each had to drive in or score runs? Don't need to get into the "counting numbers don't tell the whole story" discussion again, but Arraez has those 108 runs in 532 PAs. Jeffers has his 50 in 261. They're almost identical when you do that very simple way of looking at opportunities. I'm not going to lookup who's had more runners in scoring position, etc., but "108 vs 50" is almost completely useless when describing who's been "more impactful" with their ABs if you don't account for their opportunities.

[Linus]

5 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

What would be more revealing is to somehow compare Arraez to Julien and Solano, since they are the main ones who replaced him. Also, I understand that you are comparing these two as hitters, but because Jeffers plays a much more important role on the field it starts to become apples vs oranges. 

Especially because this year anyway Jeffers is a plus defender and Arreaz is not. And Jeffers plays a premium defensive position. 

[KirbyDome89]

23 hours ago, NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin said:

The whole point of wRC+ is that every offensive contribution is weighed in proportion to how beneficial certain actions (single, walk, HR, etc) are to an offense. 

That's why I was not using OPS, SLG, OBP, AVG, etc in my post, because singles are more valuable than walks, and two singles are more valuable than a double and a strikeout.

wRC+ doesn't give Gallo, or Arraez any extra boost in the way that other stats do. You win baseball games by scoring runs. If Gallo helps you score runs better than ~50% of MLB hitters, then his offensive contribution is league average. Similarly, if Luis Arraez is helping the Marlins score runs as much as Chris Carter helped the Astros score runs in 2014, maybe we should not be singing his praises to the moon just because he has the highest batting average in baseball.

Pointing at Gallo's wRC+ is just circular logic. We know he's not close to being an average offensive contributor. We know that because we've watched him for the last 4 months, so isn't it also possible that wRC+ has its own limitations? If it's capable of telling us that a miserable offensive player like Gallo is slightly above average, is it not also capable of undervaluing other players? 

[NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin]

1 hour ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Pointing at Gallo's wRC+ is just circular logic. We know he's not close to being an average offensive contributor. We know that because we've watched him for the last 4 months, so isn't it also possible that wRC+ has its own limitations? If it's capable of telling us that a miserable offensive player like Gallo is slightly above average, is it not also capable of undervaluing other players? 

The only real limitation that wOBA has is that it does not account for negative plays (GIDP) or in-game situations. Both players have negative clutch ratings (Gallo's is worse), but wOBA does not overinflate the value of sluggers the way SLG or OPS do, which is why I chose wOBA/wRC+ to compare Jeffers and Arraez, as it does not overinflate HR production. wOBA and wRC+ help quantify how beneficial players are to run creation (the whole point of an offense in baseball): there are no smoke and mirrors trying to deceive you in my post.

I don't understand why you think Joey Gallo is miserable offensively. Yes, a BA of .176 is putrid, but he balances it out by walking a lot. His OBP is .302, which is a bit below league average, but Gallo does have 20 HR in 321 PAs, which is certainly above average. You overrate BA way too much; it doesn't really tell you all that much about the quality of a hitter. A .176 hitter with 20 HR is a much better offensive player than a .250 hitter with 5 HR, especially when Gallo walks as often as he does.

[USAFChief]

3 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

How many opportunities has each had to drive in or score runs? Don't need to get into the "counting numbers don't tell the whole story" discussion again, but Arraez has those 108 runs in 532 PAs. Jeffers has his 50 in 261. They're almost identical when you do that very simple way of looking at opportunities. I'm not going to lookup who's had more runners in scoring position, etc., but "108 vs 50" is almost completely useless when describing who's been "more impactful" with their ABs if you don't account for their opportunities.

Your argument should be with the person claiming Jeffers has been "more impactful offensively" than Arraez.

He hasn't been.

[NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin]

8 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Your argument should be with the person claiming Jeffers has been "more impactful offensively" than Arraez.

He hasn't been.

