14
2011
Lamenting The Pitfalls of the OBP Craze
An article by 
I just wanted to take the opportunity to note that it was REFRESHING to hear Keith Hernandez ( a man who knows a little bit about hitting) and Gary Cohen lament the effect that this OBP nonsense just may not be good for baseball in the long run, although not in those exact words.
I’ve been saying that for the longest time.
The discussion came up during Friday nights game vs. Houston
These guys are trained professional HITTERS not takers. Your ability to identify pitches, or as we used to say back in the day “your batting eye” is established very young in a players life, even as young as when they’re kids. Just because some baseball players with good eyes become professional HITTERs doesn’t mean ALL players have to have that same approach as idealistic as that may be.
All hitters are different. Guys like Manny Sanguillen, Jeff Francouer, Vlad, Yogi, and so on are bad ball hitters. That’s what my dad used to call them “bad ball hitters”. IT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS.
Every single day in a professional’s life I’m sure coaches are working with them. The problem nowadays is EVERYBODY’s a coach.
Hopefully over time this approach will be exposed for what it truly is – a bad idea. Batting average is STILL the most important stat that tells if you someone can hit or not. Not OBP.
OBP is a residual effect of your performance. It is NOT to be used to dictate your performance. Sandy Alderson is going to have to relearn that because I’m telling you, if they stick to this OBP ideology in the Mets minor leagues it’s gonna change the culture of athletic competition in the minors here and NOT for the better either.
When the Mets faced rookie pitcher Vance Worley of the Phillies a couple of weeks ago, they lost the game because they took too many pitches, especially first strike pitches. This “new” passive approach is bad for baseball and this attempt to change the approach of batters who have worked a certain way all their lives to become professional hitters is ill advised and will ultimately prove to be detrimental to the game.
Who knows? Maybe that’s another reason runs scored is down. Anybody ever think of that?
Batters are taking TOO many pitchers instead of just being themselves and doing what got them to the bigs in the first place.
Leave the individual work to the coaches.
Way to go Keith and Gary!
OBP is a residual effect of your performance. It is NOT to be used to dictate your performance.
Remember that.
This Fan Shot was written and submitted by Bayonne Met Fan.
About the Author: Fan Shot
Share your opinions with over 15,000 daily readers on MMO and write your own Fan Shot. If we like what we read, we'll feature you on our front page with the rest of of our great content. Simply email us at GetMetsmerized@aol.com and we'll take care of the rest. Then you can tell your all your friends and family that you were published on Mets Merized Online - the #1 Mets Fan Site on the web!
588 Comments + Add Comment
Recent Comments
- Lanny: on Mets Are Ten Games Below .500 – It’s Starting To Feel Like 1978: Stop crying. In a few weeks, you'll...
- Lanny: on So Where Are All Those Moneyball Players?: Oh, he led them to 3 world...
- Connor O'Brien: on Mets Need More Time To Get Better Understanding Of Ike Davis?: Terrible overspending. Overvaluing these guys. The owner himself...
- Vinny B: on Mets Need More Time To Get Better Understanding Of Ike Davis?: I just want to clarify, he ranked...
- Vinny B: on Mets Need More Time To Get Better Understanding Of Ike Davis?: Okay, so prove it. You gave...
Need Tickets To The Mets Game?
Check Out These Great MLB Links!
Photographs From Gordon Donovan
5393 Fans Follow Us On Twitter!
1269 Fans Like Us On Facebook!
2341 Fans Read Our Feed!
1702 Fans Subscribe via Daily Email!
“Batting average is STILL the most important stat that tells if you someone can hit or not. Not OBP.”
Ummm…you are simply wrong about this. Quite honestly, I’m actually shocked that there still exists an actual baseball fan that still thinks this is even a debate. It isn’t: OBP is so vastly superior to AVG as a reflection of a player’s offensive prowess that I didn’t even think people still even entertain this silly “debate” any more.
Look at ANY of the 5,635,933 studies investigating the relationship between various traditional metrics (obp, avg, etc.) and their respective correlative effects on RUN SCORING and the results are as overwhelming as they are uniform: OBP simply beasts AVG in terms of producing/creating offense (read: runs). Seriously, dude, EVERYONE knows this by now.
You MUST be willfully ignorant to insist otherwise.
I don’t care what the stats are. If the measure of a player’s worth is based upon OBP than the Miracle Mets of 1969 would never have happened. It is all about “TIMELY HITS”! The 1969 Mets hit in the clutch – guys like Al Weiss, Bud Harrelson, Jerry Grote, and Ken Boswell all had their moments that year and those guys based upon the OBP would be riding someone’s bench in 2011.(And if applied in 1969 half that team would not have been on a major league roster.)
My point being is that good teams have guys that hit in the clutch. They scratch, claw and do whatever to get on base. The OBP takes away that aggressiveness.
Just my thoughts.
Nah. They were good with 2 outs and runners and scoring position, but not particularly good or bad in any other clutch situation.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/split.cgi?t=b&team=NYM&year=1969#clutc::none
“My point being is that good teams have guys that hit in the clutch. They scratch, claw and do whatever to GET ON BASE. The OBP takes away that aggressiveness.”
Do you know that OBP stands for ON BASE Percentage?
You do realize that being on base doesn’t mean you hit the ball?
You could have even struck out and got on base.
Why doesn’t your OBP count those?
Then apply that excuse to the walk and the error!
You say OBP takes into account all PA but the truth is you didn’t realize how untrue that statement is!
OBP does not account for EVERY PA that a player has!
reaching on a error and a K that goes to the wall are not counted…
WHY?
Because the defense caused that OB just as the PITCHER caused that OB in a walk and a HBP and if you follow the parameters carefully and got rid of all PAs where the Batter didn’t do anything but stand there while the defense did something to let him on base, OBP would be equal to BA and there would be no reason to have an OBP stat at all!
OBP does take all PA into account, its just not going to award a player for getting on base because of an error or fc or strike out/wild pitch, these are not skills a player has, they were circumstances of the game. just like a sac bunt doesn’t count against obp because it is supposed to be a managerial strategy (even though it often isn’t) and is thus not representative of a players skill to get on base. walking, is very representative though, because you have to be patient enough to see four probably close pitches be called balls while waiting for a good pitch to hit. these are some of the things us ‘obp guys’ see in obp, a skill that doesn’t slump and a not overly aggressive approach (most high obp guys are still aggressive, fewer, like luis castillo, are not) that can be taken advantage of (see Jeff Francoeur).
“its just not going to award a player for getting on base because of an error or fc or strike out/wild pitch, these are not skills a player has, they were circumstances of the game.”
Just as a player does not have the skill to force a pitcher to throw 4 balls at him it was a circumstance of the game DETERMINED by the DEFENSE not the OFFENSE!
SO that you for admitting that not all PAs are counted in OBP and the reason for not counting them has to do with the BATTER not achieving something but because the DEFENSE FAILED to do something that left a circumstance that put the runner on a base!
Oh please…All those studies were made by guys who think OBP is more important than BA!
And they skew the proofs to fit their model!
BA is STILL the stat that tells you how much of the Batters OBP is due to the Batter.
a Walk and a HBP is attributable only to the Pitcher. If he doesn’t throw Ball 4 there is no way for the Batter to CREATE a walk!
Since a Batter can not determine if and when he will get a walk or get hit by a pitch, counting them as something the Batter accomplished is rediculous!
I will ask you the same question I have asked all the other OBP folks many times without one of them brave enough or honest enough to answer…
Who is the batter player?
Player A who hits .250 with a .400 OBP?
or
Player B who hits .325 with a .400 OBP?
Tell us which one is better and then tell us how OBP gave you the answer!
I dare anyone who thinks OBP is more important than BA to answer…
You won’t because your too busy believing studies that no one has ever seen the math on instead of using plain old common sense!
Why so angry about someone improving their BA Metsie?
Anyone who’s ever been in a batters box knows you don’t improve your BA by swinging at balls. (excluding a hand full of Hall of Famers of course)
Go ahead, tell your teammates to swing at everything, then wonder why they never get a pitch to hit.
The simple fact is that by taking balls and swinging at strikes is the best way to improve your BA. If you don’t believe that you’ve never been in a batters box.
keep trying to twist what I said to try and win ONE argument by making up your own readin of what I said!
It’s something I would expect Chris to do not you!
I didn’t and never said swing at anything dude.
Post the quote where I did!
If you can’t find where I said swing at anything I expect a full apology!
“Player B who hits .325 with a .400 OBP?”
How many of those players are there? And how many are not in the Hall of Fame? Would you like Joe DiMaggio (.325/.398)? How about Earle Combs (.325/.397)? Could I interest you in Tony Gwynn (.338/.388) or maybe Honus Wagner (.328/.391)? The only non-Hall of Famers who hit like that are active (Ichiro Suzuki .330/.375) or had short careers (Mike Donlin .330/.386 and Tip O’Neill .326/.392 Not that guy, his father’s favorite player).
Would you like some lighter fluid and a match to go with that strawman?
There are currently 15 Players with an OBP between .400 and .410
9 of then are currently hitting above .325
Get some water…you set yourself on fire!
And three of them players have enough PAs to qualify for rate stat leader boards. If Brett Wallace (career .272/.347, but age 24 and only 300 PAs)continues to hit like, say, Bill Terry, then Astros fans should be very happy. They could certainly use something to be happy about. Travis Hafner (.283/.386) has always been an above average DH, except for that one season, but at age 34 I don’t think he’s going so set a personal best BA mark. I’m pretty sure that Jason Kubel isn’t going to turn into a monster at age 29 either. Billy Butler is a little low in the BA department, but he might be almost that good a hitter.
As for the other six, Ronnie Paulino is hitting .435 in a small sample size.
I’ll stick with Bell’s Stout.
OH I See…SO then your saying PAs are more important than OBP!!!
I get it! You see you OBP guys seem to always get caught up when you suggest those numbers can’t possibly exist and then when examples of them show up all of a sudden SAMPLING is more important than OBP as the most important stat!
You do realize the SAMPLING excuse was devised by the Math geeks to HIDE the fact their theories don’t work and will be wrong from time to time.
Bottomline you can say what you want about the sampling. IT HAPPENED!
Something you said couldn’t actually did happen!
Absolutely not. I am saying that saying that these guys are every bit as good as Joe DiMaggio is the same as saying that Ronny Paulino is the best hitter ever. And that can’t be true because everybody knows that John Paciorek
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/paciojo01.shtml
is the greatest hitter ever.
Hey I didn’t pick the names your system for looking for good players did…
Not mine!
So you don’t like the names that OBP said were good?
What does that tell you about OBP over BA?
If I select any hitter with a .300 BA will his OBP be any lower than .300?
Yes or no!
SO You look at OBP first get some WRONG answer and then have to go weed out the wrong answers before you select.
I know all the guys I have are good from the very FIRST LOOK I make at what is available!
You want samples to weight both thats fine.
But you need to weed out the low samples first, and even if you weed out the small samples the fact that a small sample can have High OBP and low BA means a large sample can have those numbers too!
No matter how you slice it BA will always give you a list of good player OBP will not!
The stupid is strong with this one.
Who is the batter player?
Player A who hits .300 with a .320 OBP?
or
Player B who hits .300 with a .400 OBP?
Tell us which one is better and then tell us how BA gave you the answer!
I dare anyone who thinks BA is more important than BA to answer…
When you answer my question above about OBP I will respond to yours.
I would not look a the OBP at all!
I would look for EBH and RBI to tell the difference since you didn’t state those stats I can’t really tell you which is best.
It certainly won’t be decided by OBP!
The only difference between the two players you listed is one faced pitchers who walk people more than the other!
Or hit them with a pitch!
Thats why OBP is useless!
OBP includes Pitcher stats not just stats of the Batter!
The stupid is strong with this one…
Couldn’t answer eh?
I told you why your parameters can’t tell me who the better player is.
OBP doesn’t mean he is a better player he could be a big fat guy who gets hit a lot! OBP hides the details needed to pick one over the other.
But BOTH are good Hitters based only on BA!
to your question above, and with this question and the one I will ask, we obviously need to know more about the two players to make a choice – like if one has more power, no speed, plays SS v 1B, how much of their career these numbers represent… but all things the same, choosing between a player w a .250/.400 (A) line and a .325/.400 (B) line is not as easy as you make it seem. Still, the only reasons one would take player A are if they were told player B was Jeff Francoeur in April, or if they wanted someone who could help the team offensively without always getting a hit (like when they are in a hitting slump), or if they thought he could improve his average while keeping that walk rate. My second point is the important one – both players will go through phases of hitting .200 for a few weeks at a time, but player A will still help his team by being on-base 35% of the time whereas player B is hurting his team by getting on less than 28% of the time. Losses during this period could be the difference between making the playoffs and missing it.
Now for you, who do you choose:
Player A hits .300 on base .290 (gets more SF than BB+HBP)
Player B hit .270 on base .400
No it’s not east Astro…Who said evaluating players was easy?
You have to look at more stats and those of us who favor BA over OBP do that!
But we do use BA to decide who is the better HITTER since those stats are only recorded in instances where the bat hit the ball into play and a result is made.
If a guy has a .300BA and another has a .300 OBP both will probably get on base at least 3 times in 10 but one will be getting hits and driving in runs of other OBs where the guy with the OBP will most likely walk and not drive in a run!
You want to look at SLG for the power be my guest. I personally think counting the walk that rarely drives in a run the same as a hit that CAN drive in a runner on any base is dumb!
It devalues the hit in FAVOR of the walk!
I know in SOME situations a walk is as good as a hit but thats only in situations when there is no one one. Once someone is one a walk is NO LONGER as good as a hit!
Take the situation of a runner on second. 1 out. 1B open
the PITCHER doesn’t think in that situation that a walk is as good as a hit does he? Especially not if the batter behind the current has worse hitting stats.
So he walks him to put the FC DP into play to get out of the inning.
Did the batter do something good by walking there? Granted he didn’t do something bad but he made the situation EASIER for the defense by walking, even if the walk was his choice!
You want to look at OBP as something that tells you how much a player made an out well thats fine, But you are also assuming that every out was UNPRODUCTIVE!
Some outs ARE productive, Sac Fly scoring a run, Bunt to get the runner over…
Since a CONTRIBUTION was made DIRECTLY by the batter they are not counted against him in BA but they ARE counted against him in OBP!
If OBP is attempting to award credit for something BAD the PITCHER did then why doesn’t it also award credit for something GOOD the batter himself accomplished!
If the goal in OBP is to credit the Batter with everything he did in a game that was good then the Sac Fly should not be counted as a BAD PLAY just as defensive incompetence isn’t counted as a GOOD play!
And in my opinion a walk is just as much a defensive failure than any success of the batter!
Which is why I use BA which takes all that crap out of the HITTING equation!
You probably learned about everything you wrote by reading. That’s good. Keep reading books.
Literacy is for pussies.
For all those arguing for OBP I want you to note that THIS GUY is your peer group!
this guy is awesome. i know from another site, he is really smart about baseball and a debate between you two would be easily won by him, everytime, on anything
Romper Room has a site now?
Belief is for the ignorant!
Evan S. is a dope who used to come in here before and waste people’s time with quick sarcastic remarks that are not only funny but contribute nothing.
And his OBP question to Metsie was loaded and an old one that was used over the winter as well. He’s behind the times and if astroboy says he wins arguments at another site that doesn’t bode well for that site.
First of all yes I would take a .300 AVG w/.400 OBP over a guy with .300 AVG and .320 OBP at face value. But that’s just a stupid argument based solely on numbers and if this clown Evan was as smart as astroboy said he wouldn’t ask that question in the first place.
I can also say who would you prefer a guy w/.300 AVG and .400 OBP or a guy with .350 AVG and .420 OBP. Naturally you take the guy with .350 AVG because he’s hitting and better chance of driving in runs when you’re hitting, not walking and being passive.
Anyone can walk. Even terrible hitters with great plate discipline can walk. The semi-pro sand lots are full of them
You can also say would you prefer the .250 hitter with .340 OBP or the .275 hitter with the .330 OBP. This one is a little tougher. You see? I’m not loading the question like that clown Evan S – the guy with useless one liners because that’s easier than trying to figure real baseball out instead of learning it as a fantasy player which is probably how this moron learned the game.
I would prefer the .275 hitter even though his OBP is a little less for the same reasons. The hitter is most likely driving in the runs.
Now to throw a monkey wrench into my post. What if we determine who is the 40 or 30 HR guy driving in 100 RBIs (which is the MORE important stat than OBP anyway – it’s NOT EVEN CLOSE).
I would take the guy hitting .280 with 330 OBP with 30 HRs and 100 RBIs over the guy hitting .264 with .370 OBP but he has 10 HRs and 60 RBIs. It’s not even close, and it’s not even debatable BECAUSE you have to get the best players you can that give you the best opportunity to win and to do that you HAVE to get the guys who can hit and drive in runs.
The other guys..the ones who just get on base..the thing you first learn when you’re learning to play baseball as a kid…get on base….
those guys are a dime a dozen. Just ask Brad Emiss
Evan S. Now piggy back off my post and create a whole list of different scenarios, okay?
Stupid saber heads. One speaks, they all speak. Don’t you wish baseball was that easy.
According to them there actually IS a numeric formula for winning baseball.
They actually believe that. Bunch of Clowns.
“Evan S. is a dope who used to come in here before and waste people’s time with quick sarcastic remarks that are not only funny…”
At least you think I’m funny.
good,
Now please address the rest of my post
C’mon, that made you chuckle a little bit.
Here is the thing that is so simple these guys can’t understand…
High OBP player can have a low BA! I have shown numerous examples of this!
A High BA player can not have a low OBP. At least not much lower than his average
OBP will nearly always be HIGHER than the BA!
The ONLY case where OBP might not be higher is if the Batter has a lot of Sac Flies! Any player who had that would be driving in runs or moving runners over! A walk is going to advance a runner on 2B, or 3B unless the bases are loaded. A HIT would, a Sacrifuce would, They claim well the Sac Fly couldn’t score a run or advance a runner without the OB, And I simply reply the OB couldn’t score or advance with out the fly! If the batter hits a grounder there is no advance is there?
So this is the problem they just can’t get their heads around.
And now they will ignore it and spew all this crap again next week when someone brings up OBP!
They made a feeble attempt to do what I did to them by trying to reverse the similars.
Point they forgot was you can;t lose if you take one or the other .300 Hitter!
But you CAN lose if you make a choice with the similar OBP
Because HITTING is a skill, and walking is a GIMME!
The guy who scores only scores based on what the batter did! SOmething they won’t admit!
His Strikeout to walk ration is irrelevant. His Ks are factored into the BA No matter how often he strikes out he still hits 3 out of 10 ABs!
I personally don’t care what kind of out! It was an out that didn’t score a run or move a runner over!
“OBP will nearly always be HIGHER than the BA!”
What a revelation! It’s almost as if on base percentage is the same thing as batting average only to include walks and all plate appearances!
Thank you for making our point for us Evan!
You see thats what we say it is except we know the BATTER doesn’t walk himself the PITCHER walks him!
The Batter doesn’t make the ball hit him the PITCHER DOES!
SO there is no reason to give the BATTER credit for something that the PITCHER does.
OBP only will hold steady if the Batter faces the same pitcher every year.
BA doesn’t change because it is purely a product of the BATTER’S SKILL. It doesn’t count screwup from the pitcher as a batting accomplishment!
Which is why a walk isn’t counted in BA! Because BA is a HITTING Stat! The batter did not have the opportunity to get a hit because the Pitcher didn’t throw him a hittable pitch which is why that PA isn’t included in a HITTING STAT!
Also, just to be clear, two batters are of equal value if their batting averages are the same, even if one is 8% more likely to make an out? Per 600 plate appearances, that’s 48 more outs per year or 16 innings (almost 2 full games) worth of outs.
This is a hilarious statement. Talk about useless info. Just because you know about certain “totals” doesn’t mean you understand baseball the game.
So you point out there are hitters who have a batting average 8% less than other ones.
That’s nice. But it’s pretty cool the way you said it. A college education will do that. That’s was cool the way you said that, it made you look cool.
“even if one is 8% more likely to make an out?”
Where do you get he is 8% more likely to make an out?
He is 8% more likely to put the ball in play because he didn’t walk but his chances of making an out are not any better than the Higher OBP guy. The Higher OBP guy might have an 8% chance of walking more.
In those 8% PA though the other guy is probably driving in runs via a SacFly or getting hits at his current BA rate for those 8% which also can drive in runs!
So nice try trying to say a guy who walks 8% more makes fewer outs. There is no proof he does. He walks instead of getting a hit. And the other guy could be hitting instead of alking making his OBP similar to his BA which makes him MORE VALUABLE since he is doing things that will score runs while the other guy sits back PASSIVELY and WATCHES the game!
Also dude, if you look, All I did was copy and paste Metsie’s question and change the numbers and question to ask OPB instead of AVG to demonstrate how stupid his original question was. You can even see I copied his spelling error in with “batter” when it should he meant “better,” and also left “BA” in there when I should have changed it to “OBP.” Other factors come into play obviously, but the only way you’d ever take the guy with the .320 OBP over the guy with the .400 OPB, was if the former was hitting 30-40 more homers a year and the latter was useless on the base paths.
And for the trillionth time, RsBI is a stat dependent on the players batting front of said batter. If a player has 200 hits and hits 85 homers all with no one on base, he’ll have 85 RsBI. A player can’t pick the situations to come up with men on base and drive in runs. That’s why your 3, 4 and 5 hitters usually have the most RsBI, because they have the most opportunities. It’s almost irrelevant how good the hitter is. If a .250 hitter comes up 100 times with a runner in scoring posstion and gets a hit 25% of the time, that’s 25 RsBI (unless Bengie Molina is on second). If a .320 batter comes up 65 times with a runner in scoring position and gets a hit 32% of the time, that’s roughly 21 RsBI. See how more opportunities result in higher totals? This is just logic.
Lying a trillion times doesn’t mak the lie any truer the trillionth time than it was the first time you lied!
“And for the trillionth time, RsBI is a stat dependent on the players batting front of said batter”
Oh really who is in front of the batter in a Solo HR?
Now to answer your question that you tried to twist of mine…
The answer is the guy with the LOWER OBP of the two is better. Because that means the guy with the .300 BA doesn’t walk as much and more of his PA will be hits as opposed to the high OBP walker and the lower OBP guy will drive in more runs because a hit can drive in a runner on any base a walk can only drive in a run with the bases loaded. And if it wasn’t a hit it was a Sac Fly scoring in a run instead!
Ok Happy dude! Will that solve your little problem?
Can’t lose picking either one but if you want the better HITTER then go for the same BA but LOWER OBP because you will get a HITTER who puts the ball in play more often and as a result will drive in more runs than the guy who walked a lot!
If you have won a lot of arguments at that other site I suggest you return before you tarnish your reputation here!
it isnt relevant what any player or commentator says. no matter how much experience they have. this is like asking donovan mcnabb about NFL overtime. he doesnt know just because he plays. you simply look up the facts. the fact is that OBP is tremendously mor eimportant than AVG, and you either accept it or you dont. there is no argument. higher OBP means more runs scored. indisputable. the goal of an at bat is to get a hit. but far more importantly the goal is not make an out and get on base. your first pririoty as a hitter is not make an out. and if you can reach base without a hit, great. that AVG leaves out walks means it woefully inferior. especially because batter that take lots of walks run up pitcher’s pitch counts and get to the bullpen quicker, meaning more runs are scored.
“the fact is that OBP is tremendously mor eimportant than AVG, and you either accept it or you dont. there is no argument. higher OBP means more runs scored. indisputable.”
Except for the fact I have proven many times how OBP fails to weed out the crap hitters and how you need BA to determine which OBP is actually a product of the batter AND I have proved that higher OBP does not lead to more runs scored because if it was UNREFUTABLE then the rankings in RS would be IDENTICAL to their ranking in RS!
Since it isn’t that is EVIDENCE that REFUTES your UNREFUTABLE fact!
Either you accept the truth or dont!
there is really no such thing as a high OBP crap hitter. the closest thing to it would be a no power guy like luis castillo and even he was very valuable in is prime.
The only specific examples you ever mentioned were injury fill ins who had at most a week’s worth of plate appearances and Nick Johnson in a year he had less than a month due to injuries.
Examples none the less! If one exists at all it proves your wrong!
So explain to me who of this group is the best hitter, if you please.
1. B Augenstein 1.000
2. B Lyon 1.000
3. B Sanches 1.000
4. J Flores .500
5. G Reynolds .500
6. J Happ .462
7. J Bourgeois .407
8. B Hayes .400
9. V Worley .400
10. R Johnson .395
Didn’t think so…..
I notice you didn’t note their OBP…
Is that because their OBP is just as high as their BA?
Remember X you seem to forget that NEVER ONCE did anyone who favors BA over OBP said it was the MOST IMPORTANT stat nor that it was the be all and end all of Player Evaluations.
But you OBP guys have said that about OBP.
The problem you guys have is you have a three step evaluation to get rid of outliers and we have a two step.
You look for OBP then look for PA and then you still have to look at BA to see if the guy can truly hit before you have whittled away all the good players.
But I look at BA first, then look at PA and I’m done!
Because I know that by looking at the BA the OBP will be the same or higher and if it isn’t then the RBI is going to be sky high per PA because when he is not hitting and since he doesn’t walk he must be driving in runs instead so those PAs are not being counted against his BA!
@Metsie
I really have to know this. This may be the most important question I ever ask anyone.
How old are you?
So you know, I’m 21.
I’m 49 Evan….Does that help you at all?
I have a masters in Physics and Engineering too!
It is in the Physics where I learned the lesson that in statistical analysis if you create your equation to prove a belief that you will find a way to prove something that isn’t true in reality.
And thats what happened when all the OBP guys came out with their OBP Correlates to RS and that OBP is more important than BA!
Even the three seperate systems for calculating a players WAR is geared to favor the OBP player who walks due to the way they Weight each act that can happen in a PA!
Look at the weights for WAR and tell me why is a Walk weighted more than a single?
Why is a walk weighted a little less than HALF of a HR?
Is it because the person who is creating the calculation trying to weight the walk higher so that when the results come out it proves the HIGH OBP player comes out on top?
If they were weighted based on their intrinsic value instead would those same players remain on the top of the WAR list?
NO!
The PROOF is supposed to influence the ANSWER but in the case of stats like WAR the ANSWER influences the construct of the proof!
Good Science says it should be the ther way around!
Metsie, is that true? A walk is considered better than a single? Half as good as a HR? What (besides your stated reasoning) could possibly be the reason for doing that?
Yes Tag look at the weights used in WAR. (I forget which one Maybe Tango’s or FanGraphs)
And NO I don’t agree with the reasoning they used for it.
They attempted to create a Linear Weight based on OCCURRANCE
Not intrinsic Value of the Hit they are weighting.
I understand the attempt to use real world data to judge the weighting but the data they used is not about the value merely the liklihood of it happening.
It’s kind of like saying a $5 bill is worth half a $20 bill because there are more of them!
@Metsie and t agee
In WAR, the batting runs come from wOBA which using the following weights:
HR: 1.95
3B: 1.56
2B: 1.24
RBOE: .92
1B: .9
HBP: .75
NIBB:.72
So no Metsie, walks are not more valuable than singles and home runs are over twice as valuable as walks in WAR. But please, don’t let facts get in the way of your argument.
That’s interesting Metsie. Who cares about rarity when all your trying to do is win baseball games.
Do you get extra points for an infield fly w/runners on 1st and 2nd?
That’s weird. Off the top of my head I would value a walk at .75 of a single. A HR worth 5 singles perhaps. something along those lines.
I have read that the difference between Fangraphs and baseball-reference WAR is a newer way to value defense on Fangraphs that only back so far. Didn’t realize about this walk calculation. Seems overvalued to me especially since a hitters BA is already getting a bump by taking his walks.
Double dipping and then some?
Evan, Which version of War and OBA are you referring to?
Ther are three versions of WAR out there that I know of and probably more!
The one I referred to had NIBB at .92 and 1B at .9
If I can find it I will post it!
But while your here tell us why a Batter gets more credit for getting hit by a pitch than he does for not swinging at ball 4 pray tell?
Tag just for the record That doesn’t mean the concept behind a WAR like calculation isn’t possible just that the guys creating the metric tend to want to favor OBP and therefore WAR will always feature High OBP players..
It really isn’t any different than the attempt to say OBP correlates to RS better than anything else by proving that the top teams in the league also have a high OBP!
Sure they do they are good teams and good teams have high stats accross the board.
But High OBP alone teams do not make the top of the list because high OBP isn’t enough to make you a league leader!
Like I have always said here, My issue isn’t the creation or attempt to create NEW METRICS that can tell a story.
But Figure out an equation that takes into account exactly WHAT a player is responsible for doing, Weight it based on it’s value to the team Try to account for every plus and every minus and then run the math and see what comes out as opposed to this attempt to say OBP is KIng and if you do the math this way it PROVES it!
Thats not science!
That’s Tango’s formula, you can find it on insidethebook.com
Why is HBP more valuable than NIBB? I’m not 100% sure, but the .03 difference is negligible. I think it’s probably because HBP is a wild throw by the pitcher and non intentional walks are more controlled by the pitcher.
Nice job Evan S. This ignoramus Metsie will just ignore your facts and spout off more BS conspiracy theories instead.
Also should note that a RBOE (Reach Base on Error) is Weighted MORE VALUABLE than an actual hit!
Can you explain why that one is in there Senor?
Didn’t think so!
So the guy who hits singles is not going to be as good as a guy who gets on via error when using WAR to evaluate…
Why is a double not 1.8?
Why is a triple not 2.7?
Why is something the player didn’t do RBOE HBP better than something you claim he DID do?
You claim facts but then when the methodology of those facts is exposed you see why you came out with the wrong answer!
