Hits Allowed

[Crapshoot]

Originally posted by blackamus
WOW! You really broadsided me with that zinger. If I could make a new name I would so that I would never have to post under this shamed alias ever again.
Alas.
My point is this (among others) baseball is a sport whose primary purpose is the entertainment of it's spectators and it's players. Aesthitics are an important part of the process of entertainment. Watching Jason Giambi work a walk is quite frankly, boring. Watching Alfonso Soriano, Vlad Guerrero, Garciaparra, and any others you would like to throw in that mold is infinitely more exciting. A stolen base is an exciting event in a baseball game. Sabrmetric styled teams will almost never run. A game that is trending towards only having hulking sluggers whose goal is either a walk or a homerun cannot possibly be a positive development. Just as the slam dunk is now a mundane event in a basketball game, the homerun in baseball will soon be.
I won't go on about this much further because I'm about to win my first World Series on this game and I'd like to get back to that.
I'll finish with this, If you have never heard of Max Weber; You should look into what he calls "The Iron Cage of Rationality". Then, think about how that applys to baseball. Not every situation is about maximizing the final product. Baseball is more about enjoyment of the process of generating the products (hits, runs, K's...whatever else) not the products themselves. To focus only on the final product to the detriment of the enjoyment of participants is...dehumanizing. Which is what I find SABRmetrics to be doing.
As a corollary or secondary piece of evidence to back that up, look at how vigorously most of those in SABRmetric circles defend the use of Questec.
Also, to back up a previous posters statements about the arrogance of SOME of those in SABRmetric circles; I too find that discussing baseball with SABRmetric minded folks makes me feel as though the person to whom I'm speaking knows something that I don't know and that they feel that I am too stupid to understand.
Thanks to gastric reflux for the Q&A post. That was very helpful. I suppose valuing "OBP guys" over pure "BA guys" as a purely economic strategy makes alot of sense.

I apologize for lack of coherence in this post...I like to think of my writing style as cubist or maybe I'm just crazy.

Your point gets lost amongst the bluster- sabrematicians simply don't take what is force fed to them by idiots as the holy grail. RBI's are along with wins and saves as well as fielding percentage some of the most useless stats ever (fielding percentage less so than others)- Tim MCcarver espousing them makes him look stupid, not us.AS for the you being to stupid to understand, while I don't know you personally- Im inclined to think anyone who gives up a greater understanding of them because they think the sabreboys are ruining baseball is lacking somewhat.

[Zeeter]

Originally posted by Aadik
Your point gets lost amongst the bluster- sabrematicians simply don't take what is force fed to them by idiots as the holy grail. RBI's are along with wins and saves as well as fielding percentage some of the most useless stats ever (fielding percentage less so than others)- Tim MCcarver espousing them makes him look stupid, not us.AS for the you being to stupid to understand, while I don't know you personally- Im inclined to think anyone who gives up a greater understanding of them because they think the sabreboys are ruining baseball is lacking somewhat.

What some don't understand in their hardwired brains are the things that cannot be measured by statistics. You cannot measure a pitcher's ability to produce wins by keeping his team in the game every night. Certainly he'll get some garbage wins over the season, but overall having him in there helped the team in a way that you can't see by looking at the numbers. His ability to remain focused when giving up four runs in the first, then settling down and pitching through the sixth, for example. Yeah, he gave up four runs and his ERA is screwed, but he made it through the sixth, and thus didn't kill his bullpen for the next night and didn't allow any more runs so that his team could try to catch up.

Good hitters are placed in positions in the lineup that will raise their RBI totals. So we discredit that? Why don't we look at as a batter who was placed in a position to help the team and did so by producing some runs? The reason he has the RBI's is that the other guy in the lineup cannot drive in the runs when placed in the same position. Sure, you can go deeper and look at OBP with runners in scoring position, or (gasp!) BA with runners in scoring position, but I don't care about that. I don't want him to walk. His job is to drive the run in, not get walked so that the next guy, who isn't as good of an RBI guy, gets put into that situation.

However, his RBI production cannot be measured as accurately against other RBI guys because the guys on the better teams are going to be more likely to be put in RBI situations. Maybe that's why they are the better teams - because they have a good RBI guy.

BTW: How come the main argument against RBI's is that they are on a team where there are a lot of runners on base for him? Couldn't the same be said of a middle of the order OBP guy? He didn't have anyone hitting behind him, so he tended to get a lot of walks.

