Bases Advanced Percentage

Bases Advanced Percentage is a rather new baseball statistic designed to go further than some of the current statistics that baseball has to offer. Like Total Bases, the stat takes into account the number of bases that the batter accounts for in his at-bat. But, this stat also takes into account the amount of opportunity that batter had and how well he moved the runners on base as well (or lack thereof). It takes a look at Possible Bases Advanced and Actual Bases Advanced then compares the two.

Possible Bases Advanced (By Situation)

The number of PBA (Possible Bases Advanced) is determined by the runners that are on base when a batter comes to the plate. If there are no men on base, the highest possible bases advanced would be four (with the batter moving through all four bases on a home run). If there is a man on third, the highest possible bases advanced would be five (with the batter moving all four bases and the runner on third moving one base forward to score). Here is a chart with all possible outcomes:

The only way to achieve the highest possible bases advanced in an at-bat would be to hit a home run.

Actual Bases Advanced

The ABA (Actual Bases Advanced) on an at-bat would be the sum of bases that the batter achieved (0 for an out, 1 for a single, 2 for a double, etc) plus the number of bases that the baserunners advanced.

ABA = TotalBases + BasesAdvancedbyBaserunners

The only exception being that a base is subtracted if a runner is removed from the bases (double play, fielder's choice, etc).

Calculating Bases Advanced Percentage

To calculate a player's BAP (Bases Advanced Percentage), take the total number of ABA (Actual Bases Advanced) and divide it by the total number of PBA (Possible Bases Advanced).

BAP = TotalABA/TotalPBA

The best possible statistic would be 100%, meaning that a player hit a home run in every single at-bat.

Examples

Here are some examples of how Bases Advanced Percentage can paint a picture of how a player took advantage of opportunities given to him in a game:

Example #1

Michael Bourn hit 4-4, 1 BB, 2 R on July 27th, 2007. Here is how his game would have been looked at with BAP:

1st AB : No men on base, singles [1 actual base advanced out of 4 possible bases advanced]

2nd AB : No men on base, singles [1 actual base advanced out of 4 possible bases advanced]

3rd AB : Man on first, singles (advanced runner to second) [2 actual bases advanced out of 7 possible bases advanced]

4th AB : No men on base, singles [1 actual base advanced out of 4 possible bases advanced]

5th AB : No men on base, walks [1 actual base advanced out of 4 possible bases advanced]

Bourn advanced 6 actual bases on his at-bats out of 23 possible bases. This gives him a BAP of 26.0% for the day.

Example #2

Eric Byrnes hit 2-5, HR, R, 2 RBIs on July 27th, 2007.

1st AB : Man on second, grounds out (advanced runner to third) [1 / 6]

2nd AB : Man on second, home run [6 / 6]

3rd AB : Man on first, pops out [0 / 7]

4th AB : Man on first, singles (advanced runner to second) [2 / 7]

5th AB : No men on base, pops out [0 / 4]

Byrnes advanced 9 out of 30 bases in his at-bats. His BAP turns out to be 30.0% for the day.

Example #3

Mark Teahan hit 1-3, 2B, 2 R, BB on July 27th, 2007.

1st AB : Man on first, walks [2 / 7]

2nd AB : No men on base, doubles [2 / 4]

3rd AB : Men on first and third, strikes out [0 / 8]

4th AB : Man on first, grounds out to end inning [0 / 7]

Teahan advanced 4 out of 26 bases in his at-bats. His BAP turns out to be 15.4% for the day.

Example #4

Jhonny Peralta hit 2-5, 2 HRs, 2 R, 5 RBIs on July 27th, 2007.

1st AB : No men on base, strikes out [0 / 4]

2nd AB : Men on first and third, home run [8 / 8]

3rd AB : Men on first and second, ground into third-to-first double play (runner advances to second) [0 / 9] (this is because a base was lost in the double play even though one was also gained)

4th AB : Man on first, home run [7 / 7]

5th AB : No men on base, flies out [0 / 4]

Peralta advanced 15 out of 32 bases in his at-bats. His BAP turns out to be 46.8% for the day.

Example #5

Justin Morneau hit 2-3, R, RBI on July 27th, 2007.

1st AB : No men on base, singles [1 / 4]

2nd AB : Man on first, grounds into double play [-1 / 7]

3rd AB : No men on base, singles [1 / 4]

4th AB : Men on second and third, sacrifice fly (both runners advance) [2 / 8]

Morneau advanced 3 out of 23 bases in his at-bats. His BAP turns out to be 13.0% for the day.

General Use and Comparisons

The statistic only takes into account the amount of success that a particular at-bat had, it does not account for what happens after the at-bat (such as that batter eventually scoring a run on somebody else's at-bat). It also shows us how much opportunity a player had and how he fared with those opportunities. What might look like a good day on paper can further be analyzed with this statistic to see how well a player did with his opportunities.

For the above examples, we had five players with the following statistics:

Bourn - 4-4, BB, 2 R

Byrnes - 2-5, HR, R, 2 RBIs

Teahan - 1-3, 2B, 2 R, BB

Peralta - 2-5, 2 HRs, 2 R, 5 RBIs

Morneau - 2-3, R, RBI

Each stat line tells a different story. Michael Bourn reaches base five times, Byrnes has two hits including a home run, Teahan reaches base twice with a double and a walk and scores twice, Peralta has two hits with both being home runs while Morneau gets 2 hits in three at-bats. Just glancing at these stats, we know quite a bit AbOUT what these players did but not much about what they could have done. Let's look at the opportunities they had by glancing at their total possible bases advanced:

Bourn - 23

Byrnes - 30

Teahan - 26

Peralta - 32

Morneau - 23

Bourn and Morneau had the least amount of opportunity given to them by their teams while Byrnes and Peralta were given more of an opportunity by their teams. But, let's see how successful each player was with those opportunities:

Bourn - 26.0%

Byrnes - 30.0%

Teahan - 15.4%

Peralta - 46.8%

Morneau - 13.0%

Despite Bourn's feat of reaching base five times, he did not accomplish a great deal as far as advancing the bases with only singles and a walk and having no men on most of the time. And, despite Byrnes having only 2 hits in his five at-bats, he had a better BAP day than Bourn because of his the amount of runners advanced in his opportunities, including a base-clearing home run. Teahan reached base twice, with an extra-base hit in one at bat, but he missed opportunities when he did get out which resulted in a low BAP. Peralta's home runs with men on greatly helped his day and he only got out once with runners on. While Morneau got on base twice, it was not with men on and he also hurt his team by grounding into a double play at one point.

While all players here had interesting stat columns from our initial glance, we can see just how different of a day each of these players had by seeing the wide range of Bases Advanced Percentage shown above.

Criticisms

As evidenced by Michael Bourn's four hit day from the above examples, this stat does not greatly reward those who regularly hit singles and those who come to the plate with nobody on base. The retort to that would be that this player who hits singles to lead off innings would be increasing the Potential Bases Advanced of those who follow him so he is a valuable player to those behind him in the batting order, if they can take advantage of the opportunity given to them. Each extra person on base increases the value of a single.