OK. HR’s are valued at over twice what a walk is. That doesn’t make sense to me off hand. Certainly HR’s are much rarer than singles (not that that should matter) but since they guarantee at least a run scored and frequently more I would think they’d be weighted much higher.
Clearly there has been a ton of work put into deriving this calculation and I cannot believe that it would have been done working backward to promote a false theory. There has to be some other things to consider.
I love the concept of WAR since it is an attempt to measure all aspects of the game including baserunning and defense and put every player on the same footing but the weights that were arrived at must be accurate or that footing is sloped.
I’m sure there is a reasonable reason (right or wrong) for this. Very interesting.
Thanks for the weights Evan.
“Why is HBP more valuable than NIBB? I’m not 100% sure”
SO you have FACTS that not even YOU are sure of?
What kind of FACT is it if the guy who claims it as a fact isn’t even sure how he got there?
How can I believe a number or stat you can’t explain fully?
THIS is the reason I have these conversations here not because I want to prove my method is any better than someone elses or my beliefs are truer than poster A.
I am trying to get you guys to stop buying facts you don’t know are facts or understand WHY they are facts and look at the math of all these new metrics and use whatever brain god gave you to decide and evaluate if the Metric is even worth the hard drive space it takes up on a Web Server!
You guys don’t do that you read it and since you read it you buy it as completly true!
Yet when you disect the FACTS and how they were arrived you see where the errors and bias’ show up and if you want to use the stat the LEAST you should do is examine how that stat is derived, Remove the bias and errors put into it and come up with the Metric that does NOT lie and can FULLY EXPLAIN EVERY variable in it properly!
Apparently you can;t do this with Tango’s version of War can you?
And since you can’t understand WHY a number in it is used the fact you call a fact is in fact NOT a fact but a BELIEF!
Here’s the thing. I didn’t do the hours of research to figure all of these numbers out. People more intelligent than I put in the effort to figure it out, and can better explain than I can. You don’t have to know all the science behind how a computer works to figure out it’s usefulness, and the same goes for these advanced stats. The weights are based on historical run values. Year to year these numbers change slightly to correspond to that season’s run values. Historically, HBP has lead to more runs than an IBB, just as RBOE has lead to more runs than a single, even if only slightly.
Well Evan then all I can say is you don’t KNOW what you said is true just that someone else said it was true.
you BELIEVE them but they could be wrong because you refuse to look at the information AND TEST IT!
Just a small point to consider…
You didn’t do hours of research yet came here to slam a guy for challenging that research and posting examples where the research you believe was done wrong or in a biased manner.
Did it ever occurr to you that I AM smart enough and did the hours of research to find the truth?
I sure shot down the OBP Correletes best to RS didn’t I?
That didn’t even take hours!
If your not prepared to THINK for yourself about what is a belief, what is a fact and what is an outright lie then why are you so quick to come here and slam people as clueless!
We apparently are not because we CHECKED this research you are all going by and it is the faultiest piece of research ever done!
Now that you know that RBOE is credited as a BIGGER accomplishment as a hit how can you just take the guy who sold you that crap seriously and believe his “RESEARCH” was good?
Did you do the hours of research and ARE you smart enough? Because I don’t see what your point is with this entire thing, since you keep running around in circles. All you’ve proven is that you believe what the people YOU listen to said and you could be wrong there too. Just because something is conventional wisdom, like batting avg meaning anything, doesn’t mean that it is true. For hundreds of years, people thought the Earth was flat. That was the conventional wisdom.
But I guess that still rings true today, right? Oh wait…no it doesn’t.
Oh You still here?
Just because something is conventional wisdom…
Isn;t that what your entire argument was based on?
HIGH OBP correlates to high RS so OBP is the best thing to get and allows you to IGNORE the stats of what a player accomplished ALL BY HIMSELF?
You say you can IGNORE BA (actually you don’t say anything just wave your Pom Poms at what Evan said! Your Priests do though)
You also should note that IGNORE is the root part of the word IGNORANT!
Yes people thought the world was flat!
And people now believe HIGH OBP means more runs scored.
Until I sailed that ship right across the correlation sea and topedoed it into the ocean of disproven!
You keep repeating the “fact” that people who are into sabermetrics ONLY look at OBP and that’s just not true. Any good statistics person uses all of the statistics at hand to get an overall look at all of the player’s tools. On Base Percentage is just a single tool that is useful in telling you about a certain player’s level of plate discipline. Batting Average is useful in some ways, though it tends to fluctuate due to other conditions and is not 100% reliable. However, it has it uses…guys with consistently high BA’s typically make hard, frequent contact. The triple slash line (BA/OBP/SLG) is a basic tool to get a general idea of what kind of hitter you’re dealing with.
Just because the Oakland A’s focused on OBP heavily in 2002 doesn’t mean that all sabermetricians focus only on OBP. There was a reason behind their madness…they used OBP as a way to try to find an advantage, a market inefficiency. OBP was largely overlooked and they tried to find guys who they could get cheap who would get on base and keep the line moving offensively, so to speak. Now, however, OBP is much more in the public lexicon. That market inefficiency has dried up and the smart baseball people are looking for the next inefficiency. Sabermetrics isn’t all about OBP, if that’s what you think.
And not for nothing, but even though the A’s have never won a WS under Beane, they were pretty damn good those seasons: When Beane took over in 1997, they won 65 games. That went up each year to 74, 87, 91, 102, 103, 96, 91, 88 and 93 before they really had to tear it down in 2007. They may not’ve won a title but that’s a damn good stretch, something I would give anything to see the Mets do (be good on a consistent basis for nearly a decade).
When I do finally get around to reading The Book, you’ll be the first to know.
Evan, I’m sure that goes at least double for me. I do accept that there is validity in WAR and I’ll probably buy the book and check it out myself. In any event I appreciate your input and the time you took to give it. One thing almost everyone would have to agree with is the players with the highest WAR certainly seem to appear where we would think they should and those that don’t, do in fact have measurable holes in their game.
Thanks.
Well I think RBOE (although I was surprised to see it there) SHOULD be included. RBOE more frequently occurs with runners OB (I cannot prove this but it is my educated opinion) and therefore COULD be more valuable although we’re not talking a big difference here.
Hitting the ball hard as opposed to a lazy fly is something that could reasonable be rewarded in some small way.
As much as a clean single, I don’t know but off hand I’d say probably not.
As for what the hitter himself can control (balls, HBP, RBOE and things of that sort) should not be a consideration, only the net effect of his doing something/vs not doing something in the context of winning games should matter.
Clearly just standing there and “passively” taking balls and then advancing to 1B beats walking back to the dugout so there is value in that alone.
Tag RBOE has a place in a GAME RESULT evaluation.
But War is not used to judge that it is used to judge what the likely contribution of a player is going to be if you aquire him!
This is the big Saber skeleton in the closet. SOme of what they say is very true if you are trying to glean details from a statistical representation of a result.
But not for player evaluations where they are being used by the general public!
When evaluating a player should you not be looking for what the Batter himself did and not circumstances that he had very litte to do with?
RBOE is basically giving the Batter a PLUS for hitting what would have been an OUT not a hit if not for defensive stupidity!
SO anyone who was LUCKY can be credited higher than someone who was REALLY GOOD!
that RBOE could even have been a botched DP ball that the throw to 2nd went into the OF! The batter actually hit into a DP but the defense made him get credit for .2 more than he would have if he got a hit and the runner at 2nd might have gotten 3rd!
If you are evaluating a player then you should be judging that guy on ONLY the things he has actually done himself.
Not what the Pitcher did, Not what the Defense allowed. He Himself did.
I have no problems if you want to include RBOE provided that you are going to be as ALL ENCOMPASING on other data that should be included as well.
Hitting into a DP fr instance as a negative number
If RBOE is worth .92 what is a Sacrifice Fly that scores or advances a runner worth? Gotta be more than a RBOE no?
I have no problem with any statistic being included in a ,metric provided it is weighted on a proper scale comparative to each other.
The comparative weights MUST MAKE SENSE!
(not the case with War)
Good point Metsie about valuing players vs. valuing the contribution to actually winning.
At the ML level all plays should be made and those that aren’t would be more random. Maybe even out over a career but not in a season.
Valid point.
It really is a case of using the right tool for the right job.
Unfortunatly due to the fact that these metrics are listed on websites it doesn’t matter that the guy who is cutting and pasting them doesn’t understand what the Metric says and why it says it, we get these religious discussions about beliefs even the guys who believe it don’t understand.
I don’t believe it and I DO understand what they are trying to do.
Unfortunatly a selecting bias is used. The answer comes out correct ONLY because in statistics the GOOD Statistical models will ALWYAS show up in any calculation used!
I could Divide the number of outs (or even PA) compared to the number of RBI and RS and come up with an arbitrary percentage number I have to hit to be a GOOD player.
And all GOOD players will probably wind up in that list!
But that doesn’t mean my Metric has anything to do with Actual nor what that player will contribute in a different situation than the one he was in when he got those numbers that said he was good!
We all agree that many of the good things you do in baseball is DEPENDENT on the TEAM which is why we call it a team sport!
So to remove the situational disparity from the equation we have to PROPERLY weight what is good, how good and what is bad, and how bad.
What is the credit for the player and how much was something else.
And if WAR did that a little better then I would have no problems with that metric at all!
There is a reason there are MANY variations of WAR out there.
And most of it has to do with the linear weighting system that throws the whole scale out of whack!
Tango’s uses frequency of parameters because it works great to tell to weight what happened based on occurrance from that particular set of data.
It works for Historical purposes but fails in individual evaluation!
But LIke I said it’s posted on a website so any idiot can spout it and use it to sound like they know what they are talking about and when challenged parrot what someone else told them was the gosple according to BELIEF based on some research that is flawed and they used it to argue a point they don’t understand so much and for so long that the catchphrases are FACT now and anyone who believes otherwise is a heretic or knows nothing!
The Ignorant will always do it’s best to keep everyone else as ignorant as they are!
All I have ever asked of anyone I have debated OBP with on this site is to open your mind and not just BELIEVE but investigate and see if you REALLY agree which facts are actually facts and which are opinions just rolled up to look like a Mathematical proof!
Which crap hitters did you weed out with high OBP’s?
I guess you didn’t hear Ralph Kiner an actual HOFer and professional hitter that said last Sunday that he DOES like that stat.
The conversation was brought up and Ron Darling said something about it being “too much” and Ralph Kiner said ‘No, it’s actually a good stat”
Hmmmm so, if a former coke head says it, it’s gospel, but lets dismiss what an actual HOFer says.
kiner also called clayton kershaw a knuckleballer, and said the mets played in the american league in the same broadcast. he did.
seriously, ops is a better stat than either obp or avg. i think that came out of that broadcast as well, something like “if you look at the top ops guys every year, those are the guys you recognize as the best hitters in the game”
personally, i’d take ops, rbi, era and whip if I had to choose only 4
also, hi-def allows stations to fit more stats on a screen than in the 90′s, so throwing obp up there is in part just because they have extra room.
no FIP or xFIP? I choose those over ERA/WHIP anytime. and rbi’s? a little too dependent on teammates abilities to get on base
RBI’s takes a certain type of hitter. They are 3/4/5 hitters for a reason – they are paid to drive in runs which is not only more important than the guy getting on base but the reason why you win championships. You can leave the bases loaded in a championship game and lose the title if the big boy doesn’t come through. But at least those 3 guys will have a nice OBP for the day.
And before you respond …Jose Reyes is a top of the order hitter. Those types of hitters are not middle of the order hitters because then they have to change their style/approach. You don’t want top of the order hitters hitting in the middle of the order, nor do you want Thole or Paulino hitting in the middle of the order because you have more qualified hitters that do that.
So not just anybody can drive in runs.
Like Turner?
That has nothing to do with the subject. You just want to say his name because he hit a HR today. Go back to sleep, have a sandwich, wash the dishes..go do something else, ok?
i bet you must really miss jeff francoeur
all i said are that rbi’s are a bad measure of a players ability because they are a stat dependent on teammates ability to get on base/in scoring position before you. a player who comes up to the plate with more runners on base is going to get more rbi’s, but that doesn’t mean he is better than another player – could just be that he was hitting at a more advantageous spot.
As for being a certain type of hitter to hit 3, 4, 5 – almost everyone in the major leagues was a 3, 4, 5 hitter for their high school, college, and possibly even a few minor league stops before reaching the bigs and having to defer to even better hitters, as you said. You know where Thole hit most of the time in the minors? Third. I would guess the same for a masher like Paulino.
You mention Jose Reyes, when he comes up with a runner on second who he needs to drive in, he comes up with the approach or mentality of a 3, 4, 5 hitter – he needs to drive this guy in. This is a player who had 81 RBI one year hitting leadoff everyday. He really is only guaranteed to lead off once a game, so doesn’t he change his style/approach every time he doesn’t lead off? shouldn’t he be failing and unable to drive in runners? that whole argument bout jose is silly to me
And who was in front of the batter in the Solo HR RBI?
Did that RBI depend on someone being in front of him?
NO!
So these MYTHS you guys keep spouting are not helping your cause it is just exposing the FLIMSY evidence and BELIEFS you guys rely on to make OBP work for you!
Awesome, lets just get a 120 HR guy at every position. That should do the trick.
You really are pathetic when you run out of script and everything you said was disproved without answer by you aren’t you?
Well I wasn’t going to reply but I did have something I needed to clear up and apologize for…
Somewhere in here I said you claimed that a walk was a hit.
It was not you who said it that was Chris.
So consider the quote retracted from your name.
Oh and if you could get that you would wouldn’t you?
Despite the fact most HR hitter don’t have a high OBP!
What? I’m absolutely sure he’s proved you wrong in every facet of this argument. You’re just so demented that you can’t even realize it. It’s pretty sad that Donal ran circles around you in this argument.
And by sad, I mean sad for Metsie…not for Donal. Nice job, Donal.
Actually never once Senor.
Name the facet he proved me wrong in…
Maybe the facet that says a RBOE is worth .2 points more than a hit?
ROFLMAO
Go back to your site dude, You are way outclassed here!
Xtreeme and Tagee (and somtimes Jessup) are the only ones who have ever accomplished a decent argument in favor of OBP here! Donal and Chris and a few others like to hang onto thier coatails but all they accomplish is to take the conversation away from the substance in the name of diversion and subject changing.
You guys have added nothing but childish snipes, Back Patting and Nose turding to this discussion including a 100 Email notification about some banning on a site that was useless!
You guys are clearly clueless!
I have showed you the bias in most of your stats, Showed how OBP is rated based on a FLAWED causality and how that bias has crept into many of the metrics that are used today!
Real Statisticians and scientists don’t just buy the analysis put forth by others they PUT THEM TO THE TEST!
My guess is you and your band of merry invaders have used these bully tactics on whatever site you came from, Ran off all the decent smart posters and now that there is no MEANINGFULL discussion or anyone left to badger over there you came here looking for some sport!
Your welcome to post here as opinions are welcome but if you not going to BRING any facts or make them up as you go along then there really is no point in even paying any attention to you!
Now are you going to start discussing here or are you just going to continue to wave your Pom Poms all day in favor of those whose arguments have had holes poked though all of them or are you going to bring something to the table that actually helps their argument?
“And by sad, I mean sad for Metsie…not for Donal. Nice job, Donal.”
Hey SenoriaStem….
Do you also wear the short skirt when you wave your pom poms like that?
“Do you also wear the short skirt when you wave your pom poms like that?”
You’re 49 years old and you have to resort to name-calling because you have no idea how to rationally get a point across? Going off on long tangents that have nothing to do with the topic is not “getting your point across”. You say you have a masters degree? Boy, they must give those things out like candy nowadays. Where’d you go…University of Phoenix? Or is your “degree” a fraud?
No I simply resorted to speaking in the tone that you yourself use so I presume understands since the high concepts of statistical anomolies seems to be quite over your head!
How many time do you have to be showed the foll troll before you run back to that little happy place where you can say what you want and everyone who is as dumb as you believes it and thinks you know what your talking about!
There is nothing wrong with the STAT!
It’s the importance placed on it over BA that is the problem, not the stat itself!
When you take a called third strike what was the player trying to achieve?
A hit?
Really?
Don’t you have to swing to get a hit?
So he was going for a WALK when he takes a Called 3rd strike!
How about when a player has a “HITTERS COUNT” (2-0, 3-0, 3-1) and takes a strike.
Is he going for the HIT or the walk when he does that?
He let a pitch that could have been crushed right down the middle of the plate go by him in the name of OBP!
He should hit those!
So yes what those guys have said (and Kiner said the same things last weekend) is that the focus on OBP has made Batters PASSIVE at the plate and they are not HITTING in hitters counts because to many misguided folks a WALK is as good as a HIT!
It isn’t!
Lets review…
Runner on second, one out, Is a walk as good as a hit there? Or does it set up the double play?
Runner on third two outs. Is a walk as good as a hit there? Does it score the run?
Runners on second and third two outs. Is a walk as good as a hit there? Or does it set up the force out at any base to end the inning?
OBP has its uses. Every Metric does. But it’s importance has more to do with the book MONEYBALL than any STUDIES performed by OBP guys trying to get common sense people to buy into their OBP Myth!
Sure, as a coach i’ve yelled the old familiar “A walk is as good as a hit” thing that’s existed for 100 years.
Now it’s a matter of keeping things in perspective.
And sometimes coke heads know more about some things than sober people, depending on the subject of course. Oh, and potheads can know some things coke heads don’t know either, and vice versa.
In SOME situations a Walk IS as good as a hit…
Just as in some situations the FLY BALL OUT is as good as a WALK when it allows the runner to score by tagging up!
All the correlations those studies made regarding OBP has to do with the fact they are mixing and matching COUNTS and ignoring CAUSALITY!
They look at the OBP (not BA) and the OPS and compare it to the list of GOOD PLAYERS.
But GOOD PLAYERS have GOOD STATS across the board! Of course they are going to have high OBP and SLG and OPS (which just means something of OBP or SLG was a high number!)
A guy who has a high BA also will have a high OBP!
A guy who walks a lot will have a high OBP too but his BA may suck!
What these STUDIES and RESEARCHERS did was eliminate the few guys who CAN’T HIT, but had a high OBP and they use the ever present SMALL SAMPLE size to take them out of the research. The reason there even is a small sample size for these players is because a guy who can’t hit but has a high OBP also sits on the bench because everyone knows he SUCKS despite what his OBP says he is when BA is ignored!
So now that they got rid of the small samples they are left with ONLY the BEST hitters in the league WHO HIT MORE, Walk MORE, because they are the BEST IN THE LEAGUE!
OBP has it’s uses! It is very good for judging certain situation WHERE a Walk is as good as a hit and who to put up there.
But if you want to judge a player and his ability to HIT if all you look at is OBP you could find a guy who can’t hit to save his life because you didn’t bother to look at his BA!
I’ll defer to your expertise on this matter.
let’s see, your moniker is MetsfanNY but yet you refer to one of the greatest Mets of all time who was a leader for quite possibly the greatest Mets team in history is also arguably the greatest defensive first baseman in ALL of baseball history..and you refer to Keith Hernandez as a former cokehead in a conversation about on base percentage.
yeah, okay.
He still knows a little about hitting, just a little.
I know he knows ALOT about hitting, and his talents speak for themselves, but I find it funny that you post this after Keith agrees with your thought process, yet don’t even mention the fact that Kiner DOES agree with the stat.
Kiner – HOFer
Hernandez – not a HOFer
Sorry for calling him a cokehead – that wasn’t right, even if it’s true.
I think the fact that Kiner is a HOFer and Keith is not is insignificant. You’ll have people who say that Keith Hernandez should be in the HOF as the greatest fielding first baseman who ever lived. I’m one of those.
The guy was also not only an outstanding hitter but KNEW how to drive in runs, smart at the plate, a LEADER and played with his heart on his sleeve and was an inspiration to win to all those around him on the Mets AND the Cardinals.
Not bad.
And as for Kiner saying that, yes I was surprised. But nonetheless this passive approach and lack of aggressiveness hitters are taking is STILL bad for baseball and i’m not changing my mind on that.
I would have like to hear Kiner debate it in further detail.
But you were very selective in what Kieth said.
Keith has constantly talked about the need to get into a hitters count and THEN hit. Nothing out of your keyboard about that.
You are an agenda driven chimp.
nobody says keith hernandez should be in the hall of fame based solely on his hitting, and ralph kiner is in the hall of fame only because of his hitting.
without arguing for or against obp, i would say that kiner was a better hitter than hernandez.
as for obp, it is a decent stat as a supplement to other stats, but it’s not a very good stat by itself.
most people can look at more than one number at the same time, so it’s useful, but to use OBP by itself to rate player performance is silly.
i do think ops can be used by itself to rate hitters. if you need just one number, that’s the one i’d take.
Yes Ralph actually said and I quote “sometimes its better to get a walk than a hit”
and that is clearly true, particularly if you make the pitcher throw lots of pitches, vs a bases empty first pitch single. every pitch is 1% less energy for your starting pitcher. wear him out and you will win.
Key word “SOMETIMES”!
No one ever said a walk was always better than a hit.
You’re cherrypicking here. You wouldn’t want a player who gets on base more often? Do you really think players ‘clog the bases’? Like it’s been mentioned millions of times, the more guys on base the better chance a team has to score a run. You probably think a HR is a rally killer too at times.
OBP and BA independently don’t tell the full story. They are all pieces to the broader puzzle. I just don’t understand why you can’t just accept that OBP is valuable?
I think OPS is better than both of them, simply because it takes both into account to some degree.
This is a tired argument.
“You wouldn’t want a player who gets on base more often?”
Who doesn’t want a player who gets on base more often.
But when I’m evaluating players I base it on HOW they got on Base more often, Who did it without help from the Pitcher hitting him or the defense screwing up!
WHo can do it more when those things DO NOT HAPPEN!
You go for the guy who gets on base more but have no clue WHY he does. It could have been LUCK that got him there. My way I know his BA got him there!
And since the Defense or Pitcher will screw up on the same average league wide, I get more OB regardless of luck because my guy will get the same percentage of bases as the other guy would have. It is when the Pitcher and Defense does NOT screw up where My guy will get the more!
To simplify…
If a pitcher walks a batter does it really matter who is standing there in the box when it happens?
Did Howard have to be in the box for Perez to walk him or for the SS to make an error?
NO!
So whatever walks or HBP the high OBP guy got is going to be available to the guy who hits better than him. Those contributions will be EQUAL since they are a product of the Defense not the batter.
But when the Defense does not give you those opportunities the HIGH BA hitter will STILL get on base. The HIGH OBP guy will not!
Because he depends on someone else to get his number, the same someone else the high BA guy is going to face! And in the cases that Defense doesn’t give it up the High BA guy will succeed more!
Because he doesn;’t need that defense to give him something he gets it on his own!
Which is what you are trying to figure out when evaluating stats no?
Who is the better player when both face the same situations?
So which hitter would you rather have?
Hitter A: .295 Avg, .310 OBP
Hitter B: .285 Avg, .400 OBP
Hitter A gets maybe 2 more hits during the season but makes outs way more often than Hitter B.
Well first off no he doesn’t make outs more often. Just cause you got on base more does not mean you made fewer outs.
This is the problem you don’t seem to get about OBP.
All it means is Player B got more walks than Hitter A
IF there are more outs they could have resulted in a run scoring which would not count that PA at all in either BA or OBP and what would you rather have a walk or a SURE RS?
All Player B had was he faced Pitchers who hit him or walked him more than the guy who hit for better average.
And if the guy with a better average faced the same pitchers his OBP would be as high (actually higher) than the Player B because the walks would be the same and the hitting would make even more PA OBs as well!
You see because you allow a situation that is not under the batter’s control count. You are forgetting that under the SAME situation the other batter would get the walk or hit by a pitch as well!
What? Now I know you’re insane. The exact opposite of getting on base is making an out.
There are two outcomes for a hitter:
1)Get on base (hit, walk, HBP, reach on an error, etc)
2)Make an out (YOU’RE OUT)
Tell me of these other outcomes in baseball, sir.
And no answer. Because ON BASE percentage measures the times a player GETS ON BASE (or if you look at it the other way, the amount of times A BATTER DOESN’T MAKE AN OUT).
No dummy the exact opposite of getting on base is NOT getting on base!
Oh and you keep saying amount of times…It’s not a count it is a percentage…you do know the difference don’t you?
The guy with the lower OBP might get on via error which does not get counted as an OUT nor an OB now does it?
Dude, I know Evan is 21…How old are you? 12?
So just because he had a higher PA and his OBP isn’t the same percentage as a guy who walks alot it does not mean the guy made more outs!
Even if the PA were exactly the same for both the guy with the lower OBP could have reached on more errors than the guy who walked.
Since those aren’t accounted for in OBP you don’t know but a dummy like you THINKS he knows…
Almost worst kind of idiot one who doesn’t understand his condition or that he has one!
WHAT?!? And excuse me but what do you do if you do not get on base?
YOU’RE OUT!
Show me how you can NOT get on base and NOT be out at the same time.
Do you get ON base if the fielder makes an error?
Is it a Hit Walk Or Hit By Pitch? NO!
Do you get credited with an OB under OBP in anyway despite the fact you were ON BASE when it was done? NO!
Is it recorded as an out? NO!
No! NO! NO! so you don’t know that the guy made an out maybe he did not make an out but because he got on via an error it was not reflected in his OBP but reflected in his AB which counts it as a PA and not a hit walk or HBP under OBP.
Sorry Slappy but you don’t even know how OBP is recorded, your assuming that if a guy didn’t walk, get hit by a Pitcher or get a hit that he made an out. NOT TRUE!
OBP is nothing more than adding walks hits and HBP to determine the OB.
It does NOT count, RBOE! In fact PA is not REALLY used in the OBP metric at all but I guess you didn’t know that!
PA would be the amount of times a Batter faced a pitcher not just a count of AB + Walks + HBP and + Sac Flies!
There are a whole slew of things that OBP will not account for. Which just happens to be the reason why you guys claim OBP is better than BA because BA doesn’t account for everything that can happen in a PA either.
But what BA reflects is the amount the BATTER HIMSELF contributed, Not the Pitcher, Not the poor defense, And yes it even takes into account PRODUCTIVE OUTS such as the Sac Fly being a wash because despite the out it moved a runner up a base even if it wasn’t one base to the batter himself!
SO your whole belief system that because a guy did not get a hit, walk or HBP that he made an out is really quite ignorant and childish!
He could have reached on error and not produced a single out!
Problem is you THINK OBP takes into account results from every PA but it doesn’t!
“…Keith Hernandez ( a man who knows a little bit about hitting) and Gary Cohen lament the effect that this OBP nonsense just may not be good for baseball in the long run, although not in those exact words….
I’ve been saying that for the longest time.
These guys are trained professional HITTERS not takers.”
Once again my friend Bayonne stumbles with facts and logic. Keith is someone who has a career as a professional hitter. But Gary is a professional announcer and just a fan. If Bayonne thinks Gary is qualified to make pronouncements on OBP and similar weighty matters, it probably explains why Bayonne thinks he is qualified too.
Laughable.
He is qualified and you already know that. He’s there and you and I are here so we’re less qualified I guess.
I guess you shouldn’t post anymore then until you are qualified. You haven’t a learned a lot in all your years ol’ man
Again, you have trouble with the English language. Who is “he”?
Gary (NO)
Keith (YES)
Bayonne (NO)
Bayonne you can leave my years of wisdom out of it. Your amateurishness speaks for your lack of wisdom, if not for your years.
Well at least you didn’t copy and paste your own quotes from another post and try to pass them off as some type of legitimate reviews so you’re learning.
That was a classic.
maybe the sox should fire theo and hire keith. theo hasnt even played the game!
GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU DARN KIDS!!!!
I guess that’s supposed to be an attempt at humor and/or sarcasm but making a point would probably be a better idea.
“making a point would probably be a better idea.”
So when are you going to start?
Read the article again though. I know you know what i’m talking about so make a point and let’s see your take on it.
That’s the funny part.
That’s the problem. You and Metsie think you are actually making valid points.
‘Batters are taking TOO many pitchers instead of just being themselves and doing what got them to the bigs in the first place.’
What?
The level of pitching in the major leagues is vastly superior to any level in the minors. If these kids coming up aren’t constantly making adjustments to compensate for the level of pitching they’re now facing, they’ll never make it in the majors. A major league pitcher has an arsenal far superior to most minor league pitchers and they’ve refined the art of using it to keep professional major league hitters off balance. You’re not facing that quality in the minors.
Your performance in the minors might be what got you up here but it’s not going to be what keeps you up here.
Funny you should include Franceour in your argument. He’s a prime example of a success story in the minors who came up here and after limited success, fell off the map – for several years. Prime example of a batter who refused to wrap his brain around the concept of ‘what got him here, isn’t going to keep him here’. That blows your theory of ‘just being themselves and doing what got them to the bigs in the first place’ right out of the water. He’s having success in the early going here in 2011 and only time will tell if it finally got through to his brain that hacking at the first good pitch he thinks he sees – as he did in the minors – is not going to bring him any success up here.
Bad ball hitters will always exist. It’s just the way it is. Everybody sees the ball different and what works for some hitters may not work for others. You can’t make everybody behave the same way and it’s not gonna happen, either.
I must say I love how everybody points to Francoeur as though he’s proving people wrong. A) He had a hot start B) He’s having a year right now that doesn’t match any pace he had ever in his career and C) Look at his April numbers to his May. He’s coming back down to earth.
I used Franceour as a prime example of a batter that was a ‘can’t miss’ type prospect in the minors. One, who once he came up here, stubbornly refused to make the necessary adjustments required for being successful in the majors.
There’s a direct correlation for someone who was quoted as saying “If on-base percentage is so important, then why don’t they put it up on the scoreboard?” and someone who stubbornly refused to alter his mindset at the plate from what worked for him in the minors.
