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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Friday, June 19, 2009
Now he’s coming through the woods.
Now he’s coming through the yard.
Now he’s coming in the house.
Now he’s coming up the stairs.
But what I’ve been witnessing while I’ve been a broadcaster is everyone using these stats to try and explain the game of baseball. Not all statistics work. Some do, most don’t. And one of the stats that has become real popular is OPS. On-base plus slugging. All of a sudden, it’s this stat that defines whether a guy is a good ball player or not. And the fact of the matter is, if you’re a power hitter then the situation will dictate what a pitcher does with you - either walk you or pitch you real careful. So more than likely you’re going to end up on base and therefore you On-base percentage goes up. This is my mind has become the stat the everyone thinks is the be all and end all. It is not. If you have a ball club that’s a great offensive team then that changes everything. But if you have a guy like Adrian Gonzalez, for example, his OPS is going to high - he’s got a lot of home runs and walks a lot…because you’re not going to pitch to him! Power guys like Giambi and Dunn have always had high OPS because no one wants to pitch to them. But it takes two hits to score them from first! This is how the game has changed. Dick Williams is pulling his hair out. This is not something has reinvented in the game. You can go all the way back to Dave Kingman. When Kingman was hot, you didn’t pitch to him. If he wasn’t hot, you pitched to him. Big power hitters swing and miss or strikeout. Or they hit home runs and walk. And at the end of the year their OBP is always going to be higher than most of the other guys because they clog the bases. A few years ago this stat grabbed my ear when someone said that Ichiro doesn’t walk enough. So I said, “What do you mean?” And they said his OBP could be so much higher if he just walked more. The guy gets 200 hits a season! And he scores over 100 runs. I think that speaks for itself. Why would you want to walk the guy, he’s score even more runs and steal even more bases. So as the old, wise Dick Williams used to tell me, “I should never have to give you a sign. The situation dictates what happens.”
Now he’s coming through the woods.
Now he’s coming through the yard.
Now he’s coming in the house.
Now he’s coming up the stairs.
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So Reynolds is correct, in a way, yes?
that last sentence [edit: of Reynolds'] is just a sublime non sequitur.
5: Well, the problem is that Reynolds is saying that power hitters will also have higher OBP than non-power hitters; I mean, he's saying that "Big power hitters swing and miss or strikeout. Or they hit home runs and walk. And at the end of the year their OBP is always going to be higher than most of the other guys because they clog the bases." The last part doesn't make any sense, by the way -- power hitters have higher OBP because they clog the bases? WTF? What about really fast power hitters, like Justin Upton or Mark Reynolds or Chase Utley or David Wright of years past? :) This is just embarrassing writing by Reynolds. He should have his typewriters taken away...
If the situation dictates, Levski, they will be....
Not really. To the extent that he's coherent enough to say that OPS overrates power hitters, he says that based upon an argument that's completely wrong. He therefore uses OPS to underrate the wrong power hitters.
His claim isn't that OPS overweights slugging and underweights OBP, which would be a true argument. He says that the OBP of these power hitters isn't very useful, which is a wrong argument. OPS does not significantly overrate the guys that hit a lot of home runs and draw a lot of walks, because they are getting on base. It's the guys who hit a lot of home runs, hit .250 with a gazillion strikeouts and no walks that it overrates.
He also doesn't understand the criticisms that were made of Ichiro!, or, more accurately, all of the people that gushed over him. The problem wasn't that his OBP was bad, per se, because it was always high enough to make him valuable. The problem was that he wasn't hitting for any power, which made his .320 batting average less valuable than it looked. I never saw the criticism directed at Ichiro himself, but rather with the people who thought he was good enough to deserve MVP consideration.
I don't think so. While he singles out power hitters, what he actually complains about isn't the power/SLG, it's the walks/OBP that clog the bases. The fact that he agrees with many stat heads that OPS is flawed, but for exactly the opposite reason, is a nice detail.
Edit: what JMN said.
But also, those intentional and "un"intentional walks are not as valuable as an average walk (or a hit, of course). Which is not a problem with OPS necessarily but OBP. And if fat sluggers are getting pitched around a lot, it is certainly true that their OPS overstates their true value, even if it's never a bad thing to get on base.
OPS is not representative of how these hitters are not able to provide other skills nor can they adapt to various game situations where other strategies may be employed (exemplified by Dick Williams saying, "The situation dictates what happens.").
Right.
It's another example (as with sac bunts) of where micro-analysis may eventually show that certain hitters are not really useful at certain times of the game. Which is not to dismiss the runs they create at other times. But certain types of sluggers can probably be pitched to in clutch AB, or otherwise neutralized to an extent that their OPS would not suggest. Reynolds's argument (based only on TFI) is not that directly on point or that clear, but I think there is truth buried in there.
All that said, I'm down on Harold right now. His highly-paid Tuesday night analysis: "101 MPH! 101 MPH! 101 MPH! 101 MPH! 101 MPH! 101 MPH! 101 MPH! 101 MPH! Throw the ball down the middle! 101 MPH!"
