16
2013
USA Wants Players More Intent On OBP Than Hammering The Ball
An article by 
The Dominican Republic remains undefeated after their 2-0 victory over Puerto Rico on Saturday.
As far back as I could remember, there was something my father always used to say to me whenever I became too obsessed with things whether it was spending too much money on baseball cards, eating too much on Thanksgiving, watching too much television, or just hanging out too much with my friends. “Everything in moderation,” he’d always say
I was reminded of that this evening in a very indirect way when I came across this tweet from ESPN’s Pedro Gomez and also the reply to it from Kevin Kernan of the NY Post – one of my current favorite sports writers.
Check it out…
My first reaction was one of curiosity, I wished Gomez was following me because I so desperately was seeking a follow-up tweet that never came. I wanted to direct message him to find out what compelled him to say that without drawing any additional attention to it because I knew I wanted to write about this.
Kevin’s response made me laugh because I’m a huge Twilight Zone fan, but the analogy seemed very fitting considering how many fans are still bewildered by OBP and OPS.
I took a quick look at the stats, and even with David Wright leading his team with a .438/.526/.750 slash line, Team USA posted a very weak .688 OPS overall. I couldn’t believe it was that bad.
In stark contrast, the Dominicans had an overwhelming .811 OPS as a team, with most of that coming from their sheer power numbers. And if you think that’s impressive, the Cubans had a .991 OPS to lead the entire tournament.
Captain America’s exploits aside, Team USA did do one thing very well offensively – they drew a lot of walks – 22 of them in just six contests. However they only managed one home run – you all remember the one, right?
In a similar six game span, the Dominicans blasted seven homers, but it was the Cubans that stunned them all with 11 home runs to lead the circuit.
Let me interject one thing here – small sample size. Nevertheless, it’s still very impressive.
Team USA had some great hitters, with many of them known for having great on-base percentages. But what they seemed to lack most were pure sluggers. They did have Ryan Braun and Giancarlo Stanton, but both came up short in the competition.
I think that one of the problems with metrics like OBP and even WAR, is that too many see them as the be-all, end-all, and clearly that’s not the case at all.
I was absolutely stunned during the Hall of Fame vote when Ken Davidoff used WAR to exclude Mike Piazza from his HOF Ballot and used OBP to include Kenny Lofton. Davidoff caught a lot of flack for it, deservedly so, and he later admitted that he erred and that it wouldn’t happen again in 2014. I believe him.
The real problem is this… How many more Ken Davidoffs are out there?
How many people in front office positions or in managerial/coaching jobs are as like-minded as Davidoff, and build their teams or write their lineup cards based on the same misguided methodology?
Am I saying that we should just disregard all this data, both new and old?
Of course not, let’s not go crazy here. Obviously OBP, OPS and WAR have all found their place in the national pastime and are quite useful in many different ways. There’s no question about that.
I guess what I’m saying here is what my dad always used to tell me… Everything in moderation.
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
I'm a lifelong Mets fan who loves writing and talking about the Amazins' 24/7. From the Miracle in 1969 to the magic of 1986, and even the near misses in '73 and '00, I've experienced it all - the highs and the lows. I started Mets Merized Online in 2005 to feed my addiction. Follow me on Twitter @metsmerized.
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We all know that it was just that D.R. was a much better team and had a better series and that TeamUSA minus Captain America just didn’t have it. Stanton pfft, Braun pfft. Those guys have no power
“I think that one of the problems with metrics like OBP and even WAR, is that too many see them as the be-all, end-all, and clearly that’s not the case at all.”
Joe, I’m a big supporter of advanced stats (if you even want to call OBP one. It’s really traditional IMO) but I agree with you here. That’s why I like to look at a few different stats in all of my posts. We’re not at the point (nor will we ever be) where we can point to something and say “that’s how good a player is.”
I think this overall trend is going on in every organization. However, it is not about completely changing a player to one mold, as so many people claim. It’s just about being smarter at the plate.
Joe D used the word moderation but I personally find the more fitting word is balance.
I would agree. Balance is a better word. Anyone who thinks any stat is the be-all and end-all needs a little more balance in their lives.
But my father, who has long passed on, never left me with any wise old sage advice about “balance”. What was a poor Mets blogger like me to do?
And good fatherly advice it was.
Taking a hittable pitch is NOT smart: I rather swing and take my chances which are much better with less than two strikes. The key word is “hittable”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-pitch_strike
Google
[PDF] Batting Average by Count and Pitch Type – Home
Correct. Taking a hittable pitch is not smart. Not implying that it is.
Connor
This^
Did you go to the PDF file and see BA at various counts in the graph and slug percentages too.
Happy St. Patty’s Day
Taking a hittable pitch does not mean that it was thrown for a strike. The classic examples of this point:
1. an intentional walk where the batter swung at a ball too close to the plate,
2. called strike three (really a ball, umpire had a wide zone) with runners in scoring position and and the announcer says too close to take.
3. Imagine Yogi Berra a notorious bad ball hitter lectured on P.P.PA. His RBI would be halved.
By the same token and UNHITTABLE pitch does not mean it’s NOT a strike either!
WHich is the problem here…
The philosophy seems to be NOT about the Pitch, Strikes or Balls…
It appears to be a SUBJECTIVE (meaning changes from person to person) definition of what you like to hit!
If your going to tell them to swing at something in particular you had better be specific as to what that PARTICULAR thing is….
You leave it up to the player and yourt not really coaching him just encouraging himto dso whatever it was he was going to do even before you got there…
because you don’t HAVE to tell a player to swing at piched he likes, he already LIKES them!
What you need to coach into them is what to do with Pitches they do NOT like and how to deal with STRIKES they do not like to hit or can’t so they can extend the PA long enough to et the pitch they DO like….
And that has NOTHING to do with Patience….Has to do wuth ACTIONS on pitches you do not like or can not hit!
You can’t blanket say just TAKE them because tey might be strikes in many cases and that leads to Ks not BBs.
Taking a hittable pitch does not mean that it was thrown for a strike. The classic examples of this point:
1. an intentional walk where the batter swung at a ball too close to the plate,
2. called strike three (really a ball, umpire had a wide zone) with runners in scoring position and and the announcer says too close to take.
3. Imagine Yogi Berra a notorious bad ball hitter lectured on P.P.PA. His RBI would be halved.
OBP (and OPS) is no kind of saber stat. It is really just a traditional summary of counting type stat. Really a totally different animal than WAR.
The program that SA has brought and had the Collins and coaches buy into is nothing but stand up there and work the count; what good is a walk as shown in tournament if you can’t hit for power?
How many doubles did USA get?
This approach, denied by Huggins who says hitters should try to hit the best strike they see is being taught in minor leagues system so there goes any possible future slugger for Mets cause with OBP being taught the power will hardly appear.
Shame on those who ruined a great game for the sake of WAR, OBP+, OPS+, WHIP and the all the others; I say, just as quality starts were used, this is just for agents to prop a player that normally wouldn’t get a good contract.
Shame on the lack of power
Hi Sarge and Hi Bayonne,
You guys expressed it beautifully.
You might have seen in another post where I said it would be interesting to find out of those here who have had experience in the game, be it organized amateur, semi-pro or minor league, where they stood about the application of sabermatrics into the way the game is played. If let us say that even if one-third agree that the game can be learned and appreciated on a professional level more fully by going against traditional concepts which did help them and their team better themselves, then it would prove us who see it differently to be wrong.
And by that, I do not mean David Coen talking about the amount of information he wished he had in his playing days to know more about batter’s individual tendencies or that advanced stats helps those outside the game better appreciate things the players themselves knew about themselves and others.
So I think opening up that question actually puts those like you on the spot. Me? I’ve got nothing to lose since I’m only an observer like my good friend Sandy.
“You guys expressed it beautifully.”
Despite the fact that all three of you are again repeating something that has long been proven false?
Funny story about this WBC, at least through most recent games. Sort by runs per game and sort by OBP and Italy and the Dominican are the only two teams in the entire 16-team tournament that has as a difference of two places in the rankings. Every other team is just off by one and some even line up exactly.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
But don’t you understand Gomez was there, he saw all that success non us teams had plus I’m sure he played baseball at one time or at the very least coached a t-ball team so he knows what he’s talking about in regards to real baseball teams. They didn’t worry about pesky things like working a count, just look at Puerto Rico and their 224/297/301/598 line compared to the US’s 276/342/346/688 one.
Don’t forget how crappy Japan, the team with the highest isoOBP%, did. They were so concerned about taking pitches that they only had the 2nd most amount of home runs and rbi’s in the tournament.