It’s worked for him in the majors too. You’re not gonna hit one way in the minors and completely change it once you get to the majors. Sure, adjustments can be made but your overall hitting style will never change.
Frenchy is gonna live and die by this, guarantee it. What you see is what you get and right now it’s working for him. Will it continue to work? We’ll see.
As long as he SEES the ball good he can swing any darn way he pleases. If you can SEE the ball good coming off the pitcher’s it doesn’t matter what your stance is or whatever your approach is. It does not matter.
Bottom line is to win baseball games, you have to score runs.
To score runs, you have to get on base.
That’s why OBP is tracked and GMs are looking at it.
to score runs you have to hit to drive them in.
Runs are down because people are getting on base but nobody is driving them in because they’re too busy “working the pitcher”
You’re a book read chick and I’ve been there. Take it from me.
Actually first to score runs somebody has to touch first base safely.
Runs are down because the crop of pitchers are superior to the hitters and likely in part due to the lack of HGH.
To try and credit it to the fact a player draws a walk and not a hit is pretty dumb.
When you talk, do you just hope what you say is true?
League averages 2004: 1484 hits, 541 bb
2005: 1466 to 507
2006: 1502 to 528
2007: 1499 to 536
2008: 1466 to 545
2009: 1451 to 554
2010: 1418 to 526 (“year of the pitcher”)
You realize 526 is the lowest average of walks since 2005 right?
To walk 10 miles you HAVE to first walk 5.
Is the first 5 more important than the last 5?
Did walking 5 miles CAUSE you to walk 10?
Touching the base is the BY PRODUCT of doing something good in the batter box. What you will do in the BATTER’S BOX is not determined by touching the base!
OBP is relying on Reverse Causality!
Your using OBP to determine what a players potential contribution in the batters box will be based on if he touched a base or not!
Well a guy who only walks will be as good as a HR hitter if thats all you look at!
And since GETTING A HIT is the only thing a batter TRULY contributes on his own (walks and HBP are contributed by the PITCHER) you are making a decision that PlayerX will contribute based on numbers that include things he did not contribute to!
You are basially LYING to yourself if you ignore the BA!
.400 OBP can be a .250 Hitter!
No Matter how many PAs he has those numbers can happen!
And if you didn’t bother to look at his BA you will never know what your getting which makes OBP a GUESSING GAME not a real deep analysis as some would believe it is!
That would prove our point. The approach is wrong – There’s less hits, less walks, ect because the hitters have the wrong idea up there.
It’s not the ONLY reason why, but I think it could be part of the problem…..and if you want to say the hitting is down now because of lack of HGH, you also have to remember that pitchers were on it too – like Clemens, pettitte, ect.
It’s like a hitter trying to hit a HR every time he comes up. He’s going to wind up hitting LESS HR’s because it’s a bad approach.
Then you would say something like: “well hitters trying to hit HR’s every time they come up, isn’t the problem because HR’s are down.”
The hitters have the wrong idea when they are coming up to bat, so that’s one of the reasons why the numbers are down.
Whats the matter jessup was my question too difficult for you to answer?
And you are ignorant. This is the reason so many of your comments are attacked and/or written off.
You’re a throw back to an era gone by.
You’re seriously attacking people now who might read books. I mean, REALLY? You ought to try it yourself once in a while. You might not come across as ignorant and antiquated as you so often do.
“You’re a throw back to an era gone by.”
This is a great era if your a pitcher. I mean, the hitters are just so passive that if you make a bad pitch in a hitters count they are gonna take it because they are trying to draw walks and “work the pitcher” instead of swinging the bat.
and the result of that? teams are scoring less runs.
Ok, I’m exaggerating here a little bit, but I’m seeing that happen ALOT, Keith has been talking about all season long, and he’s right.
This is the problem you guys are having: Your thinking like a GM, and Bayonne is thinking like a hitter.
Maybe this OBP thing is good for GM’s, but not for players. Like Bayonne said about that kid Worley from the Phillies, he was giving the Mets good pitches to hit, and the Mets were taking them. The Mets walked four times against him, but they scored no runs.
your OK with that approach?
That approach is no good. The first good pitch you get is the one you want to conclude your AB on but you won’t get it if you put yourself in a hole. Why? because you didn’t make the pitcher come in.
Just like Metsie’s analysis of Murphy’s AB where he hit the HR. Murphy got the pitch because he didn’t swing at the balls. He made Clippard bring it in and deduced that he would bring in the change up after Murphy was ahead of his FB.
Now that’s what good plate discipline does. It gets you good pitches to hit.
That’s thinking like a hitter.
Not what I said…
Murphy did swing at some balls in that AB. Two of the fastballs with two strikes were balls that were close enough to call a strike!
One up High and one inside!
He fought off those fastball Balls that were close enough to call a strike and the pitcher had to throw a Changeup for one!
And he hung it!
It was fouling off the two Pitcher Pitch fastballs that made the AB a success, not jst laying off the changeups that missed.
What approach is no good? You don’t even know what you’re saying.
I KNOW what a good approach is…for ME. Murphy has a natural good eye. Not all hitters are like that and you CANNOT make everybody do the same thing. Period.
Give me Vlad Guerrero and his bad ball swinging over Murphy and his good eye any day.
Murphy is a .265 hitter with a good eye. SO WHAT! lol. We’ve just cracked some kind of code here?
You DO NOT consciously go up there thinking “I’m going to work the pitcher” IT does not work that way. You guy up there being yourself and READY TO HIT. Some guys have better eyes than others and different approaches.
You CANNOT make everybody do the same thing. Period.
This “good plate discipline” NONSENSE that everybody is talking about is sooooo easy in theory but it’s an entirely different ballgame in practice. Leave that to the coaching staff because if you want people to change the way they hit it’s not gonna happen.
Metsie he didn’t fight off those FB’s He fought to GET those FB’s by NOT swinging at the low and outside change ups’s. When he got them, he just missed them but after being out in front of Clippard’s final fastball, Clippard/Ramos decided to throw the change but since he hadn’t nibbled at it when it was a ball Clippard was forced to bring it up and in.
Perhaps more up and in than he wanted but Murphy still forced him to bring the change up to a spot where could hit it with authority.
That’s hitting. Making the pitcher throw strikes. Hey if wants to throw nothing but balls he’s not going to be around very long. They’ll find someone who won’t walk the park unless he’s facing a lineup of guys like Francouer, Feliciano, Barajas, who swing at everything. Then he could be successful but against good hitters he has no chance. He’ll be back in the minors in no time.
Two of those fastballs were probably balls dude, Don’t try to say otherwise I took notes before I did my piece on that at bat!
If he had been taking everything that could have been a ball he would have walked not hit a HR!
I don’t buy that for one second. He was all over that last foul ball. Hit it perfect. Just way out in front. That was the pitch he was looking/hopeing for.
But what I really would like you to answer is this: What do you think the result of his AB would have been if he had swung at those first three change ups?
Do you have to get ON Base? Or merely touch one?
If you hiot a home run did you have to get ON base? Or merely TOUCH ONE?
I will give the standard analogy question again.
To walk 10 miles, you have to walk 5 miles!
Did walking 5 Miles CAUSE you to walk 10 Miles? Or did walking 10 miles CAUSE you to walk 5 twice?
Scoring runs can be done by a lot of things depending on the situation.
What causes the scored run depends on the act that CAUSED it to score.
If you drive in a guy on base it wasn’t the guy on base that caused himself to score. It was the guy who did something to LET him score. So OB is not a CAUSE, just a contributor.
It warrants looking into but it does not tell you anything about potential RS. Even when OBP tells you it will be high it doesn’t address run scoring or ability to score runs in any meaningful way!
Even if a player had a 1.000 OBP it’s still MORE likely he will NOT score as to recording an RS.
His scoring chances are based on what the guy behind him does, not what he himself brings to the table!
Unless that 1.000 OBP is a HR!
Absolutely correct SRT. There are two types of pitchers in AAA. Those who’s stuff isn’t good enough to pitch up here, and those that aren’t ready yet.
Considering how many rehab projects teams take a chance on every year to round out their rotation, no one needs to explain just how big the difference between those in AAA and the Majors are in ability.
If you think your going to come up to the Majors and hit enough in 0-1, 0-2, and 1-2 counts to make a living you are out of your mind. Swinging at everything is the easiest way to ensure that your never going to get enough good pitches to hit inorder to have any offensive value.
Sure you can talk about a handful of Hall of Famers to make your case but that’s lunacy. Out of thousands upon thousands of guys who have actually MADE it to the Majors, only a couple hundred or so are in the HOF. They made it to the HOF because they could do what others COULDN’T.
The rest have to adjust and adapt. Francouer, to date hasn’t. There is a guy who to me is extremely similar to Francouer in talent and even plays the same position who did adjust, did go to all fields, did learn to get into hitters counts, did take his walks, did have a high BA, OB and SLG%, did win multiple World Series rings AND the admiration of everyone he played with. Francouer COULD be like Paul O’Neil because the only thing keeping Francouer from being O’Neil is he loads up to swing big, doesn’t recognize pitches, doesn’t get pitches, rarely gets into a hitters count, can’t keep his AB’s alive and is afraid to hit with two strikes. Now O’Neil was never a bad OB guy but at age 30 the light came on and from then on his BA, OB, and SLG took off. Helped no doubt by similar approaches taken by Bernie, Tino, Posada. That was a tough 3-6 to have to work through. Maybe the light will come on for Jeff someday, but if it isn’t soon he’ll have to make the climb back up from the minors and will probably always be regarded as a suspect.
I know it’s only one AB but it illustrates what Francouer has done to himself. In the World Series, THE FREAKIN’ WORLD SERIES. Runner on 3B 1 out needs a GB to the right side or a SAC, bare minimum to tie the game. You could guess everything will be inside to take away the GB to 2B so he KNOWS inner half is all he has to look for. Pitcher KNOWS he doesn’t even have to show the illusion of a strike. Throws a cutter Francouer hit inches off his neck on the first pitch. GB to third, 5-3. Runner gets stranded. Typical Francouer. One of O’Niels most famous AB’s came in game 1 2000 World Series. Fouled off slider after slider and then instead of swinging at a ball takes the walk.
Pitch recognition, adapting your swing to the situation, not being selfish by swinging at stuff you can’t do anything with, taking the walk if that’s the best thing offered, not being afraid to hit with two strikes. That’s the difference between O’Neil and Francouer.
Whew. I was beginning to wonder if anyone who read this blog gets it.
You’ve restored my faith in the intelligence of at least some baseball fans out there.
Can I just ask something silly?
“I just wanted to take the opportunity to note that it was REFRESHING to hear Keith Hernandez ( a man who knows a little bit about hitting) and Gary Cohen lament the effect that this OBP nonsense just may not be good for baseball in the long run, although not in those exact words.”
What were the exact words? I’m having a tough time reading a blog about something somebody said… but didn’t say?
Also, I think what people like you don’t truly understand is that people like me recognized OBP as an undervalued stat back in 2000 ish when not many people cared about it. So it’s value increased because GM’s like Beane or Theo with Mueller could gobble up players who didn’t have sexy numbers like the generic GM would look for.
Now, nobody undervalues it. Do some overvalue? Of course… but it’s not as though GM’s around the league are dismissing OBP. It’s part of the conversation, and a big part.
To me, you can learn a lot about a player by their OPS. In fact, I look at SLG first in a lot of cases. The point of SLG, OBP, OPS is to show that BAVG is not the best measuring tool of a player. That’s what you continue to miss. It’s not that people are saying everything else is unimportant, it’s that we are saying other stats are as or more important.
Jessup I will paraphrase since I can’t recal the actual words he used but Kieth has lamented the fact that many Met players have been taking middle plate fastballs on 2-0, 3-0 and 3-1 and seemed to be taking all the way!
Keith was basically saying your up there to hit and not walk.
A good eye is used to get you into a HITTERS COUNT and once there the goal is to HIT the pitch you know is going to be fastball down broadway.
He also said that the reason we have left a lot of guys on base stranded is because we are not HITTING in a HITTERS count and wasting a good opportunity by taking a pitch that is 99.9% predictable as a middle plate fastball!
guys who are taking hittable pitches are probably bad OBP guys because obp is about recognizing pitches, not just taking them. thats why the great sluggers have such high OBP. they are sluggers because they have a good eye. its not about taking pitches, its about taking bad pitches.
I disagree Martin….(Not with all of it but the premise)
They have High OBP because they are good hitters and can GET THEMSELVES on base. Then with that high starting off point a Pitcher will walk them a few times trying to be careful. It is the BA that inspires that behavior!
Yes those players have a good eye but the eye isn’t judging the strikezone as much as it is judging the Hittability of a pitch. The good eye is about putting the bat on the ball not dicerning strikes and balls.
The strikes and balls are not determined as strikes or balls by the batter they are determined to be hittable or not. Most Balls are not hittable most strikes are!
But there are numerous instances where a ball outside of the zone belt high get hit because the batter identifies it as a HITTABLE PITCH!
He did not hold back because his eye determined it was a ball…He hit it because his eye determined it was a pitch to hit despite the fact it would have been called a ball!
The same can be said for those Golfing homers. Those golf swing HRs are not being made on strikes but more likely balls. The batters good eye made him connect but his eye didn’t tell him BALL it told him HIT THIS!
So while we have forever said a guy who takes a close pitch has a good eye a good eye is not about taking pitches (as you said), but because he has the GOOD EYE to adjust his swing to the movement of the pitch his eye allows him to HIT the ball which leads to higher BA which also leaves OBP higher based off the BA that increased it.
But if you think that OBP tells you what your getting your mistaken because OBP by itself does not address the eye it addresses the result without explaining WHY that result occurred!
A guy who walks a lot may not have a GOOD EYE! Not as good of one as a guy who HITS and walks!
And since OBP doesn’t tell you how much a guy hits and NOT HITTING can still lead to high OBP if you walk a lot the high OBP really doesn’t say squat about the batter’s eye!
So a pitcher throws a pitch just off the black of the plate on the outside corner. Jose Bautista lays off of it for ball 4, while Jeff Francoeur swings at it and pops it up on the infield to the 2nd baseman.
You’re telling me that Bautista doesn’t have a better skill than Jeff Francoeur to identify which pitches are going to be strikes and balls? Pitch recognition is one of the most important skills for a hitter. On close pitches, it’s less about the pitcher and more about the hitter laying off.
Am I right or am I right?
No your wrong…Carlos Beltran and any GOOD hitter usually puts it in the seats for a HR!
Because it is a hittable pitch even despite the fact it was not a strike!
If Bautista was a GOOD HITTER he would HIT a VERY HITTABLE pitch as opposed to let it go so his War will go up!
But the example I’m giving you is not a hittable pitch. It’s off of the outside of the plate and Jose Bautista is a pull hitter. If Jose Bautista tries to pull that pitch, he doesn’t hit it for a home run. He grounds out weakly or hits a weak line drive that is likely caught because he hits it off the end of the bat.
Well if it is that far out of the zone then why is it a skill of the hitter to lay off it and not a GIFT of the pitcher?
Huh?
Or is this Baseball theory only apply when Bautista is at the plate?
Therein lies the difference between Bautista and Beltran I guess…
Keep changing the example to get just the one situation your theory works in.
Just as some tweak their stats to get the one situation theior metric works in to prove a BELIEF!
I gave you the example and you are the one that’s changing it. Keep going with the strawmen arguments.
By the way if you have a second, go look at Captain Kirk’s numbers. Everybody had heat for him the last 2 years… go look at the last 2 years and this year and tell me what is different about him that makes him a better hitter? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not his batting average
Excuse me Jessup but getting on base is not HITTING. Hitting is the act opf putting the bat on the ball and hitting to a part of the field where it can’t be caught!
OBP is about not making outs not about getting HITS!
And the batter is the only one that can make his PA a hit!
The Pitcher is the only one who can make a PA a walk or a HBP!
Batter can’t force the pitcher to hit him or throw him 4 balls!
If someone gave you a winning lottery ticket you would not be able to say you picked the right numbers to win the lottery. The guy who gave you the ticket did!
You want to credit the Batter with recognizing the gift thats fine but passivly recognizing a gift is not as skillful as taking a NON gift and crushing it for a hit!
WHich means OBP is a nice consolation prize to a guy who didn’t get a hit and OBP judges how much of his PAs were not an out but if you want to judge the players actuall HITTING skills (as defined above) then you need to look at BA!
It is good BA that determines the pitcher’s willingness to pitch around you and give up the walk.
No guy with a high OBP is going to be pitched around by a pitcher unless his BA warrants it!
No one in their right mind would say “Hey this guy walks a lot I need to be careful and pitch around him!”
But if the guy has a high BA then not only will they say that they might even walk him intentionally!
This is the logic that escapes many of the people who think OBP is better than BA!
You clearly have no idea what makes a good hitter.
So explain something to me.
When Albert Pujols comes to bat and the Mets pitch around him, could that be because he’s a (wait for it) good hitter?
Half of being a good hitter is the fact you force pitchers to throw strikes. If you allow pitchers to throw the ball all over the place and you’ll swing, you’re a much easier out. I can’t even imagine how somebody can argue against that?
They walk around him because he HITS THE BALL, Not because he takes pitches that are BALLS!
Ther are a LOT of strikes that are not fat pitches you know….
The Strike at the letters is almost impossible to hit. High and Tight especially. The low sinking on the in or outside breaking ball is also very hard to hit! . They are just as much strikes as the fat pitch down the middle but the guy who hits those are the GOOD HITTERS!
Good Hitters who can hit ANY strike and have FEW strikeout vulnerability zones are the ones who get walked around because you don’t want to get anywhere near where the guy can hit you!
To the Pitcher the WALK is better than the HIT because the Hit is usually for extra bases or a HR!
THOSE are the guys who get pitched around!
Not the guys with High OBP!
It’s Pujols POWER that gets him those careful or intentional walks. Not his OBP! His OBP is high because he is a HITTING THREAT! Not a good eye walking threat!
but pujols has a crazy high OBP
meaning you are correct, pujols is walked because he is a hitting threat. so his high obp indicates he is a good player. but it doesnt matter why your obp is high. as long as it is high. a leadoff man with little power is still awesome if he has an OBP of 400.
look at the OBP leaders. they are the best guys in the league, by far.
Here is the list in the top 10 of OBP…
1. B Augenstein
STL P 5 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 1.000
2. B Lyon
HOU P 12 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 1.000 2.000 1.000
3. B Sanches
FLA P 13 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 1.000
4. J Happ
HOU P 8 13 1 6 1 0 0 3 7 2 6 0 0 .533 .538 .462
5. J Bautista
TOR OF 31 109 31 39 7 1 13 23 87 35 19 4 1 .517 .798 .358
6. J Ely
LAD P 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 .500 .000 .000
7. J Flores
WSH – 2 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 .500 .500 .500
8. M Maier
KC OF 9 12 4 4 1 1 0 2 7 4 5 0 0 .500 .583 .333
9. G Reynolds
COL P 2 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 .500 .500 .500
10. R Zimmerman
WSH 3B 8 28 5 10 0 1 1 4 15 7 5 0 0 .486 .536 .357
Tell me which one is the BEST GUYS in the league from that list?
OBP doesn’t tell you who is the best. Having a high OBP doesn’t make you the BEST player but being the best players you have HIGH OBP because your GOOD not just a high OBP player but a high on EVERY stat player…
But you OBP guys just can’t get past the coincidence of that.
GOOD players have GOOD numbers which will include OBP!
But High OBP number doesn’t mean they good at players! They could be awful but walked a lot!
some of those are pitchers, silly, find a list with a proper number of minimum AB
haha man what a treat on Sunday morning.
You’re basing an argument by using pitcher’s hitting stats? Do you understand how ridiculously sad this makes you and your point of view look?
Bad players don’t get minimum number of bats dopey!
Your value sustem says they are GOOD PLAYERS!
But the reality is they are not and don’t get into the game!
Samples are irrelevant. If your theory and approach on OBP were true it would work under ANY conditions, not just with the list of the top hitters in the league!
Yes Jessup. I’m using your value system to determine who is a GOOD HITTER and the names that came out were Pitchers.
What does that say about your system of evaluation?
And I guess you are admitting that the sampling and PAs are the most important stat since you guys keep running to it whenever someone shows you an OBP statistical anomoly you guys claimed CAN’T EXIST!
Excuse me. Hitting is the biggest part of getting OB. Out weighs every other way of getting on combined by 3-1.
Yes but many here thing OB is the biggest part of hitting…Too bad walks and getting hit by a pitch is not actually HITTING as the bat isn’t involved in either!
I saw you wrote this
“Sandy Alderson is going to have to relearn that because I’m telling you, if they stick to this OBP ideology in the Mets minor leagues it’s gonna change the culture of athletic competition in the minors here and NOT for the better either. ”
Which is pretty funny considering my Captain Kirk note. Kirk is walking a ton more than he ever has before. It’s making him a smarter hitter. When you force pitchers to throw strikes, you become a better hitter and a tougher out. Going up there and hacking away doesn’t do anything to teach a minor leaguer how to hit in the big leagues.
Some have to hack to have success, it’s just the way it works. Not EVERYONE is the same and I guarantee you with Kirk it’s more about learning how to see the ball better than actually forcing the pitcher to throw strikes which is more of an abstract idea in the first place.
For example, I was a hacker who had a good eye and walked a lot. What do I mean by that? I ALWAYS went up there looking fastball because I knew I had the wherewithal to adjust to curveballs. If it was a good curveball that split second difference in speed allowed me to take the ball to RF, even though my reaction was a split second later cuz I was looking fastball I was still able to see it and react to it. My mechanics would be a little off because of that reaction but that’s just me, that’s just one hitter. Another guy may do it differently. Some guess hit, I never was a guess hitter. Keith Hernandez was a guy who went up there looking fastball all the time too.
Now if a slower curve came in then you have a split second more to react and could wind up pulling it. But that’s just one hitter’s approach.
What I mean by being a hacker who walked a lot is that I ALWAYS went up at bat looking for something to hit and more often than not was ready to hit the first pitch too depending on the situation. Why I wound up walking a lot and being a leadoff type hitter was because I naturally had a good eye. You learn about what pitches you like to swing up and what ones you don’t. I would actually look the ball all the way into the mitt when I took a pitch but i was ALWAYS ready to swing at good pitches.
I NEVER intentionally went up there to work the pitcher and I think to actually try and to that in practice is sacrificing your own approach and NOT a good idea at all.
Never sacrifice your own approach but be smarter when certain situations come up.
Forcing the pitcher to throw strikes is in now way an abstract idea. No one who has ever been in a batters box could possibly come up with this drivel.
If you and your teammates swing at stuff off the plate you won’t get strikes. No one that has played above high school would disagree with this unless they were just in it to grip it and rip it and to hell with the outcome.
Probably with a .110 BA.
Really for people who purport to “know the game” this is just elementary stuff. Baseball 101.
If you don’t make the pitcher throw strikes he never will. Why would he if he can get you out without putting the ball over the plate?
You don’t “Consciously” go up there thinking to yourself I’m gonna make the pitcher throw strikes. As a batter I already know what I’m going to do, i’m already a smart hitter so and I already know most likely i won’t swing at a bad pitch.
I don’t go up there thinking “I will make him throw strikes”
That’s just a result of your approach. It just looks that way.
It’s like saying such and such pitcher is pitching to contact. He’s missing bats. Those are expressions. They don’t really happen.
A pitcher cannot consciously “miss bats”. Nolan Ryan misses bats cuz he has in incredible fast ball and curve. He’s not going up there thinking I will attempt to throw this and miss that bat.
Conversely guys like Greg Maddux have different type of stuff but they don’t purposely “pitch to contact”
Guys like that induce batters to hit it certain ways. There’s no such thing as “pitching to contact” Your stuff may be more hittable than another pitcher but you don’t “pitch to contact”. I guess you CAN say it but it’s more of an expression than an act.
Now disagree.
Wait a second… you’re telling me now that there is no such thing as a pitcher who pitches to contact such as Mike Pelfrey?
Are you also really trying to tell me that teams do not force a pitcher like RA Dickey to throw strikes by being patient?
Am I really reading this?
If I step into a box and swing at whatever you throw, no matter where it is in the zone… I’m terrible. Forcing you to pitch within the strike zone by being patient, gives me a better chance at reaching base safely.
You two are honestly lost now. Your blind hatred for the front office that works for the team you love has forced you into thinking a batter doesn’t need to force a pitcher into putting the ball in or near the strike zone.
Let me ask you a real silly question.
If my team is winning in the 9th by 1 run
We are winning in the Top of the 9th.
My team has 2 outs.
If you come up to the plate and Pujols is on deck and you work the count to 3 balls and 1 strike.
Don’t I *have* to throw you a strike on this pitch? I don’t want to put the tying run on base with a walk for Pujols on deck do I?
So this idea that you don’t work counts, don’t try and get on base and don’t force a pitcher to throw strikes is a complete farce.
I said pitching to contact is more of an expression than actual practice. Read again please. The expression is more a reflection of the type of stuff they have. You’re not gonna say Nolan Ryan is pitching to contact.
Also, if i’m batting ahead of Albert Pujols with 2 outs in top of ninth and he’s on deck. That means i’m a number 2 hitter so i’m probably a good hitter and I’m gonna be up there to do my thing. If’ it’s a new pitcher i may take the first strike to get a look but after that if it’s in there i’m swinging. And that’s the way it should be. I know i have a good eye so i most likely will not swing at a bad pitch. But having a good eye is also not an easy talent at all.
So if if the count goes to 3-1 yeah it looked like i worked the count to that but in reality i didn’t. I just have a good approach. So yes, i’m expecting the pitcher to throw a strike.
I’m not gonna give up what works for me best in order to hope the pitcher throws a ball. lol, it doesn’t work that way. And that is in essence what you’re asking. The answer is no.
You asked your question from the defensive team’s point of view and I answered it from the offensive teams point of view
They force RA dickey to throw strikes about as much as I can FORCE YOU to say or do something I want you to do!
RA throws a strike when he WANTS to not when the Batter holds out to force him to.
What if a Pitcher CAN’T throw a strike like Ollie Perez?
Can the batter force him to throw a strike?
Get withing the laws of PHYSICS! Baseball is a PHYSICAL game by and large. The Mental is about PREDICTION not COERSION!
If you wait till the Pitcher that has a choice of throwing ball 4 and walking you or throwing a strike, the choice is still his!
If you hit like Albert Pujols then he could just as easily decide to throw Ball 4 and not allow the guy to hit!
Did the batter DO something to MAKE THAT BALL 4 HAPPEN?
Not in the current at bat. And he did not FORCE a pitcher to throw him a strike he did not want to throw!
SO POOF goes the notion that the batter can FORCE a Pitcher to throw a strike by waiting!
The only thing WAITING does is give you a few more chances to get that strike you can hit!
But that doesn’t FORCE it to come at all!
Thats a rediculous way to look at an AB!
The Batters past BA might encourage a pitcher to not throw that player any hittable pitches. And he will try and bait the batter by nibbling hoping to get the guy to swing at balls or get one or two close calls.
And if he falls behind he never give that STRIKE you think the batter forced.
Encouraged him yes….FORCED HIM NEVER!
You so crazy, Metsie.
Carzy like Fox Senor!
Too bad you just don’t have the stones to back up what others have said and you took hook line an stinker like a crappie in a dirty pond!
“Forcing the pitcher to throw strikes is in now way an abstract idea. No one who has ever been in a batters box could possibly come up with this drivel.”
No it’s not abstract it’s ludicrous!
You mean if you don’t swing the pitcher HAS to throw you a strike?
How many times do you have to NOT SWING to GUARANTEE the next pitch is a strike Tag?
Please enlighten us so we can do the math to prove if your correct!
Of course it’s insane. It’s just an expression.
Imagine going up to the box and thinking to yourself – I will make this guy throw strikes. Not happening because I’m too busy preparing for what I’ve got to do and that’s get a hit. I’m looking at where i’m gonna pick up the ball. I may take a strike my first time up to get a look but that’s how you play baseball. But i’m going up there to do damage. Since I was the type of hitter who was a leadoff hitter who walked a lot…. If my approach spawns certain types of expressions like “make the pitcher work” than fine. But i’m not consciously doing it, it’s just my style. Maybe somebody else who’s a different hitter than me doesn’t like to walk.
And if he’s the 3rd place hitter on my team he BETTER not like to walk. He probably will get more walks as a result of pitchers pitching around him.
Now i’m getting annoyed talking about walking so much! lol
Yeah, I’m sure Hernandez walked 471 times in 880 games as a Met because pitchers were dying to face Foster, Carter, Strawberry, Hojo, and Knight with men on base.
Keith walked that much because of his own ability, not anyone else’s.
Keith always had a great eye. And yes it is as simple as that.
Foster yes…Hit into a DP on a daily basis especially with the slow fotted Hernandez on first!
Of Course it was Keith’s ability. That’s why he was a great hitter. Pitchers couldn’t get him out by throwing balls so they threw him strikes. He hit ‘em. When they didn’t he took the free pass.
Very simple, very basic.
Ok then tell me which FORCE oF NATURE Keith used on the pitcher to force him to throw him strikes?
Hmmm?
What ability did Keith have?
Did he use the Vulcan Mind Meld or was it more telekinetic like a betazoid?
You MIGHT get away with saying Keith inspired him to throw him balls. But nothing Keith could do would force the guy to throw strikes if he didn’t want to!
Tell us what POWER Keith used already and stop trying to make it out like the Batter has some magic way to tell the pitcher what he wants him to throw at him!
Metsie, a pitcher cannot walk the park. If he does he’s going to lose his job. He HAS to throw strikes unless the opposing lineup cooperates by turning balls into strikes.
Your right in that no hitter can force a pitcher to throw strikes, but his manager will have him out of there if he doesn’t. Same result just taking it to a different degree.
