I just pulled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract off my bookshelf and began reading again it lately. For those who enjoy baseball history, I highly recommend it.
You don’t have to be a stathead to enjoy this book. In fact, James spends a lot of time discussing the human element of the game in this book.
In the process of reading this book, I came across a term I was not familiar with. Secondary Average. James uses it as a gauge to quantify offensive production. I was intrigued by this new stat but couldn’t find the exact formula in the book (it could be in there, it’s a big book).
So I searched for it on the Internet. Google didn’t let me down. Here is the formula courtesy of the people that brought us Baseball Oracle:
SecAvg = (2B + 2*3B + 3*HR + BB + SB – CS) / AB
So essentially, it’s kinda like Slugging average not counting singles but including walks and stolen bases (minus caught stealing).
According to this website, the secondary average is useful because:
* secondary average correlates very well to runs scored on a team level,
* therefore, it is a good indicator of the relative value a player brings to a team.
* it incorporates hitting, patience and running the bases,
* it is easy to calculate,
* its baseline is the same as batting average.
To give it some perspective, here are career leaders in SEC (as of 2001:
1 Babe Ruth .594
2 Barry Bonds .554
3 Ted Williams .552
4 Mark McGwire .539
5 Mickey Mantle .487
6 Jim Thome .481
7 Lou Gehrig .481
8 Frank Thomas .475
9 Ralph Kiner .467
10 Jimmie Foxx .464
Single Season Leaders (again as of 2001):
1 Barry Bonds 2001 .929
2 Babe Ruth 1920 .799
3 Mark McGwire 1998 .774
4 Babe Ruth 1921 .744
5 Mark McGwire 1996 .693
6 Babe Ruth 1923 .690
7 Mark McGwire 1999 .674
8 Babe Ruth 1927 .672
9 Barry Bonds 1996 .663
10 Babe Ruth 1926 .661
Obviously, SEC tends to favor power and OBP but not so much batting average. For kicks, I calculated Ichiro’s record breaking 2004 season SEC. Ichiro had 320 total bases, 262 hits, 49 BB, 36 SB and 11 CS.
That works out to a .202 secondary average for Ichiro.
Something tells me that some Ichiro fans may have their doubts about the secondary average.
Thoughts?