I personally want to apologize for the recent hiatus between my posts, for I pursued some much needed rest. With that being said, I continue my analysis posts with an introduction piece for a new statistic that I have been working on, Individual Production Rating (IPR). This statistic may be one for serious deliberation in the baseball statistical analysis realm, for it combines and considers both a players offensive and defensive abilities. Setting aside any bias I might have due to this statistic being my own, I firmly believe that IPR can give WAR a run for its money. However, due to having not figured out a proper weighting, I can only use IPR to compare players of the same position. IPR is measured on a per-game basis. Not only does IPR combine both offensive and defensive production, but also it takes into consideration a players negative statistics (i.e. Errors committed, Strikeouts, GIDP, etc...). I do not wish to reveal the equation for two reasons. First, as I iterated above, the weighting is not perfected. Second, IPR could become a very valuable statistic for player evaluation and projection, thus I do not want to have my idea stolen.
The following is a sample of IPR. These are the 2014 season IPR ratings for some of the MLBs premier second basemen:
Jose Altuve (HOU)- 6.81
Dustin Pedroia (BOS)- 6.44
Robinson Cano (SEA)- 6.31
Ian Kinsler (DET)- 6.22
Brian Dozier (MIN)- 6.17
D.J. LeMahieu (COL)- 5.63
As you can see, Jose Altuve has the highest IPR. This comes with no surprise, considering the 2014 campaign he put forth. One reason why I firmly believe there is a high potential for this statistic is the fact that Dustin Pedroia ranks higher than Robinson Cano. Everyone knows that Cano is the better hitter, maybe not by a whole lot, but just enough so that people would mistakingly credit him as a better overall player. Many people mainly judge and compare players purely on their offensive abilities. However, with IPR and its incorporation of defense, Pedroia gains the recognition he deserves, that being he is the overall better second baseman, in comparison with Cano. As I suspected too, the difference between their ratings is negligible, showing that they are very comparable.
