TTO or Three True Outcomes

MLB

By Blaidd Drwg

I mentioned TTO the other day in my Brandon Wood post. TTO stands for Three True Outcomes – the only 3 things that a batter (or a pitcher) has completed control over when he is at the plate (or on the mound): Home Runs, Strike Outs and Walks. Basically the formula is (HR + BB + K) / PA; the higher the percentage, the better. These guys tend to hit a bunch of HR, are among the league leaders in walks, strike out by the bucket load and don’t do much else.

Everything else a batter does when he puts a ball in play has a certain element of luck attached to it – a fielder misplays the ball, doesn’t quite get to it, runner in motion opens up a hole, etc. (you get the idea). Yes, a player can hit an inside the park HR, but the guys who get brought up when you talk about TTO are big burly monster sluggers who probably could only end up with an inside the park HR if the other team decided to leave the field when he was running the bases.

Why the post about TTO? Well, I have a soft spot in my heart for the sluggardly sluggers that tend to populate this list. The current poster children for the classic TTO player are: Jack Cust, Mark Reynolds and, my personal favorite Adam Dunn.

More after the jump…

For the current season, here are the leaders (based on qualification for the batting title so ~ 280 Plate Appearances):

Tm PA HR BB SO OPS+ TTO%
Mark Reynolds ARI 368 21 47 128 109 0.532608696
Adam Dunn* WSN 382 22 44 114 151 0.471204188
David Ortiz* BOS 326 18 52 81 135 0.463190184
Carlos Pena* TBR 377 20 53 101 105 0.461538462
Colby Rasmus* STL 321 16 37 91 135 0.448598131
Justin Upton ARI 392 15 42 112 110 0.431122449
Prince Fielder* MIL 419 23 61 91 144 0.417661098
Jayson Werth PHI 369 13 46 92 130 0.409214092
Ian Stewart* COL 308 12 35 79 100 0.409090909
David Wright NYM 398 15 46 100 145 0.404522613
Mike Napoli LAA 304 16 22 84 116 0.401315789
Adam LaRoche* ARI 348 13 33 93 100 0.399425287
Joey Votto* CIN 386 22 57 74 161 0.396373057
Drew Stubbs CIN 346 13 31 93 100 0.395953757
Jose Bautista TOR 385 25 55 72 141 0.394805195
Lance Berkman# HOU 320 12 52 62 120 0.39375
Josh Willingham WSN 364 15 57 71 140 0.392857143
Justin Smoak# SEA 302 10 38 70 83 0.390728477

The interesting thing about this list – just about every one of those guys has an OPS+ of 105 or better, meaning that you want them in your lineup. This year, there are a few guys that are annually on this leader board that don’t have enough PA to qualify for a number of reasons: Jim Thome and Jack Cust to name a few. Barring injury, Mark Reynolds should lead the league in %age this season. Basically, you are not truly a TTO guy if your TTO% is under about 40%.

Here are the career TTO percentages for a few of my favorites:

Jack Cust - Career TTO% Leader
Name PA HR BB SO OPS+ TTO%
Jack Cust 2,080 97 364 656 124 .53701
Mark Reynolds 2,081 112 229 695 109 .49783
Adam Dunn 5,823 339 959 1,555 133 .48995
Jim Thome 9,677 576 1,658 2,366 147 .47535
Reggie Jackson 11,416 563 1,375 2,597 139 .39725
Rob Deer 4,512 230 575 1,409 109 .4906

I am pretty sure that Jack Cust is the all-time leader in TTO% for players with more than 2000 PA, by a lot. I didn’t find any other player over 50%, with Mark Reynolds coming the closes to topping that. If anyone finds a player that has either over .5 TTO% for their career (with 2000 PA) or has a higher career TTO% than Jack Cust, please let me know.

Next time someone complains about how much a guy strikes out, remember Three True Outcomes. It makes watching the game just a bit more interesting, especially when one of these guys surprises you and singles.

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