Hits Allowed

[blackamus]

hey aadik...every consider changing one of those "a's" to a "c" and then placing it before the k?

[Crapshoot]

Originally posted by blackamus
hey aadik...every consider changing one of those "a's" to a "c" and then placing it before the k?

damn, thats original- never heard that before... ****... now Im scarred for life...

how will I ever survive such an egregious insult ?

[Spielman]

Originally posted by Aadik
damn, thats original- never heard that before... ****... now Im scarred for life...

how will I ever survive such an egregious insult ?

Well, you could suggest that bl -> j, and mu -> s.



-Spielman

[WLight]

Originally posted by Spielman
Well, you could suggest that bl -> j, and mu -> s.

Hahahahahaha!!

[crackpott]

Originally posted by Zeeter
You're the one with the Sabrmetrics knowledge. Is it all about OBP, SLG, OPS, and the like? Looking at Crackpot's reply it seems to be all about that. If so, I read those stats religiously when evaluating a player. The only difference then would be that I am not as swift in throwing out BA and RBI's. I truly believe that RBI's are a good measure of a player who's job it is to drive in runs.

And I'm not sure what I've not responded directly to you on. Most of what you've said is that RBI's are useless and defended your labeling as "stupid" and "ignorant" claims. Was there something else? (still waiting for someone to explain about RBI's).

Again, I hope I'm not frustrating you as I'm simply trying to explain the position of the majority of this board.

I don't exactly know what to say to "explain" RBI's... it's mostly been said, but apparently you're still waiting, so I'll go over it again.

a) RBI's are a team stat. Consider an extreme example. One guy hits 1 HR every 20th at bat. He finishes with a .050 batting average and 30 homeruns. He strikes out the rest of the time. Now let's say since this happens so rarely, the bases are loaded EVERY time he comes up. He ends up with 120 RBI. Now, another guy plays for the tigers. He's a phenom, and manages to hit .350, walk a ton, have 40 homers, 40 doubles, and 10 triples. He also steals at a good rate. Now.... this player plays on a team with 8 other guys who play as well as I do. They can probably catch the ball, but hitting 90 MPH pitches is not their thing. This guy doesn't ever have anyone on base in front of him, and finishes with 40 RBI. He's infinitely better than the first guy, yet looking at RBI it puts him as 3X worse. That in itself is why most people have learned to stop looking at RBI for any more than "Huh... look at that. Delgado might set some sort of Jays record this year. Interesting." This example is a huge exaggeration, but when you consider people like Dmitri Young on Detroit who are having a reasonable season and have no RBI, it shows the problem with it. And if you say you look at other stats... why look at RBI? That's my question. If you know it's flawed, what does it tell you that gives you a reason to look at it?

b) It's been shown that there is no such thing as "clutch" Over a players career, his close and late statistics will resemble his overall statistics. Thus, there is no such thing as an RBI player as in order to get more RBI's than anyone else in your situation, you would need to have some sort of magical "clutch" ability to drive in runners when they're in scoring position.

c) You say RBI's are a good measure of player's whose job it is to drive in runs. But the flaw in this is there is no such thing... No one has that specific job. For any player, it's the same thing. When there are runners in scoring position, your job is to try to drive them in. When there is no one on base, your job is to get on however possible. When there is a man on first, your job is either to get on base, try to drive them in, try to do both, or whatever else dependant on the team's philosophy. Every player has these jobs, and it's irrelevant if they're Rey Ordonez or Vlad Guerrero.

I don't know what else to tell you... can you please elaborate on why it's a useful statistic?

[Henry]

A more extreme example.... I'm a player that NEVER gets an out. All I hit is singles, or I walk, and I have a 1.000 batting average.

In reality, I'm the best player that ever lived... never got an out.

Option 1 : I am on Team A which NEVER has anyone on base when I come up - therefore I have no RBIs

Option 2 : I am on Team B where the bases are loaded everytime I come up - so I have 500 RBIs for the season.

Per RBIs, I'm a good player on Team B and not a good player on Team A.