Velocity and arsenal allow some pitchers to get away with throwing more balls than others because hitters have to start their swings earlier, guess more and turn some of those balls into strikes thereby putting themselves in a hole. A phrase incidentally that I have heard thousands of times over the years going all the way back to the 60′s.
Everything suffers, BA, OBP, SlG%, RBI, everything when a hitter puts himself in a hole.
Everyone who’s ever been in a batters box knows the difference between hitting 2-1 and 1-2. It’s plain and simple HUGE.
I’m a HUGE proponent of swinging at the first pitch if you get what your expecting/hopeing for especially with RISP. This helps you get into hitters counts in subsequent AB’s because pitchers remember “he jumped on my first pitch fastball last time up.” Pitchers subsequently will start to mix it up with harder to locate type stuff on 0-0 meaning you’ll have MORE 1-0 counts to begin your AB’s with and then you can really TEE OFF.
In fact Keith recently made this exact point and then when when the hitter took another ball on 1-0 he said “even better 2-0, now he can just look one half of the plate.” Very very true statement by one of the Majors best hitters who consistently got himself into a hitters counts by not swinging at balls. A man by the way who had a lifetime .296 BA and .384 OB%. A guy who didn’t get OB at so much of a higher percentage than his BA by “putting himself in a hole.”
Lately there have been instances where Met Hitters were passive with men OB and that should never happen. Strikes should be turned into runs with RISP by hitting the ball. #8 hitters should never let a hittable pitch go unswung at with 2 out and RISP but that’s not what this arguement is about. This arguement is about bashing the new front office because some people prefer the monkeyball approach to building a team despite it’s continual failure to deliver (except when the NL East has either one or no other contending teams in it)
The facts are that last year we only out scored Houston, Pittsburgh and Washington (by one run) and only Pittsburgh and Houston got OB less often than we did.
No one was using the fact that that in YEAR SIX we had FOURTEEN “hitters” who got OB less often than TWO of our starting pitchers as a reason to bash the front office. Why in the first 6 weeks are the “fans” with an agenda picking out a bad game, week or AB to bash the new front office?
Agenda driven drivel. The “fans” with the agenda of “revolting and petitioning the owners to fire the new FO” have a vested interest in not building a well conceived team for the future. They don’t want to compete for a pennant year after year they want the Mets to continue to “pay players double” to come here and “spend more” despite the way that’s worked out over the last two decades. They don’t want a new approach. They expect to get different results by doing the same damn thing.
They want to short circuit the FO so they can get a GM that plays the old “who will we get for 5-10 different positions every year.” instead of building a team.
They want Monkeyball back.
They want to use a handful of AB’s over the first six weeks of the new administrations era while totally discounting a full ONE THIRD of the Met AB’s in year SIX inorder to force a return to the failed policies and short sighted philosophy of multiple administrations over the last TWENTY YEARS.
Very transparent. Very transparent indeed.
“Lately there have been instances where Met Hitters were passive with men OB and that should never happen. Strikes should be turned into runs with RISP by hitting the ball. #8 hitters should never let a hittable pitch go unswung at with 2 out and RISP but that’s not what this arguement is about.”
Nope that’s EXACTLY what this about – The mets hitters, and hitters around the league are being too passive – Maybe you should read Bayonne’s post again.
If somebody says ONE good thing about Omar or one bad thing about Alderson you think we “love” omar and w
Sorry. didn’t finish my post:
If sombody says ONE good thing about Omar or one bad thing about Alderson you think we “love” omar and want Alderson “fired” While that’s just not true at all.
I said a lot of bad things about Omar too – he made a lot of mistakes, and you know what? I wanted him fired at then end of last offseason. BUT I’m not gonna UNFAIRLY attack him, and 2nd guess every move he made like you do all the time.
And as for Alderson, I didn’t think he did a good job this offseason, that’s it. I don’t want him fired. He made a few OK moves, but i thought overall he did a bad job.
Vinny, extremist, shallow minded, nut jobs like Donal, Xtreemicon and most of all jessep, only see black and white. Thats why they write the things they do.
They only have two speeds; reverse and forward.
They are born with a genetic disorder often referred to as a God Complex.
They don’t feel the need to provide evidence for the outlandish claims they make because they expect us to simply buy in because of their perceived omnipotence.
They are the most arrogant, snarky, closed minded, self absorbed, creatures in existence.
There is no reasoning with them because they are incapable of understanding anything that would threaten their belief that like God they are perfect and are never wrong.
These are the types that one day end up going postal.
In their minds they are perfection personified, and when the realization finally dawns on them that they are merely cockroaches scurrying around aimlessly, you don’t want to be anywhere near them.
The fall from grace is always accompanied by unimaginable horror.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Oh please Tag I mean pick one or the other…
The Pitcher would be fired if HE is responsible for the walks so the Batter should get no credit for the Pitcher’s mistake!
Or the Batter FORCED it to happen and the Pitcher would stay employed because the Batter deserves credit for the walk…
Pick one and stick with it!
If the Pitcher can’t walk the park or he would lose his job then why would he walk the park if the BATTER FORCED HIM to throw strikes? Why not tell the manager the Batter FORCED me to throw balls? If he can force strikes and get credit for the walk then he can FORCE the walk as well no?
What force is the batter using on the Pitcher? Gravity? The Weak or Strong force? Physical violence? What is the nature of the force this batter uses to FORCE a strike to be thrown?
SO you just admitted what I was saying…the Batter doesn’t force the pitcher to throw strikes, the PITCHER forces the pitcher to throw strikes because he likes his job!
NOT because the Batter forced him to do anything he didn’t already want to do!
A good pitcher throws a strike that looks like a ball and balls that look like strikes.
Both are the kind of pitch that a better has to foul off with two strikes in case the umpire gets fooled!
T Agee…this is an excellent post. Wish I saw it earlier. The only that should matter is winning ballgames. We’ve seen what the “old school” method has brought us with guys like Phillips, Duquette and Minaya over the past 15 years. Let’s see what a different viewpoint can bring us.
Sad that some people only want to fight the battle of Old School vs Saber, when the battle we should be fighting is how does this team win and make the playoffs on a consistent basis.
Right Senor, with the intent of short circuiting the new administration which I believe has the long term interests of the team in mind, instead of the go for it every year approach that subsequently takes from the future and keeps us in this cycle of poverty.that we can rise above only in years when everyone else in the NL East flatlines.
I have no idea if they can pull it off. I do have concerns about DePo’s draft results with the Dodgers and we all know that it is sometimes possible to get the wrong results even with the right thought process but we have to give it a fair chance. I mean really, one NL East Pennant in 22 years and three crash and burn cycles.
What are we really giving up except misery?
Exactly. They’ve been a breath of fresh air so far with their competence, for the most part. The moves they made in the offseason were made mainly because they had little salary room to bring in anything bigger, so they had to bring in bargains and pray…a sound strategy for a team that probably wasn’t going to have the pitching to compete without an ace, anyway. Some guys worked, some guys didn’t work but luckily they’ve been quick in a few spots to switch guys out. Boyer and Emaus didn’t work? They replaced them quickly. And I’ve been happy with their DL management as well. That was a real killer under the Minaya reign, where they’d keep injured players on the roster for week. The Beato “injury” was the perfect way to handle it. He had a little pain, he could’ve stayed active but they automatically DL him as a precaution. That’s prevention and recovery, to steal a term from Jeff Wilpon’s vocab.
Yeah maybe this could be one of the reasons why runs scored are down. The whole OBP started around 2004 right? Right after the redsox won the WS…and isn’t 2005 or 2006 when RS started to go down?
Could there be a connection there? There might be.
And it wasn’t just last night’s game when the guys in the booth were talking about hitters around the league being too passive. They have been talking about that for a long time now.
Keith was moaning and groaning when the Astros were up last night because the batters were taking 2-0 and 3-1 pitches with runners in scoring in position and that’s what ignited the discussion with him and Gary and that’s when I jumped on it.
But you’re right, it’s been simmering for awhile. It’s just plain bad baseball.
OBP was first recorded in 1947 by the Brooklyn Dodgers and became an official MLB stat in 1984.
But you guys know better than someone like Branch Rickey, right? What did he ever accomplish?
And do all GM’s who had success agree with him? Nope.
I wasn’t talking about when OBP was recorded. I was talking about when a lot teams around the league started to use it and, fans of the game started to talk about it. I don’t think people in 1947 were talking about OB% and sabermetrics instead of batting averages RBI, ect.
Donal, I’m sure you’ve read this 1954 Life magazine article
http://books.google.com/books?id=9FMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA78#v=onepage&q&f=false
but perhaps others have not.
I like how the proponents of sabermetrics like to make it seem like we are a bunch of old guys who don’t like any changes to the game – like how one commenter said:”GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU DARN KIDS!!!!” and how Jeesep said Metsie’s veiws are “archaic”….And then they link an article from 1954 that supports their views.
What’s up with that? Wouldn’t that make them the old guys who don’t like any changes to the game? It’s kinda silly to try to make us look old, when your linking stuff that was written in 1954.
Oh and anyway, I know OBP has been around for a long time…..but my point is that it wasn’t until 2004 when the redsox’s won the WS, or after “Moneyball” was written that a lot teams started to hire sabermetric GM’s and hire stats guys, or whatever you call them – So around the time when sabermetrics popularity started grow, and teams started to hire guys who use it, runs scored dropped – I think there could be a connection there.
Because you KNOW all the players in the league are aware of how a lot of GM’s think OBP is very important – I think guys are trying to draw more walks now to raise OBP, so they can get bigger contracts, but the problem with that is, they are taking good pitched to hit, and actually LOWERING their OBP.
BINGO!
All the OBP fanatics are the Moneyball guys. They read a book that told them Oakland was a success and they bought into the lie and there fore took all the other lies in that book as the gospel as well!
And god forbid you try to talk a man out of his religion!
If they were secure self thinking individuals they would test the THEORIES in the book against reality and see that it really doesn’t have a happy ending in the real world.
Ok the RedSox won a couple of world series but compare that to the Yankees who don’t look for OBP at all yet still manage to lead the league in it every year!
Why?
Because they get guys with good BA and pitchers are scared of pitching to them!
Yeah and it died out after that. How come it didn’t revolutionize baseball going into the rest of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and so on.
Now it’s come up again, there’s a resurgence but hopefully it will die out again.
I’m sure there’s lots of little known books out there people can point to and go – see?
Hitters have become more passive without question. Instead of hitters they’ve become or are trying to become walkers, and those who dont walk get castigated and called out by saber minded sites. They launch a all out crusade against those players using twitter where the majority og them try to outdo themselves ith one-liners and snark all throughout a game. I think they enjoy those communal twitter gatherings more than watching the game. There are still plenty of baseball purists out there, but clearly they are now the minority. This new way of following baseball isnt based on players, passion or personalities. It’s just a numbers game to them and wins dont even please them when the game winning hit comes from a player who doesnt fit their ideal OBP type player. Warped.
take a look at the OBP leaders and tell if those guys are “walkers”. OBP is an indication of ability to judge pitches, which is the reason hitters are good. a guy who cant judge pitches is a bad hitter. and you can be a bad hitter while batting 280 if your obp is also 280. BECAUSE OBP IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT
“Hitters have become more passive without question.”
Emphatically not true. Recent walk rates are exactly at the historical rate since the “clean ball” era began in 1920. This season to date is at 99.98%, last season was 99.02%. The maximum walk rates were the late ’40s – early ’50s, a time which some would have us believe was the “Golden Age of Baseball.”
Why would anyone post this?
He didn’t mention anything about walks, he said hitters have become more passive.
So there was no reason to give the history of walks. Last night Gary and Keith, especially Keith were saying too many hitters are taking too many 2-0 and 3-1 hitters pitches for strikes with runners in scoring position when they should be swinging at these pitches driving in runs.
I noticed that also when Mets faced Vance Worley the other day at Philly. And I know this taking of too many pitches has been discussed elsewhere too, I think it was on MLB Network.
That’s not baseball, in baseball you’re supposed to be aggressive especially with runners in scoring position. You have to be looking to drive the ball in those situations not taking pitches.
Maybe that’s another reason runs are down. That’s not baseball, that’s not how you play the game.
That’s what Kranepool7 is talking about. He didn’t mention anything about walks
Actually i meant to say that when Mets faced Worley they were taking WAY too many first pitch strikes. And against a rookie, and doing it after the first time around. That’s why they lost that game because they weren’t aggressive.
Bad baseball
Ok, I can agree with that. I would always take the first pitch the first time a saw a pitcher in a game just to time his fastball. I could get an idea of movement from the on-deck circle, but I never could get a real good read on timing until I was in the batter’s box. Which may be why I’m a computer programmer and not a center fielder.
And I would curse the SOB if he threw a curve for a strike on the first pitch.
Batting average, counting stats and ultimately runs scored are a residual effect of good plate discipline and pitch recognition. If a batter makes a career of knowing the strike zone, taking walks when he gets nothing to hit and putting good swings on good pitches to hit, everything will go up. But before he gets the reputation as a hitter like that, he needs to prove he won’t get himself out and take the walks they’re given.
Daniel Murphy’s plate appearance in Washington is a microcosm of this approach. He had a nine or ten pitch at bat, fouling off close pitches, taking the bad ones and then got a changeup middle-middle and crushed it. That’s the best approach from a hitter I can remember recently, although I’m sure there’s more. (Note: I don’t remember everything, that’s why I look at the stats, because it records what the players do. Some of you people would do well to remember this.)
When your OBP goes up, everything else will follow because the hitter will get better pitches to hit.
“Batting average, counting stats and ultimately runs scored are a residual effect of good plate discipline and pitch recognition.”
Yes touching a base has very little affect on ANY of those things!
If OBP is meant to show these qualities then why is HBP counted in it as a Quality of the batter?
Why is that a BATTER success and not merely a Pitching Failure?
Then you go and say this which is quite BACKWARDS….
“When your OBP goes up, everything else will follow because the hitter will get better pitches to hit.”
Actually when everything else goes up the OBP follows because hitting the ball well causes the OBP to go up the OBP din’t cause you to hit the ball well!
OBP is a RESULT Count not a CAUSE Count!
It is incidental to what REALLY happened in the PA, An Out or a Walk or a Hit or a Bruise inflicted by the pitcher!
All your doing in OBP is making ALL ACTS equal in your analysis without details.
Your basically REMOVING information and then comparing.
It’s simple but reality is not so simple!
The OBP research works because it removes the outliers that OBP rank produces in the name of sampling rate and because the BEST HITTERS (guys with good BA) are all that are left you conclude that OBP shows you the answer. and it did, But only after you first got rid of all the outliers!
Like I have said many times.
Two Players .400 OBP, One hits .250 the other .350 Same PA
Which one are you taking based only on the OBP?
If you ignored the BA you had a 50/50 shot at taking the WRONG GUY!
This is why OBP is not the most important thing to look at. If you want High OBP just look for HIGH BA first! Then you have weeded out the bad hitters and the OBP can then be used to judge SIMILAR BA Players and choose among them!
OBP is IMO a complete BACKWARDS way to weed out BAD HITTERS!
Cause it can lie to you unless you eventually look at the BA to see exactly what yiou were getting in a HITTER!
“All your doing in OBP is making ALL ACTS equal in your analysis without details.
Your basically REMOVING information and then comparing.”
Says the guy championing batting average. You make my job so easy.
batting tells you how many times the Batter put the bat on the ball and hit it. Does OBP?
Whose job is so easy again?
Answer the question….
Who is the better player .400 OBP .250 BA or the .400OBP .350BA guy?
Tell us what about the OBP told you which one was better?
There is a challenge for you and OBP!
Since the OBP is equal, the .350 hitter is better. But I’d still look at SLG% first. After OBP and SLG%, if they’re equal, then I’d look at BA.
So what your saying is that OBP FAILED to pick the better player!
SLG could be equal as well provided the guy who hits more hits singles!
So then what? Have to limited you selection to GOOD HITTERS or just guys who MAY be good hitters after checking the Stats that DO tell you if he Hits or not!
So you say OBP is the most important but it can not tell you anything about the HITTER without looking at something else…
Why isn’t looking for the good HITTER first the MOST important thing and then using OBP to break the HITTING tie as opposed to looking for the OBP first and weeding out the Liars?
Point is OBP obscures Stats because it treats hits and things done by the pitcher as EQUAL. But one is the product of the HITTER and the other the product of the Pitcher. When the Pitcher changes the OBP prediction changes! Not so with the BA Prediction. He will get a hit based off his BA and if he doesn’t what happens after that will then be based on what his OBP would suggest!
OBP is a RESULT not an Accomplishment.
If you want ACCOMPLISHED players then looking at OBP first will leave you with a lot of guys who don’t deserve to make the list because they can’t hit!
But look for the high BA and the OBP is always going to be as good or better!
OBP should never be used except as a SECONDARY indicator!
OBP should not be the PRIMARY GOAL of a Batter!
HITTING and BA should be!
If you Hit good it means you will get on base a lot.
But if you get on base a lot it doesn’t mean you can hit good, could be you just were facing Oliver Perez all the time!
Who’s the better hitter? The .300 AVG and the .350 OBP or the .300 AVG and the .450 OBP?
A better example might be:
Who’s the better hitter?
The .245 AVG and the .350 OBP or the .300 AVG and the .325 OBP?
I’ll take the .300 AVG anyday.
Sometimes, yes. Depends on the SLG%. If that particular hitter was a power hitter, I’d forgo 25 OBP points for 55 BA points if those hits were usually for extra bases. If they were mostly singles, I’d go with the OBP, because they’re getting the same one base anyway, and making fewer outs while doing it.
Not everything is so cut and dried. I wish these “Real” baseball people would get it.
Neither is the better HITTER. They both HIT with the same frequency 3 Hits for every 7 outs made on plays when he hits the ball!
The rest could be all HBP or walks which are failures of the Pitcher and have nothing to do with HITTING the ball!
Did that answer your question?
You see you call walking and getting hit by a pitcher HITTING!
But the ball never makes contact with the bat in either of those situations!
Which makes them NOT RELATED to HITTING!
“Sometimes, yes. Depends on the SLG%. If that particular hitter was a power hitter, I’d forgo 25 OBP points for 55 BA points if those hits were usually for extra bases. If they were mostly singles, I’d go with the OBP, because they’re getting the same one base anyway, and making fewer outs while doing it.”
So then OBP is usefull ONLY PROVIDED you do not IGNORE BA!
How does that measure up to your past assertions that BA isn’t important and all you need is OBP to judge a players ability to hit?
OBP is a SECONDARY indicator, when used as a PRIMARY it will exclude players who ARE good hitters and INCLUDE players who are NOT good hitters!
And the only way to know which one is to look at the stat most OBP people say should be ignored!
I personally prefer to ignore the one that LIES to me until I have removed all the players it could lie about and THEN use it as a secondary comparator (at most secondary, I look at other stats before OBP myself) so at least I know all the lies OBP tells me are good are gone!
Xtreem,
Don’t know if you ever played or not but if you played baseball anytime growing up and with some success what was your approach.
Please tell us.
Bayonne, you need to get over the fact that you played little league and understand it is not important to today’s game.
At the same token, Billy Beane has more professional baseball experience in his pinky than you do… and he seems to like OBP.
So you trying to flex your muscles over people because you put on a helmet one day is ridiculous. All you’re doing is losing an argument and then trying to use “well I played” as the end all to the debate.
Nobody’s buying it. Nobody’s impressed by your lack of being able to make it… so why are you bragging about?
We’re using a .265 hitter’s approach as a model. Unbelievable. Another guy here who has no idea what the hell he’s talking about. I’m sure there are .220 contact hitters out there too who have a good eye.
And you have bad ball hitters who swung at anything DRIVING IN RUNS in the Hall of Fame.
Your OBP is ONLY going to go up because you’re hitting better. And you’re hitting better because you’re going through a period of time of seeing the ball really well.
That’s it.
It’s not because you’ve changed your approach to be CONSCIOUSLY aware of your plate discipline while you’re hitting and especially while you’re hitting with runners in scoring position because the approach there is different depending on the situation and is also dependent on what type of hitter is up there as well.
But you guy don’t think like that. And I say you guys because ALL of you saber/moneyball guys have one mind. One thing can be said by one guy and you all may as well have said it. It’s incredible how they all think the same. And most of them have never even had the experience of being in the batter’s box, having success as a hitter, and knowing all the different possibilities that occur when you’re up and how you have to adjust to them.
Now ALL THAT being said, i’m sure there are coaches who work with guys everyday about these things. You can make slight adjustments but you’re not going to change a hitter around completely. It does not happen.
Nope, I’m using one plate appearance as an example. It’s a great example. Stop pretending you know everything about everyone. Posts like you wrote and comments you’ve provided prove beyond a shadow of a doubt you have no idea what baseball is and you have no mind of your own. Can’t think for yourself at all.
Look who’s talking, LMAO. Last night I asked him has more trade value Reyes or Wright, and he answered Reyes! Then he tried to duck and cover and say I asked him a loaded question.
Then I ask him which player has a greater value based on scarcity of position played, he couldnt answer that one either, and said it was a loaded question.
This is what moneyballers do, they plead the fifth when they know the right answer will take steam out of their argument. They are very good at that.
They also love to answer a simple question with another question, never giving you more than a thinly veiled response.
The only one loaded here is xtreemicon, who is legendary on this site for rambling without ever making and solid points.
If you’re looking to glean insights from these comments threads, I advise you to stay clear of the pink ingnoramous in the corner named xtreemicon.
I’d like to refer everyone back to that exchange and revel in not only the ridiculousness of the questions, but also the lies being told right now. I answered you, several times. It appeared, however, it wasn’t the answer you were looking for, so you twist, twist, and twist some more.
You answered nothing, you ducked for cover and resisted answering two very simple questions. Go home and get your shinebox!
Ok, ask again. And this time, be clear. We’ll do it all over again.
This all seems so ridiculous now, but whatever, just to show I’m not looking to be argumentative I’ll play along.
Last night Bayonne made a comment that we should trade Wright for a starter and possible bench upgrades. He said and intimated that third baseman are easier to replace. (Easier to replace than shortstops)
I wanted to know what you thought.
Who will would net the Mets a bigger return in trade value right now, Jose Reyes or David Wright?
Do you agree that Wright would be easier to replace for the Mets than Reyes? (Please answer this in the context of what each player brings to the team in their total package.)
I’ll wait for your reply and pray for a better outcome.
Based on every single word you just wrote, it’s easy to see Jose Reyes is the more complete player and would bring back more in a trade based on ability and position. Since you didn’t want to hear that, you invoked my inability to grasp a point and started in on contract status and team control, something that was never referred to at the time and wasn’t even referred to now, even though I gave you a second chance to ask your question. You see why you’re so ridiculous?
Ask the question you want answered, or get the answer to the question you asked.
You’re a sick person.
There are plenty of people who may not like me, or hate me but to deny that I know what i’m talking about and speak from experience is just plain silly.
You’re making yourself look really bad. I suggest you start doing some athletic things like running, playing softball, lose a few pounds, you need to. Stop sitting down and looking at OTHER people’s writings, stop looking at all those statistics and go out there and join a softball or local baseball team so you can get a clue.
I asked you before. When you were younger did you play and did you experience some success? And if you did can you please share with ALL the readers what your batting approach was.
And be HONEST.
Just another case of MMO insulting their own readers and then crying foul when one of them are insulted.
Maniac: You really wanna go there? I wonder who cried last week when they got called out for posting how much they love Omar when they were very much against him prior to Alderson getting here.
Get over yourselves. You’re both clowns.
The MMO asswipe has spoken.
Why is that all the OBP guys go running to other conversations when they argue?
Is it due to a lack of evidence or something else?
Honestly, when I was late in my teenage years, I was scouted by the Yankees, Tigers and Royals. Nothing came of it because I had terrible range, even though I could catch whatever I could reach and was always at the top of hte outfield assists total. But I couldn’t reach much. I made some waves because of my offense.
My approach was no different than everyone else’s. Take what the pitcher gives you. If I couldn’t put a good swing on it, I took it or fouled it off until I got a pitch I could hit. If none came, I took my base. If I got a good pitch, I put a good swing on it. If I was lucky enough for it to fall in, I gave the first base coach a fist bump. There were even some occasions I hit for extra bases. Imagine that.
You act like this OBP craze is new. You’re out of your mind. OBP is over 50 years old and all it’s doing is measuring better and more completely the same approach that’s made good hitters since the dawn of time. Add SLG% to it (not literally, there are some pratfalls of OPS I won’t go into) and you have the best measure of a hitter.
Bayonne, if you think you’re going to top my 230+ comments you got a long way to go! Just kidding, but now that I think about it doing these reader contributions maybe the best way to go. If more like us contribute like this we can restore some balance on MMO and bring it back from the extreme right wing sabertage to a more fair and balanced site like it used to be. Time to knock out the Xtreemist number crunching that has permeated this site, and talk about good old fashioned baseball again.
The problem is the smarter baseball purist is quiet because they’re sick and tired of these bookworms.
They’re fed up and honestly i don’t blame them but it’s not me. These nerds and this approach is wrong and it’s becoming evident in baseball. The internet gives a load voice to legions of people who aspire to become GMs or baseball executives.
The problem is they don’t know a DAMNED thing about the thought process of a hitter. They just come to these conclusions based on already established statistics. The voice of the saber/fantasy/rotisserie fan is loudest and clear on the internet and casting a false blurry vision on what actual baseball and athletic competition is really all about.
It would be like if the internet existed back in the day when Strat-O-Matic was at it’s apex. People would be starting blogs based on what they learned playing Strat-O-Matic baseball. And thinking that it could translate into real baseball.
That’s what it’s come to now.
I’ll just leave this here – can you guess the author and year?
http://tinyurl.com/y83kf5
“There are people who pride themselves on their ability to quote what Johnny Whosit hit the year of the big flood. Among fans it is the accepted standard of excellence at bat. Why? Principally because it is easy to figure. Even the professionals lean upon it. But batting average is only a partial means of determining a man’s effectiveness on offense. It neglects a major factor, the base on balls, which is reflected only negatively in the batting average (by not counting it as a time at bat). Actually walks are extremely important. Ted Williams, a student of batting values, bragged more about the 162 gases on balls he got xxxx years ago than about his .343 batting average or his 43 home runs.”
Sure Ted Williams can brag about the 162 walks he got that year but he knew damned well it’s his hitting that got him to the HOF. Not his walks.
So what? Branch RIckey had his own ideas. What about all the other GMs?
And Branch Rickey is not saying walks are MORE important than batting average. Just that it’s important.
Gotta hit and be aggressive to drive em in.
Nice try.
No, Branch Rickey said On Base Average/Percentage is more important than batting average. Did you read it at all?
Well, that’s wrong
Batting Average is more important than OBP. And when did he write this piece? Before or after his successes. Just curious.
My guess is 1954. And you just said Branch Rickey is wrong. Unbelievable.
why not? You make fun of Omar Minaya and Steve Phillips here all the time and they’re GMs but not with the success or history of Branch Rickey. They’re still baseball GMs and your some guy sitting at home either way.
I’ll disagree with ANYONE who says OBP is more important than AVG.
ANYONE.
I’ve never made fun of Steve Phillips. And I’ve given Omar more credit than anyone for his ability to find good players. He has a terrible business acumen and you know it. I wrote an entire post about how I want Omar back because he has a great and important strength.
But that’s not important, because you know everything.
That’s because I have staunch beliefs based on fact and I can be objective. Was Omar a terrible GM? Absofrigginlutely. Was he a great scout. I think so, yes.
Is Frenchy a bad hitter. You bet he is. Is he a terrible ballplayer? Not in the least. He serves a very specific purpose, is very good at that job and I’ve made it known I wouldn’t mind him back on the Mets in that role in the future.
It’s called objectivity. Not, “I know everything because someone told me once, and I can’t think for myself and Branch Rickey is wrong.” That’s just pompous and childish.
And i went through it I don’t see where he says On Base Percentage is more important than batting average.
It’s not there.
He says on base average is vital but he does not say anywhere in that article that’s it’s more important.
“This means that he got on base 43.7% of the times he faced the pitcher. This is a far more significant figure than just batting average alone.”
It’s there. It’s cool, though. You don’t have to read anything, just spit your gospel and we’ll all be better off for it.
He’s talking about Stan Musial there and he’s not saying that OBP is more important than AVG.
Yes, a GREAT HITTER like Stan Musial probably had an OBP around .400 and that’s good to know.
So?
He still was a GREAT HITTER.
And I’m sure his analysis is within the context. Quite frankly i’d like to know how many RBIs Stan Musial had every year.
That’s more important than his OBP.
I’ll let this comment stand on it’s own.
Stan Musial was hitting .350, .360, .370 every year of course his OBP is gonna be well into the .400s.
IT would be strange if it was not.
Just because Branch Rickey was interested in these things 50 years ago doesn’t mean those ideas are right or revolutionary.
That was 50 years ago and those ideas died out.
They’re experiencing a resurgence again now and you know what?
They’re gonna die out AGAIN.
Hopefully.
The hula hoop experiences a resurgence every few years too.
I’m gonna let THIS comment stand on it’s own, too.
You are without a doubt the most right-winged un-objective person I’ve ever read anything from. Myriad facts and figures from people who know way more than you have been presented, and you hang your hat on something Keith said two days ago. Keith, a good hitter, pretty good at best.
Look who’s talking the Xtreemist!!!! LMFAO at the pomposity and absurdity of this comment.
We’ve all also heard stories about great pitchers who have a great game but they get a big hit or hit a HR. Usually the broadcaster will say boy Such and such pitched a terrific game but that’s not what he wants to talk about, he wants to talk about his HR.
Ted Williams can talk about all the walks he wants but everybody knows the truth. The man can HIT. Not “That man can WALK”
LOL. It does not work that way.
