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Gregg Zaun's run production stat leads to creation of ZARP

Tom Szczerbowski / Getty Images Sport / Getty

There's a new stat for data enthusiasts and old-school fans alike: It's called ZARP and, unlike FIP, WAR, and other hard-to-calculate acronyms, it's incredibly easy to understand.

Prior to Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on Friday, Sportsnet analyst and former MLB catcher Gregg Zaun revealed his own way of evaluating a player's run production, and the formula goes like this: Runs scored + RBI - home runs divided by games played. Needless to say, Zaun's simplified approach caught the attention of saber-friendly scholars on Twitter.

The formula reached the fine folks at Baseball Reference, the indispensable website famous for its massive database of stats. Zaun's easy-to-use formula was quickly converted into a sophisticated-sounding acronym ZARP (Zaun Run Production), and the rest is baseball history.

Fun fact: Seventeen of the top 20 leaders in ZARP played most of their careers during the 19th century.

Rank Player (yrs, age) ZARP Bats
1 Sam Thompson+ (15) 1.731 L
2 Dan Brouthers+ (19) 1.622 L
3 Ed Delahanty+ (16) 1.614 R
4 Hugh Duffy+ (17) 1.583 R
5 Cap Anson+ (27) 1.576 R
6 Lou Gehrig+ (17) 1.566 L
7 King Kelly+ (16) 1.538 R
8 Harry Stovey (14) 1.533 R
9 Jake Stenzel (9) 1.517 R
10 Bill Lange (7) 1.514 R
11 Tip O'Neill (10) 1.506 R
12 Billy Hamilton+ (14) 1.505 L
13 Bill Joyce (8) 1.502 L
14 Joe DiMaggio+ (13) 1.478 R
15 Buck Ewing+ (18) 1.476 R
16 Babe Ruth+ (22) 1.468 L
17 George Gore (14) 1.45 L
18 Denny Lyons (13) 1.449 R
19 Henry Larkin (10) 1.443 R
20 Jim O'Rourke+ (23) 1.438 R

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