Adam Rubin, ESPN Staff Writer 10y

Mets invent, implement 'Bases Per Out' stat

NEW YORK -- Terry Collins defines the Mets' hitting philosophy as: “It’s not about when you swing, it’s about the damage you do when you swing. It’s not early in the count necessarily. It’s not deep in counts. It’s when you get a ball that you can hit, you hit it on the barrel of the bat and do damage with it."

The organization, though, has some key statistical metrics it is touting to its players to try to improve their selectivity at the plate.

Writes Anthony DiComo at MLB.com:

Mets players received statistical breakdowns of their 2013 performances centered upon Bases Per Out, an internally developed metric that seeks to measure a player's overall offensive production. Players with less than three years of service time were told that their BPOs would determine bonuses tacked onto future salary offers. Each base -- one for a walk or single, two for a double -- would earn them $200 more than what they would otherwise receive. Each out would slice off $100. ...

When Alderson first became GM, he and his staff made their views on hitting known, but did not enforce them to any great extent. That changed quickly. By last summer, coaches at each Minor League level were actually keeping score of their players through a point system, which had no correlation with traditional statistics. A hitter who worked a favorable count, for example, earned one point. A hitter who swung at a pitch out of the zone, regardless of the result, lost one. ...

The only problem is that to date, the club's offensive approach has not resulted in actual success. The Mets have scored dramatically fewer runs each year under [Sandy] Alderson, [Paul] DePodesta and [Dave] Hudgens, going from 718 in 2011 to 650 in '12, down to 619 last season.

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