Sigh. Oh well, I tried. Happy Baseball, Captain Ludd.
don’t get down,
It was a good one. Just not good enough. But don’t worry there is no better way anyway. A good Batting Average is the most important thing a hitter can have if he wants to make the major leagues.
objectively, factually incorrect.
hey Bayonne… aren’t you in love with Steve Phillips’ GM style? Isn’t he the type of guy you want to run the Mets?
Riddle me this
“To me batting average is an overrated statistic. It doesn’t really tell the whole story like on-base percentage or slugging percentage. Really, that’s what offense is: on-base percentage and slugging percentage.”
–Steve Phillips, Mets general manager
Here are some other fun ones
“To me, on-base percentage is important, more so than walk ratio or home runs. If you’re on base, you can do something. You can manufacture runs. You get on base, everything else goes up. I’ve always wanted a .500 on-base percentage. I’ve always had one around .430 or .440. I should be able to get on base, if I’m patient enough.”
–Barry Bonds, Giants outfielder
“Leading off, I’m taking more pitches, trying to be on base, score. I feel better this way, waiting for my pitch, being more patient. I don’t want to swing at balls any more. I want to be selective.”
–Alfonso Soriano, Yankees infielder
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1404
You can find quotes from guys who don’t like OBP. It’s always going to be the same.
So you can choose to go with Omar’s point of view on that page and that’s fine. Just remember that when you kiss your steve phillips poster before you go to bed every night that he differs on something you feel so strongly about.
Nothing huh? Bummer… woulda loved to hear Bayonne change his view on Steve Phillips
I just disagree with Steve Phillips on that that’s all. He’s still my favorite GM.
Alfonso Soriano is talking about his approach there and that’s a good approach for a leadoff hitter so he’s right so I don’t know why you quote Soriano there.
But it’s not a good approach for a middle of the order guy. Sandy Alderson wants ALL his players to behave like leadoff batters and he’s just dead wrong about that.
You also left out several quotes from ballplayers/coaches/scouts that reject the OPB argument too.
And yes, i choose Omar Minaya’s point of view on that subject.
Omar. FOURTEEN “hitters” in year SIX of his program who got OB less often than TWO of our starting pitchers.
Right. Good thinking.
No wonder we were 24th in runs scored last year.
Bayonne:
Waiting for your reply on this
“To me batting average is an overrated statistic. It doesn’t really tell the whole story like on-base percentage or slugging percentage. Really, that’s what offense is: on-base percentage and slugging percentage.”
–Steve Phillips, Mets general manager
Be mindful that I can easily bring up several comments from you which you praise Phillips’ way of thinking
No I didn’t leave them out. I clearly said
“You can find quotes from guys who don’t like OBP. It’s always going to be the same.”
You and your 2 friends are getting up in arms about a statistic. A statistic that some people like, and others do not.
Nobody ignores batting average. Nobody ignored OBP. You’re fighting about different theories on how to run a baseball team and assuming nobody has ever had success running it with OBP as a core value. It’s gotten dumb.
“Statistics, of course, cannot tell the whole story. They fall short of bridging the gap between human expectancy and fulfillment. They cannot measure such intangibles as intelligence, courage, disposition, effort.”
Nice story, I like the above quote. Rickey was no doubt ahead of his time, but also astute and understood that the game was still largely based on human intangibles.
I agree. Rickey was a genius when it came to baseball. Baseball is so much more than statistics, and Rickey ushered in the right statistics to use.
Too bad everybody cannot be like Rickey.
And if you want to win you’re going to have to be able to construct a team of many other types of players besides a “Rickey”
That’s the easy part – if you’re lucky enough to get a player like him.
Rickey was actually a pretty poor ballplayer. Just didn’t have the talent.
I took that comment as Ricky Henderson not Branch Rickey.
And you’re saying Branch Rickey issued in the right statistics to use? Then why did it not catch on?
There’s a reason those “statistics” did not catch on like the ones we’ve always used.
Why the resurgence now? And what’s to prevent it from falling by the wayside again?
You can use that type of thinking when teaching younger players how to hit, not to change the way already established players play the game as major leaguer now.
Thus why i wrote the piece to begin with. The passive approach, the less aggressive approach, the lack of runs being driven is NOT good for baseball. Everybody can’t be of the same mold.
You know what’s funny? They are saying our ideas are “outdated” and all that. BUT what they are saying is from the 1950′s…..lol.
Of course Extreme icon is gonna leave that part out. Naturally. But he does that all the time.
Xtreem, you are the one being ridiculous. You are so dense and incapable of having a conversation with. You are a complete dead from the neck up hack, and incapable of maintaining even a simple dialog or answering a simple question. You are dependent on ten times more information than a normal person to answer a question.
I ask anyone on this site who has more trade value right now Wright or Reyes, and they will grasp the relevance and answer accordingly.
Not you.
You need to know if it’s based on weight, where they were born, waist size, astrological sign, etc.
You are what your name says you are; Extreme and Inanimate.
Now everyone here knows it.
Nice try.
another way to put it. take 100 random guys, i draft my team based on obp, you draft yours on AVG, my team crushes the living crap out of your team. thats simply a mathematical fact. (now my team might actually suck at defense, but we are talking about offense)
Metsie, you are one of those people I walk away from after 30 seconds of listening – you just drone on and on, repeating the same crap AND USING BIG LETTERS AS IF TO SAY “OH, YEAH, I REALLY MEAN IT NOW AND IT’S TRUE, YOU CAN’T DENY IT! I’M WRITING IN BIG LETTERS, SEE?!”
Question: which would your rather have (BA/OBP): a .325/.355 hitter, or a .325/.410 hitter?
OBP, knucklehead, a STAT, can hardly be ruining the game. That’s just .. pathetic reasoning. OBP tells something about a hitter, just like AVG does, just like RISP or WHIP does.
However, if you could choose between two hitters and could pick only two of the following three stats to make that decision, which two would it be?
1. batting average
2. on-base-percentage
3. slugging average
I submit that OBP and SA are more important in such an exercise than BA and SA. What say you, Metsie?
So cool I got a phillies fan mad! ROFLMAO!
Sorry dude.
Your way says this is a good player!
C Iannetta
COL C 29 86 14 19 4 1 5 14 40 23 28 1 0 .393 .465 .221
What say you creamcheese?
This is about the time you will run to the sampling defense but guess what. GMs from MLB teams have to decide things on small samples ALL THE TIME!
Cause they don’t throw up a list of only the best players in the league and then try to pick one stat they like over the rest and invent some theory to promote the rediculous stat as the most important in the world!
Especially since it lies to you more often than not!
There is no such thing as a .300 hitter who is not good!
But there are 100′s of HIGH OBP SLG guys out there who can’t hit to save their life!
Did you get hit in the head by a Matt Cain fastball?
In what world do you live in where Chris Ianetta is the posterboard for OBP?
People who look at OBP do not ONLY look at OBP.
For starters we kinda like to look at plate appearances also. I know that was tricky for you when you listed your top 10 list earlier in this thread.
But there is nobody out there who says they’d rather have Ianetta over a guy like Brian McCann simply because of his OBP.
See the difference between a guy like me and a guy like you is I look at the whole picture. Not just the part of the picture that fits my archaic way of thinking.
No jessup YOU live in the world where Ianetta is the posterboard for OBP! If what you say is true and you ignore BA Ianetta is one of those guys who is going to be tops in your list! Not Mine! He never made it to mine because I looked at BA first! I weeded out the ACTUAL BAD PLAYERS with my most important stat! You method is the one that said Ianetta was a GOOD player!
I’m just EXPOSING the lie that you guys make in every conversation of OBP where you ALL claim it is the most important stat to look at, even going so far as to say you IGNORE BA when doing so and then when just those stats are presented to you, you then FALL BACK and admit that you think 10 other things are MORE IMPORTANT than OBP but it takes being backed into a hole before any of you OBP guys will ADMIT IT!
Here is the way your OBP works based on your own statement.
OBP is the most important thing AFTER:
1 – PA appearances! – They have to be at EVERY DAY PLAYER NUMBERS! Which indicates it only works on EVERYDAY FULL SEASON players because EVERYDAY FULL SEASON players are ASSUMED already good so OBP outliers and abnormalities will be weeded out via a manager sitting the guy!
2 – BA – is ignored until you need the information OBP hides and obscured in it’s metric!
3 – SAMPLES – they are the EXCUSE but a proper theory does not require excuses to prove it works. The people in the front office have to deal with small samples all the time when evaluating players and their abilities. So any philosophy on evaluation has to deal with Samples it doesn’t like and STILL has to come up with the correct answer!
4 – SLG – Is apparently JUST AS IMPORTANT to you if you insist on ignoring the BA but you still need the BA to judge any players whose SLG is similar or close to his OBP because SLG also includes walks in it’s Metric! It’s not about hitting either!
5 – OPS – because it uses OBP and SLG despite it being an unweighted addition of two unrelated numbers!
Face the facts dude! The most important stat is the one that leaves you only with GOOD PLAYERS!
PA doesn’t do it…
OBP sure doesn’t as Ianetta suggests
SLG doesn’t do it without the other two
OPS is only as good as the OBP and SLG are…
BA does a much better job of weeding out BAD PLAYERS than any of the stats you like to use!
And once you look at the BA and rank them on that only THEN do all your IMPORTANT stats come up with the correct answer!
BA takes Ianetta off the list! OBP does not!
PA weights the same on both! And when I use BA the PA AB BA comparison tells me as much as your OBP does! SO I don’t really need it at all!
And I will come up with the better players EVERYTIME!
Your way will not!
Samples work in both
I am? I’ve said you should ignore batting average?
I think what you’re missing is in the 80′s early 90′s etc batting average HR RBI was the end all for determining value of a hitter.
People like me are saying BA is NOT the only thing… we are NOT saying to throw it out the window
Well you should read what you FRIENDS are saying Jessup if thats your position.
And start defending what I have always said, OBP is a useful stat but hardly the MOST IMPORTANT stat!
OBP can lie to you so use something else as your first look (MOST IMPORTANT) stat to weed out the bad players.
Then you can look at OBP, SLG WAR whatever less telling stat you want to after that!
All of those other stats are MEANINGLESS if the BA says the guy simply can not hit!
Actually, Ianetta’s High OBP and slugging combined with his low BABIP, shows he is a good hitter who just has some crappy luck. Once that BABIP gets back up to league average, you’ll see that BA get up to a more acceptable number.
Besides, for a catcher, those are really good numbers.
I will attempt to translate the Saberspeak for the sane folks at home…
High OBP and slugging combined with his low BABIP + low BA = BAD LUCK!
I see so basically what your saying is this great EVALUATION system is worthless if the dice roll a certain way!
You know what if you just looked at his BA you would need three stats to show he had BAD LUCK! Nor would you need all three to say he can’t hit either!
The whole point of using DEEP STATISTICAL ANALYSIS is to remove luck from the equation.
It’s only when your highly vaulted Religious stat icons like OBP fails do you bring it up as yet ANOTHER EXCUSE for it’s failure!
What? Do you have any idea what you just said? If anything, it proves advanced metrics better than BA because they can account for bad luck.
If you can accoutn for bad luck, then you can make sure you are less likely to fall victim to it.
And this isn’t a failure of OBP, its a difference between OBP and BA and trying to figure out why. If anything, the failure is on BA.
Ahh we are back to throwing dice again.
A Walk is LUCK! It sure isn’t something the batter can will to happen. It is basically the batter getting lucky to face a pitcher who couldn’t throw strikes!
Annnd you don’t answer the questions. Well played!
Wait – let’s check that..
NOPE
let’s try again . very.slow.now.so.you.can.follow.
if you could choose between two hitters and but only pick two of the following three stats to make that decision, which two would it be?
1. batting average
2. on-base-percentage
3. slugging average
Talk to us, big guy. Spread that cheese thick and creamy! But.. really, just answer the question. That question; the one just above. Tell us. Please. With sugar on top. Better yet, with little shreds of (when was that?? soooo long ago .. ) Bud H., Ron S. and Tommie A. sprinkled on top. Or Straw, Doc and the Mustached Seinfeld star …
There’s no such thing as .400 OBP’er who isn’t good!!
BA! Because a guy with the better BA will almost ALWAYS have the higher OBP!
As for slugging I don’t bother! I use EBH and RBI as my secondary stats! Because those are DIRECTLY related to RS unlik OBP and SLG!
And look above cheesesteak I listed a whole bunch of guys you have spent the last 12 hurs trying to dismiss as bad despite their .400 OBP!
ps UPSET? This is not upset. Upset is when the tasers come out, and I puke on your wife : )
Yes Cheese breath, Please do show everyone who we are dealing with here!
“I’m just EXPOSING the lie that you guys make in every conversation of OBP where you ALL claim it is the most important stat to look at”
yeah, it’s AMAZING every single post here is writing that..
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
“All hitters are different. Guys like Manny Sanguillen, Jeff Francouer, Vlad, Yogi, and so on are bad ball hitters. That’s what my dad used to call them “bad ball hitters”. IT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS.”
Career OBP:
Guerrero .382
Berra .348
Sanguillen .326
Francoeur .311
You cannot compare these 4 except for the common denominator that they are ‘bad ball hitters.’ Francoeur strikes out significantly more than the other three, Guerrero walks more than the other three, Berra simply never struck out, and Manny Sanguillen didn’t do much of either.
It’s one thing to be a bad ball hitter, but it’s another thing to be a bad ball chaser like Jeff Francoeur who makes outs 68.9% of his plate appearances. OBP and OPS+ as a tandem in my humble opinion are the best ways to measure hitters.
I used those guys as examples of bad ball hitters. This is not about comparing them to each other. How many times do I have to say that?
If i wanted to make a list of the best base stealers of the 90s that’s one thing. If you want to compare their performance to each other as hitters it’s another thing.
Now that we got that out of the way let’s address what the article is about.
OBP and OPS+ are NOT the best ways to measure hitters. Maybe moreso for a light hitter but not a power hitter
Last night we had a discussion about Cory Vaughn. 2 guys were all agog over his .472 OBP (or thereabouts) and his 1.01 (or so) OPS (or OPS+ whatever it doesn’t matter i’ll still know about the hitter without those 2 stats anyway). Before last night’s game he had 113 ABs.
For good measure he’s hitting .342. At least you know his batting average now and that’s more important than the other things.
The problem is Cory Vaughn has 1 HR and 15 RBIs in 113 ABs before last night and the question was why he’s not being promoted to St. Lucie. I wondered why he wasn’t being promoted myself when i was told his OPS and OBP were so high.
BUT when i found out he only had 1 HR and 15 RBIs in 113 ABs i said well now that i know his IMPORTANT numbers than that’s why he’s probably not being promoted even though he has a high batting average. He’s not having a good year in the HR and RBI department. Why are you gonna promote him to St. Lucie if he’s not hitting with power at the lower level?
In any event the OBP and OPB did not tell you about the numbers you NEED to know from Cory Vaughn. He’s a power hitter who drives in runs. That’s what you need from him and the OBP and OPS did not tell me the necessary info I needed to know about Cory Vaughn.
So it’s more important to know Cory Vaughn’s AVG/HR/RBI first before anything else before deciding to promote him.
Then look at his slugging percentage, he leads Savannah in that too.
For God’s sake, the kid has a spilt of .345/.473/.462, all of which lead the Sand Gnats. He’s third on the team in extra base hits, scouts are still raving about his raw power. He should be up in St. Lucie by mid-June because I don’t think he has anything else to prove at Savannah (he’s also relatively old for the league, but I digress).
Aderlin Rodriguez leads the team with 7 home runs, but he’s 6th on the team in slugging behind even Darrell Ceciliani. He also makes an out 74.7% of his plate appearences.
As of yesterday Vaughn had 10 doubles and 1 HR in 113 ABs so the split you gave me doesn’t tell me much at all – IF i’m interested in looking at a power hitter.
Just because Rodriguez has 7 HRs what does that mean in this argument? He’s hitting .206 and you left out that information too.
“Aderlin Rodriguez leads the team with 7 home runs, but he’s 6th on the team in slugging behind even Darrell Ceciliani. He also makes an out 74.7% of his plate appearance”
So? Is he hitting .265 or .206? That makes a difference. How man RBIs does he have? 26? 39? 15? Your sentence doesn’t help me or anyone else who wants to learn about the kid at all. You don’t give his RBI’s, you don’t give his AVG and besides Darrell Ceciliani is not a HR hitter so that’s an unfair comparison.
That’s the problem with many of these newer numbers they can be skewed to make almost any argument you want to make and that’s wrong. That’s not honest baseball.
Im interested in Winning and what a hitter’s numbers mean if i’m looking to build a winning team. I have no interest in knowing only PART of the story.
You leave a lot of important information out and you judge players on a lot of the wrong information.
“As of yesterday Vaughn had 10 doubles and 1 HR in 113 ABs so the split you gave me doesn’t tell me much at all – IF i’m interested in looking at a power hitter.”
It does! He leads the goddamn team in slugging! That’s the ‘power’ stat!
“Just because Rodriguez has 7 HRs what does that mean in this argument? He’s hitting .206 and you left out that information too.”
>> He also has an OBP of .252.
“Aderlin Rodriguez leads the team with 7 home runs, but he’s 6th on the team in slugging behind even Darrell Ceciliani. He also makes an out 74.7% of his plate appearance”
>> You honestly cannot be this stupid. 100% – 74.7% = 25.3%. The best anyone can hit in the situation is .253 since it would be equivalent to their on-base percentage.
“That’s the problem with many of these newer numbers they can be skewed to make almost any argument you want to make and that’s wrong. That’s not honest baseball.”
>> What, that Cory Vaughn is absolutely, unequivocally destroying the SAL? Look at what you’re doing with batting average, foisting inane arguments yourself.
“Im interested in Winning and what a hitter’s numbers mean if i’m looking to build a winning team. I have no interest in knowing only PART of the story.”
>> Looking solely at batting average is stupid baseball. You would be someone who looks at Adam Dunn and thinks he is a horrible baseball player by virtue of his batting average.
Try this one which pretty much tells you everything you needed to know and mentioned using OBP and and OPS+
Guerrero .319 Who you claim walked a LOT mostly but we say mostly because of that .319 BA!
Sanguillen.296 The guy you noted didn’t do much of either so he did it without walking much walking SO is the better HITTER Bet him and Berra!
Berra .285 The guy you said simply never struck out the Better WALKER!
Francoeur .269 The guy you noted as the worst because he strikes out too much.
All Time League AVG is .275
You don’t need OBP OPS or plus to see who was the better hitter between those 4 names!
It would have corresponded to YOUR rankings if not for the fact you rank based on walks not HITTING! So the guy who walked more and hit less wound up ahead in the list of the guy who walked less hit more!
SO basically you valued Walks more than Hits and call it a HITTING statistic!
OBP, SLG and the erroneous ADDING of the two into an OPS is about BATTING! About PA!
They are not about hitting because if they were then you would know how much of OBP is a hit and how much is a walk!
As for your difference between bad ball hitters and bad ball chasers on that I do agree…
You honestly think Manny Sanguillen was a better hitter than Yogi Berra simply because he had a higher batting average?
That tells me all I need to know about your line of thinking. You’re clueless.
Who hit the ball safely more?
Sanguillen did!
Career BA tells the whole story.
Because BA only counts the safe reaches caused by the Hitter not those that were caused by a bad pitcher who walked or hit the batter!
If the bat isn’t involved in the play it isn’t a hit!
Look at the stat on hits and tell me how many walks are counted in that stat?
Then tell me who is the better hitter!
Which is why Sanguillen is in the Hall of Fame?
“Career BA tells the whole story.”
Which is exactly why Placido Polanco is a better hitter than Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle!!!
(sarcasm)
Metsie: Bumping this because of how ridiculous your statement of “Career BA tells the whole story.” truly is
It tells more than OBP does!
If you didn’t know either player (which is the case when you are evaluating players you don’t know) all you have to go on is their numbers!
Ans Sangiullens were better based on BA!
At least in the HITTING department!
Which is what we are talking about here weren’t we?
Is this yet another attempt to change the subject from HITTING to get away from that lost cause of OBP and save face?
metsie, a reply to polanco being a better hitter than willie mays and mickey mantle or an admission that your point
“Career BA tells the whole story.” Is dumb?
Damn. You Mets are absolutely right and we’re absolutely wrong.
-The Phillies, The Marlins, The Braves and even the Nats.
LOL
“There’s a reason those “statistics” did not catch on like the ones we’ve always used. Why the resurgence now? And what’s to prevent it from falling by the wayside again?”
Um .. because we’re smarter now, and better equiped to understand and use this information?
Some of you seem to be saying BA reveals more about a hitter than OBP. Really?
Limited to one stat, what tells you more about a player and what he does at the plate: his .300 BA, or his .400 OBP?
[Throwing out that you want to use X, Y, Z stat instead of OBP is not a reasonable response, if what you really want to do is consider the relative merits of BA and OBP]
Obviously, neither BA or OBP tell you anything about his ability to hit for power. For that, let’s add SA to the mix. Now: which combination, BA-SA or OBP-SA give us the most insight into what a player brings to the plate? I can’t see the argument where BA is chosen here – someone help me out, please.
So, if we’re looking for one number that tells us the most about a player’s offensive ability, we’re looking for something like OPS.
Which uses OBP, and not BA.
“what tells you more about a player and what he does at the plate”
BA, Because BA reflects what the guy with the BAT did with the BAT!
OBP confuses that information by also telling you what the pitcher did when that player was at the plate!
High OBP can occur forreasons that have nothing to do with the batter.
4 balls thrown is something the PITCHER DID! Not the Batter. A Walk is not HITTING!
The batter could have a bad hitter behind him that they walk him to get to.
The batter could get hit by pitches a lot.
The Batter’s BA and hitting could be so good they decide to walk him instead of let him hit.
Only in the last example did the batter accomplish something to sway the decison of the Pitcher and that one thing happened to be BA not OBP!
“So, if we’re looking for one number that tells us the most about a player’s offensive ability, we’re looking for something like OPS.”
Is getting hit by a pitch an OFFENSIVE act?
IS not swinging an offensive act? Is not doing something an ACT at all?
A statue could walk if the Pitcher decided to not throw strikes so should we award a batter credit for being a statue?
I agree 100% with Metsie. Those OBP guys are getting by on the pitcher’s mistakes and do nothing buy clog up the bases.
Maybe if we had more people like Metsie in the front office, we would have actually won something over the past 25 years!
You said it, Dusty! All these fools who think the RATE AT WHICH YOU DO NOT MAKE OUTS in somehow THE MOST IMPORTANT OFFENSIVE STAT must be Cubs fans.
There’s a reason why I walk in over 23% of my plate appearances — I simply can’t hit! Your baseball acumen is bang-on, Metsie!
Maybe your walking so much because you hit 54 HR’s and drove in 124 RBI the year before?……who’s hitting behind you Lind? yeah, I’d rather pitch to that guy.
But you always would walk a lot, even when you sucked for the Pirates. Yeah in 07 you walked 11% of the time, and last year it was 14%….so your not doing good because your walking, you’re doing good because you hitting for power, you lead the league in HR’s last year, i’d rather hear about that, insetad of you’re walks.
Thank you for your kind words.
Did you know that in 2011 so far, 34% of my plate appearances have ended in either a walk or home run? You can take away every single ball hit in play, and I am still walking or homering more often than most baseball players succeed in not getting out.
Pitchers have to throw it somewhere — they can’t walk you EVERY time you’re up (oh, and Adam Lind’s hitting .313/.343/.516 which isn’t too shabby for a mere mortal).
Imagine if everyone had my level of discipline? The ability to recognize strikes and balls with such absolute precision?
“so your not doing good because your walking, you’re doing good because you hitting for power”
I’m doing good because everything, young Padawan. Everything.
Nah, it has nothing to do with your discipline. You always had good discipline. So why didn’t you’re amazing discipline help you with the Pirates? I know, because you couldn’t hit.
Now you’re hitting, and hitting for power. Guys don’t want to pitch to you anymore, that’s why you’re walks went up.
This is true, young Padawan. I always had good discipline. Getting on base, hitting for power — it’s a beautiful thing, really. Some guys can do one, some guys can do both. Some guys do both really, really well while rocking a damn smooth beard.
I don’t see what we’re arguing about now.
You walk because your homering a lot. You don’t Homer beause you walk a lot!
But by selecting a player via OBP you might not get the homers just the walks!
Some guys walk a lot but don’t homer. (See Gardner, Brett)
Some guys homer a lot but don’t walk. (See Soriano, Alfonso)
Some guys are just awesome and do both.
You’re welcome.
“Some guys walk a lot but don’t homer.”
Right AND OBP says they are as good as the guys who do!
No, that’s not what OBP says at all.
Sure it does…Since the HR hitter and the prolific walker can both have the SAME OBP!
OBP does not tell you what or if the guy hit only that he did not make an out!
How many HRs does a .375 OBP player have if you think you know otherwise?
You’re not going to have many healthy discussions with an attitude like that, Metsie, even with sagely all-stars like US. No one ever said that OBP ALONE is the definitive indicator of a player’s offensive merit.
We’re a couple sluggers here, for Pete’s sake. We know that power plays a HUGE role. It’s just that, OVERALL, there is no single more important stat than THE RATE AT WHICH YOU DO NOT MAKE OUTS.
You only get 27 outs per game. Not making outs is the single most important thing you can do as a hitter. More often than not, the team that makes the least outs over the longest period of time will have the better offensive outcomes.
Of course, there are TONS of variables here, but when I step up to the plate, my #1 priority in pretty much every single situation is to NOT GET OUT.
And batting average says a single is as good as a home run. Your point?
Joey you should read the posts around here more often if you think people don’t say it is the only stat worth looking at. When cacked into a corner you will pry SLG out of them as a way of trying to make up for the OBP deficiencies.
Above was for Joey…this one for you!
But BA tells you what the BATTER did not what the pitcher did which is the point!
We are trying to judge HITTING not being HIT or Zones being MISSED!
Tell me about it, Jose! Getting a hit can be so darn TOUGH especially when pitchers are throwing those stupid BALLS. Getting on base nearly one fifth of the time without having to put the ball in play sure is boring and predictable.
Jack Cust is a better hitter than you are. He walks 19.2% of the time. Forget that he’s hitting .220, he walks, so he’s better than you.
Why would you think that someone’s walk rate alone makes them a more valuable offensive player? Why, that’s almost as silly and illogical as thinking batting average is most indicative of offensive value! Funny, that.
Go to the MLB leaderboards [http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2011&ind=0] and, using this handy-dandy tool, sort by BB%, AVG and OBP. By far and away, the strongest correlation to positive offensive performances is when you sort by OBP.
Ahh FanGraphs…The place that has the version of WAR calculation where a walk is weighted more than a hit, and nearly half as good as a HR!
Great source you got there!
It is a great source, especially when you consider everything you just said is 100% false.
because you only talked about how many times you walked, you didn’t talk about you’re hitting.
But I’d rather hear about how last year, you hit .324, 37 HR’s and drove in 113 runs, instead of your walks…and this year you’re hitting .345.
Actually, I never mentioned how many times I walked. BA, OBP, SLG, Sexy Canadianness. I am the total package, baby.
Thank you.
Hmm i guess when people sense a loss they tend to make up more names to try and look like a Majority…
In order for a walk to be an OFFENSIVE stat the OFFENSIVE SIDE must do something to make it such.
What does a batter DO that makes a walk an OFFENSIVE play?
STAND THERE?
Tell you what though you guys are going to need more friends!
Start making up names now because I’m not going anywhere!
He optimizes the good-batting-eye skillset he’s developed, challenged the pitcher to throw strikes, helped to wear the pitcher down by NOT swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone.
If you choose to call that just standing there, which sometimes is all it takes, granted, but still, if you choose to call that just standing there, well, I guess we don’t have much more to talk about.
I agree. I mean, c’mon – the guy with the .320 BA, 200 hits and 100 walks is the better offensive player the the guy with a .320 BA, 200 hits and 60 walks. Better OFFENSIVE player.
SO NOW I’VE PROVED THE POINT!! YOU CAN STOP YOUR PONTIFICATING AND RELAX IN THE WONDERFUL OF “WALKS – AN OFFENSIVE FORCE”
Actually the guy with less walks CAN be the better offensive player if he’s hitting 38 HRs with 119 RBIs.
If the guy with more walks doesn’t have any power, like 7 Hrs, 28 doubles, 6 triples then i’ll take the guy with less walks but drives in more runs
Driving in runs (RBIs’) is a talent for certain players. That’s why they’re in the middle of the order and the other guys bat where they bat.
So yes, I’ll take the guy with a LOT LESS walks if he’s driving in runs for me. RBI guys trump all.
Driving in runs is a talent? By what, choosing the right team mates to hit in front of him?
I like how you still worship RBIs but dismiss OBP. RBI guys are generally good hitters (often who also hit for power) who happent to have a lot of guys on base in front of them.
And actually, the guy with lower BA can also be the better offensive player if he, too, had the home runs and rbi that you speak of.
Of course, rbi are a team dependent stat. RISP is far more revealing than RBI, but I’m guessing you agree with that.
That is such a ridiculous statement i wouldn’t know where to begin.
Practically everything you do in baseball is team dependent that’s why it’s a team sport. I can tell you any number of things that can be called team dependent.
Like anything in life some things are more important than others and I’m NOT gonna sit here and say the RBI guy is nothing unless somebody is on base. You know why? BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING, GETTING ON BASE! That’s why you learn to play baseball as a kid.
It’s clear that RBI guys have the game-changing job, that’s why they’re in the middle of the order.
Anyway it’s easy for people who are not good at baseball but like it, or who don’t really understand it but like it..to say you have to get on base. Anybody can say that. Fortunately there’s more to baseball than that.
Uh, they’re not RBI guys, they’re just the most likely to crack one out of the ballpark or into the gap.
Some are just so selfish they hit solo home runs! Their own RBI! Jerks.
