You know the glue on postit notes was created to keep papers stuck not removable, It failed for what it was meant for but it’s still has a use!

It was made as a power metric. It’s no good for that!
As a complement to BA I have no isses with it and less than I have with OBP as a complement to BA!

But SLG to me still needs the BA to work. The BA tells you how often he gets a hit which lends weight to that average base per AB number.

Neither BA or SLG tells you what SLG was created to show which was POWER.

So to compare them as far as power is concerned is pointless!

My problem with SLG is not using it but what people thinks it says!
You are not thinking what they think your merely using it as a replacement for BA which isn’t as bad but still does not tell you how often the guy will get a hit only how many bases he might get if you give him X number of ABs

If you suggested we create a OPS using BA instead of OBP I would be right there with you on that Metric!
Now your correlating frequency of hits plus weight of those hits per AB and you have something meaningful!

So yes we CAN somewhat agree here!
See it isn’t that hard!
BA is EARNED, SLG is EARNED any metric that combines the two are an EARNED metric and worthy of attributing to a player I might be interested in getting because it’s HIS production not the gifts of the pitcher or defense!

My issues with Sabers are not the metric but how they are used and what they incorporate that is only there because OB Bias was the point of creating it!

That didn’t happen with SLG!
Does happen with OBP and WAR and if the OBP crew would make an attempt to correct that you wouldn’t hear a peep out of me regarding that new metric!

However, sticking to BA v. SLG

You want to know how often a player gets a hit, but I want to know what type of hit they get. A double is better than a single, triple better than a double and HR better than a triple etc. right? Does Batting Average tell you that?

In 2009 Luis Castillo had the 3rd highest batting average among 2B’s with 450+ AB but he had 16 extra base hits out of 147 hits. He was 3rd in BA and 11 out of 12 in Slg.

Here are the current NL Top 5 per position with a minimum 450 AB

450 AB

C by AVG:
Yadier Molina
Carlos Ruiz
Miguel Montero
Brian McCann
Jon Lucroy

C by SLG:
Miguel Montero
Brian McCann
Yadier Molina
Geo Soto
Jon Lucroy

1B by Avg:
Joey Votto
Michael Morse
Todd Helton
Albert Pujols
Prince Fielders

1B by Slg:
Prince Fielder
Michael Morse
Albert Pujols
Joey Votto
Ryan Howard

2B by Avg:
Brandon Phillips
Jamey Carroll
Omar Infante
Darwin Barney
Aaron Miles

2B by Slg:
Rickie Weeks
Brandon Phillips
Dan Uggla
Chase Utley
Danny Espinosa

3B by Avg:
Pablo Sandoval
Aramis Ramirez
Placido Polanco
Chipper Jones
Ryan Roberts

3B by Slg:
Pablo Sandoval
Aramis Ramirez
Chipper Jones
Ryan Roberts
Casey McGehee

SS by avg:
Jose Reyes
Starlin Castro
Troy Tulowitzki
Emilio Bonifacio
Ryan Theriot

SS by Slg:
Troy Tulowitzki
Jose Reyes
Starlin Castro
Jimmy Rollins
Emilio Bonifacio

OF by Avg (Top 10):
Ryan Braun
Matt Kemp
Hunter Pence
Lance Berkman
Carlos Beltran
Jon Jay
Matt Holliday
Carlos Gonzalez
Michael Bourn
Gerardo Parra

OF by Slg:
Ryan Braun
Matt Kemp
Lance Berkman
Mike Stanton
Justin Upton
Carlos Gonzalez
Carlos Beltran
Matt Holliday
Corey Hart
Hunter Pence

Which leaves us with these differences
C:
Carlos Ruiz (avg) versus Geo Soto

1B:
Todd Helton (avg) versus Ryan Howard

2B:
Jamey Carroll, Omar Infante, Darwin Barney, Aaron Miles (avg) versus Rickie Weeks, Dan Uggla, Chase Utley, Danny Espinosa

3B:
Placido Polanco (avg) versus Casey McGehee

SS:
Ryan Theriot (avg) versus Jimmy Rollins

OF:
Jon Jay, Michael Bourn, Gerardo Parra (avg) versus Mike Stanton, Justin Upton, Corey Hart

Now if you’re asking me to build a campionship caliber offense… I’m taking the all slug team minus Soto and McGehee.

So does it work every time? Absolutely not… but SLG % paints the picture of a better hitter than batting average does in most cases. Unless you’d prefer Gerardo Parra over Justin Upton?

You think 30 HRs is more power than 37?

He may be a more productive hitter BA alredy showed that!
SLG would lead you to believe he is a POWER hitter but he isn’t he is the classic OUTLIER of the SLG:POWER error that I talked about he gets more hits which makes his slg go up because he gets more hits not because he has more power!

