Three True Outcome Percentage: Alfonso Soriano

Alfonso Soriano retired this week, prompting a column from me highlighting his 16-year major league career. 

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Now I want to put Soriano through the formula for "Three True Outcome Percentage", to hopefully lend even more perspective on his career.

Once again, here's a reminder of the formula:

Home Runs+Walks+Strikeouts/Plate Appearances=Three True Outcome Percentage (TTOP)


Now Soriano's career numbers in the pertinent categories, plugged into the formula:

412 Home Runs+1,803 Strikeouts+496 Walks/8,395 Plate Appearances= .323 TTOP

Soriano's home run power and propensity to strike out drives his TTOP up, so it's no surprise he tops .300 even without a lot of walks.

Now I'll put some notable seasons of Soriano's career through the TTOP formula:

2001 With the New York Yankees:
18 Home Runs+125 Strikeouts+29 Walks/614 Plate Appearances= .280 TTOP
-This was Soriano's rookie season

2002 With the Yankees:
39 Home Runs+157 Strikeouts+23 Walks/741 Plate Appearances= .296 TTOP

2003 With the Yankees:
38 Home Runs+130 Strikeouts+38 Walks/734 Plate Appearances= .281 TTOP

2006 With the Washington Nationals:
46 Home Runs+160 Strikeouts+67 Walks/728 Plate Appearances= .375 TTOP
-Soriano set career-highs in all three categories in his lone season with the Nationals, while also becoming the fourth member of the 40/40 club (41 stolen bases)

2013 With the Chicago Cubs and the Yankees
34 Home Runs+156 Strikeouts+36 Walks/626 Plate Appearances= .361 TTOP
-Soriano's final full season, at age 37, was a great success in terms of his Three True Outcome Percentage.

Power hitters who strikeout a lot will always have a high TTOP. Soriano's career TTOP is close to Barry Bonds' (.385), but for various reasons the two hitters are probably not viewed in quite the same light.

Soriano, when looking at his career season-by-season, fits the predictability/projectionability attached to a high TTOP. Over 12 seasons from 2002-2013, Soriano hit at least 20 home runs in every season, with 30 or more seven times. His RBI total followed suit, with at least 70 11 times over the same stretch (100 or more four times)

Three True Outcome Percentage: Paul Molitor

It's been awhile since I did a post about Three True Outcome Percentage, or TTOP if you prefer to call it that. But the Minnesota Twins hiring of Hall of Famer Paul Molitor as their new manager this week inspired me to put his career through the formula I created.

As a reminder, here is the formula for Three True Outcome Percentage:
Home Runs+Strikeouts+Walks/Plate Appearance=TTOP

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Now let's take a closer look at Molitor.

Paul Molitor's career TTOP:

234 Home Runs+1,244 Strikeouts+1,094 Walks/12,167 Plate Appearances=

Career Three True Outcome Percentage: .211

Since Molitor was not a power hitter who struck out or walked a bunch in any of his 21 seasons, it's no surprise that his TTOP is not great.

But Molitor's TTOP is actually far better than Tony Gwynn's. Gwynn, as you may recall based on a previous post, had a career TTOP of .133. The two Hall of Famers seem like comparable hitters in a lot of ways, but Molitor struck out close to three times more than Gwynn did (434 times) and he also walked a substantial amount more (790 walks for Gwynn).

Going through all 21 seasons of Molitor's career to determine his best TTOP seasons would be an arduous task, and it's one I may take on at some point. But in the interest of brevity, I'll highlight the seasons he had career-highs in the "three true outcome" categories and calculate his TTOP for those seasons.

