A Flotsam data special: Tangiblizing the intangible

Chuck Dickens
Idiot Savant

After Tim McCarver’s month-long David Eckstein sploogefest that was October 2006, a serious investigation into 'grit' was long overdue. Despite the penchant of sportswriters and broadcasters to throw the term around willy-nilly, I was hard-pressed to locate a firm definition of grit in the baseball sense. Using lots of laptop science stuff, I think I’ve improved the definition, which isn’t really saying much, since there wasn’t one to begin with.

First, some definitions to help us focus in on what exactly this 'grit' stuff is.

Gritty
1. Containing, covered with, or resembling grit.
2. Showing resolution and fortitude; plucky: Biggio’s gritty 12-pitch at-bat ultimately resulted in a routine 6-3 groundout.

In keeping with those definitions I’m proposing a new composite statistic: General Requirements of Intangible Talent (GRIT). GRIT incorporates four basic components: dirt, determination, talent, and opportunity.

DATA
I used a modified version of the Sean Lahman dataset that includes player statistics from 1871-2006. My dataset includes player-seasons starting in 1955, the first year for which statistical data for intentional walks and GIDP was available. To chop the dataset down to a manageable size, I limited the number of eligible players to those who have at least 100 plate appearances and 81 games played. This removes pitchers from consideration, but also ensures that an adequate indication of a player’s abilities during each season is evident. Statistics for 2007 were compiled from ESPN.

The resulting dataset includes 13,249 player-seasons with 2,385 unique players represented.

HYPOTHESIS
I hold that gritty players are those who sincerely want to win or succeed at baseball (determination), but due to a lack of natural skill (talent), are forced to do so through the least efficient means possible, resulting in an excessive amount of dirt on their uniform.

DIRT
The most important factor in determining a player's GRIT is his uniform. A player who is "containing, covered with, or resembling grit" will show visible signs of his grittiness on his uniform. Dirty uniforms are good; bloody uniforms are better. A true team player, the gritty player is prepared to sacrifice his body at all costs. This is one of the few ways gritty players are efficient, since they probably aren’t as well compensated as their genuinely talented teammates.

The Dirt Formula

HBP: A hit batter produce minimal gains (one base) with relatively high costs in terms of potential bodily injury. The official colors of gritty players may well be black and blue. And red. And maybe some brown with a little purple and some yellow around the edges, depending on the severity of the bruising.

IBB: Next to home runs, intentional walks are probably the most anti-gritty statistic. Intentional walks are indicative that a player has so much talent that the pitcher would rather give him first base than risk an extra-base hit. Gritty players have to earn every base through hard-knocks, moxie, and a heaping helping of some good ol’ fashioned hustle.

CS/SB stuff (SBINEFF): This is a statistic I call Stolen Base Inefficiency (SBINEFF). This looks for players who like to attempt lots of steals but are largely unsuccessful. Stealing bases produces minimal gains (one base) but comes with greater potential costs by raising the likelihood of being thrown out. Base-stealers (successful or not) also have dirty uniforms from sliding.

DID YOU KNOW: Harold Reynolds holds the single-season record for SBINEFF with a stunning 13.385? Harold’s 1988 season saw him tally 35 steals while being caught 29 times. He broke the record set by Will Clark (13.304) during the previous season when Mr. Eyeblack went 5 for 22 on steal attempts. WOW!

DETERMINATION
Gritty players want to succeed. They just happen to not have the talent to actually do so. This results in inefficient baseball plays. For example, Jerry Hairston is gritty. He slides head-first into first base. A true sign of someone gritty enough to want to get to first base, but shitty enough to actually get there efficiently.

The Determination Formula

(Outs – SO): As short in stature as they are on talent, gritty players are determined to put the ball in play at all costs. Additionally, the ball looks gigantic to their tiny, elfin eyes and thus they’re less prone to striking out.