Based on what? On a per/PA basis, Jeffers brings more to the table than Arraez does. Obviously, Arraez's counting stats are going to be higher because he's had many more PAs, but can you point to something that shows that Arraez is more impactful than Jeffers on a per/PA basis? You can't just assert that Arraez is a godsend, and you will have nothing ever to do with any statistic that is not a counting stat because "fancy" stats all come from some mythical spreadsheet that I have never seen.

[Major League Ready]

10 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

What would be more revealing is to somehow compare Arraez to Julien and Solano, since they are the main ones who replaced him. Also, I understand that you are comparing these two as hitters, but because Jeffers plays a much more important role on the field it starts to become apples vs oranges. 

Good point!  Julien's wRC+ is 9 points higher than Arraez.  Solano's is 9 points lower.  Just a sidenote, Julien's OAA (Statcast) was rated in the 12 percentile the first time I checked.  As of today, he is in the 23rd percentile.  Arraez is rated in the 3rd percentile.

[Linus]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

Good point!  Julien's wRC+ is 9 points higher than Arraez.  Solano's is 9 points lower.  Just a sidenote, Julien's OAA (Statcast) was rated in the 12 percentile the first time I checked.  As of today, he is in the 23rd percentile.  Arraez is rated in the 3rd percentile.

The offensive comparison is useful. The defensive one is not. Both are bad defenders but to split hairs with these percentile rankings is giving way too much credit to defensive metrics which are crude at best. 

[KirbyDome89]

3 hours ago, NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin said:

The only real limitation that wOBA has is that it does not account for negative plays (GIDP) or in-game situations. Both players have negative clutch ratings (Gallo's is worse), but wOBA does not overinflate the value of sluggers the way SLG or OPS do, which is why I chose wOBA/wRC+ to compare Jeffers and Arraez, as it does not overinflate HR production. wOBA and wRC+ help quantify how beneficial players are to run creation (the whole point of an offense in baseball): there are no smoke and mirrors trying to deceive you in my post.

I don't understand why you think Joey Gallo is miserable offensively. Yes, a BA of .176 is putrid, but he balances it out by walking a lot. His OBP is .302, which is a bit below league average, but Gallo does have 20 HR in 321 PAs, which is certainly above average. You overrate BA way too much; it doesn't really tell you all that much about the quality of a hitter. A .176 hitter with 20 HR is a much better offensive player than a .250 hitter with 5 HR, especially when Gallo walks as often as he does.

Perhaps not to the same extent, but clearly, if you're going to argue that Gallo is an average or better offensive player, the bolded is questionable at best. Look, I understand what these stats are trying to measure. I just disagree that wRC+ best encapsulates Arraez's specific offensive impact. I'm picking on your Gallo example here, but IMO it highlights the point I'm making. 

At the risk of this turning into another Gallo thread, I'll say my piece and be done with it. I think he's been miserable because he has been. I've watched him be an absolute black hole in the lineup for the last 4 months. I didn't mention his average once (although yes, it's putrid) he has a sub .300 OBP (which is awful) despite the BBs, he's striking out in nearly 50% of his ABs, and even by more traditional slugging metrics he's well below average at what's supposed to be his "strength." There's nothing about who he has been for a vast, and I mean vast, majority of the season that is even close to an average offensive player. 

It's odd to me that you can accept the fact that other stats fall short of telling the whole story, but you think wRC+ is immune. 

[chpettit19]

12 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Your argument should be with the person claiming Jeffers has been "more impactful offensively" than Arraez.

He hasn't been.

It's really about the scope through which you interpret the statement, right? Per AB vs overall. My understanding from reading their post is that they're talking per AB. You're trying to refute their per AB idea by using overall type stats. They're 2 separate things. With the lack of opportunities the Twins have frustratingly given Jeffers there's a lot of guys who've been "more impactful" than him while not being as good of hitters. The question is are we talking per AB or overall. I think it's pretty obvious they were talking per AB, but you latched onto the words "more impactful" and wanted to get in some praise for the counting numbers that you feel a number of us wrongly diminish. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

15 hours ago, USAFChief said:

*By one measure for a partial season 

....

