ORA vs Simple ORA

Such is the nature of the early season that the Major League leader yesterday - Adley Rutschman - drops out of the Top 10 today (he's now 11th). In fact the entire Top 10 turned over, except for Cron.

After his 3-homer, 8-RBI performance yesterday, Trayce Thompson now leads MLB with 5.5 estimated Runs, against just one hitless at-bat; a 147.75 sORA. Unfortunately that was Thompson's first game of the season so he's already five PA shy of qualifying for the batting title.

Adam Duvall now leads qualified batters in simple ORA. He would have hit for the cycle yesterday if he'd stopped at 1st on that second homer. Instead he decided to circle the bases and win the game for the Red Sox.

I thought it'd be interesting (more interesting than doing your taxes at least) to compare Duvall's actual Runs and Outs through the ORA method to the simple estimated version (used in the Top 10 below) where

estimated Runs = (R x 5 + RBI x 4) / 9 + HR / 12

and estimated Outs = AB - H + CS + GIDP + SF + SH

In the 2nd inning Duvall led off with a triple and scored on a wild pitch. ORA says he created that run all by himself. The simple version says one run scored = 5/9 of an estimated Run.

In the 3rd inning Duvall homered with Justin Turner on 3rd. ORA gives him a quarter of a Run for scoring Turner from 3rd and a full Run for scoring himself, which adds up to a total of 1.25 for the homer and 2.25 for the game so far. He already had 2 runs scored, a home run, and 2 RBI, which equals (2 x 5 + 2 x 4 ) / 9 + 1 / 12 = 2.08 est. Runs.

Duvall flied out in the 6th, his only out of the game.

In the 8th Duvall hit a ground-rule double scoring Rafael Devers from 3rd. That's another quarter of a Run, bringing his game total to 2.5. Estimated Runs now has him at (2*5 + 3*4)/9 + 1/12 = 22/9 + 1/12 = 2.53. Estimated Runs has closed the gap and taken the lead.

And in the 9th, Duvall hit the walk-off homer, scoring Rob Refsnyder from 1st. That's 0.75 for scoring Refsnyder, 1 for himself, 1.75 total for the homer and 4.25 Runs for the game. His box score reads 3 runs scored, 2 HR, and 5 RBI, which translates to (3*5 + 5*4)/9 + 2/12 = 35/9 + 1/6 = 4.06 estimated Runs.

I'll spare you the play-by-play of Game 1 on Thursday, but Duvall created 0.75 Runs. His batting line was a run scored and RBI, so the simple method estimates he created one Run exactly.

So after two games Duvall has 5.00 Runs and 5.06 estimated Runs. For most batters, the move-runners-over and manufacture-runs plays tend to balance out the drive-in-runners-from-3rd plays, sometimes even after just two games.

Rk Player               Runs Outs  sORA

 1 Adam Duvall, BOS      5.1   4  34.13

 2 C.J. Cron, COL        5.0   4  33.94

 3 Yandy Diaz, TBR       3.1   3  27.75

 4 Adolis Garcia, TEX    3.0   3  27.00

 5 Wander Franco, TBR    3.0   3  26.75

 6 Robbie Grossman, TEX  3.4   4  23.06

 7 Gio Urshela, LAA      2.6   3  23.00

 8 Jake Fraley, CIN      2.5   3  22.75

 9 Matt Olson, ATL       3.2   4  21.38

10 Yordan Alvarez, HOU   4.5   6  20.38