Gregg Zaun's run production stat leads to creation of ZARP
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.
wut pic.twitter.com/227aiQ8309
— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) October 15, 2016
I literally came up with exactly this formula when I was 12. The only stats I had access to at the time were from baseball cards/Big Mac. https://t.co/BjWxTrG3yS
— Cliff Corcoran (@CliffCorcoran) October 15, 2016
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 |