No, you’re wrong. It has nothing to do with the US team simply having a bad week and it has nothing to do with the fact that the runs scored and OBP are once again best correlated. It also has nothing to do with the powerhoue Cuban team playing it’s opening round in the Tokyo Sardine Can Dome.
Pedro Gomez was absolutely right. He’s really smart, which is why for two-plus years he was relegated to following Barry Bonds around the country to report on what was thrown at him from the stands and what new accusations came out. Only the smartest baseball minds get that job detail.
Yeah did it correlate better than RBIs?
You know your asking me to post the 2012 Correlations to OBP and you know it is a disaster for your theory about OBP correlation right?
Except that RBI are after the fact. Getting on base is the factor best corelated with run scoring. After the run scores, then RBI are awarded. RBI have nothing to do with scoring runs and you know that.
No they are awarded based on acts that score a run….
Just as RS is awarded to the guy who SCORED AFTER the fact….
Team with the highest OBP didn’t lead the league in RS last year….
Didn’t even come in 2nd!
CORRELATION did not exist….
You can semantic you way off to buffalo trying to remove RBI or dismiss it….
But the FACT REMAINS….
OBP does NOT correlate to RS when someone ACTUALLY LOOKS AT THE DATA!
“No they are awarded based on acts that score a run….” Not true. You’re not awarded an RBI just for getting a hit or a walk. Someone has to be on base and that someone needs to score. If a run doesn’t score, who gets an RBI?
“Just as RS is awarded to the guy who SCORED AFTER the fact….” Exactly. RS and RBI are awarded after the fact. First the run has to score. Then you can go attributing numbers to it.
“Team with the highest OBP didn’t lead the league in RS last year….
Didn’t even come in 2nd!”
Which league? In the NL, the highest OBP came in 2nd in runs. The 2nd highest OBP came in third. The third highest came in fourth. The team that scored the most runs actually came in 5th in OBP, but was first in SLG and also first in stolen bases and second in SB% at 80%. So they were very adept at moving along the runners they had into scoring position. There are always outliers like this, but it makes sense when you consider other factors like SLG and how many men are advanced via successful steolen base attempts. But the general rule is, first OBP, then look for explainations for any outliers.
In the AL, the Yanks, Rangers and Angels were three of the top four teams in OBP and runs scored. I don’t have any more time to see what the deal was with the fourth team, but I think Detroit had a great OBP and was down a few in runs and I also remember them finishing lower in SLG% and also being pitiful on the bases.
There’s always correlation. Refusing to ackowledge it doesn’t make it disappear.
SOLO HR….
No one is on when he hits it and RBI gets awarded….
It is the act at the plate that ALLOWS to OB and how many bases not the OB that allows it after the fact.
Doesn’t matter how it is scored in a book it matter HOW IT GETS MADE!
And it is what happened in the batters box that determines how many bases that player can get….
the ACCOMPLISHMENT!
DO I have to ask the same question you have ignored for the last two years again?
Does walking 5 miles cause you to walk 10?
If not then touching first does not cause you to get the RBI and neither does a runner being on base because he might not be there and you can still get one!
“SOLO HR….
No one is on when he hits it and RBI gets awarded….”
Wrong. Hitting the ball over the fence doesn’t award anyone an RBI. Touching all four bases in sequence does. Once a batter hits the ball and leaves the batter’s box, he becomes a base runner. The exact term is “batter-runner.” So the idea that you can get an RBI with no base runners is incorrect. You always need a baserunner, even when a ball is hit over the fence. It’s the rulebook definition and not open for interpretation.
If hte batter-runner, after clearing the fence, misses a base on his trip around, is it still a home run, with an RBI and a run scored? Or is he out? So what did hitting hte ball over hte wall actually accomplish?
Ask Robin Ventura what happens when you hit the ball over the fence and don’t touch all four bases in sequence.
Semantical Beuracratic NONSENSE!
Hitting the ball over the fence let him GET ONE if he wants one….No one can STOP HIM FROM GETTING WHAT HE EARNED! He can decline the stat if HE wants but no force on earth can stop him from getting what he EARNED once the ball goes over that fence!
Hitting the ball over the wall is what determines WHAT HE IS ALLOWED TO DO…
And if he is ALLOWED TO DO IT….
HE HAS ACCOMPISHED IT for all intents and purposes….
Only a guy who has his head buried in a spreadsheet would be hinging his entire argument over data ebtry timing in a conversation of WHAT ACCOMPLISHES the goal of SCORING MORE RUNS!
EXACTLY! Key phrase, for all intents and purposes. He is allowed an unimpeded journey around the bases. But for the run to count, he must specifically touch all four bases in sequence. That is not open for debate.
but no force on earth can stop him from getting what he EARNED once the ball goes over that fence!
Todd Pratt is not of this earth…
So OP correlates only in regards to DATA entry not actual events involved in CAUSE and EFFECT!
Todd Prat didn’t stop Ventura….Ventura could have at anytime continued to run the bases and get his RBI….He didn’t need it so didn’t bother, what he needed he already got when he was at the plate!
This is what is lost on you!
the runner ventura drove in didn’t cause the run to score…Without Ventura he is stranded!
There was nothing he could do or EARN his way towards scoring!
It required someone else to help him!
Defensive mistake or something a guy in the batters box did!
It accomplished his ability to touch all the bases and score a run…If he screws that up it really doesn’t matter does it?
Did the not touching of the base bring the ball back into the stadium or stop him from scoring anyone else on base? NOPE!
It is still what HE did in the batters box that gave them the ability to score a run….
And you can find exceptions all you want but there are far more ways for an OB to NOT score and RBI than offbeat rare and idiotic examples you can come in to stop a HR from getting an RBI aren’t there?
All Intents and Purposes…HE EARNED IT!
Nothing about an OB scoring menas the RS that resulted was earned by the OB itself!
It required something else in most every case but the case of the HR.
“Todd Prat didn’t stop Ventura….Ventura could have at anytime continued to run the bases and get his RBI”
You could be right about that. To be fair, I’m not 100% clear on the interference rules. I don’t know know at what point if at all the play is called dead. But you did just prove my point. To get the RBI for himself, he needed to complete his trip around the bases. Now we all agree on that.
As far as your other point….”Without Ventura he is stranded!” Not true. You even acknowledged it while contradicting yourself. “Defensive mistake.” Or maybe a passed ball or wild pitch.
You need a base runner to score a run 100% of the time. You don’t always need an event resulting in an RBI to score a run.
A defensive mistake is not something you can MAKE happen while standing on a base is it?
Your just being silly!
Bingo!
It has been proven time and time again that the act of not getting an out (also known as “getting on base”) increases a team’s chances of scoring a run.
RBI DO correlate to runs scored because 95% of the time (95.1% in 2012) of the time, RBI are awarded for runs scored.
The official rulebook of Major League Baseball states in Rule 10.04:
“(a) The official scorer shall credit the batter with a run batted in for every run that scores:
(1) unaided by an error and as part of a play begun by the batter’s safe hit (including the batter’s home run), sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, infield out or fielder’s choice, unless Rule 10.04(b) applies;
(2) by reason of the batter becoming a runner with the bases full (because of a base on balls, an award of first base for being touched by a pitched ball or for interference or obstruction); or
(3) when, before two are out, an error is made on a play on which a runner from third base ordinarily would score.
(b) The official scorer shall not credit a run batted in
(1) when the batter grounds into a force double play or a reverse-force double play; or
(2) when a fielder is charged with an error because the fielder muffs a throw at first base that would have completed a force double play.”
Situations in which a team scores a run and no RBI is awarded are very rare. So saying RBI correlates to runs scored is almost the same as saying runs scored correlate to runs scored, which of course it does. That’s why the numbers point so strongly towards a correlation between the two statistics. It’s like saying touchdowns in football correlate to points scored.
———————————————————–
Of course OBP is not perfect and the rankings for OBP are never the same as runs scored, but they are usually very similar. (That’s because there are some other factors that contribute to it as well) But the act of not getting out has always been the best correlation to runs scored.
Show us the Statistical Proof that shows the higher the OBP the more runs you score….
PLEASE?
I showed that teams with higher OBP did not score as many runs as some Bottom ranked OBP teams did….
Please explain WHY that happened?
you are wrong when you say he knows that. he doesnt know that.
Holy crap did you just ask whether runs batted in correlated with runs scored? That’s like asking if holes in a house correlate to number of windows and doors.
To add
I know you didn’t mean it that way and you just wanted to make a quick snarky comment. I’m sure if you had thought about it for a moment you would have realized you error.