(BB+SH+SF): With their microscopic strike zones, gritty players generate walks (the unintentional ones) at a superhuman rate. Sacrificing oneself is an inefficient (read: gritty) method of moving runners along.

GIDP: Double plays are produced by well-struck balls that are able to cut through the infield grass. Aside from a bottle of hard liquor (eh, Mr. Furcal?) gritty players rarely hit anything well.

DID YOU KNOW: 2007 NL MVP Jimmy Rollins produced the sixth-highest season total of outs since 1955? He probably owes a fair share of his award to a trail-blazing fellow Phillie middle-infielder who set a precedent. Juan Samuel, in 1984, produced the second highest number of outs on his way to earning a tie for 21st place in the MVP voting and 2nd in the NL ROY. HOOCHIEMAMA!

DID YOU ALSO KNOW: Pete Rose has only the second highest season total of determination. The real "Charlie Hustle" is actually a "Dick." Dick Howser, that is. Howser’s 1964 season slightly edges out Pete’s numbers from 1974. CRACKER JACK!

WHATCHUKNOWABOUTTHISHERE: Dick Howser’s phone listing reads as "Howser, Dick." This tidbit is worth a few laughs given the right delivery, set-up, and audience. SHABANG!

Talent – It is my contention that "grittiness" is a subset of talent that cannot translate well statistically. Two players may very well have the same raw amount of grit, but one player may have more tangible talent, making him appear less gritty because the grit is too diluted. Gritty players are those who have the largest concentration of grit. As such, too find the grittiest players, we should look for players who have as little tangible talent as possible.

The Talent Formula

XBH: Extra base hits are über-efficient ways of getting multiple bases.

RBI: Gritty players move runners over, but aren’t talented enough to drive them in.

TB: Total bases is an additional means of counting the overall ability of a player.

(OMS*1000): OMS (OBP minus SLG) is a proprietary statistic I developed for use in GRIT. It rewards players who reach base, but deprecates players who have the talent to get extra bases.

OPPORTUNITY
In order for a player to become gritty, they first need to be on the field. In the words of Ted Williams, "Nobody ever became a .400 hitter without taking the bat off their shoulder." To apply the quote more appropriately here, one might attribute it to Willams' quasi-gritty teammate, Milt Bolling, and change it to read "Nobody ever became a .250 hitter by getting splinters in their ass.” We simply use plate appearances as a representation of opportunity.

After calculating the four GRIT component values for each player-season, the resulting values are then plugged in to this equation:

(Dirt + Determination – Talent) / Opportunity

However, each component has a different scale relative to the others, so I experimented with normalizing the values. This can be accomplished by calculating an average and a standard deviation for the dirt, determination, talent, and opportunity scores of all the player-years.

Basic Normalization Formula

This was applied for each of the basic components across all player-seasons. The rationale for normalizing this data is to remove as much bias as possible from the process. As each of the four basic components creates a different range of values, some sort of weighting would be necessary to produce a meaningful list. Normalization automatically weights the components by determining how far a given player-season is above or below the average of all player-seasons.

RESULTS
Across 13,249 player-seasons, the data appears to have a relatively normal distribution. The data shows a range of about -50 to +50 with one outlier at -90.011 (see below), and a mean and median extremely close to 0. These numbers are promising for the prospects of GRIT as a statistic, as they suggest that the average player is neither extremely gritty, nor extremely talented. The tails in the extreme positive end of the distribution should show the grittiest players, while talented players should appear in the negative tail.

Enough talk; bring on the numbers ...

