Last September, some friends and I got into a discussion about who was having the better season, Travis Hafner or David Ortiz. This really started around Labor Day (the same time Hafner broke his hand on a HBP) and continued for the rest of the season despite the fact that Hafner did not play the final month.

On September 5, I put together a spreadsheet of very basic information that compared Hafner and Ortiz through that date comparing data such as counting stats like HR, RBI, BB, etc. as well as rate stats like AVG, OBP, SLG, and all of these with Runners On, Close and Late situations, etc. I will be happy to email this Excel spreadsheet to you if you are interested.

But a lot is said about Ortiz and this aura he has about being so clutch and “look at all the game-winning hits he has over the past few years” and all of that. Without getting into the conversation about how game winning hits are truthfully all a result of circumstance and luck (does your team plan for you to be up in the ninth inning down one run? if Ortiz is on deck with two outs in the eighth, do the Red Sox take an out so he can come up the next inning? if the Red Sox are down two, does their opponent allow them to put two men on for Ortiz so a homer wins it?), let’s look at some numbers.

We will not be able to compare counting stats for this excercise because Ortiz had 122 more plate appearances than Hafner. So we will have to stick with rate stats - which is fine. Each player has a large enough sample size that we can compare them fairly.

Admittedly, those situations do come up quite frequently where you have men on base and a chance to affect the game, whether in the first or ninth innings. Fortunately, there is an easy way to track them. There is a relatively obscure stat called OBI, or Others Batted In. Basically it is your RBI total minus how many HR you hit. Here are the top fifteen for 2006 (whole list found here):

Justin Morneau 96
Garrett Atkins 91
Lance Berkman 91
Ryan Howard 91
David Wright 90
Raul Ibanez 90
Ryan Zimmerman 90
Michael Young 89
Albert Pujols 88
Miguel Cabrera 88
Andruw Jones 88
Alex Rodriguez 86
Michael Cuddyer 85
David Ortiz 83
Derek Jeter 83

Travis Hafner is number 30 on the list with 75. But again, this is a counting stat, so we can’t really compare the two guys here. What we can do, however, is look at their OBI per plate appearance since we do have those numbers.**

David Ortiz: 686 Plate Appearances, 83 0OBI = 0.1711 OBI%
Travis Hafner: 564 Plate Appearances, 75 OBI = 0.1963 OBI%

So, Hafner drove in the men on base at a rate two and a half percent higher than Ortiz in 2006. Granted, this really doesn’t sound like a lot. But we really start to see a difference if we compare the OBI% to the rest of the league. Here are the top 15 in MLB for OBI% for batters with at least 400 PA:

Miguel Cabrera 0.2146
Brian McCann 0.2136
Lance Berkman 0.2136
Albert Pujols 0.2061
Justin Morneau 0.2047
Raul Ibanez 0.2036
Juan Rivera 0.2026
Michael Young 0.2023
Bobby Abreu 0.2021
Alex Rios 0.2012
Carlos Beltran 0.2011
Nomar Garciaparra 0.1973
Jose Reyes 0.1968
Travis Hafner 0.1963
Freddy Sanchez 0.1960

Hafner ends up 14th on this list. You need to scroll all the way down to number 51 to find Big Papi and his OBI%. Right above him are magnificent hitters such as Kenji Johjima and Marcus Giles.

Because the percentages of each players’ plate appearances that occured with men on base are so similar (Hafner at 50%, Ortiz at 51%), you can see how much more proficient Hafner was at driving in the runs he was given the opportunity to drive in.

If you’re so concerned with homerun totals, consider this: given the same number of plate appearances as Ortiz, Hafner’s home run rate would have given him nine more round-trippers in ‘06, or 51 for the year. Ortiz had 54 - that’s what we call pretty even.

And for all of you fantasy geeks out there like me, we can compare fantasy points in our Yahoo league vs. plate appearances.

Hafner - 733 points in 564 PAs = 1.30 points/PA
Ortiz - 864.5 points in 686 PAs = 1.26 points/PA

Again, it doesn’t seem like a big difference, but it can be. Given the same number of PAs as Ortiz, Hafner would have had 892 points last year (686 x 1.30). This comes out to 28 points ahead of David Ortiz and one point behind Ryan Howard for first overall.

Get some.

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** We will use PA instead of At-Bats because you could theoretically drive in someone with a walk which would count towards your PA but not your AB.