No I did the actual research you say was done but to date have NEVER ONCE showed to prove this thing you guys say as it’s as known a fact as Gravity!
See the link below!
Wait, you were serious when you asked if RBI’s correlated to Runs scored? Okay I’ll anwser you seriously.
RBI’s correlate directly to runs scored because the amount of unearned runs are insignificant ~>5%. The problem with RBI’s to measure a player is that they have limited ability to tell you anything about an individual player. They’re highly dependent on players other than the one at the plate and then there’s the problem of different stadiums.
metsie, read that above post about 40 times
No you rtead it and pint out WHY it was wrong….
RBI tells you the amount of times SOMETHING the player did resulted in a run scoring….
Can OBP or SLG even OPS tell you how much of his accomplishements scored a run?
NO! therefore it tells you how good the indivisual player is at ACHIEVING THE GOAL of raising RS!
And he doesn’t need a single guy on base to get that achievement!
As does OBP have the same limited ability to tell you anything about the player….
Says nothing about how many times they scored how many runs they managed to drive in NOR does it even tell you if they accomplished something productive or simply got on base because the Pitcher sucked that day!
OBP is even WORSE of an indicator of what a Player does because it icludes things the Pitcher FAILED to accomplish such as hitting a batter with a pitch, Walking a guy intentionally or just the pitcher not being able to control his pitches….
Which is why I also favor BA over OBP because at least the BA is all Batter Derived and does not count mistakes of the Pitcher…
metsie:
“Which is why I also favor BA over OBP because”
well its actually “because” you are ignorant of hose baseball works.
Yeah I’m the one who is ignorant not the guy making FALSE STATEMENTS that OBP borrelates better than any other metric who admitted two hours later I was right….
Yeah the guy who was CORRECT about your BAD THEORY is the ignorant one in regards to how Baseball works….
You can’t make this crap up!
But you guys sure try!
If thats all you got left to make your case then I suggest there is no further point in arguing with a guy who won’t even agree with himself!
And tries to portray that person who proved his own self wrong as knowing something about what it is he is talking about!
Vig, he actually believes this, and many times here countless people have shown the fallacy of it but he won’t give in.
He can believe what he wants without being insulted for it just like you can. It’s not what people believe or what their opinions are that are the problem. It’s intolerance that is the problem.
Your side has NEVER ONCE showed any Statistical analysis to prove what you say….
I did!
And it proved you to be wrong!
OBP did not correlate better to RS…OPS and SLG were much better than your OBP in every year looked at!
RBI was near PERFECT compared to all of those!
If you think otherwise show your data and stop claiming to prove something that has never been seen on this site in the year since I have been here!
You keep saying you have this proof yet you keep it hidden!
I say put up or shut up already!
Van it really does come down to allowing others to believe what they want without being insulted. I’ve had this discussion about OBP and Runs Scored in the past and even posted a breakdown how in my opinion they do correlate.
Personally though with my added disclaimer of (speaking for myself) cause I don’t speak for a Hive mind I am not a fan of discussing things to where it becomes redundant and I understand that people just have different opinions.
Now If more could simply just respect differing opinions maybe things would be just that much better around MMO.
No I didn’t ask…I TOLD!
And the research has appeared here!
http://metsmerizedonline.com/2011/10/does-ops-correlate-better-to-runs-scored-than-rbi.html
SHow us your data that shows OBP correlates at ALL!
And explain why bottom OBP team have higher RS than team with your all important OBP….
We await you posting of your research!
Oh and you analogy is ss backwards….
Not all RS are RBI….
Not all doors are windows
Not all windows are doors and not ALL are a hole in a house…..
But nice try there Vigo…..
If you think they are the same stat then tell me why they are awarded to different players?
The one who scores gets the RS the guy who drives him in gets the RBI….And sometimes that guy gets the RS too!
Under your theory PA correlate to RS as well as OBP does!
Because more PA means you probably got more OB…And you can’t get OB, score a run, or drive in one without a PA can you?
This is called finding a common requirement and making it more important to results than it ACTUALLY is!
This is what you guy do with this OBP correlation fantasy…
And when it is tested via statistical analysis it doesn’t correlate AT ALL!
Not even CLOSE!
SLG is much better correlator than OBP in all the research and OPS even better than that….
But none beat RBI!
Off Topic: Cesar Puello avoids suspension in BioGenesis incident because he is on the 40 man roster while Tigers Cesar Carrillo gets 100 game suspension cause he was not.
The power of the Union.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/puello-avoids-biogenesis-suspension-article-1.1290986
Just because a guy is not on the 40 man roster does not mean he isnt a part of the union. Look at the Mets recent draft picks…you dont think they are paying union dues? They most certainly are. Their omission from the 40 man roster is because they dont require protection at this point.
Hudgens gets all riled up with a litany of ready explanations when he’s accused of training his players to take more pitches, he says stuff like focused “aggression,” and “attacking” the zone to make his approach seem more active than passive, but the fact that he has these explanations lined up makes me think this criticism has been directed against his approach before.
Aggressive swing-at-anything players are dangerous because it’s hard to pitch to them. I’ve seen guys fight off inside pitches blooping them onto the OF grass and golf balls off their shoe strings into the stands … telling a free swinger to lay off of pitches outside the strike-zone by definition means they are more passive — on pitches outside the strike zone, this can throw some guys off — especially hitters who aren’t blessed with a good eye. I’m afraid Kirk Nieuwenhuis may be one of them.
The approach works, that much is undeniable, teams that walk a lot score a lot of runs. It certainly seems to work in the regular season.
That may not be the case at all in the playoffs, where you are facing excellent pitching. It was right after the AS break when the Mets ran into all those aces on the Nats and the Giants that things started to come apart. The approach works, but it’s vulnerable to strike throwers. Hudgens and the Mets need to come up with a plan-b when an opposing starter pounds the strike zone.
“One size fits all is a very, very bad idea and will hurt development in the future.”
Yeah but it’s a lot less work for the coaching staff!
But Matt you all ASSUME thats what Hudgens is teaching….
The truth is he is telling the player to HUNT YOUR PITCH…
YOUR PITCH doesn’t have to mean the same thing as STRIKE especially where 25 different players are concerned.
If I want you to go get me apples I don’t tell you to go get me fruit!
I SAY APPLES….not YOUR PITCH!
“Or how about this silly idea of working with each individual player on their own when they need it?”
Who says they don’t? You’re just making this up.
Straw-men are traditionally easy to slay.
“but the fact that he has these explanations lined up makes me think this criticism has been directed against his approach before.”
Or that it is a well thought and time tested approach that he’s spent a lot of energy working on.
Most people are generally expected to be able to explain the methods of how they perform their jobs.
Or maybe he just explains it better on Camera than he does to his Players….
He might get a much better result if he said the same thing to the players that he says on Camera…
Pedro Gomez made a statement of fact so I’m sure like all those fine journalists at ESPN he looked at all available evidence before making that definative statement. Since tweets have such few charachters he was unable to post that evidence so I’ll help him out.
Let’s see, in 2011 the bb% was 8.1%, sounds high I guess Gomez was right. Just to be safe lets check 10 years ago before this new fandangled Moneyball craze. In 2001 the walk rate was 8.5%, see he’s rig-. Wait a minute I know I’m not a math wiz but I do believe 8.1 is smaller than 8.5. I know it must be because we were in the roid era and pitchers were pitching around all the juiced up guys so we need to go back further.
1991 bb% 8.7%
No
1981 8.4%
NO
1971 8.6%
NO GOD NO
1961 9.0%
Crap
Jeez it seems as if Gomez might be wrong. Maybe it’s not players focus on taking BB at the expense of hitting, maybe it’s that players who are more selective at the plate end up being better hitters because they waste less strikes on bad pitches. I wonder if there’s any data on that.
to be continued
Hmm………interesting theory.
Well the reality is that players aren’t, dispite the ludicrous claims of people here and elsewhere, taking pitches solely to walk. It’s that obp% and walks are now treated more to their relative value towards winning.
Of course since it’s a ‘new’ idea there will always be a contingent of people who reject it simply because ‘how dare you tell me about baseball I’ve been watching it for x years and used to walk to games up hill, both ways.’
XBH% by year:
1961 6.8%
1971 5.9%
1981 6.1%
1991 6.7%
2001 8.1%
2011 7.5%
Maybe 2011 is an abnormality
2010 7.5%
2009 7.5%
Double Crap
Hi vigouge,
“Maybe it’s not players focus on taking BB at the expense of hitting, maybe it’s that players who are more selective at the plate end up being better hitters because they waste less strikes on bad pitches. I wonder if there’s any data on that.”