Wait. Just wait a minute. Are you suggesting that there’s no such thing as “RBI guys?” Just guys with lots of power that are positioned in the batting order behind the guys that get on base the most? Are you insinuating that NINE CENTURIES of baseball knowledge has been but to rest by Billy Beane’s fantasy team from twelve years ago?!
Surely you jest.
Yeah he OPTIMIZES his skill set when he gets intentionally walked eh?
He OBP goes up on an IBB doesn’t it?
Yeah it was ALL the batter wasn’t it?
WHy not try and FIX the mistakes made in the oversimplified and unweighted stat of OBP instead of spending all day trying to defend a VERY FLAWED and UNEVEN stat that attibutes skill to a player who exhibited none on some of the plays you attribute to him as skill?
I hate my life.
Dude, you’re about to make $150 million for playing a game. You’re doing just fine.
Queens is, in fact, the ninth circle of Hell.
You’re right, Metsie. I’m only hitting .368 with a .520 OBP but maybe if I went fishing more often instead of standing there like a statue (35 walks in 32 games — I suck!), I could get my batting average up to .400!
Complete and utter domination of the strike zone and never, ever swinging at balls is a bit like cheating, right?
Well if the pitcher didn’t throw balls at you what would your OBP be?
Now tell me how you MAKE him walk you!
I punish strikes and don’t swing at balls. I don’t think you understand just how difficult this is and why anyone who sees me thinks I am the best hitter in baseball.
Or, I just use Jedi Mind Tricks. Take your pick.
Ahh I see So OBI is a metric that is based on the FORCE!
At least you admitted that your entire OBP belief is based on a fantasy!
At least we can both agree I am leading the Majors in midi-chlorian count.
You are simply cemented my pity for those who still worship BA and my disdain for The Phantom Menace.
No but we do agree you still live in your Parents house!
I don’t understand why you feel the need to insult everyone who responds to you.
It makes him feel manly.
Metsie: I’ve seen some research from you and your friends lately on this comment board. I wonder if you could do research on the following
Show me the amount of personal insults that have 0 to do with the subject at hand the people who think OBP is a dumb stat say, and then show me the ones who think OBP is something worth looking at.
I wonder, yes I wonder which group throws out things like
“No but we do agree you still live in your Parents house!”
don’t forget veiled threats of violence
Oh come on,
like you guys are perfect? You shouldn’t be talking.
Never said I’m perfect, but I sure as hell won’t threaten violence against someone who disagrees with me.
when has anyone done that? show me.
LOL it’s all about intolerance and trying to bully people into believing your opinion is the right way. That’s what ignorant people do. If you believe in something different, then you get threatened and made fun of.
We are obviously dealing with cretins who are not open to different ideas.
Senorstem: “How about this…before you go and foolishly attack something you obviously do not have the mental capacity to understand, why not at the very least read up on it first so you don’t look like an even bigger toolbag then you already do.”
Sounds like your the one that’s trying to bully people into believing your opinion is the right way.
Sorry but that’s the truth. Lots of people are laughing at this “article” because it just does not make sense or tell the truth in any way. I’m just telling you like it is.
OHHHHHH, so it’s OK for you bully people with different Ideas because YOU think they are wrong? But if someone else does the same thing because they disagree with you, they are “ignorant.” lol.
and I can say the same thing about Bayonne and Metsie: “they are just telling it like it is, it’s the truth.”
BTW, who’s laughing at the post? The guys on AA? Who cares what they think?
I’m not bullying anybody. I’m asking you for proof, which you have yet to adequately provide other than a bunch of “I think…” and “I observed…” statements.
Concrete evidence or it doesn’t exist. This is how the real world works.
Well Jessup why not just check the post dates on who started insulting first…
They are all listed!
Or is this just another feeble attempt to change the subject from the OBP losing the battle (despite importing help from other sites) and trying to change it to some other subject you can try and bash me with since your baseball debating skills failed to in the first place?
Hey guys it’s magic Mirror time!
So you should all go back to that romper room site you came from!
I actually just came over from http://blogs.thescore.com/mlb/2011/05/16/linkin-ballpark-the-jose-bautista-edition/ which linked to this sad, sad exchange.
It’s really depressing that you’ve been at this for 2 days.
We have been at this for longer than 2 days dude!
We have been having this OBP argument for over a year now!
You missed the doozy where we proved OBP does not Correlate to RS better than other stats too!
We haven’t heard that particular OBP claim since we had that one!
We busted that myth quite efficiently!
Please link me to where you “proved” OBP does not correlate to, I’m assuming, runs scored better than any other stat.
I am genuinely interested to see how you wound up at definitive conclusion for something that is so obviously mathematically false
He actually just says things. He keeps repeating the same disproven drivel over and over and declares victory because the people who prove him wrong get tired of running around in the same circle.
You have never disproven a thing Donal!
In fact our conversations usually end in me asking you a question you can’t answer because you would have to admit I was right and then you crawl back into your hole hoping everyone forgot the last time you got your butt kicked before you try the same lame crap again!!
Remember the classic a WALK is a HIT?
And this is what you do: You ask a stupid/irrelvent question and just declare victory.
I’ve never said a walk was as good as a hit statistically. No one has. You keep claiming saber friendly sites do, but you all you do is make the claim. Everyone agrees that hitting is better than walking.
When someone explains the facts to you, you ignore them and declare victory.
No you said walking was about hitting.And I pointed out NO it’s about walking which has nothing to do with a ball being hit by a bat!
Metsie, I really, truly don’t understand why you are defending this so angrily and with so much hatred directed toward anyone who doesn’t agree with you.
If this were a discussion of politics, or movies or whether chunky peanut peanut butter is better than smooth, then I can sort of see where you’re coming from, but we’re talking about a cold, hard, unambiguous mathematical truism here.
This discussion, no matter how many times you’ve had it or will have it, is about as fruitful as insisting that 1+1 =/= 2. I assure you, with 100% certitude, that the sooner you realize this, the happier you will be. Your understanding of baseball will deepen and you won’t have to have these frustrating discussions about OBP EVER AGAIN!
Or, you can go to your grave insisting you believe something you know, deep down, cannot be true.
I just want you to remember the day that fake Jose Bautista took the time to not insult you, not berate you or set up strawman arguments, but rather engage you in what he hoped would be a logical exchange of ideas and facts.
And know that despite the fact that you never backed up any of your arguments with fact and never responded to any arguments I made without resorting to some sort of insult, I still love you and want what’s best for you.
And what’s best for you is resting easy in the irrefutable knowledge that OBP is the single most important offensive stat so that you can get back to enjoying your life. Otherwise, you are only bound to repeat this discussion for the rest of your days.
Godspeed.
Nice job Fake Jose Bautista. You used logic and you kept it classy.
So basically Joe you suggest I should just join the religion and feel the BLISS of stupidity that you OBP centric guys enjoy and then I won’t have to challenge your constant retelling of the greatness of OBP because I will be one with the PODS!
The discussion is relevant!
And I have made points to back up what I said.
All you OBP guys have done is try to say:
I’m Dumb
I’M Crazy
I don’t get it
Truth is I an not dumb. Quite Sane DO get it and have made valid points that you guys have yet to counter!
You guys said HIGH OBP correlates to RS.
No proof! Just some fantasy research that no one has ever seen but the high holy priests of OBP!
I showed you proof to the contrary!
You tried to refute it by inferring:
Of Course RBI correlates better than OBP RBI are RELATED to RS!
Well how can something NOT related to it corelate better?
Yet this is what you guys said!
I asked how a Batter forces a pitcher to walk him.
You guys said you use the force!
So who exactly has a better understanding of Baseball again?
The guy who thinks something unrelated is CORELATED or the guy who said your full of it? And then showed the proof?
And maybe if you guys did not start the insults I would not have replied back.
Evan is an idiot, has added NOTHING to the conversation.
When you come to the game with Facts I will del with those facts and counter them intelligently…
When you bring insults I wil bring them too!
So far we have blown up a couple of the OBP myths.
1 is it takes into account what happens in EVERY PA, It does not!
2 is It corelates the best to RS which it doesn’t RBI ranking determines RS ranking better than OBP
3 is the Batter can FORCE a Pitcher to throw a strike or a walk (But only if his name is Obi Wan Kenobi)
4 is the notion you need to get ON BASE to score a run instead of merely touching one.
5 You need a guy on base to get an RBI
6 OBP judges HITTING when it hides the hitting stats and includes things that are not hits!
You guys have anymore beliefs we can tackle so we don’t need to insult and get back to debating?
Did you take a lot of drugs at some point? Because you go on some insane rants.
It’s on this site why don’t you search slappy?
But I will give you a hint….
In the past three years see which stat ranking more closely resembles the RS ranking.
OBP or RBI!
RBI wins 21-5
Here I’ll make it easy on you…
2010 team RS/RBI/OBP
Yankees 1/1/1 (Both sides correlate)
Boston 2/2/4 (I win one)
Tampa 3/3/10 (thats two!)
Cincy 4/4/6 (Thats Three!)
Texas 5/7/5 (you win one)
Minny 6/5/2 (My correlation is closer to actual than yours! thats four!)
Philly 7/8/13 ( Again my ranking is closest to correlation thats five for me one for you!)
Rockies 8/6/7 (I’m gonna give you this one! I still lead 5-2!)
Blue jays 9/9/26 (OHHH that had to hurt! I lead 6-2! but EPIC fail for OBP!)
White Sox 10/12/11 (I’m generous today I’ll give you a match! 6-3!
2009 Same stuff!
Yanks 1/1/1 Same as this year! another push!
Angels 2/2/3 (score now 7-3)
red Sox 3/3/2 (Another one for me! 8-3!)
Phillies 4/4/14 (Ohhh abother Blue jays incident! 9-3 my favor!)
Twins 5/5/5 (hey another push!)
Rockies 6/8/7 ( 9-4 oh I feel the heat now!!!)
Tampa 7/7/6 (Sorry charlie 10-4)
Blue Jays (oh no!) 8/6/15 (You hate them don’t you? 11-4)
Brewers 9/9/8 ( Sorry close but I was closer 12-4)
Rangers 10/10/24 (OUCH! bet you wish they were more like the blue jays! 13-4!
2008 lets try it one more time maybe third time is the charm for OBP.
Texas 1/1/3 (All Mine! I lead 14-4)
Cubs 2/2/2 Hey a push!
Red Sox 3/3/1 ( 15-4 my favor)
Twins 4/4/9 (16-4 Oh the agony!)
Tigers 5/6/7 (whose your daddy? RBI! 17-4 now!)
White Sox 6/5/2 (Oh well 18-4 in RBI correlating better than OBP!)
Indians 7/7/11 (19-4 and only 3 more teams to go in 2008!)
Phillies 8/8/15 (20-4 and you must feel pretty foolish by now!)
Mets (hey!) 9/10/8 (I feel bad so will give you this one despite both being equally off by one 20-5)
Yankees 10/9/6 (21-5)
So RBI spanks OBP in RS correlation 21 times to 5
of those 21 I correlated EXACTLY with RS 15 times!
Of your 5 you correlated EXACTLY with RS ONCE!
here endith the lesson!
Think you should go polish your bat you may need to keep it on your shoulder to do something good because you are getting killed posting here!
You realize RBI is just a round about way of measuring RS, right? That on more than 90% of RS, someone is credited with an RBI?
That RBI is really just giving credit to one guy for a team effort?
In order for an RBI to be counted, a run has to score. The RS is creating the RBI not the other way around.
You do realize that there is a difference between RS and RBI don’t you?
Yes My STAT is about scoring runs!
OBP does NOT!
Isn’t that counter to your consistent repeating that Something that is NOT related is CORELATED?
And CORELATES better than anything else except everything that is ACTUALLY related like RBI!
ROFLAMO
What does this even mean? This makes no sense. You’re laughing at nonsense.
This does not support your argument at all, I’m sorry.
You do know that RBI isn’t a stat that an individual has much, if any, control of? That when you are looking at the RBI of an entire team, you are basically looking at the total runs they scored anyway.
You’re essentially saying that runs scored have the highest correlation to runs scored, which doesn’t prove anything.
“Think you should go polish your bat you may need to keep it on your shoulder to do something good because you are getting killed posting here!”
Is it really necessary to insult the one person who is trying to have a reasonable debate with you? Does someone really have to die or be killed? Is it impossible to exchange ideas in a frank and rational manner without resorting to childish taunts? Is this really how you want to represent Mets fans?
Also, who polishes their bat?
Now, wait for him to spring home runs on you, like it was a clever trap, even though home runs are counted on their own and everyone agrees home runs are the ebst thing a hitter can do at any time.
This guy obviously is not very smart and very close-minded. He learned about RBIZ many years ago when he was a child and doesn’t want to give in to the fact that they are basically meaningless when judging players.
People did the same thing in the 1500s when they thought the world was flat. It’s a good thing that Columbus was incorrect…otherwise, we all would’ve fallen off the edge of the Earth like he did.
Oh wait a second…
Yes Donal you are correct because you have fallen into that trap many many times!
RBI is TOTALLY in the control of the batter, the amount of good needed drive a run in may be reduced when someone else is on base but it still takes the batter to do something not the guy on base!
He can score an RBI without anyone ON THE BASE at the time.
It is the HIT that CAUSES the guy to touch the base and the run to come home not the fact he touched a base rounding them after a HR or because There was someone else on base so he could reach a base safely.
Without the RBI AB there is no RS for the guy OB
“He can score an RBI without anyone ON THE BASE at the time.
It is the HIT that CAUSES the guy to touch the base and the run to come home not the fact he touched a base rounding them after a HR or because There was someone else on base so he could reach a base safely.”
Are you on drugs or is this normal for you? I seriously can’t understand the stupid that you are spewing here.
Oh my God. My brain. IT HURTS. THIS IS SO STUPID I CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE YOU THINK THIS GARBAGE IS TRUE!!!!
Metsie has definitively proven that RBI most closely correlate to runs scored. Despite the fact that 98% of the time you cannot have one without the other.
Basically no different than 98% of the time the mailman comes around, you get mail.
What I’m curious about is how the Blue Jays with their close to last OB% in 2010 could have fit every single run that they did score in 2010 by hitting only 3 run Hr’s (257 x 3 = 771, actual runs scored 755) and yet only two other team in MLB could have scored all of theirs by hitting nothing but Grand slams and many like the Twins or Dodgers had 200 actual runs scored left over.
This to me indicates that the Blue Jays got less than full value for all their HR’s and I attribute that to one thing, their dismal rate of getting OB in front of those HR’s.
Granted you cannot pick the time you hit your HR’s but still…..with 257 HR’s hit you would have to believe your runs scored would be closer to a thousand and don’t forget those 257 HR’s also counted in the .312 OB% so the rate at “getting on” for Toronto when they didn’t hit a HR was really dismal.
46 MORE HR’s than the Red Sox and 63 LESS runs scored. 56 MORE HR’s than the NYY and 104 LESS runs scored.
Being that a HR is by definition a run scoring event and often times a multiple one at that, there really can only be one reason a team could hit so many more HR’s than other teams in their division and yet score so many fewer runs.
Ahh but there is the difference…
There is no mail until the mailman brings it to you.
So just having a box to put mail in does not mean you will get mail!
having a runner on base for a Batter to drive in is the Mail Box but it is the BATTER who makes the delivery!
Without the batter all you have is a guy left on base!
Mailbox with no mail!
Bayonne Mets Fan, Metsie & the rest of the “OBP IS TEH SUXXORZ!!” crowd are fantastic. Seriously, keep it up.
“Since the HR hitter and the prolific walker can both have the SAME OBP!”
The HR hitter and the prolific singles hitter can both have the SAME BA!
What IS your point?
The HR hitter and the prolific singles hitter will drive in more runs. RBI’s is more important than OBP because that’s how you win games and win championships. Driving in runs.
It’s what baseball is all about – getting timely hits and driving in runs…the other stuff is what you’re supposed to do anyway as a baseball player. But driving in runs and timely hitting is what puts teams over the hump.
So yes the HR hitter and prolific singles hitter is more important than the HR hitter and prolific walker.
It’s not even close
But there’s a process to it. Obviously a hit with runners on base is the better outcome than a walk. However, a walk is infinitely better than making an out. It doesn’t make sense for a batter to swing at bad pitches just trying to get a hit and to avoid a walk. If the pitcher isn’t going to throw good pitches, you take the walk instead of swinging at crap that will get yourself out.
no kidding a walk is better than making an out. You learn that when you’re 8 years old.
And yes if the pitcher is throwing bad pitches you try not to swing at it. What is this? a team meeting for a jr minor little league team?
The point is im not gonna go up there looking to walk or looking to walk when there’s runner’s on base – your job is to get a hit to bring home runs. If there’s a close pitch sometimes i’d prefer my RBI guy to swing at it and get a hit rather than take it and walk.
The argument is that this plate discipline nonsense is creating a passive approach to hitting and could be one of the reasons runs scored is down. The Mets lost a game vs. Vance Worley the other day because they too TOO many pitches, even the 2nd time around.
Swing the bats, he’s a rookie.
Everybody is worrying about all the hitters plate discipline and it’s taking the focus away on what really is important and that’s getting hits to drive in runs and win games. Everybody’s a coach now.
What you have to learn is that NOT every hitter is going to have this approach and it also means that not every hitter who doesn’t follow this approach is not going to be successful either. AVG is more important than OBP. I want to see you hit more, not walk more.
“no kidding a walk is better than making an out. You learn that when you’re 8 years old.”
This is just outstanding analysis. Thank you for re-writing what I wrote and then reminding me when I learned said idea.
You sir, really know what you’re talking about here.
#sarcasm
LOL this is hilariously awful. You do realize that OBP=On base percentage and it *includes hits* in the formula. How about this…before you go and foolishly attack something you obviously do not have the mental capacity to understand, why not at the very least read up on it first so you don’t look like an even bigger toolbag then you already do. Posts like these are why people who deal in logic and are open to new ideas cannot take this website seriously.
Posts like this is why we don’t take guys like you seriously. You didn’t even understand the point of this post. The point was that hitters around the league are being WAY too pasive because guys are trying to draw walks to try to raise their OBP’s and “work the pitcher”. And by doing that they are actually LOWERING their all their numbers because they are taking good pitches to hit.
Your OK with Mets hitters, and hitters around the league taking good pitches to hit in hitters count? You like that idea?
Maybe before you go and foolishly attack something, you should try to get the main idea of the post.
Except they kind of aren’t. What’s the proof that hitters are being “too passive” if you want to call it that? And Josh Thole’s ONE AT BAT with the bases loaded vs the Rockies last week is not conclusive evidence. You need a little more of a sample size to prove that the entire league is too passive. Saying that one batter did it so everybody must do it is a strawman argument built on nothing but one singular instance.
I got the idea of this awful post. The idea is that OBP should be ignored and batting average is the most important thing in baseball, which it is just plain and simple not. Batting avg correlates to runs less than OBP, less than OPS, less than just about any stat you can think of. In fact, to give you an example, the 2009 Mets were 5th in the major leagues in batting average. But they were an offensive juggernaut, right? Wrong. They scored 671 runs, good for 25th in the majors. Their OBP was 13th in the league, which is closer while their OPS was 22nd in the league which was even closer to their runs scored.
You’d be smart to read this post that I’ve linked to below. It shows the correlation of runs to other offensive stats:
http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?48531-Correlation-Between-Stats-and-Runs-etc.
The 2009 Mets had all their power hitters injured. Yes they led the league in AVG but there was nobody around to drive them in. The most important guys – the RBI guys were not there.
OBP guys are a dime a dozen. You want to win championships then you need your RBI guys healthy and playing.
And yes your big time RBI guys in the middle of the order probably have good OBPs because they’re good HITTERS, that’s why they’re there.
it’s a different game in the middle of the order. A top of the order guy is that because that’s who they are and how they developed and they should have good eyes and be smart in pitch selection. The middle of the order guy is a different animal and will be pitched around more than the top of the order guy
But you’re too stupid and ignorant to realize that because you prefer calculations instead of baseball.
So how does somebody get the mystical title of “middle of the order hitter™” or “RBI guy©”? Is it some sort of birth rite? Is it some sort of a gene in their DNA that turns them into the “RBI Hulk” or something? Was it placed on Mike Piazza’s birth certificate right below his Name and Date of Birth that “Mike Piazza is a “middle of the order hitter™ and can only hit 3, 4 or 5 in the lineup”?
I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that a middle of the lineup hitter is by definition a hitter that the manager happens to place in the middle of the lineup. Nothing more, nothing less. Any hitter could rack up RBIs by hitting in the middle of the lineup because they’ll typically get the most at bats with runners on base (if there are even decent hitters in front of them). The idea of RBI Guyz and Middle of the Order Hitters is a fallacy with no basis in reality.
So, the fact that they led the league in BA but still couldn’t score runs doesn’t tell you that maybe Ba isn’t all that great? That maybe if they weren’t 7th in OBP and 12th in SLG and 11th in OPS, they might have made the playoffs?
OBP guys are a dime a dozen? How so? You do realize that league value is on a relative scale, right?
Oh yeah. Thanks for calling me stupid and ignorant. I could call you a silly name but I’d prefer to keep this civil. Luckily for me, my personal worth isn’t derived from calling faceless strangers names behind the shield of the internet.
My only hope is that you can understand all of these big words I’m using.
I didn’t even bring up Josh Thole’s at bat….Your trying to make this sound like I’m saying this just because of one at bat. lol…nice try. It’s something I noticed, around the league, and it’s something that Keith Hernandez has been talking about all season long.
Okay, so you’ve noticed it around the league. Give me some concrete examples of where this exists. I’ll even count the Josh Thole at-bat as one example, because obviously that was the one you were going to use (it’s confirmation bias…just like David Wright striking out vs the Cubs in 2008 with Murphy at 3rd is confirmation bias that David Wright is unclutch, another myth).
Give me 10…no 5 concrete examples of passive at bats.
Yeah, like I have all the at bats written down on a peice of paper that I could just show you.
Get real.
Well, then you obviously haven’t noticed it, so it does not exist. You have no evidence so your argument is not valid. Next time, keep some evidence if you’re going to try to prove a point.
LOL!!! are you serious?
Damn it, why didn’t I write down all of the at bats where hitters being passive, I can BELIEVE i didn’t think of that.
Hey…if you want to have an argument, you have to back it up with some facts. Otherwise, it’s just a strawman based on made up opinions. Information without facts is just talking out of your ass.
But THIS is why people go beyond not taking you seriously and start questioning your fundamental ability to understand logic and math, let alone baseball.
“The point was that hitters around the league are being WAY too pasive because guys are trying to draw walks to try to raise their OBP’s and “work the pitcher”.”
Do you honestly believe successful hitters go up to the plate trying to draw a walk? Nobody is making that argument because that just isn’t accurate.
“Your OK with Mets hitters, and hitters around the league taking good pitches to hit in hitters count? You like that idea?”
No. Nobody likes that idea because that is actually the exact opposite of what disciplined hitting is. If that is actually what the Mets are doing, don’t expect them to vacate last place any time soon.
Good hitters, by definition, hit good pitches to hit and lay off ones they can’t. NOBODY (at least nobody with any sense) is advocating batter go up to the plate with the goal of taking a walk.
The goal is ALWAYS to not make an out. If you can not make an out by laying off junk, why wouldn’t you?
It really, really shouldn’t be hard to understand that hitters who rarely swing at pitches outside the strike zone will have much, much more success than those who do. IN NO WAY, does this suggest they are going up to the plate LOOKING to walk. That conclusion does not follow at all.
Walks, and by extension a high OBP, are the product of a good approach at the plate. I don’t believe any manager (perhaps outside of the Mets’ organization) is instructing his hitters to simply “work the pitcher” for a walk. That is not a good approach.
Now THIS is very sad, your tyring too hard lol.
“Do you honestly believe successful hitters go up to the plate trying to draw a walk? Nobody is making that argument because that just isn’t accurate.”
And I’m not making that argument – I never said anything close to that. please read my post again.
All I said was the Mets hitters, and hitters around the league being TOO passive – that doesn’t mean EVERY time they come up they are trying to walk. OK?
Next time try to actually read what I’m saying, and stop spinning ok?
Then what do you mean by passive?
Now I have to explain what passive means, unbelievable, you know what I mean. Stop playing word games with OK? You do this all the time.
No, in this context, it is not clear what you mean by passive.
If not “looking for a walk”, then what? How else can hitter be passive? Bunting? Do you see a rash of bunting going on in the league?
What you said was, and I’m just quoting you here:
“guys are trying to draw walks to try to raise their OBP’s and “work the pitcher”.”
I am saying this is simply not true. At all.
You are correct in saying “that doesn’t mean EVERY time they come up they are trying to walk. OK?” but you are implying that this happens at least SOME of the time.
I am saying that successful hitters who stick at the major league level NEVER come up explicitly trying to walk. Ever.
They are, however, ALWAYS trying to not get out.
“but you are implying that this happens at least SOME of the time.”
Yes I am.
“I am saying that successful hitters who stick at the major league level NEVER come up explicitly trying to walk. Ever.”
and your right….I’m not arguing that.
You said: “hitters around the league are being WAY too pasive because guys are trying to draw walks to try to raise their OBP’s and “work the pitcher” and, in doing so, lower their overall numbers.
This is, at best, an anecdotal generalization if not totally false. When you make a claim like that, the onus is on you to provide some sort of factual evidence.
“Because Keith Hernandez sez so” is not evidence.
It’s funny that when I make a point I have to provide evidence, but you guys make a point you don’t have to give any.
If what I’m saying is false, prove it. Provide some evedince. Back up your claims.
That’s not how it works. You’re the one who made the initial claim without evidence. You literally made zero effort to convince people what you said is factually true beyond “I said so.”
If you say there’s a flying spaghetti monster, the onus is on you to prove it, not on anyone else to disprove it.
If someone is charged with murder, the onus is on the prosecution to prove WITH EVIDENCE that the accused did it. No evidence = no case = no argument. An argument presented without any evidence merits no evidence in response because there is nothing to respond to besides an empty claim.
That’s lesson #1 in logic and rhetoric. If you, however, took any time to gather SOME evidence to support your claim, others would be willing to do the same.
As I just said this is something that can’t be proven by numbers, I can’t just give you number and go “see” and you can’t do it either – it’s my word(and keith’s) against yours. And you can believe whatver you want i don’t care.
Oh and I HOPE you know I’m not being serious when I asking you to prove me wrong…..I’m just doing the same thing that your doing to me because what your asking for is impossible.
@ Vinny B:
@ Vinny B:
“As I just said this is something that can’t be proven by numbers”
You do know that the whole point of sabermetrics is to do just that, right? The saber-movement is about using statistical models and analysis to show what correlates to (or causes) runs and/or wins. Things like not making outs (high OBP) correlates very highly with runs.
No, it’s not “my word against yours.” That is just ignorant of the wealth of data we have available.
This is baseball. The outcome of every single pitch is recorded. There are mountains of statistical data on swing rates, not just for this year but for many years.
We know exactly the rates at which all players in the major leagues are swinging at pitches in the zone and outside of the zone. We know exactly how many pitches per at bat players are seeing — across the entire league, individual teams and on a player-by-player basis.
We have the technology to know this defnitively! It is not your word vs. mine.
If players really are more passive as you say — taking more pitches, swinging at strikes less, taking strikes more, etc. — all the data necessary to prove this point exists.
Nobody, however is going to spend the time doing to the research necessary to refute what you clearly are not capable of proving.
So there are sabermetric stats that can show a guys approach at the plate? They know what the batter is thinking when he comes up to bat? There’s a stat like that?
Wow, I guess they really are getting “advanced”. what is the stat called?
You guys leave out the human element.
All your statistical models are based on thing after the fact. The real genius or the real winners know what to do to win games each day.
Each day is different and your players may have to have different approaches to each pitcher they face and things like that.
Your statistical models tell you what SHOULD happen, not what will happen so there’s a lot of room for error.
But what’s NOT disputable is you can’t win unless you get GOOD power hitters who can drive in runs, get timely hits, and be your go to RBI guys. That’s more important than any analysis that comes AFTER THE FACT and much more important than OBP.
Give me any guy’s AVG and I can probably figure out their OBP within 10 to 20 points or so. As long as they hit that’s all that counts.
Bayonne, according to “this is just sad” there are stats now that can read the hitters mind.
That is Just Sad, LOL!
These stats don’t show what the player is thinking. They show what the player has done. There’s this great free website called Fangraphs.com which provides all sorts of great info on player’s plate discipline tendencies. For instance, I could go there and show you that David Wright is swinging at 22.9% of balls outside of the strike zone, he’s swinging at 69% of balls in the strike zone, he’s swinging at 43.5% of pitches he’s seen, etc etc. These numbers are all in the realm of his career averages, meaning that he is NOT being more passive. He’s actually not at all different from where he usually is.
Let me enlighten you a bit. Here’s the link. Check it out if you care to:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=3787&position=3B#platediscipline
Hey BayonneMetsFan…how are the boogers? Get any good ones in the past few hours?
Irrelevant.
What were the counts when he was swinging 22% of the time. were they 0-2 counts? was he in a hitters count? what pitcher was he facing? Was he having control problems? a sinkerballer? were there men on base? what inning?
all that doesn’t matter unless you know stuff like that – numbers can’t tell you everything.
You could click the link that I kindly put in there, VinnyB and find out. I’m not doing your research for you.
Hey Senorstemcell,
Just respond to Vinnie’s post on your OWN MERITS. Respond to it with your OWN KNOWLEDGE.
Never mind the “link”
Sounds like you’re cowardly backing out. Vinnie raised a very fair point. Wright swung and miss 22.9% of the time but what were the counts, who were the pitchers and what was happening.
Answer that on your OWN merits and not a “link”
Besides, – i dont do Fangraphs
I haven’t provided one link in this entire post. Everything I’ve answered is based on my own knowledge – not pointing at something and going “see”?
Answer his post with your own knowledge. I can, let’s see if you can.