1993 with the Toronto Blue Jays, Career-High 22 home runs

22 Home Runs+71 Strikeouts+77 Walks (Tied For Career-High)/725 Plate Appearances= .234 TTOP

1982 with the Milwaukee Brewers, Career-High 93 Strikeouts

19 Home Runs+93 Strikeouts+69 Walks/751 Plate Appearances= .241 TTOP

1991 with the Milwaukee Brewers, Career-High 77 Walks (Tied With 1993)

17 Home Runs+62 Strikeouts+77 Walks/752 Plate Appearances (Career-High)= .207 TTOP

It's no surprise that Molitor's career-high in home runs and one of the two seasons that he had his career-high for walks drove his TTOP up to a high level. But my educated guess is his 1982 season would stand as the highest TTOP of his career, with 19 home runs representing the second-best total of his career and the fact he only struck out more than 75 times in two other seasons (1985 and 1986),

Three True Outcome Percentage: The Oakland Athletics

The Oakland Athletics have had a successful 2014 season thus far, with a 35-22 record heading into Tuesday night's game against the New York Yankees. A lot of attention has been brought to manager Bob Melvin's effective use of platoons, which had me thinking about how my Three True Outcome Percentage might be reflected in platoon splits.

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So here's my look at the AL-West leading Athletics, with a cut-off line of 100 plate appearances as of the start of the day on Tuesday. Since we are dealing with a lot of qualifying hitters, as you'll find out soon, I will designate right-handed (R), left-handed (L) and switch-hitters (S) to help offer some context for platoons.

C Derek Norris (R)- 24 strike outs+24 walks+5 home runs)/153 plate appearances)= .346 TTOP
1B Brandon Moss (L)- 42+22+13/213+ .362 TTOP
2B Eric Sogard (L)- 13+11+0/135= .178 TTOP
SS Jed Lowrie (S)- 24+30+4/233= .249 TTOP
3B Josh Donaldson (R)- 51+33+15/257= .385 TTOP
OF Yoenis Cespedes (R)- 43+17+10/223= .314 TTOP
OF Coco Crisp (S)- 27+25+3/181= .304 TTOP
OF Josh Reddick (L)- 41+14+4/183= .322 TTOP
IF Alberto Callaspo (S)- 25+23+3/192= .266 TTOP
C John Jaso (L)- 34+17+5/146= .384 TTOP
OF Craig Gentry (R)- 26+9+0/113= .309 TTOP
IF Nick Punto (S)- 24+14+1/109= .358 TTOP

Oakland Team TTOP (Through Monday)= 401+250+66/2262= .317

Platoons are definitely working for Oakland, which is a credit to the players involved, Melvin and the front office as they work under significant payroll constraints. Of the above 12 guys that can be considered regulars in the lineup, nine have a TTOP above .300. Nine. It may mean something that two of the three that don't have a TTOP over .300 are switch-hitters (Lowrie and Callaspo), perhaps in part due to more plate appearances since both rank in the top-five on the team in that category, and the third (Sogard) is not a prolific offensive player by any measure.

As always I welcome any feedback anyone has about Three True Outcome Percentage (TTOP), up to and including random thoughts, criticisms and ideas for future posts.

Three True Outcome Percentage: The Minnesota Twins Edition

Back in April I threw out a theory about baseball's three true outcomes and made an attempt to put them together in a single statistic with Three True Outcome Percentage. 

In that piece I focused on Adam Dunn and Barry Bonds, in an attempt to give a shining example of a three-true-outcomes hitter in Dunn and how a hitter's three-true-outcomes may change over the course of a career with Bonds.

I'd like to now take it up a notch to teams, starting with the Minnesota Twins, and perhaps look at major league baseball as a whole by season's end in an attempt to determine if Three True Outcome Percentage helps separate good offensive teams from bad.

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Without further ado, here are the Three True Outcome Percentages for some of the Twins' most notable hitters so far in 2014.