But by definition a “bad” pitch is one out of the strike zone. The more disciplined hitters are able to hold up more on those type of pitches though it also depends on how deceptive the pitcher is and if the umpire has an expanded strike zone favoring the pitcher. If the pitch is in the strike zone, it is not laying off a bad pitch and thus wasting strikes on bad pitches. It is more a case of the strike being in the hitter’s cold zone and he doesn’t think he has a good chance to get good wood on it.
I think Matt said it best:
“Aggressive swing-at-anything players are dangerous because it’s hard to pitch to them. I’ve seen guys fight off inside pitches blooping them onto the OF grass and golf balls off their shoe strings into the stands … telling a free swinger to lay off of pitches outside the strike-zone by definition means they are more passive — on pitches outside the strike zone, this can throw some guys off — especially hitters who aren’t blessed with a good eye. I’m afraid Kirk Nieuwenhuis may be one of them.”
and was followed up correctly by Bayonne when he said:
“One size fits all is a very, very bad idea and will hurt development in the future.”
You’re definition of a bad pitch is wrong. Purely being inside the strike zone doesn’t make it a good pitch else a 12 – 6 curve that paints a corner is as good as a middle in fastball or a hanging slider. Good pitches are pitches which when swung at produce the best result, bad pitches are more likely to produce a bad result and the goal of every hitter should be to swing at them as a last resort ie with two strikes.
AND HERE COMES THE FLIP OF POSITION!!!!
SO NOW after a couple dozen posts saying it’s about NOT TAKING STRIKES….You Should swing at strikes!
here you are saying SOME strikes are not good to hit and you shouldn’t try….
MAKE UP YOUR MIND!
Are they supposed to swing at ALL STRIKES or just the ones they like?
What in the blue hell are you talking about?
Answer the question posed to you and my response will clear everything up for you!
Hi vigouge,
But don’t forget the topic was about OBP.
Because it was noted not to waste strikes on bad pitches that I believed you were referring to pitches outside the strike zone which if a batter went after would be wasting one of the two strikes afforded to him. If you meant that it’s a bad pitch for him hitting wise within the strike zone and he should lay off it because he still has some strikes to still work with, then he is being properly selective and I agree with you – otherwise one could be wasting an entire at-bat by not taking the strike one deems un-hittable when he has that luxury.
Most important to realize is that plate discipline and being selective was not a discovered art over the past two or three decades but is being taught in a way that hampers batters today instead of helping them due to the emphasis on OBP. Teach them how to approach hitting based on their own strengths and mechanics and getting on base other than a hit will work itself out on it’s own. There is plenty of data that shows that the extra OBP points above one’s batting average has not varied much in the 44 years since the new strike zone and lower pitching mound went into effect – except during the steroid era. Emphasize discipline in the proper way as it deals with the hitter – not with a team concept – and those walks will come – they always have.
But BB are not always an indicator of patient( too much or too little ) philosophy.
P/PA is another.
how many pitches were called balls vs strikes
how many strikeouts looking vs strikeouts swinging
everyone and their mother who saw Jose Reyes in 2011 saw that he was a much more patient hitter than in years past….yet his BB walk rate was just the same
That is a good point. We need to know what they were actually seeing and what they swung at before we can really make any definitive statement.
Also, Reyes laid off first pitch breaking balls in early 2011 and saw more fastballs early in the count after May. His walk rate went up early and evened out as he got a lot more hittable stuff early in the count.
Which is why there is a debate on if the key is paitience or something else….
In order to dicern why the results of the PA is as it is you have to look and the individual situations of that PA on a Pitch by Pitch basis to prove being paitent actually extends a PA more than something else….
It may find that patience works only in cases where Balls are thrown earlier and more often than strikes and in cases where Strikes come early Patience isn’t even present at all because the Batter had to take a cut or didn’t and Patience turned into a negative and put him behind in the count.
Patience really can only be judged based on what they did for both balls and strikes (split) during the first 3 – 5 pitches of a PA….
After that Patience probably doesn’t have any affect on the result and somethign else is the key to the success of the PA and even PPPA….
Such as batter ability to not TAKE pitches anymore but fight off close pitches that could be caled either way and are NOT hittable in the name of extending the PA long enough to get a pitch that IS!
In that situation aggressive DEFENSE is called for not patience.
You know what else is funny about this silly notion that USA went for OBP over power? Of all the American ballplayers with at least 32 home runs last season, the three with the highest batting averages played in the WBC, not any OBP leaders. If that were true, Adam LaRoche and Josh Willingham would have been selected.
What does last year’s leaders have to do with what TEAM USA did THIS YEAR pray tell?
Gomez wasn’t referring to the team selection he was talking about approach during the game!
Well, since there are no numbers for this year, last year’s numbers are what we have to refer to, don’t we? I also find it hard to believe that last season’s second best slugger in Braun and Stanton, who would have been first if he had enough PAs to qualify, all of a sudden changed their approach for a two-week tournament because of something Dale Murphy said.
SO you mean they didn’t bother to record stats for the WBC?
Just because you might find something hard to believe doesn’t mean it isn’t true!
The contrary applies as well…
If you want to believe that Dale Murphy turned two of the three best sluggers in all of baseball (statistically speaking) into passive walkers in a matter of two weeks, then more power to you.
Who sas it was Dale Murphy?
Maybe it was something the coaches told them to work on in the offseason….
Maybe they all got together and said lets just go for a lot of walks and not hurt ourselves here….
Comparing what someone did last year in the MLB is not a good argument to disprove what happened in the WBC….
You just don’t like the reality and grasping at straw to explain it away….
Just as we have with every conversationon approach when one minute your supposed to swing at all strikes because ALL stikes are hittable and the next your only supposed to swing at GOOD strikes not bad one….
“……because ALL strikes are hittable and the next your only supposed to swing at GOOD strikes not bad one…”
Metsie its a game of execution and adjustments: If a pitcher throws his pitch i.e. executes the batter has two choices (1) adjust his swing or take the strike on the corner. A guy like Ike is vulnerable to the outside slider then lay off or go the other way. The advantage of the pitcher with two strikes is huge and it requires requires adjustments by the batter.
Hotstreak I’m not debating what the complexities of Hitting and having a good PA is here…
What we are debating here is do the WORDS of Hudgens MATCH the stated theory?
And is what he telling them to do GETTING THROUGH to them and being done on the field?
We have this phrase from him that says “Hunt YOUR PITCH”
What is “your pitch”? Is it a strike? Is it all Strikes? Is it just strikes you like? Is it just Middle Strikes?
This definition seems to change everytime a situation is brought up and asked if the Philosophy works….
WHich is why I keep going back to the Apple and Fruit analogy….
I want you to collect as many apples as you can….
I tell you though go get me “Your Fruit”!
Sure you might come back with apples but you might also come back with oranges and bannana’s which I didn’t want! Because I didn’t really teach you my Philosophy and TEACH you a lesson that was clear and understood….
I made a SLOGAN that is open to interpretation which is why even if Hudgens Philosopy is GREAT it is not being exhibited by the Players meant to follow the teachings because they all recieved a different lesson when they personally decided what “YOUR PITCH” means!
I have no issue with how Hudgens may or may not define “Your Pitch” Maybe his definition is fine such as would be the case if he defined it as ALL strikes….
I don’t even have a BIG issue if the lesson was hunt MIDDLE STRIKES provided part two of the lesson said with TWO STRIKES on you you have to swing at ALL strikes even ones that are tough to hit in order to be able to fight them off foul in hopes of getting one you do like!
But Hudgens isn’t saying the word STRIKE at all….”Your Pitch” may or may not be a strike. If a Strike is NOT “Your Pitch” the lessons doesn’t address what to do in that situation does it?
The Ideal teaching would be:
Don’t swing at Pitches you can not hit, until you have 2K and then protect the plate as best as you can on pitches close enough to call until he makes a mistake and give you YOUR PITCH!
That lessong encompasses and covers EVERY different definition of “YOUR PITCH”, Extends a PA just as well as saying be PATIENT does and also adds the BIGGEST PART of ANY Philosophy, What to do with 2Ks behind the count to succeed!
None of that is able to be extrapolated from “Hunt Your Pitch!”
25 players will all do very different things because there is so little PHILOSOPHY in that statement they are forced to make up thier own and fill in all the blanks!
And THATS why your seeing what you do inthe batters box!
Prediction….300 comments easy by this time tomorrow!
