(*) RESEARCH: Observations from the 2016 Cheater's Bookmark

Throughout October and November, the BaseballHQ.com staff takes a deep dive into player analysis, cranking out the full stack of 800+ player commentaries that will form the guts of Ron Shandler's 2016 Baseball Forecaster.

As the writers grind away at those player analyses, one of the tools we try to get in their hands first is the Cheater's Bookmark. Placed conspicuously in the very back of the book each year, this quick-hit snapshot of relevant league-wide skills serves as a terrific quick reference guide to calibrate your mind to the current MLB landscape. And as we know, that landscape has been changing quite a bit in recent years.

Here is a six-year scan of the data points tracked on the bookmark:

         BA      OBP      Slg      OPS    bb%   ct%      Eye      SBO%     BPV
       AL|NL    AL|NL    AL|NL    AL|NL   A|N  AL|NL    AL|NL     AL|NL   AL|NL
      =======  =======  =======  =======  ===  =====  =========   =====   =====
'10   260|255  327|324  406|399  733|723  9|9  80|78  0.48|0.44   10|9    46|46
'11   258|253  319|315  408|391  727|706  8|8  80|79  0.45|0.42   11|10   48|43
'12   256|261  317|323  412|414  729|737  8|8  79|79  0.42|0.43   10|11   43|43
'13   256|258  318|318  406|401  724|719  8|8  78|79  0.41|0.42    9|9    41|44 
'14   254|256  312|315  391|395  704|711  8|8  78|78  0.39|0.39    9|9    40|39
'15   256|260  314|320  413|410  728|730  8|8  78|78  0.39|0.40    8|9    40|40

And the pitcher data:

         ERA       WHIP       BABIP      Ctl       Dom       Cmd     hr/f     BPV
        AL|NL      AL|NL      AL|NL     AL|NL     AL|NL     AL|NL     A|N    AL|NL
      =========  =========   =======   =======   =======   =======   =====  ======
'10   4.14|4.02  1.35|1.35   299|305   3.2|3.3   6.8|7.4   2.1|2.2    9|9    54|62
'11   4.08|3.81  1.33|1.31   299|300   3.1|3.1   7.0|7.3   2.2|2.3   10|10   64|70
'12   4.09|3.95  1.31|1.31   296|303   3.0|3.1   7.4|7.7   2.5|2.5   12|11   74|79
'13   3.99|3.74  1.32|1.28   296|292   3.1|3.0   7.7|7.5   2.5|2.5   11|10   76|78  
'14   3.82|3.66  1.28|1.27   296|295   2.9|2.9   7.7|7.8   2.6|2.6    9|10   82|86
'15   4.01|3.91  1.29|1.30   293|299   2.9|2.9   7.6|7.9   2.6|2.7   11|11   82|87

In the Introduction to last year's book, Ron Shandler compared the 2010-thru-2014 hitting trends to riding a roller-coaster: You feel that you are falling, but you don't necessarily know where the bottom is. Well, it appears we found the bottom (or at least a flat step on the way down) in 2015. Consider:

• Batters made very minor gains in BA/OBP, and a somewhat more substantial recovery of Slg. The combination of these gains pushed both AL and NL OPS levels back to a range that lines up with levels from 2012, a couple of steps back on this decline.
• One thing that did not recover was SBO%: runners continued their trend of being more cautious in attempting steals, with the AL side reaching a new low on this six-year scan. And keeping in mind that SBO% is a percentage of opportunities to steal (i.e. a runner at first base) and the lower OBP environment these days means that there are fewer such opportunities, actual SB attempts are down by a lot more than a 1-2% dip in SBO might suggest. For instance, in 2010 there were 4087 SB attempts. In 2015 there were 3569, a net loss of almost 13%.
• On the pitching side of the ledger, the AL ERA jumped back over 4.00, and the NL ERA over 3.90, each for the first time since 2012. In terms of tracking the source of that change, walks (Ctl) did not move, but hr/f did. This is consistent with the batter-side observations of minor gains in OBP and more significant gains in SLG. In terms of Ctl/Dom/Cmd, pitchers are still dominating the batter/pitcher interaction, but just getting burned a little more often when they give up a fly ball.

Since it's always helpful to give concrete examples, let's take a look at a crop of players who achieved league-average performance in various categories:

• Hitters with league-average performance by OPS: Brock Holt (.727 OPS) or Brad Miller (.729) in the AL, Jay Bruce (.729) in the NL.
• In terms of BPV, some dead-average 40-BPV hitters include Brandon Phillips, Jung-ho Kang, Marcus Semien, Christian Yelich.
• Pitchers just hitting the average ERA in their league include Kris Medlen (4.01 ERA) and Ervin Santana (4.00) in the AL, and James Shields (3.91) in the NL.
• In terms of BPV, some league-average pitchers include ALer Huston Street (an 82 BPV was once borderline closer-worthy; now it's not even close to acceptable for a closer) and NLer Brett Anderson (86).

As always, we provide this data just to do a level-set here in the early-offseason. As we dive into player analysis, draft strategy, etc., it's always a good idea to take a minute and make sure we have a good grasp of what's going on at a macro level within the data set that drives our games.

Now don't forget to order that Forecaster! 

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