A little more OBP
Posted: June 3rd, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 54 Comments »
I’m going to write just a little more about on-base percentage because I just heard one of those baseball cliches that drives me up the wall. The cliche goes something like this: Baseball is the only sport where if you fail 70% of the time, you go to the Hall of Fame.
Or this: “In baseball, even the best hitters fail 70 percent of the time.”
Or: “Where else but baseball can you fail 70 percent of the time and still be considered great?”
Well, you know where I’m going with this … but before getting there let me just say that I think the whole 30% concept is flawed to start with. There is 70% failure in all sports, depending on what you are talking about. The best pass rushing defensive ends don’t get to the quarterback 30% of the time. Quarterbacks generally don’t hit 30 percent of their bombs. Hockey players don’t score on 30% of their rushes. Soccer players* sure as hell don’t score 30% of the time. The greatest golfers hit lots of wedges into the green — they don’t drop anything close to 30% of those (nor do them make 30% of their 30 foot putts, I would bet). Kobe Bryant hits 30% of his three-point shots. And so on.
*OK, so here’s the deal. This blog has, for reasons that are quite beyond me, become an International thing. Best I can tell, we either have readers in various countries all over the world or we have readers who PRETEND to be from various countries all over the world — it really works either way. So, here’s what I’ve been thinking: I need a soccer team. A football club. Whatever you call it. You can teach me that stuff later. For a while I thought about becoming a fan of Arsenal because of Nick Hornby, but I never really followed up on that. I’m more committed now — thanks in large part to the upcoming soccer book Bloody Confused by my dear friend Chuck Culpepper.
Yes, I want a club. I want to buy soccer jerseys. I want to feel international (Sorry: American soccer teams are not eligible). I want to be able to use all those cool soccer words like … well, I don’t know, I’ll learn them.
So, here’s the deal: My fan services are for hire. All you have to do is send along an email telling me why I should support your team. The best email wins my enduring soccer love and maybe even an occasional soccer post.
So, yeah, the basic concept of 70% failure seems ridiculous. Lots of people in lots of fields (songwriting, gold mining, lottery ticket buyers, presidents seeking approval ratings) would be plenty happy with 30 percent return.
Then we get to the main point, which (as you already know) is this: The math is wrong. Any batter who fails 70% of the time sucks. That’s all. If you have a .300 on-base percentage, you are virtually unplayable. The cliche, in all its forms, is wrong, wildly incorrect, and it has been for the 100 years people have been spewing it.
So maybe it’s worth it one more time try and put OBP in perspective. An OBP guide, if you will.
This year, the average OBP is .331. That’s down from last year (.336), which was a little down from 2006 (.337). But it’s historically in line.
Just to give you a little history: Over the last 50 years, the average on-base percentage is .327 — that’s with a few highs (it was .345 in both 1999 and 2000) and a few lows (more or less the entire 1960s was a low OBP time, crowned by 1968 when batters had a .299 OBP. It bounced up and down after that — it was .337 in 1987 and .318 in 1988).
So, let’s use .330 as our marker — that is more or less what the average OBP has been since the introduction of the designated hitter in the AL. And let’s say that the average batting average is .262, because, yeah, that’s what it is over the same time period. So here’s a handy little chart that you can use to judge on-base percentage.
.504 OBP: Roughly equivalent to .400 season. In baseball history, only five players have OBP’d .504 in a season — Ruth did it five times, Bonds did it four times, Ted Williams did three times, Mickey Mantle and Rogers Hornsby did it once each. That’s 14 times total. By comparison, there have been 13 .400 seasons done by eight different players.
.450 OBP: Roughly equivalent to a .357 season. In recent years, these .450 OBP seasons have been more common (thanks to Barry, Coors Field, Wade Boggs, etc.), but between 1976-1991 no player in the National League reached .450.
.425 OBP: Roughly equivalent to batting .337.
.400 OBP: Roughly equivalent to batting .318. I mentioned in the last post that there have been 22 players since 1901 to play 2,000 games and OBP .400 … Over the same period there have been 20 players to play 2,000 games and hit .318. So, that seems to me an excellent match.
.390 OBP: Like batting .310.
.378 OBP: This is about the .300 line. If you see a batter whose OBP is somewhere between .375 and .380 — yeah, that’s pretty much like a .300 hitter.
.350 OBP: Like batting .278. A little better than average.
.340 OBP: .Like a .270 hitter. I think most people believe .270 is an average hitter. I would say a .340 OBP guy is an average on-base guy.
.330 OBP: As mentioned, this is roughly the Major League average, but that does include pitchers. An every day guy with a .330 OBP isn’t doing a whole lot for you offensively unless he’s really swatting the ball for extra bases.
.310 OBP: Like a .246 hitter.
.300 OBP: Here’s your 70 percent failure guy … and it’s like batting .238.
.250 OBP: This is pretty much the Mendoza line for on-base … a .250 OBP is roughly like a .200 hitter.
So there you go. And in case you were wondering … Bonds’ obscene .609 on-base percentage in 2004? Roughly equivalent to batting .483.