And the SLG didn’t tell me anything about a productive hitter that his BA didn’t show!

To prove that you have to show me a lower BA hitter that the SLG shows he actually hits for POWER. In either case the SLG is useless both for showing who has MORE POWER or is no better than BA in showing how productive!

Cabrera is more productive than the other as BA clearly shows!

In 2011 he was.

Miggy: 572AB, 111R, 48dubs, 30HR, 105RBI, .344 avg, .448 OBP, .586SLg
Albert:579AB, 105R, 29dubs, 37HR, 99RBI, .299 avg, .366 OBP, .541SLG

what about those 2 seasons is making you question whether Miguel Cabrera had a better 2011 season?

Napoli had 369 AB, he didn’ qualify for enough AB’s. I did that based on minimum AB required

You’d rather know how often they hit over 500 AB then how WELL they hit over 500 AB? BA tells you something, that’s fine. But I’m not interested in how often they get a single, I’m interested in what impact their hit has on the game.

No GM in baseball is worried about what a guy does after just 10 AB’s. that’s not a large enough sample size. I am sure some slow catcher has a stolen base on 1 attempt, does that make him a base stealing threat?

The problem I have with BA is it weighs a HR, 3B etc the same as a single. Would Jose Reyes be the same guy with a .337 batting average and 10 less triples and 10 less doubles? No. He’d be Luis Castillo.

Purely on offensive 2011 seasons this is how our teams would look

C Alex Avila
1B Miguel Cabrera
2B Robinson Cano
3B Adrian Beltre
SS Troy Tulowitzki
LF Ryan Braun
CF Matt Kemp
RF Jose Bautista

versus

C Yadier Molina
1B Miguel Cabrera
2B Dustin Pedroia
3B Aramis Ramirez
SS Jose Reyes
LF Ryan Braun
CF Matt Kemp
RF Hunter Pence

Now you may gladly take your team. That’s fine. But you cannot deny that the SLG leader team is any less impressive. But I’ll tell ya what, game on the line with a runner on, I’ll gladly take Bautista over Pence, Beltre over Aramis, Cano over Pedroia and Tulo over Reyes. That doesn’t mean Pence, Aramis, Pedroia or Reyes are bad hitters… I just believe the other 4 are better and SLG % is verifying that.

Therefore OPS gives you a far, far better idea of how well a hitter performs than BA, OBP or even SLG on their own because it captures times on base, how they got there and doesn’t exclude walks.

Look at your list…
Is Cabrera really a better 1B than Pujols?

And where do you get your Catchers from? doesn’t SLG and OPS say Napoli is the catcher on your team?
So I have to question your supposed SLG lineups you listed…

Giambi would be 1B via SLG, Parmalee would be as good a 1B via OPS as Cabrera

I don’t know where or how you came up with my list but you certainly didn’t use the Power Metric i said was better than SLG!

If you read my post you’d see that I am suggesting OBP is NOT the end all be all and that SLG and mostly OPS tell you MORE about a hitter than just OBP or just BA.

“As for OBP and looking for a hitter does OBP alone tell you how the guy hits? Or does BA do that better?”
– How about, or does SLG % do that better?

OBP is in a different category than BAVG because it tells you different things. SLG % tells you more about a hitter than BAVG does.

Who is having a better post-season Matt Holliday or Nelson Cruz?

Holliday: 51AB, .294 AVG
Cruz: 58AB, .241 AVG

Your method says Holliday. My method says Cruz

Holliday: 51AB, .412SLG
Cruz: 58AB, .690SLG

You gonna tell me you want Holliday up in the post-season over Cruz right now?

Casey Kotchman hit .306 this year with a slg percentage of .422, Mike Stanton hit .262 with a SLG percentage of .537. I’ll take Stanton over Kotchman, thanks.

By the way OBP isn’t a sabermetric stat. I’m still not sure why you haven’t grasped that because it seems like every time somebody mentions OBP You attack “saberheads” which just makes you look like you have an agenda rather than a point.

Agains combine with BA and you will get a pretty good picture of the guys ability to hit for power or EBH (it will still favor speed as power though) but it at least will take the high BA singles hitter out of the POWER metric!

OBP isn’t a sabermetric stat…But Sabermtrics is ALL ABOUT the OBP!
SLG only tells you how heavy the average hit is doesn’t say how often he gets them!

A guy can have a .500 SLG and that could mean he went 1 for 8 with a HR or 5 for 10 hitting singles!

It really doesn’t say squat about how often the guy will get a hit!
Or even what kind of hit he is getting!
Sabers says it talks about power but power need not be present to have a high SLG!
Look at Reyes he has a ton of SLG but because he has speed not power!
It’s all the triples in conjunction with all the other hits that makes him look like a POWER hitter he is not!