Joe D, you clearly know which topics to hit on to get the loonies out in full force and then get us rational folk out to try to explain reality to the crazies.
But in writing something like this, wouldn’t it be so much better if an actual intelligent discussion was the result? Instead we get Metsie writing total nonsense, having his points disproved comment after comment, ignoring the responses and repeating the same nonsense over and over again.
Or Bayonne just entirely missing the point of advanced statistics and misreading the point of your article to suggest it proves some long ago perceived slight and that he has been right all along.
The fact is, and this is a FACT, there were plenty of mashers on team USA. You’re talking about a tiny sample set of games taking place at the very stages of spring training. None of what happened in the WBC suggests anything about advanced stats or taking pitches or approaches to the game. None of it.
But I do suspect you know that.
Yes Metsie is writing nonesense yet HE is the only one with any Statistical Analysis to back it up….
And you call thast UNPROVEN!
Your a Joke!
Bayonne, I’d love to fully understand your objection to newer statistics.
Do you believe that HR, RBI and Avg are important? That’s a good place to start in understanding your objections. We can build from there.
Might it have something to do with the fact that, like most sports, the game is different outside of the US? With some notable exceptions, other countries’ national leagues have way more junk ball pitchers and far fewer power pitchers than we do. And offensives tend to be way more reliant on small ball.
That is stuff that, while it won’t work over a 162 game MLB season, may be able to keep our guys off their balance one game at a time, since they don’t really have time to adjust.
No, it has to be that Pedro Gomez and anonymous strangers on the internet know more about baseball than Joe Torre, Larry Boa and a every MLB player on Team USA. Ya, that makes much more sense.
LOL
the Domincans actually had more walks than the Americans…
“Captain America’s exploits aside, Team USA did do one thing very well offensively – they drew a lot of walks – 22 of them in just six contests. However they only managed one home run – you all remember the one, right?”
How does that compare to all the other countries? Lets find out
Japan 29 BB in 6 games 4.83 BB/G
Netherlands 28 BB in 7 games 4 BB/G
DR 24 BB in 6 games 4 BB/G
US 22 BB in 6 games 3.67 BB/G
Italy 20 BB in 5 games 4 BB/G
PR 20 BB in 7 games 2.86 BB/G
Cuba 19 BB in 6 games 3.12 BB/G
Chinese Taipei 16 BB in 5 games 3.2 BB/G
Venezuela 13 BB in 3 games 4.33 BB/G
and on and on
The average for the WBC is 3.42 BB/G
So, the US is slightly above average and not even in the top 5 for BB/G
I didn’t say the US were the best, only that they did do one thing extremely well, drawing almost 4 walks per game is pretty damn good.
I wasn’t intending to cast aspersions or even be argumentative.
This wasn’t a post that required exhaustive research. I saw that tweet and if you look at the time stamp 27 minutes later I posted this.
I just thought it was an odd thing to say. Here’s a guy, Pedro Lopez, who has been shadowing the Dominican team from day one, and out of nowhere he tweets that about Team USA as his takeaway.
My intent was that too much is made of all this OBP, WAR, and all the other alphabet soup.
We should all understand the usefulness of each stat not be so extreme in it’s application.
They are just different tools to measure different things.
joe OBP is not a stat that measures walks. its on base percentage and that means hits too. so i dunno what you are talking about. if you are building a team around getting on base that doesnt mean just walks. it means getting on base. and that means runs.
“I didn’t say the US were the best, only that they did do one thing extremely well, drawing almost 4 walks per game is pretty damn good.”
It’s above average, but extremely well? I know it is a relative term, but you are probably stretching it there.
“I wasn’t intending to cast aspersions or even be argumentative.”
Didn’t say you were. You brought up a point and I furthered the conversation by digging into the facts.
“I just thought it was an odd thing to say. Here’s a guy, Pedro Lopez, who has been shadowing the Dominican team from day one, and out of nowhere he tweets that about Team USA as his takeaway.”
OK, I agree with you.
“We should all understand the usefulness of each stat not be so extreme in it’s application.”
But who has actually advocated the thing you are arguing against? who has come out and said “this is the be all and end all of measuring production”? The only time I’ve seen that is people who declare RBI to be that. Even the guys who created the various types of WAR add the caveats.
Guys,
Could it also simply be that those who play in the United States (MLB – not just Team USA) are just not on top of their game yet? This is still spring training and the hitters are still getting their timing back and the pitchers still building up their arm strengths and how many can really be expected to be in opening day form at this point in time?
Also, of those pitchers, there are those of which the WBC gives them an opportunity to show themselves against major league caliber-type hitting so they would tend not to hold back anything on each pitch. However, an established pitcher who does not need these games as a means to exhibit himself is still pacing himself at a spring training schedule and not throwing consistently at 100 percent in both effort and ability to have his pitches go where he wants them.
Maybe I’m not following the WBC as I did four years ago because the novelty has worn off and no matter how much the players are into this, they are not yet ready to give us the caliber of play we expect to see.
Joey! It’s like we share a brain this morning.
Scary
Hi Jessep,
LOL, why not? After all, it’s St. Patty’s Day and we all become Irish for 24 hours – even us of Eastern European ancestry.
There are probably 100 different reasons why the numbers are the way they are Joey….
Jessup stated another as well….
Which is one of the reasons why many say analyzing Data POST RESULTS is not always very telling because the emotional and situational context has been thrown away by the time the Stat is in the books.
Maybe more teams were SCARED of Team USA players and pitched around them to the point they couldn’t hit more HRs even if they WANTED to!
Joe merely commented on what one person saw was a trend in our games….
And then posed a possible reason WHY that may have been true which is no different than what the other posters here have done in coming up with excuses for the exhibited results.
The OBP Passive Aggressive argument can not easily be addressed by Post Result stats unless they are broken down by Pitches 1 through X and determine what approach was actually used early and then late in the count.
The issue seems to be is some here think a Batter can will a pitcher to walk him or even throw him a strike for that matter….
Batter can’t really do any of that all he can do is TRY and goad the pitcher to make a decision that is not in his own best interests….
If a Pitcher thinks he can get you one way and the batter defeats that method them MAYBE he will force the Pitcher to try something else later…..
If a Batter takes two balls to start the PA then YES maybe the Pitcher throws a strike on the third and fourth pitch…Maybe he doesn’t…Up to the Pitcher not the Batter!
We talk about Patience but there is no clear definition on what they are waiting for!
YOUR PITCH leaves a lot of room for interpretation!
Your pitch maybe a strike, may be just middle strikes and may even be low and outside balls if thats what the player LIKE to hit!
As for the over emphasis on OBP it has nothing to do with what pitch you swing at…
It’s all about what Pitch to NOT swing at!
And if you place more importance on OBP over BA then a player in a 3-0 and 3-1 count may be less apt to SWING and a pitch because he has the ability to take a strike and go for the Walk instead.
I have seen this many times last year…
There has been so much discussion about what they do early in the PA but the truth is the influence of OBP is showed LATE in the PA when the chances of a Hit or a Walk are equal and the Batter is ahead and has ADVANTAGE!
Can I ask a silly question?
Is it possible the US also happened to play against pitchers who didn’t locate as well?
Look at the pitchers they drew walks against….
Luis Mendoza (MEX)
Marco Grifantini (ITA)
Matt Torra (ITA)
Tim Crabbe (ITA)
Brian Sweeney (ITA)
John Mariotti (ITA)
Jameson Taillon (CAN)
Jimmy Henderson (CAN)
Scott Mathieson (CAN)
Mario Santiago (PUR)
Andres Santiago (PUR)
Jose De La Torre (PUR)
JC Romero (PUR)
Xavier Cedeno (PUR)
Samuel Deduno (DOM)
Nelson Figueroa (PUR)
Fernando Cabrera (PUR)
Now I’m not suggesting at all that this is 100% the reason, but you have to consider the talent throwing the ball when considering the amount of walks a team is getting no? We’re acting like the team USA guys went up there looking to not swing. But can’t it also be there’s a reason they drew so many walks? And one of those reasons could be the the talent throwing the ball?
USA was losing to Canada 3-2 in the 8th and drew 1 walk leading up to that point in the game
In the 8th inning, Mauer singled, Wright WALKED, Jones doubled in both (pinch runner for Mauer).
And lets not act like team USA sent a powerhouse to the WBC. They can only do what they can with the players who go. There was no Hamilton, Granderson, Trout, Prince, Bruce, Dunn, Posey etc. Some of the country’s best power hitters.
LMAO ===> “And lets not act like team USA sent a powerhouse to the WBC.”