Yawn…you’re not bullying me into anything. Click the link and read. I’ve provided my evidence and the way I see it, I’m still waiting for Vinny B to give me proof that players are more passive. Factual evidence that does not include “Josh Thole did that one time in Colorado” or “Keith Hernandez spouted off something off the cuff about hitters being passive without any researched evidence.” Until you provide a few specific situations of players being passive and looking for walks, your argument is busted. You can’t refute something without evidence. That’s slander.
That explains a lot.
Oh thanks for calling me Senorstemcell, you bigot.
you have to prove me wrong for it to be slander.
Just answer Vinnie’s question – you’re avoiding it. Answer it with YOUR OWN KNOWLEDGE (or lack of, which i think is the real case)
No links, no data, just answer it using your built-in knowledge of baseball. But i have a feeling you have no built-in knowledge of baseball
Well, I looked, and I couldn’t find his swing% was in different counts, and who the pitcher was that he was facing, and if there were men on base, and against what pitches – i couldn’t find that.
BUT i did find out that he had a 70 instincts rating last year, that was very useful.
This has nothing to do with count, with runners on base, with anything else except for David Wright being at the plate. Anything else is irrelevant to the argument. Your argument had nothing to do with the count. it had to do with baseball players being passive. Here, since you have no idea how to click on a link, let me write it out for you with evidence of one player:
2011 plate discipline:
Swings on pitches out of the zone: 22.9 %
Swings on pitches in the zone: 69.0 %
Total swings: 43.5 %
Contact on balls out of the zone: 64.1 %
Contact on balls in the zone: 84.8 %
Total Contact %: 78.7 %
Pitches seen in the zone: 44.6 %
First PItch Strike: 58.7 %
Swings and Misses: 9.1%
DW’s Career Plate Discipline:
Swings on pitches out of the zone: 21.8 %
Swings on pitches in the zone: 67.4 %
Total Swings: 44.6 %
Contact on balls out of the zone: 62.9 %
Contact on balls in the zone: 88.2 %
Total Contact %: 82.0 %
Pitches seen in the zone: 50.0 %
First PItch Strike: 56.5 %
Swings and Misses: 7.7 %
He’s been MORE aggressive on pitches out of the zone. He’s been MORE aggressive on pitches IN the zone. That’s my evidence. Now you provide yours stating that players are passive.
Maybe he’s swinging at all those pitches outside the zone because he’s in a lot of pitchers counts? That’s why I would want to know what the count is. You can’t say the guy isn’t being passive if you don’t know what the situation the player is in – come on you know that.
and ONE player is your evidence anyway? ONE guy, wow you REALLY proved me wrong there.
Give us some examples of passive at bats. I have not seen any such examples, other than Josh Thole’s at bat vs the Rockies, so they must not exist. You’re making things up that are incorrect and that is what we like to call slander.
What started the convesation about hitters being too passive was the Astro’s game on friday night…the 8th inning right?
So who was up for the astros that night in the 8th inning that night? Anyone remember?
This guy expects me to remember this lol.
If you want to have an argument with the adults, you have to rely on facts and logic…not opinions and distant memories that you think may be correct. Probably a good idea to learn that now so you know for the future.
So I can’t have an opinion about this? It was something I noticed and Keith noticed….and I can’t talk about something I’m seeing, and something that Keith keeps talking about?
We can’t talk about it?
You can’t take something as gospel if you don’t have evidence to support the notion.
What? It’s just my observation and Keith’s observation that hitters are becoming more passive – that’s it.
If you diasgree, then what’s your evidenve that hitters are NOT becoming more passive?
You didn’t notice it, you assumed it, Vinny. And you stated it as a fact.
Yes, you can have an opinion and are free to express it. But, we are also free to point out when the facts simply do not support the opinion.
Here is what you said:
“The point was that hitters around the league are being WAY too pasive because guys are trying to draw walks to try to raise their OBP’s and “work the pitcher”. And by doing that they are actually LOWERING their all their numbers because they are taking good pitches to hit.”
You didn’t add any qualifiers to indicate that this was merely your opinion.
Wat facts don’t support my opinion? You didn’t give me any facts at all.
I’m not trying to create an argument with no evidence like you are, Vinny B. I’m saying that hitters are not any more passive than usual. You’re the one trying to say that hitters are straying from the mean. You have to show me how they are straying from the mean.
So I have to use facts but you don’t have to? LOL.
Prove to me that hitters aren’t more passive now…where are YOUR facts?
you don’t need evidence. It’s over rated because you can’t record everything that happens in baseball as a number or a formula.
You prove that OBP is leading to winning more championships.
The evidence shows that it doesn’t
2010 Mets walked 502 times in 6,144 PAs, or one every 8.17%. 2011 Mets walked 156 times in 1,544 PAs, or every 10.1%.
This year’s Mets have been more patient, and even though Bay and Wright have given very, very little, the Mets are still 4th in runs, despite being 10th in BA because they are 5th in OBP.
Last year’s Mets of the Frenchy/Barajas wind turbines finished 13th in runs scored because of their 14th ranked OBP.
And to Vinny B…I’m still waiting for you to PROVE that hitters are more passive. You’re the one with the strawman argument.
So BayonneMetsFan…you don’t need evidence of anything? Okay. Here’s something that I’d like everyone to know:
BayonneMetsFan picks his nose and eats his own boogers. He does it because he seems to me like he’s a nosepicker and booger-eater. I don’t have any evidence and I’ve never actually seen or recorded a time or place where he’s done it, but I don’t need evidence because BayonneMetsFan said that I don’t need any evidence to have an argument.
wonderful example. I think you showed the readers what you’re about, very nice.
But but but…you specifically said (and I quote), “you don’t need evidence. It’s over rated because you can’t record everything that happens.”
Sorry that you are a boogerpicker and eater but that’s what I’ve observed and heard.
Keith and Gary were discussing that point the other night – about hitters maybe being too passive. That’s what prompted my post. That’s my evidence.
I was beginning to think that anyway and I respect Keith Hernandez’ opinion and I’m glad he agreed with me or I agree with him – whichever way you want to read that and make you happy.
On the other hand you’re a saber guy, I don’t know who you are specifically but it doesn’t matter because all you guys think the same way and say the same things anyway so if one speaks you all speak.
“On the other hand you’re a saber guy, I don’t know who you are specifically but it doesn’t matter because all you guys think the same way and say the same things anyway so if one speaks you all speak.”
Replace the word “saber guy” with “black guy” or “Jewish guy” or whatnot and that is pretty much how a bigot talks. Like, exactly.You really couldn’t nail it any harder.
Thank you, Wow. This is exactly what I’ve been trying to get at without actually saying it.
Oh, no. He’s certainly racist. You guys are new here, but he never forgets to remind people that Wright is a white guy. Like that matters. It’s been widely known he”s a racist bigot. I think he’s Puerto Rican, but I could be wrong. But I think he is, which is why he’s pro-Reyes and anti-Wright.
“if one speaks you all speak.”
Does this also apply to illiterate hicks from Bayonne fucking New Jersey?
Good to know that follows the bigot script so perfectly. No wonder why he’s the way he is.
no, no, no, your the one with the strawman argument. I made an observation, that’s it.. and your saying that what I observed is incorect, and you have not given any evidence to back up your claim.
But really it’s something that both of us can’t prove – I can’t give you a number and go “see”, and niether can you. So it’s really just my word(and Keith’s)against your word.
And Keith knows much more about the game than all of the people on here, so why are his observations meaningless to you?
Except you’re the person trying to make up an argument that something is straying from the norm. I asked you first. That’s how arguments work in the real world, bud. You provide evidence or you stop making the argument because you can’t back it up. I’m not making up any false arguments here. That’s you, sir.
False arguments huh? So now what Keith Hernandez is saying is false? He also didn’t just say it one time, he’s been saying it all year long, so why would he be making it up?
And if all you want is a few examples, ok fine. You talked about Thole’s AB, ok so that’s one, Worley’s start against the Mets, he was giving the mets very good pitches to hit and the Mets were taking them, and then you have the Astro’s AB’s in the bottom of the 8th inning, which is what started the convesation that gary and keith were talking about hitters being too passive….and that was what Bayonne’s post was mostly about.
There’s my evidence…so what’s your’s?
Don’t give me those swing% stats or whatever they are called – they don’t tell you what the situation is, or what type of pitches the batter is swinging or not swinging at – it doesn’t tell the differnce if it’s a nasty pitch on the outside corner, or if it’s a fastball down the middle – it doesn’t tell you what the count is – the batter’s approach is probably going to be different depending on what the count is – that stat can’t tell you all that, so it’s not going to tell you if hitters around the league have a more passive approach to hitting now.
And if you’re saying that something that Keith Hernandez said about hitting is false, YOUR the one that has to back that up with some facts……
And we already know that OBP includes hits. It’s an extension of the batting average.
I’m not interested in focusing on how many times a hitter walks or gets hit by a pitch. The first thing i’m looking at is how good a hitter he is and if he’s a power hitter. If he’s good at any of those things than the OPB will be higher anyway. I can figure out almost anybody’s OBP just by looking at their batting average, it could be 30 points higher, maybe 50, maybe 70. But it’s one of the LAST things you should worry about when evaluating talent. Don’t waste your time.
It’s funny seeing all these new names like Georgie Grapes, Joey Votto, Jose Bautista, Senorstem and James K (oh i forgot, that thing always lurks here”
I bet they’re all transients from AA who caught wind of the post. But they really add nothing to the debate other than rehashing the same old argument. Why? Because if one speaks they all speak. IT’s a culture and/or generation of fantasy/rotisserie/baseball numbers geeks that probably learned about the game through fantasy baseball and think it translates into real life
They all think the same. They all think they have baseball figured out because of a couple of numeric formulas. Seeing these guys post blurs the line between real baseball and fantasy baseball.
And to think there’s a whole site dedicated to this mind set.
They all worship Billy Beane, a guy who has never won a World Series.
To this crew it’s more important to work by numbers instead of doing what it takes to win games. Losers.
I guess it is okay to call people who think differently than you do “losers” who learned baseball from fantasy baseball, right? You want to know my background? I played baseball through High School. I started watching the Mets when I was 8 years old. I knew nothing of advanced statistics before two years ago and I didn’t play fantasy baseball until 3 years ago. Then I started reading a bit and got interested in a different side of the game that allowed me to question why there are certain unquestionable “truths” in baseball. Why do we waste outs by bunting with position players? Why does the best reliever have to be restricted to the 9th inning just to pick up a “save”? Why does a GM seemingly hand out expensive contracts with stupid vesting options like they are candy?
It’s a case of closed-mindedness vs open-mindedness. Those who are open to new things are generally interested in seeing if they can better understand the game they invest time watching. That’s me. I’m not some math geek. Not even close. I hated math in school and rejoiced the day I was done with it. However, I love baseball and the numbers side of it because it allows me to understand the inner workings of the game. It allows me to analyze it better. You may not like that side, but it is pretty intolerant and closed-minded to call the people who are interested in it “losers” and to make it out to be some sort of plague against baseball society. The bottom line is that it’s just a way of thinking, analyzing and doing.
You’d better watch out. Your ignorance and your intolerance to new ideas are showing. It’s really sad that people are still persecuted for their beliefs like this just because they stray from convention.
I wouldn’t persecute a new belief if it wasn’t stupid and if it makes normally SMART power hitters take pitches in times they should be looking to drive in runs. And especially if the face of it is a GM who has never won a playoff round and hasn’t been over .500 since 2006.
Sandy Alderson has said
“Every batter needs to behave like a lead-off man, and adopt as his main goal getting on-base”
And he FORCES players in the minors to have to have a walk every 10 ABs.
Those 2 things are just plain WRONG and create more of a passive approach to hitting. I NEVER want my middle of the order to be acting like leadoff batters. They are there to drive in runs AND furthermore, if it’s a big game and the tying and winning runs are on base I don’t want my power hitter to be looking at pitches just off the plate, i want him to use his God-given talent and swing the bat and drive in runs.
Bayonne Mets Fan is just a good-ole fashioned baseball mind like myself. She knows that good RBI men are what’s important. I’ve been around this game for a long time, and believe you me, you can’t get a hit with a calculator, catch a baseball with graph paper or bust a slump with math.
I don’t want to see a bunch of statues up there taking pitches, benefiting from the pitcher’s mistakes then clogging up the basepaths. I want my guys going up there hacking and looking to DRIVE. IN. RUNS.
Because that’s what matters in this game. Runs. And Driving Them In.
Joe Carter — great RBI man. Who cares if you got a .400+ OBP if you’re not knocking in runs?! This guy drove in 100 runs nearly EVERY YEAR and if that’s not production, I don’t know what is. Who cares if you’re recording an out in 71% of your plate appearances. 115 RBI — that’s what happened! That’s what matters. That’s production.
Thank you.
Read more of Hunter Roscoe’s musings on the importance of RBI, closers and other baseball facts here:
http://blogs.thescore.com/mlb/2011/05/06/first-base-coachs-corner-distractions-and-focus/
http://blogs.thescore.com/mlb/2011/05/13/first-base-coachs-corner-the-closer/
A GM who has never won a playoff round? Really? Are you sure?
You know damn well he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
“I wouldn’t persecute a new belief if it wasn’t stupid”
This. This is exactly what I’m talking about. Just calling something stupid without understanding it is a great way to be not taken seriously by others.
And this:
“Sandy Alderson has said
“Every batter needs to behave like a lead-off man, and adopt as his main goal getting on-base”
And he FORCES players in the minors to have to have a walk every 10 ABs.”
Is just total BS. Unless you KNOW Sandy Alderson and sit in on his organizational meetings, you can’t tell me that he FORCES players in the minors to walk at any specific rate. In all likelihood, he has his coaches working with minor leaguers to improve their batting eye and their patience, two important keys to HITTING the baseball. Swinging at crappy pitches all the time and having no patience makes you an easy out. It’s called “getting yourself out” at the plate and it makes the pitcher not have to do any work.
lol, but i did figure you out without knowing who you are – a fantasy baseball guy.
Now how did i know that?
So I guess you’ll ignore everything else I said and just focus on the one thing that you see that you can attack (once again, confirmation bias). You apparently need reading lessons. My entire background is that of somebody who played and watched baseball my entire school life and I didn’t start with fantasy baseball until recently, admittedly when a few friends got me into it.
But that just doesn’t go along with your strawman argument, does it?
Dude, you’re talking trash over the internet and you talk down to threaten people who disagree with you over the accomplishemtns of men far more athletic than you.
You are the stereotypical internet nerd. Get over yourself, poindexter.
@Senorstem and the other ration people who are commenting in this tread:
You are welcome to follow us “transients” back to AmazinAvenue and have intelligent discussions with intelligent people who know how the rues of logic and rhetoric.
But not how to win baseball games. Go pray to your bronze statue of Billy Beane.
And you can continue to suck at the tit of Joe Morgan.
Saber/Rotisserie/Fantasy baseball people are all the same.
When i saw all the new snarky, allegedly funny names here i knew it was an influx of stupid Amazin Avenue people. What a disgusting site that is, full of snark and disrespect right on the front page.
Anyway I predicted that all these new people were from that site and predicted that these people are all probably fantasy baseball people too. Looks like i was right without any evidence. Call it a hunch based on experience.
Take a hike and dig your head into your excel spreadsheets you, Eric Simon and the whole bunch of you and your STUPID, ARROGANT website full of Un-knowledgeable people who learned about baseball playing rotisserie league games.
“What a disgusting site that is, full of snark and disrespect right on the front page.”
On this site, you have to actually delve into the comments to find Bayonne’s snark and disrespect.
LOLOLOL
I just lie in the weeds……..waiting for my moment.
Yeah, you’re just pissed off because you don’t understand anything beyond RBIZ. And because you got banned and laughed at by AA. Just admit it.
Wait, he got banned by AA? Seriously? The laughed at part I can totally get. He gets laughed at here. But he got banned there?
So you banned the chimp at AA huh?
Thanks a lot.
Hey loser,
It’s a LIE, I HAVE NEVER EVER been a member of that site and I NEVER will.
It was a pure LIE!
Now we have these clowns WANTING to believe that i was actually a member of that filthy site.
Again, i don’t lie. You may disagree with me, hate me, hate the things i say, i could be wrong too..but I don’t LIE
I have never ever been a member of that site
But we have to lesser members who always like to hold onto things believing that.
I remember that time Bayonne Mets Fan came over to AA and said something really stupid and everybody laughed and laughed. It was funny. For us, anyway.
On the contrary, I wish it weren’t true. Banning you there would mean more time for you to spend here. Perish the thought.
I have NEVER been a member of that site. That is just a pure LIE. Now it casts in doubt everything you said here. If you lie about something like that than you’ll lie about more things.
To the readers here – i have NEVER EVER been a member of that site – EVER.
That is being honest.
Now we have these people coming in here and flat out telling lies and you expect me to take what you say seriously?
Not only can numbers lie it appears the people who live by them lie as well
Numbers can’t lie; they’re inanimate objects. Only people can lie.
Based on all the lies you consistently tell, how do we know YOU’RE not lying about getting banned?
He’s lying. He went over to AA in 2008 and got laughed at and banned.
Oh My God how this guy is LIEING and you DOPES believe him.
Joe D has my IP. He can contact Eric Simon and see if that IP address has ever been a member. That will prove it.
Now it’s more disgusting than ever. You have clowns like Xtreem Fat Guy and t agee actually believing this anonymous person who is lying over the internet. I was a member back in 2008? Sure find Bayonne Mets Fan as a member of that site.
I was NEVER a member of that site under ANY name. You have my word on that.
This is an absolute DISGRACE and you punks like XTreem Fat Guy and t agee should be ashamed of yourself to actually believe that.
XTreem Fat Guy. That’s new.
LOL what a nickname!
Bayonne,
You are so completely full of it.
Amazin’ Avenue?!?!? @I’ve never heard of such a place!@
Haha, just making sure.
You know who I am. You’ll probably figure it out if you haven’t already.
i think the dependence on the score of the game to determine the winner really sucks the soul out of the game. i say we hold hands and decide who showed the most grit, and declare them to be the winner.
I think the team that has to spend the most money on Tide with Bleach Alternative should be declared the winner. The dirtier the jersey, the better.
This sounds like a great plan! The scoring of runs is so complicated, anyway.
I think this character SenorStemcell has shown his true colors by making up stories and flat out lying to all the readers and the members of this site by saying I was a member of AA. And nothing could be further from the truth.
If I ever did register what would be the harm? So i did. But the truth is I NEVER registered with that site. I would NEVER register with that site.
So now all the readers can take what this guy Senorstem has said with a grain of salt. If he is to flat out lie saying i was a member of that site and then lie about things like I was there in 2008 or whatever he said than what else would he lie about? Did he lie in his arguments before? Good chance he has.
That’s not a good representation of saber people at all. And I think the other ones should tell him to knock it off because one guy can ruin the credibility of their arguments if LYING is the type of thing they ultimately resort to
Yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was really funny and the people there still laugh about it to this day.
Instead of lying and know i know you’re trying to make the most of it.
Why don’t you go back to where we left off – addressing Vinnie B’s post.
You are making the rest of your comrades – who took the time to debate this subject – look VERY BAD by resorting to lying and making up stories.
Nice job, and nice job acting as a representative to your site. Maybe other people reading this may have agreed with your arguments but now by resorting to lying and making stories up those same people may have second thoughts now.
Easy to make up stories over the internet right. If you’ve done it here i’m sure you’ve done it elsewhere.
Nice job.
Bayonne, AA has way you can search for comments, and I put your name in, and there were none under your name.
so yeah, Senorstem is making this up.
Of course he’s making it up,
He’s making it up because the LOST this argument. It’s over now.
They lost and now he’s just looking bad by continuing to extend his little charade that benefits nobody but his own self.
Anyway they would have a record of my IP and Joe D can match it up if that was the case. And I have the same IP since 2007 so that’s that.
They lost the argument so there was nothing else to do but get some last licks in.
The fact that you think you won anything here shows how clueless you really are.
I’d rather be clueless than resort to lying and making up stories like your comrade in arms did. It makes what you guys stand for even look more weak.
But getting back to the point…I’m not clueless.
It’s not making up stories if it’s true.
“I’m not clueless”
Sounds like something a clueless person would say.
Right. And you weren’t aware that no NL stadium stadium’s have astro turf anymore. Afterall they play and look the same as grass fields do.
Right.
And “Phillips signed Olerud” when in fact it was Mcilvaine who traded for him.
agee you’re instigating KNOWING that i got that from this website:
http://www.seamheads.com/2010/09/07/steve_phillips_v_omar_minaya/
That’s why I believed Phillips signed Olerud because that web site said it. I only found out later he did not.
So STOP trying to falsely paint me in a bad light. That’s makes YOU A LIAR TOO because we went over this in detail before and you are blatantly ignoring it just because you don’t like me and this guy made up stories about me.
agee your actions tell me more about you and the piece of garbage that you are.
Wait, I thought you weren’t able to give links to support your argument?…
“No links, no data, just answer it using your built-in knowledge of baseball.” – Bayonne Mets Fan
Hey! No links! What is this, your favorite website Amazin’ Avenue or something? You said it yourself…use your own built-in knowledge to answer the question. You’re not special…you have to follow the rules too.
LOL really? So not only did he get banned from AA but he doesn’t know that there are no NL astroturf stadiums?
Claims he didn’t know. Obviously one cannot watch a game without realizing the difference.
He must not watch baseball games. Who does he think he is calling the people of AA “nerds who don’t watch baseball”?
You won nothing. All your lies proved is that you know nothing about baseball and if I’ve been quiet it’s because you and your three falseketeers need no help from anyone else to prove how little you know about winning baseball.
Who’s lying? I’m not lying, Metsie is not lying, Vinnie B certainly is not lying, Maniac wasn’t lying.
I can be wrong, I can make a mistake, but I DO NOT LIE.
Where did I lie? I think your friend Senorstemcell is the only one who lied and that’s who’s beliefs you support. Xtreem – baseball isn’t your thing go back to doing whatever it is that you do.
I know what winning baseball is more than you will ever experience in your entire lifetime. Go back to laughing and patting the back of people who LIE and make Up stories.
I couldn’t care less about you an AA or whether he’s lying about you and AA. Fact is, he ran circles around you guys in the baseball debate. I’d been doing it for so long, I got tired of it and let him take over. I get tired running circles around you. I’m Xtreem Fat Guy, remember?
Thank you, XtreemIcon. Your words are kind and I appreciate the fact that there is at least one good natured and logical poster on this website.
There’s a lot. It’s just these four that overpopulate, so it seems they have us outnumbered. Believe it or not, there are several people on this site who have no use for sabermetrics. BUT. They know of which they speak and choose not to follow it. I find that commendable. I myself am not a big fan of WAR or OPS. But these jokers really have no idea what they’re talking about. I mean, you read Metsie’s diatribes. This site, saber fan or not, is NOT represented by these four yuckleheads.
Your not going to bring up your high school career again are you?
Oh, shit! He played in HS!?! Must’ve been the big man on campus!
LMFAO! Senor Stem Cell!!! Go gettem Bayonne, dont let a stem cell take you down.
“I didn’t touch that b**ch. N***a I’ll keel you! PLEASE BELIEVE ME! PLEASE BELIEEEVE ME!!!”
~~Dave Chapelle
Bayonne Mets Fan seems to be very paranoid about this. So you made a mistake once and went over to AA. It happens to the best of them at times.
I like the way these cockroaches come here and knock the entire site over Bayonne’s fan post. At least over here all fans have their say, not just geeks and cellar dwellars like on AA and FG. Why dont you go back and look at those charts with all the dots AKA your game recaps! I swear they look at dots! Run along, your lattes are getting cold and theres only one raisin scone left. LMAO!!!
Now the rest of them are quiet because they know this clown RUINED a good debate by lying and making up stories. That totally ruined it for them and now it even makes what they stand for look even WORSE.
And 2 clowns here actually believed him. Actually they WANTED to believe it.
The fact that you think a good debate occurred anywhere on this thread shows how flimsy your grasp of the rules of logic and rhetoric are.
But it has. Most people who’ve read this column realize it. Why have you come over from AA to comment then? You’ve probably commented more on this post than any other post you ever read here before.
Like it or not YES it was and is a good debate. As good as one can get on the internet anyway.
I totally disagree.
Mature adults do not like weeding through crap to find out if there was an actual debate going on.
They also don’t care for a ‘so called debate’ involving name calling disparaging comments from the author when debaters don’t agree with the author’s opinion.
Also, it’s getting just a little bit creepy how your side kick constantly will comment just to defend you, much like little girls on a playground often ‘stick’ up for each other.
This thread was not enjoyable at all. And unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the original opinion you stated in the post.
This was a good debate like California is on the east coast of the country.
Oy. This was one of the worst debates I’ve seen.
Just because you can’t understand the WPA charts doesn’t make them wrong or less worthwhile. And there aren’t any dots on a WPA chart either.
He doesn’t understand WPA. If he did, he’d back off the Wright bashing. But that’s another story for another time.
“He doesn’t understand WPA”
That couldn’t have been any more obvious. And apparently he doesn’t understand the difference between lines and dots because a WPA chart (the thing at the end of game recaps) is a line graph.
I think this blog has had enough no? Maybe a locked setting? I’m bored with it.
Dear Continuous Commenters OBP Supporters and Non..
Please… shut up.
All this is, is an enormous flame war. Let’s discuss abortion, death penalty or prayer in school also? I mean since we’re going back and forth on items in which NOBODY will change their point of view… perhaps maybe we can chat about something else
Brothers, let us lower our heads in shame as we have desecrated the church of baseball.
Few here today have walked with dignity at their side. Let the entire lot of lying scum and frothing idiots be devoured by the disease infected whores of the earth.
Hits, walks, RBI, WAR, OBP, BA, SA, RISP, WinShares, HR.. let our doors be open to all, let there be room for respectful debate; and open your minds for all who wish to reside in this house.
Tag I’m replying to you down here because I believe it is a seperate track we are going to…
“Clearly there has been a ton of work put into deriving this calculation and I cannot believe that it would have been done working backward to promote a false theory.”
Is it done intentionally backwards? NO!
But the components being selected are selected based on which stats the author likes to use.
wOBA in this case contains the bias that throws the rest of the calculation off.
He picked wOBA because he likes that stat but that doesn’t make it a good stat to use in a WAR calculation, and there is no need to use it as the incidental data is there to allow you to weight correctly.
Like I said if you remove the BIASED selection in the variable stage and plug in pure data, weight it accordingly I am willing to bet that a lot of these WAR leaders would not be leaders anymore!
It’s a mistake of selection on Tango’s part! Just as selecting via OBP first is a bias of selecting for the walk when the HIT is the most important thing a player can do regardless of what base he gets.
Walks aren’t bad but they are not as good as HITS and therefore you can come to the wrong conclusion based on belief that they are the same (which in one instance they are) NOT An OUT, but one does a lot more for your team than just not making an out!
The Bias is valuing something HIGHER than you should or equal to (and maybe even greater than) something that deserves more credit served to the players evaluation than the bias allowed in the system.
By selecting for OBP (which I have pretty much proved) you awarding players who are DEPENDENT on the defense to get the job done instead of the guy who is NOT dependent on a pitcher hitting or walking him to get the job done.
If the goal for all of these calculations is to see how much of the player’s contributions are CLEARLY his then you defeated the purpose of that evaluation by counting things he does not do AS MUCH OR MOPRE than the things he does pretty much all by himself!
But what I have demonstrated here is that BELIEFS can lead you to a result that is the wrong conclusion.
If you believe variable Y= (2X2=5) then any calculation you make using Y will be dead wrong!
wOBA is the Bias and selecting to use it shows a bias by the author.
I’m not saying they are trying to purport some big hoax on us by creating bad metrics I am syre they believe everything they are coming up with.
But believing 2X2=5 does not make that equation true!
If you do not step away from your beliefs to dicern the truth then you will not be able to see the truth cause you will look through religious eyes!
If your looking FOR a result instead of looking for the truth then chances are you will probably find whatever it is your looking for and not the truth!
BEcause the truth is buried in the details.
Details most people who follow statistics don’t really bother to look at, They click on a stat column and sort without knowing full well what that number really means of how it was derived!
And I’m have been trying since my very first debates with Xtreeme over this topic to get you all to stop reading and do some math before you draw conclusions and state them as fact!
So how is you faith on WAR affected knowing that a RBOE is actually a bigger accomplishment by a batter than a Hit or Walk?
Well Metsie I don’t really have any beliefs about sabermetrics. I like some things I’ve read about and discounted others and I’m open minded enough to look at both sides of any arguement to sift the wheat but I always look at things only in the context of what helps me win baseball games.
I always grab the book after one of my own games and do a box score and keep a running tally for my teammates and I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know that getting my 3, 4 and 5 hitters an extra AB every game is usually checkmate so I need OB at the bottom of the order to turn the lineup over AND to have potential runs OB for 1 and 2 who are good hitters as well. I don’t care HOW they get on, I just know that I need them to get on. I’m not in any way trying to compare modified, slowpitch or over 40 baseball to professional baseball but the theory of moving the lineup along still holds. Believe it or not, in the stats I calculate I have a seperate entry for ROE which I then include in OB under the theory that hitting the ball hard, in a more difficult area of the field helps me turn the lineup over a hell of a lot more than guys who just try to hit the ball over the fence every AB and fly out 9 times out of 10.
Granted there are millions more errors in leagues that I have played in than at any level of pro baseball or college summer leagues or competative women’s softball or anything else so they play a much larger part of turning the lineup over than they will anywhere else but they still serve the same function. Keeping the lineup going is huge. Having guys OB is huge and getting 3,4, and 5 up an extra time (or two) is huge but having 3, 4 and 5 with runners on and already 2 runs in that inning is a game breaker. Do that a couple times your almost guaranteed to win. So that’s where I come from in regard to OB. but I also know that guys will not (for the most part) hit for a high batting average on balls they go out of the strike zone to hit. This costs me in trying to turn the lineup over and cost me again in that that out made on a pitch difficult to hit well, prevented the hitter from seeing the next pitch which in a better count might have been a meatball and turned into a hit or a R/E a walk or Anything else that could have gotten him on.
