The mid-day hosts on the local Sports Radio station were just discussing the OPS missing from the Red Sox lineup as it relates to the Red Sox current woes. One of the hosts pointed out that Mark Bellhorn has actualy been an improvement over their starting second baseman last year, Todd Walker, from an OPS perspective.
Upon hearing this statistic I was sure that Bellhorn was beating Walker solely due to his On Base Percentage, and likely lagging far behind Walker in Slugging Percentage. Here are the splits:
Walker '03
OBP: .333
SLG: .428
Bellhorn '04
OPB: .394
SLG: .397
My hunch was basically correct, though I am quite surprised to see that Bellhorn has such parity in his OBP/SLG statistics.
Then I noticed something far more confusing:
Bellhorn '02
AB: 445
H: 115
HR: 27
RBI: 56
BB: 76
SO: 144
OBP: .374
SLG: .512
OPS: .886
Mark Bellhorn had over 520 plate appearances for the Chicago Cubs in 2002 and only managed to drive in 29 guys not named Mark Bellhorn? How is that possible? Is this same year Bellhorn had 24 doubles. Were there never men on base when Mark hit a double? Maybe this is a function of national league small ball?
Things to ponder while I write a paper about George W. Bush.
