Hitters' Performance in Team Wins and Losses

In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal's regularly updated baseball blog, beat writer Tom Haudricourt recently noted slugger Prince Fielder's performance seemed to be an integral part of the team's wins and losses (link). This idea was later put into a print article (web version). It fell to fellow slugger Ryan Braun to debunk the idea that Fielder was mostly responsible for the team winning and losing. Braun said,

"When you lose close games, you're facing better pitchers in the bullpen, the set-up guy, the closer," he said. "Whereas when you're squaring balls up and scoring runs, you might get the last guy in the bullpen.

"It would be almost impossible for it to be the other way around."

Indeed, it is rare to find a regular player who managed to hit better in team losses than he did in team wins. In fact, of the 280 players who had 300 or more plate appearances in 2007, only six had a higher OPS in team losses. Twenty-six players had a drop of .400 or more in their OPS from team wins to team losses.

If you look at all players who had at least 200 plate appearances in team wins, the composite hitter put up a .319/.392/.527 line, good for a .919 OPS. Pretty darn good when you consider that's about what David Wright has done in his career. Part of that can be explained by the .343 BABIP for those hitters (more on BABIP can be found here). Given that the MLB BABIP in 2007 was .303, this means hitters on teams that won games had hits fall in more often than usual. This makes sense - how many games can you recall turning on bloop hits here and there? Similarly, players with 200+ PA in team losses had worse luck: their BABIP was only .276. Those hitters put up a composite .242/.307/.373 line, good for a .681 OPS - about the same level of production as Endy Chavez.

So which players declined (or, in the case of the aforementioned six, improved) the most when going from team wins to team losses? Below is a table of the players with the twenty largest drops in OPS from wins to losses along with their corresponding BABIP. Beneath that table is another showing the twenty smallest declines in OPS from wins to losses (negative numbers correspond to OPS and BABIP increases).

20 Largest OPS Differences (Wins-Losses), 2007 Minimum 300 Plate Appearances
Name	Team	Total PA	OPS Diff.	BABIP Diff.
Miguel Cabrera	FLA	680	.599	.178
Matt Holliday	COL	713	.577	.137
Kenny Lofton	TEX/CLE	559	.521	.341
Xavier Nady	PIT	470	.497	.143
Matt Kemp	LAD	311	.482	.134
Chris Duncan	STL	432	.476	.057
Josh Willingham	FLA	604	.465	.169
Bobby Abreu	NYY	699	.462	.159
Hunter Pence	HOU	484	.451	.087
Magglio Ordonez	DET	679	.450	.128
Jack Cust	OAK	507	.449	.135
Mark Grudzielanek	KCR	486	.448	.130
Marlon Byrd	TEX	454	.448	.105
Brad Hawpe	COL	606	.447	.090
Jim Thome	CHW	536	.439	.097
Chase Utley	PHI	613	.429	.081
Gary Matthews Jr.	LAA	579	.425	.149
Vernon Wells	TOR	642	.423	.125
J.D. Drew	BOS	552	.421	.123
Travis Buck	OAK	334	.418	.094

Many of the players on that list are pretty good hitters overall. I think it's interesting to see guys like Marlon Byrd and Mark Grudzielanek up there, too, since they're not anyone's idea of great hitters. Nevertheless, they raked whenever the Rangers and Royals won.

I just want to note one final time that negative numbers in the table below actually indicate an increase in OPS or BABIP from team wins to team losses.

20 Smallest OPS Differences (Wins-Losses), 2007 Minimum 300 Plate Appearances
Name	Team	Total PA	OPS Diff.	BABIP Diff.
Miguel Olivo	FLA	469	-.068	-.028
Greg Dobbs	PHI	358	-.042	.030
Shawn Green	NYM	491	-.024	.027
Nate McLouth	PIT	382	-.013	-.009
Andre Ethier	LAD	507	-.008	-.073
Mike Jacobs	FLA	460	-.003	.030
Ryan Theriot	CHC	597	.006	.002
Jose Vidro	SEA	625	.022	-.015
Aaron Hill	TOR	657	.023	.064
Wily Mo Pena	BOS/WSN	317	.028	-.014
Lyle Overbay	TOR	476	.031	.028
Placido Polanco	DET	641	.033	.022
Ryan Garko	CLE	541	.042	-.041
Josh Bard	SDP	443	.044	-.003
Ron Belliard	WSN	557	.046	.029
Brian Giles	SDP	552	.051	.026
Dave Roberts	SFG	443	.055	.012
Melvin Mora	BAL	527	.057	.037
Casey Blake	CLE	662	.060	.038
Corey Patterson	BAL	503	.067	.032

Nothing seems to have fazed Nate McLouth or Ryan Theriot last season. They just kept on putting up their regular numbers regardless of whether the team won or lost. Dobbs, Green, and Jacobs are interesting because their OPS increased while their BABIP decreased. All in all, the second list doesn't seem as impressive as the first list in terms of hitter quality. It's kind of cool that Florida had the guys with the largest and smallest declines in OPS from team wins to team losses.