Reynolds is on the cusp of making a fateful decision whether to join us, or go back to the square kids like Joe Morgan and not particpate in our mind altering stat experiences. C'mon Harold you want to be cool right? Take a hit of our EQA it might be laced with Win Shares or a smidgen of WPA.
I want to line up Harold Reynolds, Dusty Baker, and Ron Gardenhire and slap them all in one stroke, Three Stooges style.
The problem with OBP is its name. People really can't get over the whole "on base" thing. Like "Well what good does it do me to have a fat slugger on first base?!@!??!?" They don't seem to understand that a homerun will increase your OBP too, or an RBI double. And of course the whole "Clogging teh bathpaces" argument is ridiculously overstated. As well as the absurd notion that a walk clogs the pahtbces but a single does not.
Anyway I'm going to bed goodnight.
If you hit three guys with one swing, that's a .750 slugging percentage, right?
Or evewn better, if he did not want to pinch hit for him, due to a lack of a replacement or because he wanted to keep Barry in the lineup in case they went into extra innings, then there must have been at least once where Dusty told Barry to strike out so that he would not clog the bases.
This is why the SHEMP (Statistical Hooey Equals Many Pi) system was invented.
OPS has two components, on-base and slugging. A great on-base percentage is above .400, and a great slugging percentage is above .500? Maybe higher? Lots of hitters slug .550 for the season, few hitters (if any) have an OBP of .450.
So, someone who is the traditional good leadoff type would be high OBP and average SLP while a traditional good power hitter would be average OPS and high SLG.
Ok, leadoff guy: .400 OBP and .400 SLP = .800 OPS
And, power guy: .350 OBP and .500 SLP = .850 OPS
The metrics just ain't even.
Bonds had 500 career stolen bases. Was he ever really slow?
I didn't see him in Dusty's last season with the Giants, but Bonds obviously slowed with age and as he bulked up. The point stands, though, that Dusty, or any manager, is unlikely to actually pinch hit for a big slugger because he may "clog the bases."
Has he ever seen Pujols, Manny, Rodriguez, Ortiz, Miggy, Berkman etc etc etc... these guys are big power hitters and they get tons of singles and doubles! the Adam Dunn's and Jack Custs are much more rare, and their OPS's are never that high anyway.
.400 OBP and .400 SLP = .800 OPS, less .280=.520
And, power guy: .350 OBP and .500 SLP = .850 OPS, less .280=.570
One would suspect, at a glance, that it would hurt high average hitter, and help low average hitters. And it would involve more math, so the TV/radio/newspaper folks wouldn't keep using it probably.
plenty of people have noticed, and mostly people who have whine and cry about it, the rest just say it's a simple stat that does a fairly good job of doing what it is trying to do. The point about including the batting average twice is a good thing, it makes a hit worth more than a walk, which is one of peoples complaints about obp. It's a function of it's designed to include batting average twice, it's a big reason why it works well enough.
A better name for On-Base Percentage would be "Not Making An Out Percentage". I think all of a sudden people would see that, instead of just "clogging up the bases," there's actually some kind of a connection between being on base and not making an out. Right now it seems as if people like Reynolds aren't acknowledging the alternative of the "OB" in "OBP"....
If hitter A
W . AB .. H AVG D-T-HR .SLG
50 500 140 .280 20-4-8 .384
gains power to become hitter B
W . AB .. H AVG D-T-HR .SLG
50 500 140 .280 34-4-20 .484
He will by "fear" gain walks and become hitter B'
W . AB .. H AVG D-T-.. HR SLG
61 489 137 .280 33-4-19.5 .484
Generally, though, such arguments have always come across to me as attempts to be contrarian in face of the Ichiro hype.
While there's certainly nothing wrong with a .377 career OBP, the lack of walks does hinder Ichiro when he's compared to the real historical elite among leadoff men - for instance, he's not as good a leadoff man as Tim Raines. He's never led the league in runs scored, only had one top-5 finish, only one 120-run season, all that despite playing every game (not that runs scored are a perfect metric or anything). He's still really good, of course, but his historical standing as a leadoff man is going to be very widely overstated.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/raineti01.shtml?redir
Why don't we wait until Ichiro has his decline phase and see what the OBP difference is then. Raines' 8 season prime had an OBP of .396 in over 5000 PA. Ichiro has a .377 in over 5700 PA.
Ichiro's career OBP might be lower by the time he's done, so the gap could be bigger
edit: or what McCoy said
This, and the fact Raines was also a higher-volume basestealer with a higher success rate. The difference isn't enormous, but neither is it tiny, and Raines wins. How many mainstream analysts do you think would reach that conclusion?
Raines rate might be better but that doesn't mean much if he's missing significantly more time than Ichiro will covering the same player years.