But per OPS I'm the same on either team... that's why RBIs are a team stat - not a player stat.

[Dwolfson20]

Originally posted by Zeeter
(still waiting for someone to explain about RBI's).

Not sure what you're waiting for -- here's what was in the thread prior to this post:

Originally posted by Dwolfson20
Zeeter, here is what you are missing with the RBI point.

You keep referring to a guy that has 130 RBIs (Player A) and guy that has 90 RBIs (Player B), while acknowledging that the guy with 90 might be better because he played on a much worse team and did not have runners on base for him. But you still insist that the guy with 130 produces more runs. Here is the extension to this that you haven't yet made: if you have the players switch teams, Player B will drive in more runs. It's a stat that is dependent on the team; if Player B has better run production stats than Player A, he will drive in more runs if placed on the better team.

Originally posted by crackpott
I've gotta leave soon, so hopefully someone can elaborate on this for me.

A guy has a lot of RBI's. He has a reasonably good batting average, he plays on a good team.

A second guy has fewer RBI's. He has a lower batting average, and plays on a bad team. He, however, walks more often and hits more doubles, resulting in a higher OPS.

Now. I think that you've admitted that RBI's are partly a product of the team, so that we can fairly assume two similar players would have different RBI totals. You've also said you look deeper into the stats (so why even look at RBI at all? Just a question...). You look at their batting average, and the guy with the higher average appears to be the better player. What you don't notice is the guy with the lower average has a higher slugging percentage, and is thus just as/more likely to drive home runs given the same opportunities. In addition to that, he gets on base more, giving others the opportunity to drive HIM home.

Now you could look at team dependant stats such as RBI, runs, and then piece together who is the better player through stats which don't show as much such as batting average... but why not just start with the stats that will immediately give a better example of who is more productive?

[dougaiton]

Originally posted by Zeeter
If I'm coming to a board like this I obviously care enough about Baseball to look at a player a bit more objectively than the average fan. Maybe I don't do so as comprehensively as you, but that doesn't make either of us better - it means that you enjoy doing something that I don't. That's all. If I'm wrong about the guy, oh well. I only lost a minute or so in my original assessment. This isn't life and death - it's Baseball.
So how about this. Let's just stop the name calling and generalizations, and maybe you guys can convince me to "see the light." But as of right now it has become something akin to that movie that my friends all tell me that I HAVE to see so often that I'm making it a point NOT to see it. (American Pie, in case anyone really had to know).

here's my problem with this: this thread is about changing OOTP for the better, you can return to the start to check this. Now, you can't come out as a dissenting voice about not having a clutch rating, or not avoiding hits, and then say that you don't look at it comprehensively. This is the problem - we are giving Markus mixed opinions when really you actually agree - or at least you may be convinced - as to what everyone is arguing for. I don't mean to sound annoyed, but the terms of the argument have changed completly: stubborness (or being put off by everyone) is not a reason to start a thread arguing about the future of the game.

[dougaiton]

Originally posted by Zeeter
I'm hearing a lot of talk here about getting rid of the avoid hits rating for pitchers. That is a big mistake in my opinion. I understand the logic - pitchers may only affect walks, K's, Homers, and GB/FB%. Defense is responsible for the rest.

I'm sure that for pitchers like Johnson and Schilling this is fairly accurate. However, look at pitchers like Maddux and Glavine. They do not overwhelm with strikeouts. They don't walk a lot of hitters, but a lot of pitchers are like that. It is their pinpoint control that keeps the hits off of the board. It is their ability to keep the hitters guessing and not allowing them to get good wood on the ball.

Just as evidence, this is the 1st post of the thread. This was a thread arguing about the future of the OOTP game system. My problem with this is that you start off dissenting against a popularly held view in the community (if it was a poll, you would vote No), before saying you don't really look at it comprehensively. The OOTP development team may read this and think 'there are opponents to getting rid of Avoiding Hits, and we don't want to alienate people'. The level at which it remains may be decided by discussions like this. If you do believe in Clutch and Avoiding Hits, fight your corner. If you don't believe in them now, say that. I'm sorry if I sound annoyed, but it reminds me of people who vote for parties in elections they know nothing about, and then complain when they don't do what they want them to.