O
M
G
u have to be kidding me….
The USA Outfield had Adam Jones, Giancarlo Stanton and Ryan Braun
The PR Outfield had Carlos Beltran, Angel Pagan and Jesus Feliciano
Advantage USA
The USA infield had Rollins, Phillips, Hosmer, and Joe Mauer
The PR infield had Yadi Molina and 4 guys I have never heard of in my life
Advantage USA
SP
RA DIckey, Gio Gonzalez, Vodelsong – ummm 3 of the BEST pitchers in the NL
The Puerto Rico ace was Nelson Figuraroa
dude…just take the L like a man, seriously, saying the US didnt have a powerhouse is like saying the Dream Team wasnt a powerhouse cuz they couldve had Shaq instead of Laettner
Going into the WBC there was nobody who thought Puerto Rico had a better team than the US. There was no question Team USA was packed with far more stars and MLB talent.
LOL I’m sure there are a few Milion people living in Puerto Rico who beg to differ with you!
Just saying….Not disputing what you said….Carry on! LOL
JoeD – exactly….
i took the word powerhouse to mean a team that was more talented.
to say that the US did not go with a powerhouse of a team is insane.
I will say though…there is a boatload of talent from Cuba that is going to flood the states once Castro croaks.
Baseball is HUGE down there….and the population is even bigger than in DR…
I’m trying to figure out what your point has to do with my post?
Did I say anything about the talent of 1 team versus another? No.
I said team USA’s offense wasn’t built around power hitters and the best power hitters from the US weren’t on the team.
What does that have to do with Puerto Rico? Braun and Giancarlo were the teams best power hitters they didn’t go up there not trying to hit HR’s they just were cold during the games. That doesn’t mean the concept of team usa suddenly was not to hit HR and just draw more walks does it?
I honestly don’t even know what the game against Puerto Rico has to do with anything? You think I honestly care that team USA lost to Puerto Rico? What about my post here suggests that? Stop trying to make everything about your fantasy rivalry with me and just read what I actually say
u said that the US did not send a powerhouse of a team to the WBC
the fact that there are 14 current All-Stars on that roster suggests otherwise
Lot of things are possible….
But we keep making exuses to dismiss a REPORT from someone who watched ACTUAL EVENTS occurr and trying to tell any other story than the one he stated as a WITNESS to EVENTS!
I fully agree there are lots of ways to explain data after the fact just as there are 10,000 ways to interpret what action is being recorded in a Picture that take a snapshot of ONE FRAME in time with none of the pre and post situations being revealed that cause the action in the photo.
What is going on here is akin to seeing a pitcure that shows someone holding a bloody knife (post murder) and assuming he was the guy who put in INTO the victim when for all we know (since we were not WITNESS to the murder) is he was the guy who pulled it out and had nothing to do with the murder itself!
In this case the WITNESS has the greater weight than the THEORIES of EXCUSES being formed to explain away the results.
Gomez reported on what he thought he saw…Maybe he is right and maybe he is wrong but HE IS THE WITNESS!
And it sure carries more weight than any story we can make up after the fact!
http://youtu.be/q_n-cf5YPHQ
From all of us in Staten Island to all of you in Bayonne.
cuba has the highest OBP in the tournament. thats why they have scored the most runs. maybe we should ake the argument that cuba is too obsessed with OBP? after all, they lead the tournament in it.
Cuba also had the highest slugging
joe, what is the point of this article? the US clearly needs better obp skils because other teams are doing it better and scoring more runs as a result.
teams with higher OBP score more runs. the US is not getting on base. they are not scoring. cuba is. so is the dominican. they are scoring more. teams that walk get more pitches and hit more home runs and score more. OBP correlates closely with runs scored and all teams should aspire to have OBP as high as possible.
The point is what I said it was. That ESPN’s Pedro Lopez seems to have misguided view of why Team USA lost, that Ken Davidoff was wrong for using WAR to exclude Piazza from his HOF ballot while using OBP to include Kenny Lofton on his ballot, and to say that no one stat is the be-all, end-all in evaluating a player’s performance.
Oh and of course OBP includes hits and walks? Lindsey Nelson taught Met fans that in the early sixties. Remember what he always used to say whenever Richie Ashburn’s name came up in the booth, and then Bob Murphy when we got Keith Hernandez?
OBP is not new, it’s as old as the game itself and some fans need to understand that.
I think you meant Gomez (not Lopez) there just in case someone does the old nitpick your wrong trick here….
I don’t know why any questioning of the use of OBP and even it’s mentioning seems to bring out the worst in some people….
They react as poorly as Muslims do at any mention of Mohammed that doesn’t come straight from the Koran!
Don’t dare trash god now….As if OBP should be worshipped.
obp should be worshipped in the same sense that run scoring should be worshipped. if you want to win, you score runs, and that means you care alot about OBP.
if your point is that pedro gomez is stupid, then we agree. we put way too much interest into what reporters say. pedro isnt even properly contrasting two opposing things. part of OBP is hammering the ball. he is stupidly implying that OBP is about walks. OBP leaders are guys like pujols and bonds. OBP is about scoring runs, and as we have discussed before, OBP correlates with run scoring better than any other traditional stat. that is again, why cuba was scoring so many runs, and why the US wasnt.
“OBP correlates with run scoring better than any other traditional stat”
Provided you don’t count SLG, OPS or RBI as a Traditional stat…..
rbi is not a stat useful for individuals. you cant compare players using it because it is so dependent on the batters ahead of you. its basically a team stat, like pitcher wins. not useful at all.
OK Lets forget RBI…..
Still TWO stats that correlate better to RS than OBP!
Only ONE of which actually includes OBP!
But Also includes that all important SLG doesn’t it?
POOF goes the PROOF that OBP correlates better than any other traditional!
It doesn’t I have proved this time and again!
metsie, to be clear, is your argument that SLG correlates better with team run scoring than OBP?
Yep SLG and OPS is a better indicator of how they did in Scoring runs than OBP!
Not by much but it did predict the rankings in RS much better than OBP did….It is not infallable by any means but no less infallable that OBP is. and In most cases LESS fallable when multiple years are looked at.
RBI being the BEST and despite whatever dismissal or excuse you wish to make DOES constitute as a TRADITIONAL STAT and does seem to align the teams based on how many runs they scored better than ALL THREE!
The notion that and RBI requires OB is wrong because the OB is not the reason the guy got the RS it was what he did at the plate that either allowed him to get OB enough to score or drove in an OB that couldn’t get itself in as an RS without some FURTHER EVENT occurring!
And that event could not be CAUSED by the Player OB itself…..
And OB does not cause a run to score….Only in the case of a HR or the specific OB that earned the RBI is that true…
A plain old OB without RBI can not score on it’s own without some other event occurring….
Which would explain why SLG is better than OBP because SLG tends to suggest the better the OB the more likely it would have scored any STRANDED OBs that happened previously and also indicates that the OB you got put you closer to scoring than just any old OB would have.
again, i explained why your point about rbis is not valid. it is a team stat. pitcher wins correlates with team wins as well, but a bad pitcher can have lots of wins. rbi is not really a useful stat to measure individual batters. i dunno how many mor etimes i have to explain this. its a team stat, and a counting stat. counting stats are not useful relative to rate stats.
but you are right, SLG is very useful, it correlates well with run scoring. and OPS is really a spectacular stat. i wouldnt consider it a traditional stat. but if you formulate a team solely based on OPS, or even better OPS+, that team will be damn good. not true about RBI. not at all.
Please Martin EVERY STAT we are discussing here is a TEAM STAT!
TEAM OPB…..
TEAM SLG….
TEAM OPS….
TEAM RBI….
TEAM RS!
Yes RS happens to be a team stat too! OB can’t do it on it’s own but an individual player CAN recieve an RBI without any help from any other player can’t he?
So please stop wit the Semantics….
A PLAYER gets awarded an RBI for doing something that scores a run!
An Individual can have an OBP of 1.000 and yet NEVER score a run so how can getting OB ever indicate if he did or not?
RS happens to be a team stat too
try to pay attention. a player with an OBP of 1000 is helping his team for sure. a player with lots of RBI may or may not be helping his team. in fact he could lead the team in RBI whilst hurting them terribly.
So a guy who gets on base but can’t score on his own is doing more than a guy who scores a run…..
If the guy who has a 1.000 OBP never scores how pray tell is he helping?
And how does he score without either getting an RBI himself or by that guy you say isn’t helping his team driving him in?
ANYONE who drives in a run under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES has helped his team and helped INCREASE RS!