Saves! Saves....well yes. That is a useless stat for the most part. It's only "value" is seeing that the pitcher held the team enough for one inning (sometimes two) for his team to win. I guess there is a certain stress factor there, but how can you measure that?

I can't argue the fielding percentage one because I'm not really sure how that number is figured.

[draven085]

Zeeter, please see this thread for a good read. You will enjoy it.

RBI rating

[Zeeter]

Originally posted by draven085
Zeeter, please see this thread for a good read. You will enjoy it.

RBI rating

This was interesting at first, but then it just dragged on and on so much that I forgot who's side I was on. I stopped at page seven.

[Spielman]

What some don't understand in their hardwired brains are the things that cannot be measured by statistics. You cannot measure a pitcher's ability to produce wins by keeping his team in the game every night. Certainly he'll get some garbage wins over the season, but overall having him in there helped the team in a way that you can't see by looking at the numbers. His ability to remain focused when giving up four runs in the first, then settling down and pitching through the sixth, for example. Yeah, he gave up four runs and his ERA is screwed, but he made it through the sixth, and thus didn't kill his bullpen for the next night and didn't allow any more runs so that his team could try to catch up.

And he gets credit for those innings, because the five scoreless innings in your scenario affect his ERA, just like the disasterous first inning does. Also, those six innings pitched go into his stats so that at the end of the season you can look back and say "Sure, his ERA wasn't great, but he soaked up a lot of innings because he didn't get knocked out of the box often." Stats DO measure the things you're talking about there. Not a good example for your argument.

Good hitters are placed in positions in the lineup that will raise their RBI totals. So we discredit that? Why don't we look at as a batter who was placed in a position to help the team and did so by producing some runs? The reason he has the RBI's is that the other guy in the lineup cannot drive in the runs when placed in the same position.

And we know that the other guys in the lineup aren't good RBI men how, exactly? Divination? Tea leaves? Or are we expected to make the assumption that the guy filling out the lineup card knows all, sees all and never makes a mistake? Might there not be some better ways to figure out which batters are likely to be the best RBI guys?

Sure, you can go deeper and look at OBP with runners in scoring position, or (gasp!) BA with runners in scoring position, but I don't care about that.

Whyever not? Surely you'd want to check that your RBI man is actually doing an efficient job? Or are we back to infallible tea leaves?

I don't want him to walk. His job is to drive the run in, not get walked so that the next guy, who isn't as good of an RBI guy, gets put into that situation.

The fact that he would be increasing the potential damage that the next guy might do by putting another potential run on base, is of course, beside the point, right?

However, his RBI production cannot be measured as accurately against other RBI guys because the guys on the better teams are going to be more likely to be put in RBI situations. Maybe that's why they are the better teams - because they have a good RBI guy.

Maybe. And maybe you could check that by seeing how well the various RBI men are doing in actual RBI situations with runners on base. But you don't care about that.

BTW: How come the main argument against RBI's is that they are on a team where there are a lot of runners on base for him? Couldn't the same be said of a middle of the order OBP guy? He didn't have anyone hitting behind him, so he tended to get a lot of walks.

Could happen. Of course, show me a team which is so inept that a player who gets on base 40% of the time isn't ever going to score as a result, and I'll show you a figment of your imagination.

Look, the OBP thing isn't really difficult. Of COURSE OBP is going to be a more useful stat than BA. Why? Because it INCLUDES BA to begin with. Walks are good. Nobody's saying they're as good as a hit, but they're good. They increase the potential damage that the next guy in the order can do. Yes, OBP pretends that they're as useful as a homerun, which is obviously false. But BA is already pretending that a single is as valuable as a double or a HR, so that's nothing new. OBP takes BA and gives you additional useful information about BBs and HBPs.

Acting snotty towards OBP in favor of BA is like Ford saying "We make most of our money from cars and SUVs, so we're going to completely ignore how much we're bringing in from trucks and other vehicles." Sure, that other information might not be as weighty, but ignoring it would be stupid.

-Spielman

[Zeeter]

Originally posted by Spielman
And he gets credit for those innings, because the five scoreless innings in your scenario affect his ERA, just like the disasterous first inning does. Also, those six innings pitched go into his stats so that at the end of the season you can look back and say "Sure, his ERA wasn't great, but he soaked up a lot of innings because he didn't get knocked out of the box often." Stats DO measure the things you're talking about there. Not a good example for your argument.
-Spielman

Sure, if you want to spin it your way. Your way, you're looking at the end of the year at how many innings he pitched with that 4.5 or so ERA. I'm talking about wins here (although admittedly I could have been clearer there). I'm talking about how often he kept his team in the game long enough for them to score enough runs to win the game. A previous poster noted that Wins were meaningless for a pitcher. I disagree.