Arraez has scored or driven in 108 runs minus HRs so as not to count that run twice)

Jeffers, 50.

Which is "more impactful" when measuring things that actually impact games, rather than spreadsheets?

 

Along this line, baseball is a sport filled with individual contributions, but is a team game. Ultimately how one player does is important, but how the team does is more important.

Is it more impactful to team wins and scoring runs to have a homogeneous lineup in terms of skill/ability, or heterogeneous skill/ability?

[wabene]

16 hours ago, USAFChief said:

*By one measure for a partial season 

....

Arraez has scored or driven in 108 runs minus HRs so as not to count that run twice)

Jeffers, 50.

Which is "more impactful" when measuring things that actually impact games, rather than spreadsheets?

 

Considering that the word spreadsheets has become a flashpoint around here, it is important to note that a mathematical formula is not a spreadsheet, just sayin. 

[TwinsDr2021]

6 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

It's really about the scope through which you interpret the statement, right? Per AB vs overall. My understanding from reading their post is that they're talking per AB. You're trying to refute their per AB idea by using overall type stats. They're 2 separate things. With the lack of opportunities the Twins have frustratingly given Jeffers there's a lot of guys who've been "more impactful" than him while not being as good of hitters. The question is are we talking per AB or overall. I think it's pretty obvious they were talking per AB, but you latched onto the words "more impactful" and wanted to get in some praise for the counting numbers that you feel a number of us wrongly diminish. 

I get what you are saying and per at bat it is true. but the Title of the article is Ryan Jeffers Is More Impactful Offensively Than Luis Arraez, maybe it should have included per at bat?

This is one of the ridiculous arguments that somebody is trying to tell you not to trust your lying eyes. For some reason Jeffers is better but the twins have decided to give him 271 less plate appearances than Arraez and that somehow magically it is better to have a .271 BA, .372 OBP and .467 SLG compared to .349 BA, .391 OBP and .446 SLG. (The difference in SLG is .021).

It is that silly argument that Arraez gets no credit for putting up the numbers over an additional 271 plate appearances and Jeffers gets no discount for not having those 271 plate appearances. We have no idea what numbers Jeffers would put up if he was put into more situations or against less favorable matchups, what we know he is has been pretty darn good in his limited time this year, but to compare a full time player to a part time player based on per at bat stats and claim the part time player is more impactful is like I said above SILLY.

 

[wabene]

@NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWinat first when I saw the formula you posted my eyes crossed. So, I closed one and took another look and it really wasn't that complicated. Thanks for doing an absolutely stellar job in explaining one of these stats for me. You also briefly noted the properties of other stats to shine a little light on them. I would appreciate better knowing all these stats, but I'm lazy so your work is appreciated. 

I find it hilarious if it was true that the Twins traded the beloved Arraez for great value then just replaced him with someone younger and better amidst all the crying. 

[LonelyseatinMOA]

14 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Pointing at Gallo's wRC+ is just circular logic. We know he's not close to being an average offensive contributor. We know that because we've watched him for the last 4 months, so isn't it also possible that wRC+ has its own limitations? If it's capable of telling us that a miserable offensive player like Gallo is slightly above average, is it not also capable of undervaluing other players? 

We dont "know" that, you just feel that way 

[Woof Bronzer]

If the Twins offered Jeffers for Arraez straight up, would the Marlins would take that deal?

[wabene]

The OP should just edit the title to include "per at bat" and eliminate a great many of these rebuttals. 

[Woof Bronzer]

1 minute ago, LonelyseatinMOA said:

We dont "know" that, you just feel that way 

You're...you're arguing that Gallo has been good this year?  

 

[LonelyseatinMOA]

17 hours ago, USAFChief said:

*By one measure for a partial season 

....

Arraez has scored or driven in 108 runs minus HRs so as not to count that run twice)

Jeffers, 50.

Which is "more impactful" when measuring things that actually impact games, rather than spreadsheets?

 

I chose my language carefully. 

 

If you're having trouble understanding the argument I invite you to reread the article