I'm simply pointing out that when you compared Ichiro to Raines you compared all of Raines career to just one part of Ichiro's.
so from his 34 season to his 42 season is already in his decline phase? thats a pretty long decline.
I still have no idea why it's being mentioned, but it's a weird way to look at it, considering he wasn't a starter on some of those teams, he was the fourth outfielder a few years, I'm not sure why average games matters here.
Comparing Ichiro from his time in the league to Raines same years.
Raines .288/.382/.423/.805 121 ops+, 770 runs scored, 318 sb, 67 cs, 1860 tb (1171 games)
Ichiro .331/.377/.432/.809 117 ops+, 913 runs scored, 326 sb, 74 cs, 2469 tb (1338 games and counting)
so if you compare the two players strictly by the ages that Ichiro played in the majors, Ichiro comes out looking very good, and in my opinion it could be a point for Raines hof argument, msm media feel that Ichiro is playing at a hof level, Raines played as well in the same ages while he had much better years not even in this discussion. (this misses four of his five best seasons)
That's covered by OPS+. Besides, its not as if Ichiro plays in a bandbox like the disgraceful New Yankees Stadium!
*runs!*
beat me too it, it's why Raines' lower ops is actually a higher ops+. Of course more advance ways to look at it would also award Raines for his slightly larger difference in obp between league average.
of course the big thing I like is that this is not Prime or peak Raines, this is just good Raines and he compares well with a guy who is more or less being lauded as a certain hofer. I understand that we probably missed some of Ichiros prime/peak years also, but there are plenty of people that think he'll make it to the hof because of his playing numbers in the MLB with the coming from Japan bonus being only a minor help.
Two points:
1. The main value of OPS is that it is much better than BA in correlating to run scoring, without also requiring a great deal of calculation to get there because it is made up of two stats that are (a) not that hard to calculate and (b) already being calculated and are available wide spread. How many people, even on a stat heavy site like this one, calculate EqAon their own? How many could explain it?
2. Most of the improvements provided over OPS by advanced stats are really at the edges of relevance, because OPS does get you a long way toward a good "one size fits all" stat, since SB and general base running don't really make a huge difference for the majority of players.
I still have no idea why it's being mentioned, but it's a weird way to look at it, considering he wasn't a starter on some of those teams, he was the fourth outfielder a few years, I'm not sure why average games matters here.
People were pointing out that Ichiro's OBP is likely to decline due to age and ability.
I was just pointing out that Raines's later years himself was that he wasn't playing as many games as he could. Average games matter since Ichiro's a starter, while Raines wasn't. Its harder to maintain a OBP near .400 over 162 games than over 88 games which Raines averaged.
Actually, according to BB-Ref, Ichiro and Raines played in almost the exact same OBP environment (.330 for Ichiro, .331 for Raines) because (a) Raines' career extended well into the high-offense era, (b) Ichiro has played his entire career in a pitchers' park, and (c) the current era is more extreme relative to the 1980s in terms of SLG than OBP (lgSLG for Ichiro is .420 v. .398 for Raines).
Raines missed some time with injury in 1993. Then, in 1994 and 1995, he played in 91% of his team's games (although he was a worse hitter by then than at his prime). Those seasons look bad on BB-Ref because of the players' strike. The 1981 strike also makes Raines' career look like he became a regular a year later than he actually did (his 88 games played in 1981 was out of 108 games total by the Expos).
To really understand Tim Raines's career, you need to look at his normalized stats on BB-Ref (bottom table). Doing this highlights that he was a regular for 15 years (1981-95) and that his Hall-of-Fame case is a peak case (from 1981-87, he has a normalized line of .338/.427/.488 w/ 96 SB and 125 R per 162 games).
EDIT: And "normalized" Raines also ends up with 3,000 career hits (3,001 to be exact) and a career batting average over .300 (.314).
This is something of non-sequitur, in that my point was that some well-meaning statheads mistake the shape of performance for performance. A .377 OBP is good for a lead-off hitter, full stop. How much of that OBP is due to walks is irrelevant. Ichiro is a lesser player than Tim Raines (no shame in that) because his OBP is lower, not because he didn't walk more.
Further, it could be argued that a high BA-driven OBP like Ichiro's is more valuable than a high walk-driven OBP, in that there's more opportunity to advance on a single than on a walk. (This has nothing to do with a comparison to Raines, incidentally.)
What I'm saying, really, is that some folks, apparently folks who talk to Harold Reynolds, mistake the stathead orthodoxy "walks contribute to OBP, ergo walks are good" to "a high OBP with low walks is bad." I suspect Ichiro draws this kind of criticism more than anyone else due to his unusual style of play. Most valuable hacktastic guys make up their corresponding middling BA/OBP with high SLG, cf. Soriano. There aren't too many guys who'll swing at anything and yet maintain a high BA and OBP. Vladimir Guerrero comes to mind, but not many others.
Which, in Ichiro's case, is reduced by the large number of his hits which are infield singles.
Italics off!
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