Thats not true for anyone with a 1.000 OBP!
Cause he could have just walked, hit a single and stayed there all day because no one got the RBI needed to make his contribution meaningfull and helpfull to his team at all!
i wilk ask again, because you dont seem to be listening:
metsie, if i made a team based on the league leaders in OPS, and you did the same with the leaders in RBI, which team do you think would score more runs?
would you rather have barry bonds in 2004, with an OBP of 609 and 110 rbi, or sammy sosa in 2001 with 160 rbi?
barry bonds around 2004 was the greastest offensive force in the history of the game, by far. and he isnt in the top 100 of single season RBI records.
So we need to dicuss PED users in this?
Who would you rather have?
1979 Lee Mazzilli with a .395 OBP and 79 RBI or Mike Piazza circa 1999 with a .361 OBP and 124 RBI
you are not answering my question:
metsie, if i made a team based on the league leaders in OPS, and you did the same with the leaders in RBI, which team do you think would score more runs?
I HAVE ANSWERED the team based on RBI!
Because they PRODUCE the others may or may not!
DID IT GET THROUGH THIS TIME?
ok, so that means you think sammy sosa, who routinely had more RBI than barry bonds is a superior offensive player?
Yep I do!
Cause 9 times 160 RBI over the course of a season is more than 9 times times whatever Bonds would get over the course of the same season!
Obviously Bonds thought so to which is why when he saw McGwire and Sosa doping up he joined the club!
right. well if you think sammy sosa is better than bonds because he has more RBI in a season then i think that explains alot.
again, and RBI man is being heled by his teammates. an OPS man is helping his teammates. this is why bonds, even with fewer RBI, was the greatest offensive force in history in 2004. he walked constantly. everyone around him benefited. he could not be struck out. that huge for the offense. i dunno why that eludes you so much.
Which teamate helped the guy who hit the HR and got his RBI Hmmm?
Your theory only works if the HR is not allowed to happen!
Or if the HR did not get awarded an RBI.
But it does unfortunatly for your position.
dont understand what you are saying. but you can have the RBI guys, give me the high OBP players like bonds and you can have the francouers.
metsie, find the highet single seaon OBP in history. thats the best offensive season ever. even if he has zero RBI.
Best offensive season….In what regard? Scoring runs?
Was it the best run scoring season of any player in history as well?
Show your research!
metsie, if i made a team based on the league leaders in OPS, and you did the same with the leaders in RBI, which team do you think would score more runs?
I wish the reply chain was not broken…..
OPS vs RBI….The RBI team wins!
As it has every year for the past 6 and every year I have ever looked at!
again, metsie, pay attention, i am talking about teams, i am talking about individual players. do you want thte player with the higher obp, or the higher rbi.
one more time:
metsie, if i made a team based on the league leaders in OPS, and you did the same with the leaders in RBI, which team do you think would score more runs?
A team formed around RBI leaders with no care towards OBP or OPS that would be entertaining.
Ask the Philie fans in 2010 how entertaining they were….
Or the 2010 Tampa Bay fans….they were 10th in OBP, 14th in SLG, 14th in OPS and 3rd in RBI and they ranked 3rd in RS.
it would also likely mean less runs scored, and RBIs, since there would overall be fewer guys on base to drive in.
it is still a team game. And runs scored by the team are what count. and over the season, the more guys you get on base, the more runs you are likely to score.
Then explain how the 2011 Toronto Blue jays scored more runs than teams with higher OBP….
They call what you said about scoring more runs a lie!
Because they didn’t get on base and scored more runs than team that DID get on base better!
So Explain it….Why didn’t your theory work then?
metsie, i said they correlate, OBP and run scoring. i didnt say every team-season of every team in history correlated.
again, see how cuba has a higher OBP than the US? do you see that they also scored more runs? do you understand why that makes the premise of this post silly? a team that is intent on high OBP is cuba, not the US. if the US was so intent on OBP they would score more. like cuba and the other teams that outscred them in the WBC.
B they don’t correlate better than EVERY other metric…In fact they don’t correlate better than quite a few metrics as we have discussed!
This whol OBP belief is predicated on what is the LEAST AMOUNT of accomplishment you can do to score a run….
Fine but you need MASSIVE quantities of it for the theory to work….
Go for QUALITY and you require FEWER QUANTITIES and as a result don’t need as much of what YOU think is needed to get the same or better result!
Which is why some teams have a lower OBP and score MORE runs than teams with a higher OBP but less quality of OB than the one who beat them!
And if another quality can usurp your results from OBP then it is better in the long run to look for THAT result beause obviously it is just a bit more correlated to the intended goal because you can get more RS with FEWER results than the one you think correlates better!
its true metsie. like i said, OBP is great. but if you are smart you ignore everything except OPS+. and the first thing you should ignore is RBI. RBI is useless.
actually how you perform with runners on base probably translates better…
a batter who gets 2 BB in 4 PA in a 10-0 blowout has a higher OBP than someone who went 0-3 but had 2 Sac Flies
Sac Flies simply go in the RBI category…a category most saber heads dont like b/c it is dependent on other factors
as a matter of fact, there was a game where Reyes got on via error, stole 2B, took 3B on a passed ball and scored on a sac fly.
technically, according to OBP, he didnt get on base, nor did the guy who brought him in.
thats why u have to watch the games, not rely on stats
any 1 game can be an anomaly. Or a short series. If you are going to look for a statistically relevant pattern, you need a much bigger sample size, such as an entire season.
and not only that, rbi is dependent on playing time . you can pile up RBI wile playing in the middle of a potent lineup every day, while drastically reducing the runs score of the team.
i will put it this way. if your team has a guy with tons of RBI and a low OBP, your team isnt making the playoffs, because they are missing so many run scoring chances by having a bad player in so many run scoring chances.
Hi Joe D.
“OBP is not new, it’s as old as the game itself and some fans need to understand that.”
Perfect! The point I’ve been trying to make about those who enjoy getting into advanced stats have to realize that for the professionals it doesn’t reveal anything not already understood or appreciated and not to treat what they properly put into perspective as a new revelation or discovery. It’s not.
Reminds me back in the late sixties when there was such an upheavel in changing social values and views, one thing the older generation was right was reminding us that we weren’t the first ones to discover s*x.
Didn’t want to spell the word out of fear that might make me number eleven on the banned list! LOL
you can use all the stats you want, but to keep it simple you could just realize that cuba has a high OBP and leads the tournment in runs because of it.
metsie. imagine i had a team of 9 2004 barry bondses. he had 41 strikeouts. you have a team of 2001 sammy sosas. sosa had far more RBI. but he struck out 3 times as much. do you see how that hurts the team? my bondses are getting walked and you cant pitch to them at all. each one makes the rest more dangerous. but sosa, you can pitch around him. you can strike him out.
a player with a high OBP helps the rest of his team. a player with lots of RBI is being helped by his team.
hmm, now it says 10 users are banned. wonder who?
when you see the comments in a thread being all out of sync, that comes from deleting the parent comment. Just have to figure out who made those, and you will have your answer.
Your the one not paying attention here Mrtin…Your the one who seems to suggest the act that does not PRODUCE a run without help is a better help than the act that DOES produce the run either on it’s own or with help!
Your OB requires just as much TEAM as the RBI does in SOME cases but in others the RBI can be achieved without any help from the rest of the team at all!
So your argument is just a flat out lie…..
I am fully paying attention here your not!
metsie, you are not answering the question:
metsie, if i made a team based on the league leaders in OPS, and you did the same with the leaders in RBI, which team do you think would score more runs?
RBI WINS!
Ok thats the last time I am answering a question four times before it sinks through to you and you read the replies!
if you are basing it on the prior year leaders, very likely they would not.
and he said OPS, so including slugging (IOW power).
but, one thing common to almost every big RBI guy, is having a few high OBP players in front of them. Need ducks on the pond if you expect to drive them in.
OPS is NOT OBP…..
Therefore if your all going to change your tune then you should not say “OBP correlates to RS better than any other metric” unless you add….
“Except SLG, OPS, OPS and RBI”
Which I have showed all correlate better than OBP!
POOF goes the OBP statement! I proved it to be FALSE and now you guys are agreeing with that after an hour and a half of arguing!
metsie, you are correct, OPS is the only real stat that matters. RBI is a stat for idiots. you should aspire to have a team with players with high OPS+ and ignore rbi entirely.
Martin I only used RBI because it happend to correlate almost PERFECTLY with RS and when I did the reasearch the goal was to find what correlated BEST with RS regardless of what kind of stat you might think it was or how it was related…..