The rest of your argument can be countered the same ways, but I don't feel like doing that right now.

Baseball is a sport, not an essay question.

I consider myself a diehard, devoted baseball fan - yet not a stathead. I enjoy watching the game. I know what OBP and OPS and all of those things are although RC/27 kind of escapes my grasp. The reason? It is too complicated for me to sit there and try to do all of the math. Is there math? I don't even know what RC/27 is, but since there is a slash in it I assume there is a lot of long division which I abhore.

Why am I saying this? Because baseball to the diehard/casual/and peripheral fan is BA/HR/Wins/ERA/Steals. That is what we care about. Look at the following scene from a movie. The numbers are wrong because I don't feel like looking it up, and I am paraphrasing, but you've seen it.

My way, and the way (for the most part) that it was presented:
"How can they say he threw the game? He batted .390 and hit the only home run of the series!"

Your way:
"How can they say that he threw the series? He had an on base percentage of .460 and a slugging percentage of .510. Thats an OPS of .970!"

Which is sexier?

Maybe the guy for the other team who got 90 RBI's is better than my guy who got 130 because of where he was hitting in the lineup and how many men were on base when he did it. The fact is, though, that my guy got 130 RBI's while yours only got ninety. Maybe he's a better player on paper, but on the field my player is producing more runs. You can throw all of the OBP and RC/27 stats at me that you want. You can even throw in Winshares, whatever that is. My guy still did more to win. Maybe if your guy was on my team he's drive in 140, but he's not, so he's not a better player regardless of how you spin it.

[WLight]

Originally posted by Zeeter
What some don't understand in their hardwired brains are the things that cannot be measured by statistics. You cannot measure a pitcher's ability to produce wins by keeping his team in the game every night.

You should be on BT. 'Some guys just know how to win.' Never mind his high ERA and rate stats, THAT GUY'S A GAMER.

Originally posted by Zeeter
Which is sexier?

How about this: Which more accurately reflects reality?

If what you want is flashy plots, dramatic climaxes, and happy endings, I suggest that you stick with your baseball movies. For those of us interested in it as a sport, let us have the actual game.

Originally posted by Zeeter
Maybe if your guy was on my team he's drive in 140, but he's not, so he's not a better player regardless of how you spin it.

He may be better, but he's not actually better? I'm not sure that word means what you think it means...

[Zeeter]

Originally posted by WLight

He may be better, but he's not actually better? I'm not sure that word means what you think it means...

Nice Princess Bride reference. My point was that maybe according to Sabrmetrics your guy is better, but I care about production on his current team, not production where everything is equal - which will never happen.

Originally posted by WLight

How about this: Which more accurately reflects reality?

If what you want is flashy plots, dramatic climaxes, and happy endings, I suggest that you stick with your baseball movies. For those of us interested in it as a sport, let us have the actual game.

Again - missing my point. The casual fan, whom many of you hate, is not interested in these obscure stats. They want the raw numbers. By bringing in a movie quote, I had hoped to point out that baseball is passed down to our younger generation with things like BA, HR, Steals, ERA, and Wins. They are the raw numbers that people can look at and understand without bringing out their sliderules. These are the people interested in it as a sport - to use your words. I've spent plenty of time arguing with statheads who complain about their team not getting so-and-so who has a better [insert obscure stat here] than the current player. Me? I just want to have fun watching the game. Sometimes people get so wrapped up in watching the box scores that they forget that their team actually won the game. Maybe they had a poor OBP for the game, but they still won. Enjoy it.

Imagine me trying to explain to my five year old about a batter. Isn't it a whole lot easier to explain that yes, this guy is a good hitter because he has a high BA than to say "he has a high BA, but his OBP is not that good and that brings down his OPS."

And this brings me to another point. Sometimes I just like a player. I like Pat Burrell a lot. He sucks this year, but I still wouldn't trade him for Vladimir Guererro. Pat is my player. He came up throught the system. Yes, my team would be better right now with Guererro, but that would take something away from the team. We couldn't do it ourselves, we had to get help. So this is another thing that cannot be measured in stats.

In other words - you keep your calculators and slide rules to yourself. I'm going to keep watching the game and having fun.

[holyroller]

Originally posted by Zeeter
In other words - you keep your calculators and slide rules to yourself. I'm going to keep watching the game and having fun.

