The obscure batting awards of the 2013 MLB season

This is certainly award season on the baseball calendar and aside from all the rumors going on about who is going to sign where or get traded, there is not a whole lot else to talk about. I like to make up my own awards and apparently I have hit on something as my silly awards have led to unprecedented page views. I have covered the major categories such as the worst starting pitching, worst relief pitching and worst overall position player awards. What follows are some more obscure ones.

The Killing Two Birds with one Ball Award

Matt Holliday led both leagues in grounding into double plays. Since he plays on the Cardinals, the killing two birds thing works very nicely. Holliday created 62 outs with his 31 GIDPs. Martin Prado was second with 29 and Billy Butler led the American League with 28.

I like to put these kinds of things into percentages and Holliday also led the majors in GIDP as a percentage of his plate appearances. His rate turned out to be 5.1%. Erik Kratz of the Phillies had only 68 games with the Phillies and still managed to hit into 11 double plays for a 5.0% rate. David Freese was third with a 4.8% rate followed by the only other two over four percent: Prado at 4.4% and Butler at 4.2%.

The Crime Doesn't Pay Award

I forget what the prevailing wisdom is on what stealing success rate is acceptable. Was it 70%? Whatever it is, none of these dudes came close. I don't know if these players tried to steal bases on their own or were sent by their managers. Whichever the case, they should stop. My cut off line was five caught steals. After all, you cannot punish a guy for just trying a couple of times. But if we go by 30% as an acceptable fail rate, the following players, of course, go beyond unacceptable with their fail rates:

1. 53.8% fail rate: Manny Machado - Six stolen bases in 13 attempts. Robbie Grossman of the Astros had the exact same numbers.
2. 50% fail rate: Brandon Barnes (11, 22), Gerardo Parra (10,20) and Yoenis Cespedes (7,14)
3. 47.6% fail rate: Adeiny Hechavarria (11, 21) Was there anything Adeiny did well in 2013??
4. 45.5% fail rate: Anthony Rizzo, Andrelton Simmons, Todd Frazier (all 6, 11)
5. 42.4% fail rate: Ian Kinsler (15, 26). Does Ron Washington have a don't steal sign?
6. 42.1% fail rate: Yasiel Puig (11, 19). The man did run into some outs.

The Down and Outs Award

This award goes to the player who created the most outs with his plate appearances in 2013. Outs are recorded by the number of times a player gets himself out plus caught stealing, sacrifice flies and sacrifice bunts. Our winner is Starlin Castro of the Cubs with 530 outs created. Manny Machado was second with 500 and Mark Trumbo third with 495. 

The Swing Batter Batter Swing Award

Let's face it. There are some baseball players who go up to the plate hacking. They are not interested in working the count or anything like that. Life is short and they are going to swing the bat. The lowest walk percentages this season:

1. A.J. Pierzynski - 2.1%
2. Alcides Escobar - 3.0%
3. Wilin Rosario - 3.2%
4. Yuniesky Betancourt - 3.4%
5. Adam Jones and J.P. Arencibia - 3.6%

The batters with the highest swing percentage at balls out of the strike zone were: 

1. A.J. Pierzynski - 49.6%
2. Pablo Sandoval - 45.5%
3. Adam Jones - 44.9%
4. Alfonso Soriano - 43.3%
5. Nolan Arenado - 42.8%

The Woe is My wOBA Award

The worst five wOBA statistic recorded in 2013 with a minimum of 400 plate appearances:

1. Pete Kozma - .241
2. Alcides Escobar - .247
3. Adeiny Hechavarria - .251
4. Darwin Barney - .252 (555 plate appearances)
5. B.J. Upton - .252 (446 plate appearances)

The Hey Your Infield Fly Is Open Award

The highest infield fly ball percentages were:

1. Vernon Wells: 20.3%
2. B.J. Upton: 19.7%
3. Andrelton Simmons: 17.8%
4. Jose Bautista. Josh Willingham: 17.6%

The Hit It Where There Are No Screws Award

The lowest line drive percentages in the MLB in 2013 were:

1. Dan Uggla - 13.2%
2. Kelly Johnson - 15.2%
3. Juan Lagares - 15.7%
4. Yuniesky Betancourt, Jose Bautista - 16.1%

The Hitting 'Em Where They Are Awards

The five lowest BABIPs of 2013 go to:

1. Darwin Barney - .222
2. Dan Uggla - .225
3. Yuniesky Betancourt - .226
4. David Murphy - .227
5. J.P. Arencibia - .231

The Stirring the Breeze Award

These five players led the Majors in swinging and missing as rated by their swing and miss percentage:

1. Yasiel Puig - 16.9%
2. Pedro Alvarez - 16.4%
3. Josh Hamilton - 16.2%
4. Chris Carter - 15.5%
5. B.J. Upton - 15.3%

The Calculator Not Needed to Total Bases Award

The three lowest total bases accumulated for batters with more than 400 plate appearances were:

1. Pete Kozma - 112
2. B.J. Upton - 113
3. Placido Polanco - 114

Nobody else was under 130.