If was in reply to OBP CORRELATES BEST which I said was NOT true, Set out to prove and then DID by finding three other metrics that correlated better than OBP….
I am not suggesting that RBI is the only thing to look for in a player and I wasn’t even accusing those who said the ERROR regarding OBP as suggesting thats all you look at….
But some DO make the assumption and regard OBP as the holy grail and believe HIGH OBP GUARANTEES high RS…..
Because they didn’t crunch the numbers and never did the research!
And in a discussion on the OVER IMPORTANCE placed on OBP we hear that false statement about how it is the best correlator EVERY TIME!
But it is DEAD WRONG, NOT PROVED as now we seem to have come to agreement that there are FAR BETTER correlators to RS than anything OBP can indicate!
That statement is based on incomplete data where someone looked at the top 5 scoring teams and noticed they had a very high OBP….They also had a very high SLG, OPS and RBI totals and probably a lot of other metrics that were just as indicated as being at the top of RS as anything to do with OBP…..
GOOD teams have GOOD METRICS accross the board….
And if people didn’t just subscribe to a crap standard based on half assed research and looked at the full breadth of the statistical data they might have seen it and not made the stupid assumption that OBP is the best correlator when there are at least 3 found (and probably more) that correlate better than it.
Which is EVIDENCE that some DO put an OVER EMPHASIS on OBP than is wise when they look at Player performance and choose between aquisitions.
“I am not suggesting that RBI is the only thing to look for in a player”
ok. i am suggesting it should be totally ignored as it is a function of the team and how many AB the guy gets. its not a useful stat. ignore it, metsie, ignore. it. pay attention to OBP and OPS+. or OPS+ only if yu want to save time. ALWAYS IGNORE RBI.
and while i am teaching you what to ignore, go ahead and ignore pitcher wins as well. got it?
ignore RBI
ignore pitcher wins
those stats are for idiots.
And I’m suggesting that anyone who IGNORES any METRIC is going to do worse in player Acquisition than someone who DOES NOT IGNORE the Stats they have acquired!
SO you go on ignoring stats you don’t like….The guy who doesn’t do that will create a better team than you in EVERY INSTANCE!
Because he made a MORE EDUCATED decision than the guy who ignored something based on a personal belief.
and i would rather have mazilli, barely. he has the higher OPS+. i dont care about RBI.
So you think your team of Mazzillis would beat my team of Piazza’s they way you tried to show a team of Bonds vs Sosa’s?
Really?
the mazillis and piazzas would be very similar. they have almost identaicl OPS+, which is the only stat you need.
make a team purely based on OPS+ and they will beat basically any other team, offensively. OBP team will beat the RBI team as well. because players with high obp contribute to a team far more than players with high rbi.
a high RBI guy can strike out tons and make outs and still have a ton of rbi. he hurts the team. a high OBP guy can never hurt the team.
WHOA WHOA WHOA….OPS is NOT the only stat you need…..
You said OBP correlated better to RS not OPS….
So your now agreeing with me OBP does not correlate better to RS than something else?
yes. OPS+ is the better stat. i didnt count it among the “basic” stats.
RBI is for morons. OPS+ is the most relevant of the stats we have discussed. the plyer with the highest OPS+ is the best offensive player in the league.
Thank you for conceeding the point I made that started this whole line of conversation rolling….
OBP does NOT Correlate to RS better than another metric…..
You choose OPS+ I think (and have showed that RBI correlates better in the end but it does not mean I build my team around it in the real world)
But given a choice of players and just being handed the stats of OBP and RBI I take the RBI guy almost everytime unless the RBI is close enough between to two for the OBP to give an edge!
Cause then I will depend on the next guy I selected based on those limited critera to get him based on HIS RBI ability to score him.
As for real life team and player selection I wouldn’t limit myself to just two stats but many here run to the OBP regardless of the other metrics….
Suce as was the case in liking Torres last year who had a decent OBP but hit Medoza!
well, that is stupid. my team of high OBP guys like bonds and pujols would destroy your ruben sierra and francouer team.
Now your just making idiotic comparisons because you realize I got you to admit that OBP does not correlate better than something else….
Did Sierra and Fancourer have more RBI than Bonds and Pujols?
Hardly!
Should I now go find two scrub guys with High OBP and LOW everything else to make a counterpoint in s similar vain as you have attemtped here?
please pay attention. i said OBP was the most relevant basic stat. most non baseball people have never heard of OPS+. hell, i had to teach joe D what is was a few years ago.
if you want to think you changed my mind, you can, but i would have told you 10 years ago to care only about OPS+ plus.
again. ignore RBI. every time. always. it means nothing. its never is useful in any situation.
NO you said OPS+ was….
Do I need to quote your past statement or are you withdrawing it so you can take a second shot at OBP because it bothers you that I got you to admit it wasn’t as relevant or correlate better than something else?
I got what I wanted out of this and feel no need to discuss it further….
I got one of the folks who say OBP is the best Correlator to RS to admit it that statement insnt true!
OBP does not create by itself an RS anymore individually than an RBI does….
And OB by itself does not mean a run was scored and an RBI does not require an OB it IS the OB that drives in the run….BOTH OBP and RBI gets awarded in those cases….
So you can say RBI is a team stat but in order for OBP itself to produce a run it ALSO requires another team member to give you what it is an RBI can get you without help from any other player on the team!
And when that happens what gets awarded more?
OBP? OPS? or SLG?
(as well as the RBI we already know goes up)
Not all OBP is equal….Some is more valuable than others therefore it can’t distinguish or indicate HOW MUCH GOOD you actually got….
SLG is better because it weights the good of the OB and OPS only as a result of including the SLG inside itself…..
RBI has no wishy washy weight to it’s metric…
You might want to say an RBI that causes an out is less good than an RBI that comes with an OB if you want….But in NIETHER Example does the weight you assign NOT CAUSE RS to increase!
Which is why it correlates so well because when you get it you KNOW you got it….
Not true with OBP, SLG and OPS
How do you know you have Barry Bonds by looking at his OBP?
Can’t some lesser player have the same OB but not be as productive as him? THIS is the point you seem to ifgnore…..
OBP isn’t what defined Bonds….
It was all the other stuff INCLUDING his high RBI that made all those hits and OBs he got meaningful and the player he was!
no. becase if luid castilo tried to get an OBP as high as bonds thwy would start throwing pitches to him and he could not walk anymore. thats why really high OBP guys are power guys. yu have to be dangerous to force the pitcher to never throw you any strikes.
Joe D, I have to disagree with you here. The basic premise of your piece seems to be that the USA team went looking for a particular type of player. I don’t think that’s true at all. Heck, with the problems they had getting players to agree to participate, they couldn’t be too choosy so I doubt they were looking at specific things like OBP or walks or WAR at all. They just wanted big name players known for good production in the recent past.
The U.S had plenty of power on its team. They lost because many ot their players — both pitchers and hitters — didn’t come up clutch. That includes Victorino, Hosmer, Stanton, Kimbrel, and Pestano.
It wasn’t just the OPS (power). Puerto Rico so far in the WBC has put up only a .puny 598 team OPS so far, lower than the U.S. team’s, and they are in the semis. PR was just more clutch in both hitting and fielding than the U.S.
The U.S. fielded a good team, but it was certainly not their best. I think they need to choose participants more carefully in the future. For example, both Ike and Howard were willing to replace Teixeira, but they chose Hosmer. And what was Victorino doing on the team? Was that the best backup outfielder they could find?
I was absolutely stunned during the Hall of Fame vote when Ken Davidoff used WAR to exclude Mike Piazza from his HOF Ballot and used OBP to include Kenny Lofton. Davidoff caught a lot of flack for it, deservedly so, and he later admitted that he erred and that it wouldn’t happen again in 2014. I believe him.
The real problem is this… How many more Ken Davidoffs are out there?
The mistake here wasn’t using WAR. It was using WAR for a catcher. I think it’s generally well understood among even proponents of WAR that the stat is weak when judging catchers. So the issue in some respects was Davidoff misusing a stat he apparently doesn’t understand well.
In addition, I’m not too sure that WAR was really the reason Davidoff left off Piazza. I suspect it could be some ulterior motive — maybe a personal dislike of the man, you know like the way Chass just dislikes Piazza — but Davidoff pulled WAR out of the air just so he would have a decent sounding excuse.
Regardless, WAR was simply used in the wrong context here, so you shouldn’t use that example to bash the stat in general. When used correctly in the proper context WAR is as good or better than any other stat.
Well that was a confusing unmitigated disaster.