Basically I don’t care about what skills or ability is required for us to get OB I just care that we do because If I’m going to take the time and effort to play I really want to win and that goes a long way towards that and I really hate it when the game is just given away by selfish AB’s not turning the lineup over.
I’m not docking anyone for how they got on. I’m also not equating 2 singles to a HR either but I know it’s important for each and every guy to if not get a hit at least keep it going.
That’s why I value OB, not instead of hitting, but to get more hitting, and do more damage while hitting.
Properly valueing these different events is not a job for me but you have raised some reasonable questions about whether they are currently being valued correctly. I will say this. The guys at the top seem to belong there but the idea of sabermetrics I guess is to be exact and I can’t say that off hand WAR “feels” exact with those weights.
But again my beliefs weren’t derived from the numbers. I am just as psyched when a lower order hitter gets a walk or reaches on error as I am when he gets a single cause if 8, 9, 10, (sometimes 11) get OB an average of 2 times each we are flat out winning that game 9 times out of 10 and that to me is really fun.
Tag, the end GOAL of what Sabermetrics is trying to do is not the issue.
You conclusion that if you get your best hitters more PA you will win more games is a fine premise to work from.
Where the sabers are getting hurt (and it is not the idea of sabers but the arguments being presented under the guise of DEEP STATISTICAL ANLYSIS) is that people seem to have different idea of how to achieve the goal.
It is not ILLOGICAL to say that if you get more OB you will get more PA and MORE everything else along the way.
But what gets you that OB? HOW do you get them? Isn’t that ultimatly more important than how often? How often is based on opportunity. The more opportunity the greater the chance it will happen and the count reflects that. But the opportunity is probably a constant for ALL players.
OBP doesn’t use a constant. A guy who faces bad pitching is going to walk more than a guy who doesn’t. Even if they are both EQUAL players in all aspects.
A guy with a better BA if he replaced the high OBP in those situations would have the same number of opportunities to get those walks as well. So maybe his OBP goes up because it is based on things the opposition affected.
Put against the same competition and the same situation the numbers for the better hitter are more likely to get the desired goal of more OB, Because he will get and take what the defense gave both, but also make some MORE based on his own ability when the defense does not give you something.
Sabermetrics is not the problem in and of itself.
A tool when used correctly is not to blame but when someone uses it inccorrectly does not give you the right answer.
To look for more OB is not a bad idea, the bad idea is stemming from the methid being used to gague how to get there!
OBP is not a player specific stat in the sense that the Defense has a say in those numbers.
BA is more about the batter’s individual ability and if the better BA is put into the same situation as the better OBP not only would the OBP be high due to defensive contribution but also in situations where the defense did NOT contribute.
I believe that OBP (and you could tweak the BA as well) needs to be readjusted to include credit to players who make a sac fly, move a runner over, and do something to contribute to offense that is currently not recorded in OBP or BA.
It should be things WHOLEY attributable to the batter not the pitcher/defense, the situation nor the frequency of their occurrance league wide.
What did the player do to contribute.
BA attempts to do some of that by not counting things that might be 50/50 good/bad.
It’s not perfect either but at least it is taking only player contribution into the analysis where OBP takes Defensive contribution as well and credits it to the wrong guy!
It’s those MYTHS about OBP that I believe are stopping people from taking the analysis to the next level and making a better metric!
Cause they BELIEVE what exists and will not question it!
If Galileo and Copernicus had done that would would still think the Sun revolved around the earth!
And it would be a proven fact!
LOL
Well Metsie there are guys that do things to help you win games and others that do things that don’t. I cannot say to what degree things are being over/under valued all I can say is that turning a lineup over and keeping an inning going is huge in the context of winning baseball games. That’s my sincere and long held opinion derived from playing, and wanting to win.
That’s why when you have a bottom third of the lineup that has in it Francoeur, Barajas, Tejada and the pitcher it makes it so difficult to turn it over. Less AB’s for Reyes, Wright, Beltran means less chance to win.
Can that be overcome? Sure, to some degree but why should it have to? Why can’t the bottom contribute to the success of the top? Work as a force multiplier instead of a drag?
Look at ’99. Rickey, Fonz, Olerud, Piazza, Ventura, then what? Basically we went 1-5 deep and then had to sweat it out just to get one of the next four on so we didn’t have the top starting out again with one out forget about actually scoring in that inning.
Cedeno, Benny, Hamilton, Pratt, Dunston helped get us back to the top of the order regardless of what they did offensively especially with Rey and the pitcher at 8 and 9. Getting Alfonzo Olerud, Piazza and Ventura an extra AB each will win a lot of games for you and if the only thing you care about is winning then getting them those extra AB’s is very valuable in and of itself.
Imagine just for a second if Rey Ordonez was able to get OB .60 more often than he did. .379 compared to .319. That would have been 50 more potential runs and 50 less outs before the top of the order came back around again. To me that’s huge. Massive. Forget about anything else like moving other guys up or whatever and I couldn’t care less HOW it occurred that he got on. I’m not into valueing players, current or historical. I’ll read other opinions and I have my own but If Rey’s great glove had come along with 75 more AB’s for 1-5 I might have had a memorable evening celebrating a NL east pennant instead of sweating out a Monday night in Cinncinatti.
Like I said I don’t know very much about it and I’m not the guy to examine numbers but I know what wins baseball games offensively and that is in my opinion getting OB and having your boxscore read 5 AB’s instead of 4 for hitters 1-5.
I don’t know how or if that value can be quantified but I do know it exists but it cannot exist in game in which the opposing pitchers only throw 100 pitches over 9 innings.
Yes the goal is fine…
The whole debate of OBP vs BA really comes down to this.
We both agree the more times you get on base the more chances you will have to score. It’s reasonable to say that.
HOW do you want to get there?
Via lots of Walks or Lots of Hits?
If you want to get there via lots of walks select for OBP and hope the Pitcher complies with your desired method of achieving the goal.
I say get there via the HITS, because then the Pitcher doesn’t really have a say or is needed to complete your goal. Either he will throw strikes that your hitter can hit for good average or if he gets scared and walks him the better hitter will be OB because the Pitcher allowed it.
Hitting is a skill. Something that the batter does.
Walking is a wishy washy affair that requires a complicit defense to work.
Since you can;t choose the defense why not choose the guy who can get the job done no matter what defense is out there.
And when the defense is good you have a guy who is good at beating anyway and when it’s bad the good hitter will walk just as much as the bad hitter did because the Defense helped him too!
I guess the best way I can put is like this. I like well rounded players. I want guys who play great D, run the bases well and have a high baseball IQ and neutral platoon splits, hit and get on well above league average.
I also know it’s not realistic to have all that so I’m willing to compromise in certain areas.
Defense and base running out of my slugging LFer for example but other than a gold glove Rey Ordonez I want good professional hitters 1-7. That makes a lineup almost impossible to pitch through.
Being a good professional hitter includes not swinging at bad pitches. The benefits of not swinging at bad pitches greatly enhance BOTH your OB AND BA. They keep your lineup moving along even when your slumping or hitting the ball right at guys. They keep the pressure on the defense, lead to higher pitch counts and cause the opposing pitcher to pitch in stressful innings. That leads to mistakes. Mistakes in pitch selection, location, errors, wild pitches, the whole merry go round. I love to have the opposing team out in the field for 20 minutes and then shut ‘em down and put them out there for another 20.
Without the ability to hit well only your true gold glove SS is going to be in the Major Leagues so after that it comes down to what the hitter does over and above his BA and how he can enhance that BA.
While a hitter can not physically force a pitcher to throw strikes he still knows realistically that even the most reluctant pitcher eventually has to, as long as he doesn’t swing at balls.
95% of players will have a sub .200 BA on pitches that are clearly balls. Many of these are swung at because the swing has to start too early. If the swing has to start too early that your swinging at stuff you cannot hit your approach is wrong. Swing like that on 2-0 or 3-0 but not 0-0 or 1-1.
Almost anyone in any profession can increase their effectiveness in some way. Hitters can raise their BA’s and OB simply by being more selective (and less picky as well)
Swing at strikes, take balls. Watch your BA and OB go up. Get everyone in the lineup doing that and your going to win 10 more games.
To me it’s not an either or. It’s part of being a good professional hitter and an unselfish teammate.
“I like well rounded players. I want guys who play great D, run the bases well and have a high baseball IQ and neutral platoon splits, hit and get on well above league average”
I think we all like that!
And to get that you can not ignore one stat because you like another. You can not get that IGNORING stats! In fact if you ignore even ONE you will miss information needed to determine the truth.
As far as the goal of finding that using only OBP or BA?
I say if you get the guy who hit better (Better BA) compared to a guy who walks a lot. The guy with the better BA will get on base AS OFTEN as the OBP guy merely because he will be in the same place at the same time in the same situation when the answer you want will occurr.
Even if one guy last year had a higher OBP if the guy who hits better than him was in those same situations the OBP would be the same or HIGHER as he would get the SAME WALKS presented BY THE PITCHER to the OBP player, but he would also get more hits in situations where the other guy did not walk and did not get a hit as well!
The Pitcher was probably going to walk ANY guy in that situation. And he isMORE LIKELY to do it against a guy with a higher BA isn’t he?
So by picking BA you will get HIGHER OBP than the High OBP guy would have. You will get the OBs the defense gave him PLUS a few he couldn’t get via his lesser hitting as well!
This is why who to credit for the walk is very important. I am perfectly willing to give a batter credit for recognizing the mistake but the model doesn’t work UNLESS the pitcher makes that mistake!
And in cases where he doesn’t make it the guy who hits better STILL has a better chance to succeed!
By selecting the BA I get not only the walks the pitcher gave high OBP guy but I get the Hits High BA guy gives me as well!
All because I went for the contribution that is totally player dependent not dependent on someone else complying or screwing up.
As for my final comment on the WAR…
Provided you do the same BAD calculation on ALL players the results will STILL somehow reflect the best players to be the best because their statistical data is used in some way.
Where the WAR has issues is it will not give an accurate slot by slot ranking correctly.
So you will find Power Hitting HR guys contributing as much as guy who hit nothing but singles. The War will be SIMILAR in cases where players are not REALLY similar due to the weighting.
If you want to calculate war try changing the weights to reflect VALUE of the hits instead of Occurance!
I haven’t had the time to do that yet.
Wieght according you your OWN belief in what credit each act should be awarded to the batter. Maybe something like this:
HBP .2 Pitcher does most of the work
IBB .2 Same here
RBOE .4 batter did have to hit the ball
NIBB .6 batter did have to recognize the walk
SF .8 batter did get a base of some sort and or scored a run so not a full base due to the out.
1B 1 1 base
2B 2 2 bases
3B 3 3 bases
4B 4 4 bases
Those numbers are completely arbitrary OPINION and could be argued easily. But try it and see if the list of GREAT players comes out the same as with Current War.
It certainly won’t and I’m not even going to claim that it will not also have issues of exclusion or bias of oversight.
I understand why they used the weights they did!
It was the only way to use real world data to come up with a arbitrary number.
Better than picking out of a hat but still not related to what a players REAL accomplishment it.
I will try this calculation when I have the chance just to see how it compares to the current WAR calcs
Metsie,
First and foremost I have never stated OB is the most important or end all but I do recognize that OB is a very vital component and would flat out disqualify a Major League player who did not exhibit plate discipline.
In a high school player I would disqualify the guy who couldn’t hit. Plate discipline should be able to be learned, bat speed cannot.
Inbetween high school and a Major League veteran? Somewhere in between. Not the answer you were looking for? Sorry, I guess I’m not 100% in one camp or the other.
Incidentally after the Francesca show on YES they had a report on the NYY hitting coach Kevin long who was reported to have told Robinson Cano that last night was the first time in 18 games that he didn’t swing at a pitch outside the zone and that id he continued to swing at stuff off the plate he was going to get more of it and that his BA and HR’s would go down. This is exactly what I have been saying.
Plate discipline enhances BA and SLG.
I’d be interested in your WAR results.
Well if your player already has a good BA then he already has the dicipline doesn’t he?
Plate discipline is a lot more than just not swinging at balls.
It also involves protecting the plate from close enough to call throws and areas of the strike zone that makes a poor pitch to hit but is still a strike. Like the Up and In strike on the top Inside corner.
If you don’t protect that area of the plate and don’t foul off those pitches with 2 strikes you will be called out!
I will take a shot at the WAR soon. Miss USA pagent is around the corner and I have to Autocad the project to send to NBC first.
Not all players with a good BA have plate discipline. Plate discipline is basically swinging at good pitches, not swinging at bad one’s. Almost every hitter can improve their BA and SLG by exhibiting better discipline.
Good luck with the pagent. Hope your “OB” is good out there.
I don’t know what you think Discipline is. To me if you hit the ball and get a hit thats good dicipline.
You can’t say if a pitch was a ball or strike until way after the umpire called it.
How can you be diciplined based on someone else’s judgement?
It’s not about what pitch you swing at. If you can hit it and drive it for a good hit it really doesn’t matter if the ball was on the black, one inch from the black or 1 foot off the black.
If it is a pitch you can clobber you do. The dicipline is in knowing what you can hit and what you can’t. Knowing what is a strike and may not be a strike is important to approach but only if you already know can you hit it well or do you have to foul off a strike you can’t hit. Thats what Murphy did in my article.
He fouled off the high Fastball that was high enough to be a ball, close enough to get punched out, Not really hittable but wasted it and protected the zone until the Pitcher finally gave up a fat breaking ball.
Thats Dicipline. Not just the mere act of dicerning potential balls and strikes. It’s part but it’s not the dicipline.
It is knowing what is hittable and trying to, Knowing what is not and trying to NOT swing until you get to two strikes where you have to expand the zone, Protect the edges of the zone from being badly called third strikes and biding your time until the pitcher screws up badly enough that not even a blind umpire can save him.
Either a real bad ball four or a big fat pitch you can hit!
The Better the dicipline the better the chances of getting a good pitch. But it’s more than just swinging at strikes and laying off balls.
Becasuse there are some strikes you SHOULD lay off and the dicipline says don’t try until you get two strikes and need to extend the at bat by fouling that unhittable pitch off.
I for one would like to know when Metsie’s paper or book is being published. I mean he said he’s done the research and has proven that OBP doesn’t actually represent the percentage of PA’s that result in not making an out. He’s also claimed to have done the research and proven that wOBA doesn’t weight run values accurately too. Let’s see it. Why not publish it and put it up for peer review like the Sabermatricians do? Have some balls and put your money where your mouth is.
Yeah, I’d like to see this as well. If you’re going to create your own statistics, you can’t just hide them from the world.
Sure you can…does Theo post all his analysis every year?
Putting aside the fact that Theo Epstein is a GM, not a statistician, he has a reason to keep what his statisticians develop to himself. It’s called a competitive advantage. You’re just some loon on the internet. The only reason you have to keep your “findings” to yourself is that they are laughable or you have none. Even those idiots who wrote the supposed Anti-Moneyball book that came out this year did it. Are you going to let those guys get all the “glory”?
Maybe I do too…Bill James was considered a loon at some point as well.
Your not a statistician so I guess no point talking to you either!
Published….ON THE INTERNET no less…
Being Published does not make something true!
JRR Tolkien was published too. Doesn’t make Middle Earth a reality dummy.
If you guys wish to debate your method of statistics then start by explaining why in a WAR and wOBA calculation a RBOE is actually worth more than a HIT in your SABERMETRIC REALITY when judging a player?
Won’t guys who get on by error look better than guys who didn’t need an error to get on?
If that research you keep touting exists then post the part that tells us WHY a guy who needs an error to get on is betterthan the guy who gets one without a screwup by the other side.
Why don’t you PUBLISH that explanation for us all so we can establish WHO is the loon, Who is crazy and Who should just know when he is beaten and go back to the site where everyone believes in the Religion!
Can’t explain that then obviously you can’t explain anything about what your side of the argument is because you haven’t even a clue to what you are actually arguing FOR!
Bill James was only considered a loon by simple minded folk like yourself who cling on to outdated theories and subjective observations.
And you want to know why RBOE is weighted more than a NIBB and (slightly) more than single? Because at max, a NIBB can only net you 1 base. Same for a single; a single at max, can net you only 1 base. An error can not only net you 1 base, but sometimes 2 (or even in super rare instances, 3 or 4!).
Here are 3 scenarios to make it easier for you since you seem to have trouble with these sorts of things:
Scenario_1: Before Batter_X’s PA: 0 outs, 0 runners on. Batter_X hits a single. After Batter_X’s PA: 0 outs, runner on 1st.
Scenario_2: Before Batter_Y’s PA: 0 outs, 0 runners on. Batter_Y walks. After Batter_Y’s PA: 0 outs, runner on 1st.
Scenario_3: Before Batter_Z’s PA: 0 outs, 0 runners on. Batter_Z hits a ground ball to short and the SS throws it into the dougout. After Batter_Z’s PA: 0 outs, runner on 2nd.
Which scenario has the better outcome for the offense? Hint: It’s Scenario_3.
Player_Y did something that resulted in a base state (runner on 2nd) that is more favorable to his team than a single or walk would be, hence it gets an ever so slightly larger weight (.92 compared to .9 for a single and .72 for a NIBB).
Blamo! See? it wasn’t that hard.
That last “Player_Y” should be “Player_Z”.
No he was considered a loon by every GM in baseball except Sandy Alderson!
The others didn’t catch onto or believe Bill James until Moneyball came out!
But anyway. Moot point.
Ok tell me who the better player is under WAR…
Player A 1 Hit 0 RBOE Didn’t need someone to give him anything just hit the ball all on his own
Player B o Hit 1 RBOE Who needed a defense to screw up to achieve anything and if not for that he would have got NOTHING!
And tell me why the guy with the RBOE did a better job than the guy who got the hit and should have a higher ranking in war?
Basically I don’t need your X Y and Z example.
It’s pretty simple. You are giving MORE CREDIT to a player who did not accomplish anything it was given to him by a defense yet penalize the batter who needed NO defensive help to get the same base!
And you do this in the name of the fact that the MORE the defense screws up the MORE bases he can get for doing pretty much nothing? Thats your theory?
OK…LEts say I give it to you.
If a single is 1 (or close) then why is a HR only 1.92 and not 4?
Whats you total base excuse for that one?
So and RBOE is nearly half as good in weight as a HR?
Don’t you see how stupid that weighting system is?
Well here is some news for you….if you get a hit you can also get extra bases on an error but you don’t GET a RBOE in that situation do you?
The batter gets a single recorded and the extra base does not based on the error!
So not only have you given a guy credit for something he didn’t REALLY accomplish but you penalized a guy who got and could get JUST AS MANY BASES with the same number of errors.
Player A gets a single, Error on throw runner goes to Second.
Same place your RBOE got one less ERROR needed and it all started with something he did well not something he needed the defense to screw up in order to avoid the out!
Thats your value system and if thats Bill James way of weighting and evaluating players (I happen to know it isn’t!) then he WOULD be a loon!
For crediting players for doing things they don’t do and penalize the ones that DO by not giving them the same opportunities to get the same credit a lesser player got!
Who says that the single wasn’t the result of a defender with piss-poor rang? Who says that the single wasn’t the result of a hanging curveball or a lazy sinker?
wOBA isn’t Defense Independent Hitting. It’s goal is not to remove defense or pitching from the equation. It’s goal is to reward batters based on the results of PA’s in accordance with historical base-stat run-values (and adjust for league and park factors).
The OFFICIAL SCORER OF THE GAME!!!!!
Thats who!
He is the guy who determines what stats go where!
He determined that the guy with the RBOE did not accomplish a HIT and therefore got credited with a RBOE instead while the guy with the single did not have a defensive screwup to get his stat!
So thank you once again for showing that you have pretty much no clue what it is your defending or why!
You just believe it and anyone who doesn’t buy your crap or challenges it is a heretic or a loon!
You say it is an attempt to reward batters based on results of a PA.
And in your world a guy who needs an error to get on did a better job than a guy who didn’t!
Oh yeah you got Bridge to go with what your selling dude?
Read what I wrote again. You obviously didn’t comprehend it the first time.
Ok here is what I read…
“And you want to know why RBOE is weighted more than a NIBB and (slightly) more than single? Because at max, a NIBB can only net you 1 base. Same for a single; a single at max, can net you only 1 base. An error can not only net you 1 base, but sometimes 2 (or even in super rare instances, 3 or 4!).”
A guy gets ON BASE due to an error. He gets one OB for that error! Guy gets a hit, he gets one OB for that hit.
Since an error can ALSO occur after a HIT it does not get counted as an RBOE But the hitter got the same number of bases you think the guy with the RBOE guy could get if the defense screws up.
SO you gave the guy who DID more, could get as much as the RBOE guy did, But rated it a LOWLY one base hit! You don’t know that the RBOE guy more bases, don’t care and have no way of knowing that the guy who hit did not get ANY credit for the same thing you gave RBOE boy credit for.
This is your belief system.
I know there is someone much better than you at explaining this wierd merit system you have.
You still are giving a batter credit for something the defense did and even MORE credit because of the possibility that also exists for the guy who got the hit if the defense sucks enough to give the DO NOTHING two bases!
So according to you all the good guys are the ones who can’t hit but can take two bases against bad defense and the bad guy is the guy who actually reached on his own skill and could have taken the same number of bases due to that same bad defense.
Give up dude you really are only hurting the Saber Approach here!
You keep saying that a guy who hits a single did more than someone who gets a walk or RBOE. Tell me, how do you know if the guy hit that single off of a lazy sinker or a hanging curveball (both miscues by the pitcher)? How do you know that a David Ortiz-esque player wasn’t at 1B that day and couldn’t reach the ground ball single only 3 feet away (a bad defensive play, but one that doesn’t get called an error)?
Simply put, you can’t remove the defense from offensive production. You can only award batters for the base-state that their PA causes.
You are so far out classed on this thread it’s not even funny (well, some of it is funny actually – I can’t wait for that long delayed book that will never come out). I mean, you people don’t understand the significance of sample size!
How do you know a HR wasn’t hanging pitch as well?
I guess that might be less of a contribution than a RBOE as well…
Hmm so what does that show about your thinking and philosophy?
BIAS TOWARDS OB is all that matters to YOU BECAUSE OBP is the MOST IMPORTANT STAT because EVERYTHING that is not an OUT is an OB and there is no OB better than any other! There is no play in your warped little world than an OB!
WHich is why you seem to credit Acts that are an act of GREATER SKILL all the same because then a WALK is as good as a hit…EVEN a HR!
No Sabers aren’t biased toward OBP in any way shape or form!
“How do you know a HR wasn’t hanging pitch as well?”
Exactly, that’s why wOBA credits batters according to the base-state after their PA.
“I guess that might be less of a contribution than a RBOE as well…”
You really can’t give a faithful representation of an opposing view, can you?
Home runs are the highest weighted outcome of a PA. They are the highest weighted because historically, they have the highest value to the offense.
Errors are weighted slightly higher than singles because historically, errors result in slightly more favorable base-stat for the offense than a single does.
OH base state after PA?
Which variable in that WAR calculation accounts for singles turned into doubles via error?
Which Variable RBOE shows HOW MANY bases he got?
Why isn’t a HR 4 times the base of an RBOE?
Nice attempt at deciept here by you.
It is not based off their base states after the PA it is based on the recorded RBOE IBB 1B 2B 3B HR
Not how many bases they got in a PA!
IF you really wanted to account for that you wouldn’t even bother with different weights for each type of act you would just use total bases stat wouldn’t you?
Soory you obviously are just making crap up now!
SO I won’t bother to entertain you any longer!
You lost your damn shirt dude and proved to everyone here you haven’t got a clue what is in a WAR calculation you just LIKE IT because someone told you it was good!
No, the official scorer determines and records the outcome. He also has guidelines to what he can record.
He only notes a single. He doesn’t note if the right fielder misjudged the path of the ball, if the third baseman took too long throwing the ball to first or if it bounced off the left field wall too hard for the batter to advance to second.
Besides, the official scorer sits in different places in each park. His view is never the same. How can that be objective in every game?
“No, the official scorer determines and records the outcome. He also has guidelines to what he can record.”
LOL you really aren’t helping them although you think you are…
THOSE GUDELINES say that if the fielder boots the ball on a play that if fielded cleanly would have been an out for the batter then he assigns an ERROR not a HIT!
If that is not the case and the batter would be safe even if no mistake was made it is recorded a hit!
“Besides, the official scorer sits in different places in each park. His view is never the same. How can that be objective in every game?”
Doesn’t matter WHERE he sits. He is the guy who assigns the stats based on the plays. So if your suggesting he is not scoring properly then your also saying Stats are useless because the scorer is the one assigning which stats to which play in the BOXSCORE where al the stats are collected from!
no, he doesn’t assign statistics. He records the outcomes of the plays.
How can we talk about advanced statistics when you don’t understand what a statistic is?
“THOSE GUDELINES say that if the fielder boots the ball on a play that if fielded cleanly would have been an out for the batter then he assigns an ERROR not a HIT!
If that is not the case and the batter would be safe even if no mistake was made it is recorded a hit!”
And here we have the Derek Jeter Effect. Kind of like how in the NBA, certain guys are allowed push offs, charges etc because they are stars, certain players in MLB get the benefit of the doubt because they are stars.
So, if Jeter has to chase one in the hole (yes, I know that’s just a hypothetical), but shorts the throw, because he is Derek Jeter, the play is scored a hit. “The batter outran it anyway”
Joe Smith who just got called up from AAA makes the same play and they call him for the error because he is a nobody.
If Dustin Pedroia is the batter in that example, he may get credited with a hit because he is known as a speedster who can get infield hits.
And again, this does not take into account a guy like Jeter who simply is not athletic enough to qualify as average at his position. What do you call a slow grounder to Jeter’s right? A base hit.
The official scorer can only account for the play if the fielder actually gets to the ball. He can’t tell us if it’s a Willie Harris, ran completely the wrong way, then ducked and covered from the ball type play.
“no, he doesn’t assign statistics. He records the outcomes of the plays.:
And what are statistics dummy?
Things made up by Bill James?
Where do the statistics you use get taken from?
THE OFFICIAL SCORER’S SHEET!
What he ASSIGNS each play to be SCORED is what is used to create the statistics!
If you think not then tell us where do they take the statistics from Slappy?
Oh, and 1 more difference between you and Bill James: He actually published his work (with his real name on it, too).
And I will too once I retire and made my retirement fund to live comfortably and then I will count on you to try and poke as many holes in it that I have poked into your beliefs!
I notice you are not publishing here under your real name, so I guess that point you made really is just more childish claptrap!
“I notice you are not publishing here under your real name, so I guess that point you made really is just more childish claptrap!”
I don’t claim to have busted OBP or wOBA.
And Bill James published his abstract while working as a factory security guard as his regular job. Why cant you publish your work while doing your day job? Are you going to let him show you up like that? Still waiting for you to show some balls and put your money where your mouth is.
Well my job is a little more busy than a security guard who really has not much to do all day but sit around for hours playing with excel while waiting for something to happen.
And if rboe is a better accomplishemt for a batter than an actual hit I don’t really need to publish to stop Bill James from showing me up!
I will post my finding when I am damn good and ready,
Not because some teenager on the internet tries to challenge my manhood or calls me a loon!
I will post it when it suits me not you!
Don’t like that?
TOO BAD!
Considering your success at defending Bill James I’m pretty sure he wishes you would shut up too!
Interesting. Didn’t know you were a major league GM. Oh wait…you’re just some guy posting on a website? Okay, then you have to give me some evidence this actually exists. Otherwise it doesn’t exist.
Same challenge to you…
Explain why a RBOE is counted as a greater accomplishment under sabers than a Single and I will see you fit enough to discuss and explain my side further.
But if you can’t even understand the side you cliam to support there is no reason to believe you have the capability to understand what it is I might publish!
And I won’t waste my intelligence on the stupid of this world any further!
I’ll save for after you run back home and I can discuss it with the GOOD posters like Tagee and Xtreeme who do make decent arguments and have a clue about the subject and what they believe, not some guys who don’t understand or can explain their own point of view let alone mine! And wave Pom Poms which says to me you probably know as much about Sabermetrics as a Cheerleader knows about the West Coast Offense!
Um no. I’m not the one gloating that I have all of this information that I’ve researched that will prove that OBP is bunk. That’s you. I’ve got nothing to prove. In fact, Ogre made a very good point in that a single or a walk only nets a player one base, while an error can be worth at least one base. Maybe 2, 3 or 4. What do you say to that?
Thats cause you got nothing you CAN prove. In fact you have not made a single argument towards the defense of Sabermetrics all you have done is wave your pom pom and tried to cheer on those who have tried!
You have nothing to prove because you have nothing THAT CAN BE PROVED!
Just Rah Rah sis boom bah!
Nite my little man!
Others have proven it for him. It’s on the internet. How about you show some gumption and go look for it yourself? Or are too afraid or lazy?
Well You certainly haven’t proven it for him!
If you claim that an RBOE is a better result of a PA than a SINGLE then go find that proof of why it is and bring it here!
I challenged you to but the excuse you came back with was not proof just some lame excuse about extra bases due to more errors that the Hit would get just as easily!
As for your argument it is on the Internet? Well so is this…I guess it must be true!
http://ufos.about.com/od/aliensalienabduction/a/bestabductions.htm
Excerpts have been posted here over the last year!
you must have missed them…
And to think, I was willing to give you money for your “findings” in the form of a book…
Better publish that stuff soon before I steal all of those excerpts and claim them as my own! (and by “my own” I mean claim it as belonging to my pen name “Grission McGrittyson”.)