The Top 50 Grittiest Season and the 25 Least Gritty Seasons

Rank	Year	Player	Team	GRIT
1	1971	Ron Hunt	MON	52.061
2	2002	David Eckstein	ANA	35.963
3	1968	Ron Hunt	SFN	34.901
4	1998	Fernando Vina	MIL	33.296
5	1996	Craig Biggio	HOU	32.251
6	1997	Craig Biggio	HOU	27.964
7	2002	Fernando Vina	SLN	27.687
8	2005	Jason Kendall	OAK	27.373
9	2001	Jason Kendall	PIT	27.018
10	1955	Nellie Fox	CHA	26.703
11	1986	Don Baylor	BOS	26.442
12	2003	Jason Kendall	PIT	26.319
13	2000	Fernando Vina	SLN	26.064
14	1999	Chuck Knoblauch	NYA	25.910
15	2003	Craig Biggio	HOU	25.743
16	2001	David Eckstein	ANA	25.423
17	1957	Nellie Fox	CHA	25.311
18	1975	Felix Millan	NYN	25.188
19	1967	Cesar Tovar	MIN	25.102
20	1969	Ron Hunt	SFN	24.829
21	1968	Cesar Tovar	MIN	24.692
22	2005	Brady Clark	MIL	24.659
23	1996	Eric Young	COL	24.635
24	1998	Chuck Knoblauch	NYA	24.558
25	2001	Craig Biggio	HOU	24.346
26	1997	Jason Kendall	PIT	23.913
27	2004	Jason Kendall	PIT	23.717
28	1998	Jason Kendall	PIT	23.617
29	1972	Ron Hunt	MON	23.580
30	2001	Fernando Vina	SLN	23.189
31	2004	Juan Pierre	FLO	23.028
32	1980	Ozzie Smith	SDN	22.815
33	1976	Don Baylor	OAK	22.419
34	2005	David Eckstein	SLN	22.402
35	1957	Minnie Minoso	CHA	22.188
36	1991	Brett Butler	LAN	21.874
37	1961	Nellie Fox	CHA	21.834
38	1970	Ed Brinkman	WS2	21.702
39	2006	Juan Pierre	CHN	21.334
40	1973	Ron Hunt	MON	21.142
41	2002	Melvin Mora	BAL	20.893
42	1980	Alfredo Griffin	TOR	20.875
43	1993	Mike Bordick	OAK	20.719
44	2005	Juan Pierre	FLO	20.615
45	1995	Craig Biggio	HOU	20.413
46	1990	Brett Butler	SFN	20.399
47	1959	Richie Ashburn	PHI	20.079
48	1993	Chuck Knoblauch	MIN	19.994
49	1993	Brett Butler	LAN	19.919
50	1984	Brett Butler	CLE	19.816
Rank	Year	Player	Team	GRIT
13234	1957	Ted Williams	BOS	-27.054
13235	2000	Sammy Sosa	CHN	-27.055
13236	1999	Mark McGwire	SLN	-27.905
13237	2006	Albert Pujols	SLN	-27.913
13238	1989	Kevin Mitchell	SFN	-31.490
13239	1998	Mark McGwire	SLN	-32.316
13240	1970	Willie McCovey	SFN	-34.094
13241	2001	Barry Bonds	SFN	-35.160
13242	2007	Ryan Howard	PHI	-35.452
13243	1969	Willie McCovey	SFN	-38.707
13244	2006	Ryan Howard	PHI	-38.898
13245	1993	Barry Bonds	SFN	-39.723
13246	2003	Barry Bonds	SFN	-42.087
13247	2001	Sammy Sosa	CHN	-42.659
13248	2002	Barry Bonds	SFN	-50.984
13249	2004	Barry Bonds	SFN	-90.011

