Percentiles for Offensive Production Measures

I’ve been discussing quite a few measures of offensive production in the past few months. I’ve spent some time discussing how these statistics are constructed and what they mean but it’s probably still a little difficult for some people to interpret the values once they are calculated. For example, we all know that a .300 batting average is very good and a .220 batting average is bad. Most of us also have gotten used to the idea that a .380 OBP is very good and a .300 OBP is bad. However, what can we say about less familiar measures such as isolated power and runs created per game?

I’ve constructed a chart that shows the percentiles for various rate statistics for the 132 American League players with 295 or more plate appearances in 2005:

BA= Batting Average
ISO=Isolated Power
IWP=Isolated Walk Percentage
SLG=Slugging percentage
OBP=On Base Percentage
OPS=OBP+SLG
RC/G=Runs Created Per Game

The chart is read as follows. A .295 batting average falls at the 80^th percentile meaning that 20% of the players hit .295 or better and 80% hit worse. Reading across the 80 percentile row, we can see that a value of .202 for isolated power is equivalent in magnitude to a .295 batting average. Similarly, 6.5 runs created per game is equivalent in magnitude to an .833 OPS.

From the chart, you will see that an ISO of .240 is outstanding, an ISO of .161 is average and that an ISO of .110 is poor. You can make similar conclusions for the other measures.

PCT	BA	IWP	ISO	OBP	SLG	OPS	RC/G
100	.338	.240	.304	.440	.610	1.031	9.7
90	.304	.134	.239	.378	.515	.885	7.1
80	.295	.120	.202	.366	.477	.833	6.5
70	.286	.104	.184	.352	.458	.803	6.0
60	.277	.099	.169	.343	.446	.786	5.6
50	.272	.091	.161	.332	.436	.768	5.2
40	.268	.086	.152	.325	.422	.749	5.0
30	.260	.079	.137	.320	.403	.729	4.7
20	.252	.072	.118	.309	.383	.705	4.4
10	.241	.061	.105	.301	.367	.677	3.8
0	.216	.029	.031	.254	.280	.556	3.0

The second chart lists all the Detroit Tigers and color codes them according to percentile. Those in the top 20 percent (8oth percentile or better) for a given statistic are in blue, those in the bottom 20 percent are in red and the rest are in black.

Player	PA	BA	IWP	ISO	OBP	SLG	OPS	RC/G
Inge	694	.261	.097	.158	.330	.419	.749	5.2
Monroe	623	.277	.075	.169	.322	.446	.768	5.4
Rodriguez	525	.276	.029	.168	.290	.444	.735	3.5
Young	509	.271	.087	.200	.325	.471	.796	5.0
Infante	434	.222	.042	.145	.254	.367	.621	3.5
Shelton	431	.299	.090	.211	.360	.510	.870	6.9
White	400	.313	.055	.176	.347	.489	.837	6.8
Polanco	378	.338	.077	.123	.386	.461	.846	7.6
Guillen	361	.320	.080	.114	.368	.434	.803	5.0
Logan	356	.258	.072	.077	.305	.335	.641	3.9
Ordonez	343	.302	.093	.134	.359	.436	.795	6.9
Pena	295	.235	.125	.242	.325	.477	.802	5.7
Granderson	174	.272	.058	.222	.314	.494	.808	6.3
Wilson	173	.197	.099	.086	.275	.283	.558	3.1
Thames	118	.196	.092	.215	.263	.411	.674	3.4
McDonald	78	.260	.064	.069	.308	.329	.636	3.1
Smith	63	.190	.017	.086	.203	.276	.479	2.2
Martinez	62	.268	.050	.018	.300	.286	.586	4.9
Giarratano	47	.143	.106	.071	.234	.214	.448	2.1
Higginson	27	.077	.037	.000	.111	.077	.188	-0.5
Gomez	18	.188	.111	.000	.278	.188	.465	2.7