Evaluating the Marlins’ Offense Using Power Factor

With not much going on in the way of Marlins related news, it’s a good time to examine how players from the 2011 team fared in an interesting statistic called Power Factor, or PF for short.

Power Factor is a different way of measuring a player’s raw power, instead of the more common slugging percentage or ISO. The advantage of Power Factor is that it removes bias towards contact hitters–while the other two statistics do not–as Lewie Pollis explains at Beyond the Boxscore.

It should be noted that Power Factor isn’t a very good measure of a player’s overall hitting ability; if “hitting the ball hard” is the general key to extra-base hits, PF focuses only on “hard.” Given the choice between a player with a high PF and a hitter with a high ISO or SLG, you’d take the second guy (unless you were playing T-ball). The former is a more powerful hitter, but the latter is a better power hitter.

 

But, although there were bright spots for the Marlins in Stanton and Morrison, there were also several players who rated poorly in Power Factor. In total, 6 of the Marlins 8 players who had the minimum PA finished below the league-wide average of .621. Hanley Ramirez (.559) and Gaby Sanchez (.600) were two of the more glaring disappointments, and both will need to hit for more power next season for the team to be successful–especially from the first base position.

And while that’s not exactly something to be ecstatic about, luckily for the Marlins, Power Factor is not a good indicator of success, and it shouldn’t be reason for concern.

Also, in case any one is interested, newly accuired Marlin Jose Reyes finished 2011 with a .462 PF.

All data courtesy of Fangraphs and Beyond the Boxscore