50 All-Time Grittiest Players and the 15 All-Time Least Gritty Players

Rank		Full Name	CareerGRIT	Yrs	Yearly Avg
1	*	Craig Biggio	250.22	19	13.17
2		Ron Hunt	236.96	11	21.54
3	*	Jason Kendall	214.62	11	19.51
4		Nellie Fox	188.42	10	18.84
5		Brett Butler	187.26	15	12.48
6		Chuck Knoblauch	170.67	11	15.52
7	*	Omar Vizquel	165.22	17	9.72
8		Luis Aparicio	162.49	18	9.03
9		Bert Campaneris	154.16	15	10.28
10		Don Baylor	152.16	17	8.95
11	*	David Eckstein	146.58	7	20.94
12		Pete Rose	143.91	23	6.26
13		Maury Wills	142.30	13	10.95
14		Ozzie Smith	140.77	18	7.82
15		Rickey Henderson	137.94	23	6.00
16		Cesar Tovar	137.83	10	13.78
17	*	Juan Pierre	137.68	7	19.67
18		Jim Gilliam	133.14	12	11.10
19		Willie Randolph	132.54	17	7.80
20		Fernando Vina	128.96	6	21.49
21		Eric Young	122.63	12	10.22
22		Minnie Minoso	121.52	8	15.19
23		Larry Bowa	117.77	15	7.85
24		Don Kessinger	116.39	13	8.95
25		Felix Millan	110.48	10	11.05
26		Brady Anderson	110.18	13	8.48
27		Harold Reynolds	109.98	8	13.75
28		Steve Sax	107.60	11	9.78
29		Alfredo Griffin	101.71	13	7.82
30		Tony Taylor	99.17	14	7.08
31		Mark Belanger	98.35	13	7.57
32		Toby Harrah	97.81	16	6.11
33		Curt Flood	97.10	12	8.09
34		Chet Lemon	95.85	15	6.39
35		Brian Downing	95.55	17	5.62
36		Richie Ashburn	94.72	8	11.84
37		Joe Morgan	94.43	19	4.97
38	*	Derek Jeter	92.21	12	7.68
39		Don Blasingame	92.03	9	10.23
40		Tony Fernandez	90.68	15	6.05
41		Eddie Yost	86.40	6	14.40
42		Dave Cash	85.14	9	9.46
43		Rick Burleson	85.06	9	9.45
44	*	Luis Castillo	84.64	9	9.40
45		Horace Clarke	81.98	8	10.25
46		Scott Fletcher	81.84	11	7.44
47		Bobby Grich	81.73	14	5.84
48		Tony Phillips	80.82	14	5.77
49		Johnny Temple	80.13	8	10.02
50		Tim Foli	79.72	13	6.13
Rank		Full Name	CareerGRIT	Yrs	Yearly Avg
2371		Ernie Banks	-144.73	15	-9.65
2372		Fred McGriff	-145.58	17	-8.56
2373	*	Vladimir Guerrero	-148.26	11	-13.48
2374		Dick Allen	-148.29	12	-12.36
2375	*	Mike Piazza	-149.04	14	-10.65
2376	*	Jim Thome	-149.27	13	-11.48
2377	*	Manny Ramirez	-160.81	14	-11.49
2378	*	Ken Griffey	-169.47	16	-10.59
2379		Eddie Murray	-173.48	20	-8.67
2380		Willie McCovey	-184.52	19	-9.71
2381		Willie Stargell	-188.60	16	-11.79
2382		Willie Mays	-189.01	17	-11.12
2383	*	Sammy Sosa	-190.85	16	-11.93
2384		Hank Aaron	-301.91	22	-13.72
2385	*	Barry Bonds	-497.01	21	-23.67

So, that’s it. You’re shocked, right?

Craig Biggio and David Eckstein are real damned gritty. Jason Kendall is so gritty that he just might stab a couple dozen Californians. And none of them match the original gritster: Ron "the Runt" Hunt.

On the other end of the spectrum, Barry Bonds is so extremely non-gritty that his numbers are a borderline statistical anomaly (insert your favorite joke here). Ryan Howard’s poised to become the new anti-grit. When Manny’s being Manny, he’s not gritty. When Rickey did what Rickey needed to do for the sake of Rickey, he was pretty gritty.

And there are a few thousand players somewhere in the middle who I completely neglected.

Armed with this knowledge, go forth and spread GRIT to all men. Or something.