The Ultimate Sacrifice Award

The most total combined sacrifice bunts and sacrifice flies were:

1. Zack Cosart - 23 (13 sacrifice bunts plus 10 sacrifice flies)
2. Elvis Andrus - 22 (16 sacrifice bunts plus 6 sacrifice flies)

The RC Coda Award

RC stands for Runs Created and it is a Bill James statistic for estimating a players contribution to the overall runs a team scored. These two players created the least amount of runs for their team according to B-R:

• Darwin Barney - 37 in 555 plate appearances
• Adeinny Hechavarria - 38 in 578 plate appearances

The Punching Judy Award

Pete Kozma became only the third player in this century to record a slugging percentage under .275 with more than 400 plate appearances. The other two were Cesar Izturis in 2010 (.268) and Nick Punto in 2007 (.271).

The At Least I Jacked One Award

This was the first season since 2008 where every batter over 400 plate appearances hit at least one homer. But two guys only hit one homer in 2013. Those would be Pete Kozma and Placido Polanco

The Three Outcome Heroes Award

The following players had the highest percentage of their plate appearances being walks+strikeouts+homers:

1. Chris Carter - 53.2%
2. Dan Uggla - 50.3%
3. Mike Napoli - 49.8%
4. Adam Dunn - 49.2%

Adam Jones reaching stardom

Adam Jones has always been a nice player for the Baltimore Orioles. In his first four full seasons with the Orioles, you could count on Jones batting somewhere in the upper .270s and have an OPS in the high 700s. He played solid defense that hinted that he could be better in center. He stole a few bases. He was a good solid player. He has never been a star. In his fifth season with the Orioles, he has become a star.

The progression to this point for Jones feels right. He was a former first round draft pick by the Seattle Mariners. He was a shortstop drafted right out of high school. While he hit right out of the gate in the Mariners' system, his fielding was atrocious. During one two-year stretch, he made 66 errors in 244 games. By 2006, the Mariners had converted him to a center fielder. And that season and the next, Jones made brief appearances on the Mariners' major league team and saw action in 73 combined games in those two seasons. He was just 20 and 21 years old at the time.

After the 2007 season, the Mariners traded Jones, their former first round pick, along with other minor league bodies for Erik Bedard. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that deal went in favor of the Orioles--even with Jones as simply a solid if unspectacular player. It is fairly easy to see that a couple of things kept Adam Jones in the unspectacular category. One, he played on a terrible Orioles team that was simply awful for the first four years he has played there. Secondly, his rise to the big leagues was a bit rushed and it has taken a while for him to kick it into another level. 

But what if his current performance is a bit of a fluke? After all, he's already hit eleven homers and his previous high was 25. But that previous high was last season. So the gain seems more like a natural progression than a fluke. The same goes for his batting average of .304. You would think he would sink back to his previous .280s except that his BABIP is only .298, lower than his career average making his batting average seem logical and not a small sample size anomaly. 

Adam Jones is one of those players who needs a high batting average to hold up his on-base average. One of the weaknesses of Jones' game is his lack of patience at the plate. His career walk percentage is only 4.8 percent and this year isn't much better at five percent. But he has cut down just a bit on swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. The last two seasons, he has swung at over 40 percent of pitches outside of the strike zone. This year, he sits at 38.8 percent. It's not a great number, but at least it is a small improvement. 

Jones is also playing the best center field of his career this season. Being a former shortstop, he has always had a strong arm. But playing for a team that always loses seemed to cause him to lose focus in 2010 and 2011 and his errors were high at six and five respectively. He hasn't made an error this season so far and is getting to everything out in center.

At the age of 26, Jones seems ripe for stardom. Even at his previous performance, he was a decent player, easily worth more than a certain other high school kid who was drafted first overall in that 2003 draft. Even as a solid player, Jones has a higher career OPS than that Delmon kid and much more wins above replacement. But unlike that other former shortstop in that draft, Jones seems ready to be an elite player and his early great start does not have the look or feel of a fluke.