EDIT: Error-fixing

[kq76]

How is it you guys can argue endlessly over this? I mean, I can understand the arguing, but for it go on for 9 pages and to keep reading. Yikes. I gave up on page 4.

To reply to some comments/questions:

Originally posted by Zeeter
I'm hearing a lot of talk here about getting rid of the avoid hits rating for pitchers. That is a big mistake in my opinion. I understand the logic - pitchers may only affect walks, K's, Homers, and GB/FB%. Defense is responsible for the rest.

I don't believe Markus is silly enough to completely "get rid of" the pitchers' hits rating. I think he just realizes that it's not quite as important as other ratings and the game engine should therefore be adjusted to reflect this.

Originally posted by Zeeter
I'm sure that for pitchers like Johnson and Schilling this is fairly accurate. However, look at pitchers like Maddux and Glavine. They do not overwhelm with strikeouts. They don't walk a lot of hitters, but a lot of pitchers are like that. It is their pinpoint control that keeps the hits off of the board. It is their ability to keep the hitters guessing and not allowing them to get good wood on the ball.

I'm not going to argue this, but I will lead you to Voros' pitching site (http://www.baseballstuff.com/mccracken/pitching.html) that has many articles that explain and criticize his DIPS. I think you'll be surprised by some of the results and you might become a believer as well. I, like others, suspect that hits allowed is more important than Voros claims at least for certain types of pitchers, but for the most part I do agree that Ks, BBs, and HRs are more important than Hs.

Originally posted by Zeeter
There is a reason why when a batter comes up the viewer at home is shown his BA and HR totals - it is that everyone knows those numbers.

Just because something is tradition does not necessarily mean it should be the status quo. I like tradition with regards to some things, but when something else is clearly better (I'm not talking OBP), I want the newer better thing. I think it's silly to stay with something that is inferior just for the sake of tradition. And if the problem is that most fans just don't understand Run Production stats yet, well that just means those of us who are proponents of them need to do a better job of educating the others.

Originally posted by Zeeter
BA is an important statistic, and in my opinion is one of the MOST important - right alongside OBP and SLG (and by default OPS).

For someone (I don't mean anyone in particular) who doesn't understand better stats, then yes, those are important stats. But for those who understand the more complicated stats, the older stats are definitely inferior and therefore much less important. I really don't want to argue this point, but I do believe that if you look at some run production stats (my favourite being XR which TLBOrioles mentioned) that you will come to agree. Once you get them, I'm sure you'll love them and that you'll appreciate the difference between them and their /27 counterparts.

[kq76]

dola..

I almost forgot to reply to what I thought was probably the most interesting post in this thread! My responses are in bold.

Originally posted by blackamus
My point is this (among others) baseball is a sport whose primary purpose is the entertainment of it's spectators and it's players.

I disagree. The point of baseball depends on who you are. For the fans (the consumers) it's about enjoyment, I'll give you that. However, what gives one fan enjoyment does not necessarily give the next fan enjoyment (more on this later). For the players (the workers) it's about making money and fun. I don't believe it's really about "entertainment". For the owners (the investors) it's obviously about making money.

Aesthitics are an important part of the process of entertainment. Watching Jason Giambi work a walk is quite frankly, boring.

To you perhaps, but definitely not to me! One of my favourite things in baseball is when a player fouls off 8 pitches and gets a walk. That edge of your seat excitement of will he get a hit or a walk or an out on the next pitch with a full count is exhilirating to me. Why, I'm not sure, but it is.

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.

When I was younger I would have agreed with you, but now that I understand the game better, I cringe every time I see a runner take off. For most situations and runners, it just isn't worth the risk. Thankfully most managers see this now and do it less.

Let me put it another way.. To some people, risking their lives doing something exhilirating would be exciting to them, but to me it's just plain stupidity.

