Bucs hitting, April 11 to May 1

Those who were reading Honest Wagner last summer may recall that I'm in the habit of looking at three-week splits. That's a good-enough sample, I think, to guage what's going on. The following analysis, however, tells us only what has happened. It can be lousy as a predictor of what will happen. And in no way can a three-week snapshot give us an accurate view of a hitter's overall ability.

The players are sorted by a metric I call "expected run production." Basically, it's PA*(OBP*SLG). OPS gets a lot of press these days but (OBP*SLG) works better once you get used to the funky numbers it generates.

Daryle Ward has been our best hitter these last three weeks. Note "RP" means run production, i.e., runs plus RBI. Lawton's number is low because he leads off. Hitting behind the bottom half of the lineup, he hasn't had much in the way of RBI chances. Hitting in front of the top half of the lineup, he hasn't often toured the full circuit from first to home.

NAME. TM. G. PA .BA.. .OBP. .SLG. RP
WardD PIT 14 47 0.341 0.426 0.756 19
BayJa PIT 17 74 0.288 0.365 0.515 14
Lawtn PIT 17 73 0.270 0.382 0.397 10
Snchz PIT 15 39 0.306 0.359 0.528 06
Mackw PIT 16 55 0.280 0.345 0.360 10
RossD PIT 11 35 0.235 0.257 0.588 09
HillB PIT 13 33 0.290 0.324 0.387 10
WlsnC PIT 15 56 0.174 0.333 0.196 05
CotaH PIT 06 22 0.200 0.273 0.500 03
WlsnJ PIT 16 65 0.156 0.169 0.188 03
Wiggn PIT 13 35 0.147 0.171 0.235 05
Redmn PIT 11 29 0.111 0.167 0.185 03
Duffy PIT 04 03 0.333 0.333 0.667 01
Sntgo PIT 01 04 0.000 0.000 0.000 00
Amzga PIT 02 01 0.000 0.000 0.000 00

The Bucs have had four hitters carrying their own weight: D. Ward (I'll spare the weight joke here), Jason Bay, Matt Lawton, and Freddy Sanchez. I'd say that two of those guys have proven they are for real - they consistently do their share of the hitting. Freddy Sanchez has been a pleasant surprise. I'm not sure, however, that I've seen enough from Freddy to believe his overall hitting ability - the level at which he would consistently perform if a starter - is much different from that of Bobby Hill.

Dave Ross is still up there on the strength of those bombs. The .235 BA is about what we should expect from him. He probably won't repeat the .588 slugging outburst.

Most of the rest of the team is below the suckass line for (OBP*SLG). Hill has not been so good and everyone below him on that list, with the exception of Cota and Duffy, who did not see much playing time, has been downright wretched.