Like I said Sabers tends to OBSCURE stats in the name of the quality you think your looking for yet it doesn’t really show that quality!
It is not a POWER Metric it is a TB Metric!

If you want a TRUE metric for Power then try this.

(2X2B) + (3X3B) + (4XHR)/Hits

Thats a far better way to judge how much POWER the batter has and used in conjunction with BA will tell you better who hits for power than SLG does!

SLG doesn’t do it that way because it was created by a guy who was trying to make a point about OB and needed to include the single to keep it important in all Sabermetrics!

He wanted to make a POWER Metric but biased it by including singles because he has a BIAS for OB and wants to make them important in EVERY STAT category because that was why he invented the metrics in the first place to show something about getting on base!

Again Jessup you are MISSING what it was he said!

He is saying some MLB GUYS DO MAKE THIS MISTAKE!
He wasn’t talking about OBP itself but HOW IT IS BEING USED!

You want to deny that is happening in the MLB then show us proof that it isn’t!
But he is THERE and YOU are NOT!
I think he has a slightly better pulse on what is happening in the MLB than you do!

As for OBP and looking for a hitter does OBP alone tell you how the guy hits?
Or does BA do that better?

No stat on it’s own is enough but if your looking for HITTERS you don’t look at OBP first which you on many occassions and most saber rattlers says is better than BA to judging GOOD HITTERS!

So what he said is correct NOT JUST for the MLB but many fans in general!

You tell a guy who can only hit .250 to improve on OBP he has very little choice but to walk more because he does not have the hitting skills to increase it via the bat! He has to use the WALK instead!

And walking more does not make you a better hitter!

You guys are just so rediculous in your defense of a stat using things that MIGHT be correct about them if they were used properly.
But people (fans as well) do NOT use them properly!
Because they look at the column, not at the math used to CREATE to column!

I have said for well over a year now with VICIOUS ATTACKS by you Donal and the other Saber cheerleaders that if you look at the BA the OBP will ALWAYS be higher than that!
So find the GOOD HITTERS and then if you tell the guy increase his OBP you have a shot of getting MORE HITS and MORE WALKS because you already have a guy who can hit who maybe only needs to layoff some bad pitches!

Look for the HITTERS FIRST!
Then look at that list to see which one has the most selective eye as a secondary metric!
Do that and OBP will NEVER FAIL you!
Because for the ost part it is earned OB not given OB!
And having that it’s easy to get more GIVEN OB because the pitcher won’t want to give him anything to hit and in doing so walk the guy who is more selective!

But everytime I suggest this you guys get on the OBP High Horse and complain that BA is no good compared to OBP!
All because your more interested in defening OBP than you are to opening your mind to the fact not ALL Sabers are better than the traditionals in cases of Batting, Run Production and BATTER ABILITY!

Just like some guys “look” like they are players, and others don’t. how much of that bias gets through scouting reports?

if nothing else, one size will not fit all.

In terms of summary stats, I like OPS too. It strikes a nice balance, since it looks at 2 things that are important (hitting (for power) and getting on base (not making outs).

it is up to the indidual to decide which component is more important to them, but any player with a high OPS (meaning they are good at both areas, or incredible at one!) is almost guaranteed to be a stud hitter.

and even if you like one triat over the other, having extra on the less favored one is certainly a bonus, or maybe a tie breaker!

and this has nothing to do with advanced/saber stats. IMO, all they try and do is answer the age old question “who’s better”, taking it from purely subjective, to something objective.

Honestly, if you have two guys that are otherwise the “same’ (defense, SBs, clutchness, hustle), what is better:

A) .240 BA, .360 OBP, .440 slg, .800 OPS
OR
b) .290 BA, .320 OBP, .480 slg, .800 OPS

No one stat can tell you all you need to know. If I tell you a guy hit 40 HR, you might get excited, until I say it was over a 5 year span. A .380 OBP looks really good until you see a slugging percentage 50 points lower (hi, Luis Castillo!).

What teams can do, however, is look for minimums for certain categories and work from there.

A great example is Angel Pagan. I looked at his stats today and was kinda surprised, His BA/OBP are the only stats to drop. His BB% and K% actually improved in ’11 over ’10. His Plate Discipline stats are pretty close from both years, a little improved in ’11. He even hit more Line Drives in ’11 then ’10.

So if you just look at OBP (a results stat), you’d know that Pagan had a down year from the year before, but sadly the numbers Pagan was either lucky in ’10 or unlucky in ’11. It’s probably a combination of luck and better scouting. The Plate Discipline type numbers are much better indicators as in why.

Now that’s my interpretation of the numbers…which was different from the impression I had before looking at the stats. It could be different than someone else’s.

Not to rip off a movie, but in a 500 AB season, the difference between a .300 hitter and a .280 hitter is 10hits! So looking a averages of any type can be very misleading if not looked at properly.