First, a reminder of the formula: Strikeouts+Walks+Home Runs/Plate Appearances= Three True Outcome Percentage

Joe Mauer: .358 (30 strikeouts+21 walks+2 home runs/148 PAs)
Brian Dozier: .394 (34+28+9/180)
Kurt Suzuki: .177 (8+13+1/124)
Jason Kubel: .444 (45+13+1/133)
Josmil Pinto: .414(25+18+5/116)
Chris Colabello: .391 (46+9+4/151)
Trevor Plouffe: .362 (40+18+1/163)
Aaron Hicks: .454 (27+17+1/99)
Pedro Florimon: .338 (18+7+0/74)
Eduardo Escobar: .236 (13+3+1/72)

Total Team TTOP: .359 (339+165+27/1478)

Takeaways/Other Notes:

- Hicks team-leading TTOP is driven by 17 walks, and his is a case where the "eye test" shows he has a long way to go as a major league hitter

-Suzuki's production (.314, 25 RBI) is not reflected in his TTOP, but a mark below .200 may be a sign of looming regression

- Dozier's TTOP is far above his batting average (.236), but serves as a relative median between his on-base percentage (.361) and slugging percentage (.439)

- Colabello's TTOP, along with his other traditional numbers, may continue to drop unless he takes more walks

- I went with a minimum of 60 plate appearances for this list, so Danny Santana, Sam Fuld, Josh Willingham and Oswaldo Arcia don't qualify at this point but may as the season goes on and the plate appearance minimum is adjusted

Now's the time where I solicit feedback from you, the reader(s). Is there a direction you'd like to see me go with Three True Outcome Percentage? Some historical context, comparing past players to each other? Current players or teams compared to each other? Maybe a little of both?

Baseball's Three True Outcomes and "Three True Outcome Percentage"

In baseball circles, the "three true outcomes" are a home run, walk and a strikeout. That definition is obviously angled to batters, and follows the logic that the three events are not impacted by fielders and are more "true" than other events on the field.

Recently I wondered-what if a batter had a sabermetric-style statistic centered around the three true outcomes? Maybe a percentage of total plate appearances that ended in those three things?

So with that I bring to you the formula for "Three True Outcome Percentage":

Strikeouts+Walks+Home Runs/Plate Appearances= Three True Outcome Percentage

Let's take the formula for a spin, with a current player who is the virtual definition of a three true outcome hitter,  Adam Dunn of the Chicago White Sox.

Let's start with Dunn's career, through Sunday's action.

2,239 strikeouts+1,259 walks+443 home runs/7884 plate appearances=.499

So Dunn's career Three True Outcome Percentage is essentially 50 percent.

Let's narrow down to his 2012 campaign:

222 strikeouts+105 walks+41 home runs/649 plate appearances= .567, or 56.7 percent.

Now I'd like to look at another, more famous hitter in Barry Bonds, who "evolved" during his career.

1990 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bonds' first MVP season.

83 strikeouts+93 walks+33 home runs/621 plate appearances=33.6 percent

Now here's 2001 with the San Francisco Giants, when Bonds broke the single-season home run record.

93 strikeouts+177 walks+73 home runs/664 plate appearances= 51.6 percent.

Bonds' emergence as a more prolific power hitter, for whatever reasons, led to pitchers being more careful with him. Couple that with his own increased selectivity, as the all-around skills he had as a younger player deteriorated with age, and you have more walks and four straight years (2001-2004) where his OPS was over 1.200.

Bonds's career Three True Outcome Percentage, for those interested, comes together as follows.

1,539 strikeouts+2558 walks+762 home runs/12,606 plate appearances= 38.5 percent

Note: Bonds obviously holds the career record for home runs, and his all-time best walk total is bolstered by 688 intentional walks.

I haven't done enough research at this point to know if Three True Outcome Percentage helps differentiate good hitters from bad or has any substantial predictive value on a wide scale. But hitters that have a high percentage of those three events will be more immune to being impacted by good or bad fortune, which would in turn make their performance easier to predict. Dunn is a shining example, as he hit exactly 40 home runs in four straight seasons (2005-2008) and then 38 in both 2009 and 2010. His RBI totals also followed suit, with between 100 and 106 RBI in five of those six seasons.