Saturday, December 19, 2009
Visual Baseball: Seattle Mariners Rank-o-meter
Posted by Kevin DameWith the additions of Cliff Lee, Chone Figgins and "Meltdown" Bradley, there's been a surge in Mariners hype. Those who aren't quite ready to hand them the AL West crown point to their weak offense. Here's a look at that offense via the Rank-o-meter. Even with the additions of Figgins and Bradley, the Rank-o-meter shows how weak they are at almost every position when compared to the rest of the AL. For each position I rank the top 14 players by 2009 OPS.
Notes / Caveats about Rank-o-meter:
1. A team might not have a player show up at a given position because (a) there's uncertainty around who will play the position or (b) the player doesn't rank in the top 14. So for the Mariners 1st base position, there's enough uncertainty (Carp? Branyan?) to leave it blank for now.
2. I'm using 2009 OPS (unadjusted) which has its flaws. If my use of simpler, more traditional measures bothers people, I may decide to start using more advanced ones. But my goal is to be experimenting with and test-driving visual approaches to communicating performance, so I'm trying to keep the measures part simple (at least for now).
"The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing." - Edward Tufte.
Feel free to send comments, questions, and suggestions to Kevin via email.
1. The Mariners don’t have Ryan Garko.
2. Really - non-park adjusted OPS?