For those that aren’t familiar with perceived value, it’s a metric I invented to try to equate the overall perception of a player based solely on their bat. And by perception, I wanted to factor in a few things that the less knowledgeable, more superficial fans would take into account. It uses OPS+ for a true talent (versus the league) evaluator, as well as a “clutch” statistic, based on runs batted in and runners left on base, You may say it’s a BS stat, and I agree. “Clutch” is a BS perception.
This “clutch” perception is tainted by sample size. If someone comes through in the one or two times they are placed in a pressure situation, they will be seen as more valuable as someone who people have seen every day, warts and all. So basically, this evaluation is good to see how many short term players rate against long term players in the minds eye of someone’s mom, who doesn’t know what slugging percentage is.
Joe Mauer is clearly on top, Josh Willingham is number three. The two surprises are Matt Carson and Darin Mastroianni, who check in at two and four respectively. They are aided by the fact that they aren’t caught with many runners on base, so they rarely strand runners. Conversely, they have driven in a few runs. Carson only needed 1 to look good, whereas Mastroianni, who never bats with anyone on base, has 17. They aren’t knocking the cover off the ball, certainly, but their OPS+ are still over 100.
The RBI/LOB ratio is at 60%, which is 3% higher than last year, so if you take a player who is at league average, their rating would be at about 60. Since Mastroianni and Carson have 1/1 ratios, they are likely seen as being a bit more important to the Twins’ successes than they probably are.
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