So to put it in still other words, you are content with the subjective convential wisdow about the game and aren't interested in analysis based on objective evidence? That's fine, but don't tell us that sabermetrics are wrong unless you have studied it, understood it, and have reasons to dismiss it. Right now you are just dismissing things you don't understand and choose not to understand. If that is the case, why even enter in to these discussions?

[crackpott]

Originally posted by Zeeter
Interesting methodology. My only argument would be that we cannot assume that the 21 extra hits are singles. It would be more reasonable to take the ratio of doubles to hits, triples to hits, and homers to hits and apply that to the formula. I think that you will find different numbers that way.

While I agree that a single is more valuable, how did you come up with 1.4 X 1? Just curious.

Actually, we have to assume that because you never mentioned any other stats. If a player hit more homers, than it might affect our decision.

As for 1.4X... it was in some study. Someone explained it in another thread i mentioned it. I never knew where it came from, I just knew it was proposed and seems to be true.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Beware ye statheads!!!!

After finally get an ornery computer fixed, this is refreshingly amusing.

[Zeeter]

Originally posted by crackpott
Actually, we have to assume that because you never mentioned any other stats. If a player hit more homers, than it might affect our decision.

As for 1.4X... it was in some study. Someone explained it in another thread i mentioned it. I never knew where it came from, I just knew it was proposed and seems to be true.

Ok, you probably missed the other post by someone else who put in the percentages of doubles, triples, and homers. I would assume that if a guy had 21 more hits, and three out of every twenty hits are doubles, and .5 out of every 20 are triples, and two out of every 20 are homers then we would adjust accordingly. I'm just making these numbers up, but you see where I am going.

1.4 sounds about right to me, too.

[Zeeter]

Originally posted by holyroller
So to put it in still other words, you are content with the subjective convential wisdow about the game and aren't interested in analysis based on objective evidence? That's fine, but don't tell us that sabermetrics are wrong unless you have studied it, understood it, and have reasons to dismiss it. Right now you are just dismissing things you don't understand and choose not to understand. If that is the case, why even enter in to these discussions?

No, what I am really against is statheads going around telling the rest of the world that they're wrong because they are looking at the wrong stats. Many of whom do so in a very condescending manner, such as your suggestion that I disregard objective evidence.

What I am also saying is that those who say player A only got a ton of RBI's because he plays for Team A and is not as good as player B who plays for Team B which isn't as good as Team A. Therefore RBI's is a meaningless statistic.

It is a known fact that RBI's are largely dependant on who is on base. Nobody is arguing that. My problem is with those who discredit the stat based on this argument. Well boo-hoo for the player who didn't have a chance to get as many RBI's. My player got the RBI's, and therefore was a more productive player. You can try to make things even through whatever calculations you want to, but I am not interested in that. I am interested in what they actually did.

Casual Fan: How about that Joe Blow! He's hitting .310! Great pickup for our team!
Stathead: Actually, his OBP is only .340 which really brings down his OPS. Using Sabrmetrics, we should have gotten John Blow instead as, according to this logarithm, he is a far better player. Here, read this book by Bill James and it will expain the whole thing.
Casual Fan: Uh....how do you think the Patriots will do this year?

[holyroller]

You said a lot, but you did not address my point, other than to confirm it.

[Gastric ReFlux]

The earth is flat, I tell ya! Flat! The casual public has no need of oblate spheroids!

[CBL-Commish]

Zeeter, your whole argument is well and good for the random guy who is nothing more than a fan. But wouldn't you rather have the people running your favorite team using the best available objective evidence to determine who's better for them to sign? Do you really want the (for example) Orioles to resign Tony Batista to a long-term deal because he hits .260 with 30 homers and 90 RBI every year, or would you ask the GM to look a little deeper and see that he's past 30 years old and will probably decline, his OBP is poor, and his adjusted range stats are below average?

Do you really want your favorite team to be built, basically, on superficial numbers that are only popular because people didn't take analysis of baseball seriously 100 years ago? Would the owner, with tens of millions of dollars at stake, want that?

[holyroller]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
The earth is flat, I tell ya! Flat! The casual public has no need of oblate spheroids!

In the 35%

[Spielman]

Originally posted by Zeeter

The rest of your argument can be countered the same ways, but I don't feel like doing that right now.

What ways? You didn't counter anything.

Originally posted by Zeeter

Casual Fan: How about that Joe Blow! He's hitting .310! Great pickup for our team!
Stathead: Actually, his OBP is only .340 which really brings down his OPS. Using Sabrmetrics, we should have gotten John Blow instead as, according to this logarithm, he is a far better player. Here, read this book by Bill James and it will expain the whole thing.
Casual Fan: Uh....how do you think the Patriots will do this year?

