Ben Revere is fleet of foot, if you didn’t know. He became the first Twin since Chuck Knoblauch with consecutive 30+ stolen base seasons. He doesn’t hit for much power, which can seemingly diminish his overall value. After all, Jamey Carroll has more home runs than Revere does in a Twins uniform.
Power is one of the 5 tools, and is certainly the most easily appreciated. Speed is generally only noticed where it is applied to defense, and everyone recognizes that Ben Revere is a great fielder. You can’t underscore the value his running game brings to the offense however.
Revere’s slugging percentage/on base percentage is are .357/.336. One of those is good, one of those is not. If you take his OPS, he rates between Alberto Callaspo and Zach Cozart, which isn’t really all that awesome. Still, Revere is much better, and much more valuable than that. But how do you equate that value?
I figured that a stolen base is basically the same as any other type of base earned by a batter. For example, if he hits a single and steals second, what’s the difference between that and a double? So I added his steals to his total bases, which changes his slugging percentage from .357 (131st in the league) to .434, which would be 77th in the league.
Of course, if you get caught stealing, you have essentially removed a hit or walk. This can’t all be roses, so I have removed the times he was caught from his OBP calculation, dropping him from 72nd in the league at .336 to .320 and 102 in the league. It’s definitely a net gain overall for his OPS numbers.
With his prowess on the basepaths taken into account (And only his steals, stretching extra base hits isn’t even noted), his new SLG/OBP split is .434/.320, which gives him an OPS of .754 which is more comparable to Justin Upton and Elvis Andrus. Revere is a valuable bat at the top of the order, even if he isn’t hitting home runs.
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