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.

Explain how not "possibly". I agree, I think I'd like to see something done about the # of home runs, but I'm not convinced that they're not overall bad for the game as you seem to be. Power is exciting. And there is still strategy in today's game, it's just different strategy. I realize this is not everyone's opinion, but I think I would rather see a 5-4 game than a 3-2 game. Now an average 7-6 game is probably too far the other way for me. I'm not sure what the optimal # of runs per game is to maximize enjoyment, but I suspect it's around 4-5 per team.

Just as the slam dunk is now a mundane event in a basketball game, the homerun in baseball will soon be.

Back in Dr. J's day, the dunk was about style. Today it is quite the same. Before Dr. J (when dunks were rare?), were dunks excting? I doubt it. The point is, it's about style. To me, the big home run hitters have great style. I absolutely love to watch Barry Bonds' body move (please, let's refrain from the childish gay jokes) when he hits a bomb. When some out of shape guy barely squeaks one over the wall, I'm not nearly as impressed.

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.

To me, this does not apply to baseball, at least not to current baseball. Again, I think you just don't enjoy the things that I enjoy about baseball. I love the strategy of the game, the graceful movements of the atheletes, the stats of the game, and the winning. I can see that you appreciate the game as well, but you just appreciate different aspects of it. Sure, watching a player hit the ball is entertaining and so is watching them run, but I think there's so much more.

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.

The only people I've seen defend Questec are Bud Selig and some misguided imo management people. Sure, there may be the odd person that likes it, including a sabermetrician here and there, but I think they are in the minority.

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.

A very good point, and by that I don't mean to put down people who don't yet get some SABR things. I often come off as condescending (my gf catches me daily) and that is wrong of me and any other person who does it. It's frustrating when someone doesn't get something you do, but that doesn't mean that it's right to patronize them. Those of us who do this need to work on stopping this bad habit.

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

Originally posted by blackamus
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".

I'm pretty sure he's heard of it.

[kq76]

^ Most useless post of the day so far.

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

Originally posted by kq76
^ Most useless post of the day so far.

It's early..... by afternoon I'm sure I can get a lot more useless....

[Gastric ReFlux]

In Sheep World, we watch Kevin Costner movies all day long. Just thought you all would like to know that.

[Slant]

OK, there is definitely some misunderstanding here:

First of all, more than one issue exists on this thread. Arguments for one thing are getting confused with arguments for another.

Second, both sides are trying to be civil, but both sides think the other side is going farther than they really are.

Example (this never happened):
Guy 1: I don't think RBIs are as important as people use to think.
Guy 2: WHAT?!?? Who are you to tell me I'm not allowed to look at RBIs??

OR

Guy 3: I don't feel the need, nor do I have the time, to go through complicated formulas to compare players.
Guy 4: WHAT?!?? Those formulas aren't worthless!!




I feel the need to break down the issues:

A) Purpose of the game: winning or entertaining?
Or, is winning entertaining anyway?
This one has already been covered extensively in this thread. Everyone is entertained by different aspects of the game (I'm talking about baseball here, not OOTP - yet), and we just have to deal with that.
Me, I like to read sabermetric studies and such. I don't always agree with them. If I don't agree with them, it's not because "I just know it's wrong", it's because I don't feel the author of the study did a good job proving his point. I consider myself very competent at math. I prefer to look at the details. If I am curious, I will investigate.
I live in Boston. My friends and I are fans of the Red Sox. Some of us, like me, use sabermetrics. Others couldn't care less. When I talk to someone who doesn't know sabermetrics, I don't just say, "Well, Tejada didn't deserve the MVP because of his extrapolated runs....". Just beacuse I know sabermetrics doesn't make me a conversation-killer.
When Epstein got little Giambi, I might have asked a non-SABR friend, "hey, dude, guess which Giambi, when he makes contact, is more likely to hit it out of the park?"
He would have said, "Jason, duh."
And I'd say "Nope, Jeremy."
And he'd say, "Really? That's cool. If only he made contact more often."
And I'd say, "Yeah, man. If he can stop striking out, he'll be awesome."

