Red 'Rithmatic - Chris Heisey > Drew Stubbs, but Chris Heisey < Drew Stubbs

It's Friday and it's lunch time, so tie on your bib and tuck in. We're gonna munch some num-num-numbers.

Francisco Cordero's WPA as a Red in 2011: 2.05

Francisco Cordero's WPA against the Reds in 2012: -1.42

(Heads up to Nasty N8 for digging up this gem.)

WPA is a neat little number. I don't preach it like Gospel, but it is definitely not without it's utility. At the very least, it allows us to write about interesting little diddles like this one here. As you can see from the numbers above, Coco added about two wins to the Reds bottom line last season. For a hi-lev reliever, that's not terrible. It's not great, either. This season, he has faced the Reds twice (Tuesday and Wednesday) and added nearly a win and a half to the Reds bottom line.

Brandon Phillips' line drive rate so far this season is 22.1%

That's tops for his career. BeeP's maturation as a hitter has been a steady one. In his breakout season in 2007, he struck out more (15.5%) and hit the ball harder (.197 ISO). So far this season, his K% is just 11.3% and his ISO is only .159. This suggests to me that the days of swingin' BeeP screwing himself into the ground, cutting hard at hanging breaking balls in an attempt to deposit them into the second deck in LF, are over. It seems he now understands that he is not a good power hitter, but rather a good hitter with some power. The 30/30 days are over, but he's hitting more doubles and making more and better contact. Basically, he's hitting more like a lead off hitter than a clean up hitter.

.230/.298/.378 = 87 // .273/.316/.382 = 86

Okay, so the first one here is Drew Stubbs' slash line and how it equals his wRC+. The second one is Chris Heisey's slash line and how it equals his wRC+. How is Heisey's slash line that much better than Stubbs', but Stubbs is still producing a better wRC+? The answer is speed.

wRC+ works in much the same way that OPS+ does. But while OPS+ attempts to contextualize OPS, wRC+ does that with wOBA. wOBA of course is a much more comprehensive and useful stat than OPS because it has many more offensive inputs into its calculation. OPS just does a rough-and-ready adding of OBP and SLG, while wOBA uses linear weights to get a much deeper and more accurate summation of offensive value. One of the inputs into wOBA that is not calculated by OPS is speed.

Stubbs has stolen 20 bases so far this year and has only been caught five times. That's a very good 80% success rate. Heisey, on the other hand, is just four for seven in stolen base attempts. Heisey has also rolled into seven double plays compared to Stubbs' one. So while Heisey is producing better in the batter's box (an 18 point advantage in OBP and a four point advantage in SLG), Stubbs is producing way better outside the batter's box. Stubbs' speed really is the great equalizer.

4.15/4.05

Or, Bronson Arroyo's FIP in his breakout 2006 season in which he made the All-Star team and garnered MVP votes, and his FIP so far this season. I have to say, I am incredibly impressed with BroYo's renaissance this season. He has done it by bringing his HR rates back to normal, racking up strikeouts (16.7%) at his best rate since 2008, and cutting his walk rate to a career low (4.3%). He's 35 now and is pitching as good as he ever has.

#6

Or the spot held this week on the Billboard Top 200 by Phil Collins' 1998 greatest hits compilation titled "...Hits". How does...I mean...What in the? Apparently, the album is going for only 99 cents at Amazon's mp3 store, which is kind of like the internet equivalent to the big tub of old cassette tapes in the register line at the gas station. So cheap ass hipsters made a thing of this, and now it's in the news. It's the first time Collins has had a record in the top 10 since 1992. Old Man Strength, indeed.