And the casual fan probably doesn't know anything about the Pats beyond their QB, RB and a couple WRs. That's fine, but it doesn't mean he knows as much about them as a more avid fan. And he's going to irritate the hell out of a couple more avid fans who are trying to discuss whether Dan Klecko will be effective as a nose tackle when he interrupts to say "Tom Brady is a good quarterback!". It's not that he's wrong, either in his opinion or in his level of interest. It's just that he's not having the same conversation the other guys are having. Same thing with baseball. Same thing with this thread.

-Spielman

[Zeeter]

Originally posted by Spielman
What ways? You didn't counter anything.

Did so.

Originally posted by Spielman

And the casual fan probably doesn't know anything about the Pats beyond their QB, RB and a couple WRs. That's fine, but it doesn't mean he knows as much about them as a more avid fan. And he's going to irritate the hell out of a couple more avid fans who are trying to discuss whether Dan Klecko will be effective as a nose tackle when he interrupts to say "Tom Brady is a good quarterback!". It's not that he's wrong, either in his opinion or in his level of interest. It's just that he's not having the same conversation the other guys are having. Same thing with baseball. Same thing with this thread.

-Spielman

I understand what you are saying - if you guys are talking sabrmetrics when comparing players, then dont come in with RBI's and Wins. That makes perfect sense.

However, my argument is just the oposite. If I see a thread that starts out Billy Bob's RC/27 isn't as good as Jimmy Bob's, I'm going to avoid that thread. However, when I'm in a thread and someone says something like the following I get angry:

Originally posted by Aadik

Your point gets lost amongst the bluster- sabrematicians simply don't take what is force fed to them by idiots as the holy grail. RBI's are along with wins and saves as well as fielding percentage some of the most useless stats ever (fielding percentage less so than others)- Tim MCcarver espousing them makes him look stupid, not us.AS for the you being to stupid to understand, while I don't know you personally- Im inclined to think anyone who gives up a greater understanding of them because they think the sabreboys are ruining baseball is lacking somewhat.

What is implied here is that if we are taking what is force fed to us by idiots, then we too are idiots. So, because I choose not to get involved with sabrmetrics, yet continue to want to discuss baseball with other like-minded folks, I am "lacking somewhat."

There is nothing in this sabrmetrics that makes any stathead any better than a BA head. I like baseball just as much as anyone else, and do so without getting into all of the math. Getting back to stats, I feel that sometimes the most basic of stats is disregarded. Batting average is Very important. RBI's are very important. Wins are very important. I'm sure everything in Sabrmetrics is important, too. And if I were to be a GM, I would probably hire people who could tell me through these formulas who was a better player. But I'd also talk to coaches and scouts about how a guy is developing and other non-statistical stuff.

My point about the baseball to football transition was perhaps misunderstood. I was pointing out that a guy just wanted to talk baseball, but he was talking with a "statboy" who simply ruined the conversation. I suppose I should have suggested basketweaving as an alternative, but hindsight and all of that.

[Zeeter]

Originally posted by CBL-Commish
Zeeter, your whole argument is well and good for the random guy who is nothing more than a fan. But wouldn't you rather have the people running your favorite team using the best available objective evidence to determine who's better for them to sign? Do you really want the (for example) Orioles to resign Tony Batista to a long-term deal because he hits .260 with 30 homers and 90 RBI every year, or would you ask the GM to look a little deeper and see that he's past 30 years old and will probably decline, his OBP is poor, and his adjusted range stats are below average?

Do you really want your favorite team to be built, basically, on superficial numbers that are only popular because people didn't take analysis of baseball seriously 100 years ago? Would the owner, with tens of millions of dollars at stake, want that?

If I were an Orioles fan and they wanted to sign Batista who is past thirty and probably on the decline I would hope that the GM would look at that. Do I really need Sabrmetrics to determine that he's over 30 and will probably decline? Can't I just look at him and say he's in great shape, his numbers have not declined over the years, and while I wouldn't sign him to an eight year contract, four years (if he's only 30 now) will probably be good.

I'm not the owner of the team. My job is not on the line here. Just because I am not a stathead does not make me an idiot, as others have said, and does not mean that I do not like the game as much as others. I like batting average as a good sign of how a hitter is doing. If you want to throw in OBP, I will go along with it, but I'm still looking at BA first. I think RBI's are very important. If wins are so unimportant, then why do the best pitchers most often have the most wins?