Fun With Baseball Statistics: Friendliness & SLOB
Sports Illustrated recently conducted a survey that asked big league players to name the most friendly and least friendly players in baseball.
While it's interesting to know that 46% believe Detroit's first baseman, Sean Casey, is the nicest guy around and 26% believe San Francisco's left fielder, Barry Bonds, is just plain mean, I don't think the magazine did enough with the information they collected. Specifically, they didn't answer the burning question any serious baseball fan would ask: Are friendly players better than unfriendly players?
To help SI out and satisfy my own curiosity, let's compare the Average SLOB of the top five players on each list. SLOB is one of my favorite hitting stats. I like it because it gives equal weight to a hitter's power and his ability to reach base. It's also easy to calculate - simply multiply slugging average (SLG) by on-base percentage (OPS). The bigger the SLOB, the better the player.
Enough with the words, let's get to the numbers...
| Name | Team | % | SLG | OBP | SLOB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sean Casey | DET | 46% | .319 | .301 | .096 |
| Jim Thome | CWS | 7% | .630 | .537 | .338 |
| Mike Sweeney | KC | 7% | .406 | .336 | .136 |
| Dave Roberts | SF | 4% | .371 | .283 | .105 |
| David Ortiz | BOS | 4% | .604 | .433 | .262 |
| Average SLOB | .187 | ||||
| Name | Team | % | SLG | OBP | SLOB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barry Bonds | SF | 26% | .630 | .503 | .317 |
| Jeff Kent | LAD | 20% | .487 | .363 | .177 |
| AJ Pierzynski | CWS | 13% | .478 | .303 | .145 |
| Alex Rodriguez | NYY | 12% | .689 | .397 | .274 |
| Jose Guillen | SEA | 2% | .455 | .351 | .160 |
| Average SLOB | .215 | ||||
As you can see, the Average SLOB of the unfriendly players is 15% higher than that of the friendly players.
Moral of the Story: If you want to be a better player, don't be so nice.
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baseball2 Comments
Jim Thome and David Ortiz are two of the best hitters in the game. Even by your standards. Being a good guy has not brought them down.
Only one Stat Counts, Rings. AJ and David Ortiz are the two guys on this list who were key in getting WS rings for their team.
I agree that Thome and Ortiz are the notable exceptions to the "nice guys finish last" theory and in actuality, there's probably little correlation between friendliness and performance, but I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the best players in baseball are also some of the least friendly names in the game. Jealousy and negative press go a long way in shaping how other players perceive them.
Rings are important, but they aren't the ultimate stat. Pierzynski and Ortiz clearly contributed to lift their teams to victory in the WS, but a ring doesn't necessarily mean a player did a single thing to help his team win. For all we know, the guy dragged his club down and it was only through the sheer heroics of his teammates that he has a piece of jewelry to adorn his finger.