I. Angel Pagan came to the plate in 93 double play situations in 2011. He grounded into four double plays. Overall, he maintained a 1.3% double play rate, which — surprise, surprise — ranks as the 17th lowest mark among MLB hitters with 500+ plate appearances last year. The average MLB player, given 93 chances to ground into a double play, would have grounded into nine.
II. By EqBRR, Angel Pagan has been worth +13.3 runs on the basepaths over the past couple seasons. Now, he’s obviously a speedy baserunner. He’s stolen 30+ bases in each of the last two seasons, and he’s done so at an 81% success rate. That’s not an outstanding success rate, but it’s good enough such that the value of his steals outweighs the cost of his occasional caught-stealings. But he’s also good at the stuff that isn’t so obvious. He’s good at going from first to third on a single. He’s good at advancing on the basepaths on a groundout. He’s good at tagging up on a flyout. And that adds up. In fact, he was so valuable on the basepaths in 2010 that he ranked second in the majors in EqBRR at +9.3 runs, right behind Michael Bourn.
III. Angel Pagan had the 12th best contact rate in the majors in 2011, among qualified hitters.
IV. In 2011, Angel Pagan had an opponent RPA+ of 93, which was the lowest mark in the majors among players with 500+ plate appearances. This means that opponents were 7% worse than average against the pitchers Pagan had to face; or to put it another way, no hitter in the majors faced tougher pitching than Pagan, on average. As a New York Met, he had to see a lot of Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, Jair Jurrjens, Tim Hudson, Josh Johnson, et al. That skewed his numbers.
In case you can’t tell at this point, I like Angel Pagan. A lot. Perhaps too much. There are certainly reasons to worry about Pagan. If you’re looking for reasons, here are 20 (courtesy of Baseball Prospectus).
But I’m feeling quite good about him.
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9 Responses to Four Angel Pagan Facts
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Nice post. I agree. I’m looking forward to seeing what Pagan can do in 2012. I even eyeing him as a later round pickup in my fantasy draft.
I read regularly but have not posted before. Anyway, I want to thank you for the blog posts. They are quite informative. And thanks for this post in particular. I’m always interested in more advanced statistics and opponent RPA+ is a new one for me. Great work!
Thanks!
And Tejada and Huff grounded into how many last season? 30-40?
Huff grounded into 11. Tejada grounded into 10.
93/4 = 1.3%
Grabbed the figure from here. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1086240
Now that you mention it, it’s strange. DP% = DPs/DP opportunities, not DPs/DP situations. Think there’s a subtle (yet important) distinction.
Very nice.
Perhaps Sabean does peruse the arcane stat sets. Or someone whispers in his ear.
Been a fan of Pagan for a couple years now. Its interesting to me they tried to get him during the Beltran trade. If he hits spring training completely healthy he could be a force. He got pretty unhappy the way the Mets handled him last year, and it showed through a bit. This guy could be the “straw who stirs the drink” for the Giants, who have a big time collection of nice guys and need somebody who plays with some major attitude. Crazy Horse is that guy. He’ll make some highlights next year for sure.