Projo Fantasy Sports Blog

By Michael Salfino

Even the old-guard -- whose VCRs still blink "12:00," whose Pentium II PCs remain unopened in their boxes and who view the web merely as some spun silk in their backyard -- have adopted one "new-age" baseball stat: on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS).

Of course, OPS has been widely cited for more than a quarter century now. Let's dust if off by objectively assessing not what a hitter's OPS actually is, but rather what it should be.

Back in 2005, JC Bradbury of HardballTimes.com introduced PrOPS (predicted OPS). He concluded that line-drive rate, fly-ball ratio and rates of walks, strikeouts, hit-by-pitch and homers could be used to predict a player's OPS. An adjustment is also made for the hitter's home park -- the more homer-friendly, for example, the higher the PrOPS.

Our friends at Baseball Info Solutions, which provides stats to various big-league clubs, provide the raw data that we plug into Bradbury's formula. The result is a list of PrOPS that we then subtract from actual OPS to see which hitters have the greatest variance.

We assume that hitters will continue to perform more in line with their predicted rather than actual OPS. So the guys who have a PrOPS much greater than actual should be be more productive going forward. Vice versa for the guys who are arguably getting lucky with their actual OPS.

Now let's use this data to make some player recommendations. All stats through Tuesday.

Buy

Paul Konerko, 1B, White Sox: His OPS should be .829, not .648. Remember, .829 is nothing special for an AL 1B in the best hitter's park in the league. His manager threw him along with about half the ChiSox lineup under the bus last week; but Ozzie Guillen has little choice but to play Konerko. Cautionary note: his rate of homers on fly balls has declined in five straight seasons.

Ryan Howard, 1B, Phillies: His actual .778 should be a more respectable .919. But when you strike out 30 percent of plate appearances, these things happen. He's hit between .328 and .375 on balls in play (excluding homers) since 2004. This year: .240.

Carlos Delgado, 1B, Mets: I predicted in a Mets piece this winter that Delgado would clock in this year with a OPS over .800. So I take some solace in the fact that PrOPS says he should be at .827, not .696.

Adrian Beltre, 3B, Mariners: Even factoring his home park, which is tough on righty power hitters, Beltre should be sporting a golden .902 OPS, not his rather pedestrian .771.

Hold

Carlos Quentin, OF, White Sox: His .989 OPS is almost exactly what PrOPS predicts. His line-drive rate is low: 13.8 percent. But his fly balls go a long way -- 19.4 percent are homers (average is about 10 percent).

Jason Bay, OF, Pirates: The bounce back is confirmed by our data: He should be sitting at .942 right now, a few thousandths of a percentage point lower than actual. The power has come back: 16.7 percent of fly balls are homers. Note the .204 average with runners in scoring position (RISP) and hope for a RBI correction.

Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Tigers: I'd love to put a "Buy" on a guy with his kind of track record. But our stat says his OPS should be .816, which isn't what anyone -- especially the Tigers -- paid for. Bad trends: fewer line drives, more ground balls, 50-percent decline in homers on fly balls and awful production with RISP (.218).

Chase Utley, 2B, Phillies: He should be at an even sicker 1.100 rather the 1.092 he sported on Tuesday. The power has spiked, not unprecedented for a hitter turning 30. I think he can hold his homer rate above 15 percent of fly balls (it's about 20 percent now). And he'll keep hitting doubles (21 percent line-drive rate).

Sell

Fred Lewis, OF, Giants: He looks OK at .836 actual, but PrOPS docks him to .712, unacceptable for a left fielder. Lewis is an extreme ground-ball hitter -- 11th highest rate in baseball. His average line-drive rate suggests we must discount his .374 average on balls in play.

B.J. Upton, OF, Devil Rays: This is a tough one for me. I see TNT in those wrists despite the slight frame. But we have to listen to the numbers here. And PrOPS says he should be at .749, not .850. Can he continue defying his high strikeout rate by converting a high rate of balls in play into hits? He has for about a year and a half now.

Matt Kemp, OF, Dodgers: Another guy who might be able to overcome his high K-rate. Some hitters do defy that consistently. But Kemp hasn't got enough of a track record to trust here. Err on the side of caution and respect his PrOPS of .744 more than his .822 actual.

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