OK, I got a little carried away, but I was annoyed by someone who said that people who knew sabermetrics killed conversations. I can see how we would get that reputation, but the point is that whether or not they are fun to talk to has no relation to the validity of their methods.

B) Is SABR for everyone?
NO.
But some of us are glad that our favorite teams are using everything at their disposal to their advantage. I don't care if the most important stat when comparing hitters, in your opinion, is HBP, unless your judgements affects the decisions made by the management of my favorite team.

So, if you don't want to do out math to enjoy the great american pastime, great. If you think the Tampa Bay Devil Rays should have chosen the 90-something Ted Williams as their first pick in the expansion draft because he had more RBIs than anyone else available, and therefore produced more runs, and therefore is better at producing runs, then good for you. But if I want the Devil Rays to win, I don't want you making those decisions.

So what am I saying? I am saying that baseball GMs and managers, etc, should probably know sabermetrics. They should probably take the time to do out the math to support their findings, because that's what they get paid to do. However, the difficulty of determining a statistic has no relation to its validity. That doesn't mean you have to use it, all it means is that whether it takes me 10 seconds or 10 years to figure it out, doesn't change whether or not it works.

C) The RBI thing.
Zeeter's point (which thus far remains unadressed) in response to the "if they switched teams..." argument is that they didn't switch teams, and therefore that argument is irrevelant.

Zeeter, you made a good point, but now I will ask you some questions and invite you to reevaluate your stance on the issue.

Here's the situation: you're the GM of your favorite team. The year is 2004, at the free agent period. You desperately need a third baseman, and that's about all you need to be a contender. There are two choices available. One of them's stats are .290, 30 HR, 160 RBI, New York Yankees, American League MVP. The other? .290, 30 HR, 75 RBI, Milwaukee Brewers.

My first question is which player is better? You'd probably answer, "the first one", and I'd be inclined to agree with you at this point. Sure, the avg and HR are the same, but probably he hit more doubles and triples, right? And maybe he's better in the clutch.

But here comes a stathead, and he says, "If they switched teams, their RBI numbers would likely switch as well. Therefore, the players are equal."

Let's go with a compromise between the two theories. The players are similar, but the one with more RBIs is a bit better.

So, which one do you bid on?

I would hope you bid on the one with less RBI. Why? Because you can save about $10 million.

You say, "But I lose about 85 runs with that player."

But you're wrong. Because you'll never know how many runs you lose unless you play the season twice. Once with each player. What everyone else is trying to say is that RBI are influenced by factors out of the batter's control. The batter should not be penalized if his teammates suck.

D) The stupid thing.
Get over it. Let's debate, not argue, about baseball, not about our intelligence.

E) What does all this have to do with OOTP?
Henry had a few good posts and tried to bring the game (OOTP) into the discussion but he was largely ignored.

Zeeter, you say that you can evaluate players to a certain extent using only RBI and batting average. And I agree.

But we have to ask ourself if we can evaluate them using only BA and RBI well enough to have OOTP rely only on those stats.

I don't think we can.

In order for OOTP to provide the most realistic simulations, it needs to know everything that we know.

If some stathead proves that the ratio of hits per balls in play is in direct proportion to the average age of the fans in the stadium, then I hope OOTP would realistically apply that.

Similarly, if someone were to prove that a pitcher's ability to limit hits on balls in play is less important than a pitcher's ability to strikeout opposing batters, then I hope OOTP would implement that as well.

(In OOTP's current edition, a pitcher's ability to limit hits on balls in play is more important than his ability to strikeout opposing batters)




If anyone does not understand my points, or does not agree, please respond, and then a few things may happen:

1) I may reclarify something in hope that you understand better.
2) I may make an additional point in an effort to convince you that I am correct
3) I may decide that I was wrong and you are right based on a reasonable argument that you provide.
4) I may ignore you. That is actually the most likely outcome.