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.