* * *
One more thing, to fill a request from a brilliant reader who was wondering about Albert Pujols’ current Hall of Fame credentials. Pujols has about 4,300 at-bats. The only Hall of Famer with fewer than 4,500 at-bats (obviously not including pitchers, managers, Negro League inductees, umpires and players pre 1900) is, indeed, Roy Campanella. And Campanella of course had his career shortened on both ends … he played in the Negro Leagues in the 1940s and did not make it up to the Majors until he was 26. And then, of course, he had the tragic car accident and was paralyzed when he was 36.
I don’t know — and don’t really like to think about — what would be Pujols’ Hall of Fame status if his career sadly and suddenly ended. You need 10 years in the big leagues to be eligible for the Hall of Fame, but I suspect that Pujols has been so good, so unbelievably good, that it would be waved and he would get in. I mean, seriously, the guy’s lifetime line is .333/.423/.621 … it’s incredible. His batting average is better than Stan Musial’s, his on-base percentage tops Mickey Mantle, and his slugging percentage is higher than Foxx, Greenberg or Bonds.
But again … better not to think about anything that could shorten that career. Let’s just enjoy the guy.
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.340 OBP is average huh?
Royals above average:
Gordon .354
Grudzielniak .354
DeJesus .353
Callaspo .341
——————————
Next two below .340
Teahen is at .338
Butler at .330
Bonds .609 OBP in 2004….. too bad that team was dragged down by the likes of Neifi! (.276 OBP), Feliz (.305 OBP), and of course, Wayne Franklin (11 HR in 51IP).
I couldn’t help it, I had to see what Mario Mendoza’s OBP is… it was .245. Yikes! He couldn’t hit or draw walks.
What about Juan Pierre? His .348 career OBP is actually worth more than most .350ish ones due to his ability to turn a single into a double or triple after he gets on base.
You know, until today, I always assumed that much of why people often think of Ted Williams as possibly the best hitter ever…was his OBP.
I love Pujols. I drafted him with the first pick of my first dynasty draft five years ago, and he has carried my team each year. There really is not a player out there I’d rather have had for that time, and I don’t see any reason he won’t be great for at least the next five years. That is, of course, unless you just jinxed him. I hope you knocked on wood when you posted that…
I am reading the blog from the Netherlands, but I’m American and don’t have a soccer team, so I don’t think I count as “international”.
Joe-
What kind of team are you looking for? First what league? (Premiere, La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy) are the big ones). I prefer watching La Liga and Serie A, but the coverage for the Premiere is naturally in English.
Premiere and Serie A are covered pretty well on FSC, La Liga on Gol TV (online with Ray Hudson, the insane announcer, http://youtube.com/watch?v=499TYSKaxKY, also there is a money blog that reviews his most nonsensical quotes (Hudsonia – http://hudsonia.blogspot.com/).
If you want to reward yourself for following the Royals and balance the karma scales, cheer for Manchester United. They won both the Premiere and Champions Leagues this year, but you seem a bit more of a masochistic fan than that.
I came over to play American football, but got hooked on the insanity that European football brings to the table.
Following Man U is like following the Yankees or the Dodgers. Anyone can do that.
Joe,
Simmons did the soccer/football thing over on ESPN in 2006 trying to pick a English Premier League team: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060719
I would go with Liverpool… look for any Youtube clip of the home fans singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, absolutely spine-tingling.
The OBP guidelines remind me why I throw something at the television every time the Red Sox start Coco Crisp and leave Ellsbury on the bench.
Statistics neophyte here. Joe, thanks for this post on OBP. Now — can anyone explain or direct me to a link that explains the OPS+ stat and its significance? Is a OPS+ stat a true indicator of a player’s value?
Mike, welcome to Numbers World. It’s like Disney, but without the little kids.
This link from your new best friends at FJM explains OPS+ (as well as other fairly sabermetric stats) in terms even Mickey and Goofy can understand (but not that asshat Donald). Enjoy!
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2005/04/glossary-of-terms.html
I actually started following the Premier League ever since one of my colleagues from Europe roped me into a World Cup fantasy league back in 2006. If you want to stay with the Big 4, I too would pick Liverpool — ManU is the Yankee equivalent, Chelsea is the Yankees equivalent with a more interminable style of play, and Arsenal is pretty close to the Red Sox.
However, I’ve always been partial to Portsmouth (or Pompey), who play strong defense, have one of the top goalkeepers in David (Calamity) James, have a colorful coach in Harry (or ‘Arry) Redknapp, and who just won the FA Cup for the first time since before WWII.
If you want to stick to your Cleveland roots, Randy Lerner owns Aston Villa, which had a good year. Everton also came very close to breaking the Top 4.
You should start by watching the Euro 2008 tournament that starts this weekend — that way you can get a sampling of most of the top players in the European leagues, and then see what teams they’re associated with.
To build on comment #1:
Joe wrote: “This year, the average OBP is .331. That’s down from last year (.336), which was a little down from 2006 (.337). But it’s historically in line.”
I’m normally an optimist, but when I saw this decrease I thought: My beloved Royals are so bad at getting on base that they’ve single-handedly helped decrease the league OBP to 1970s levels.
Sigh. – TL
re: DY’s: “What about Juan Pierre? His .348 career OBP is actually worth more than most .350ish ones due to his ability to turn a single into a double or triple after he gets on base.”
I don’t quite buy this. A double has a couple values to it. First, the batter gets to second. Second, any runner on base probably scores.
A fast guy who hits a single sometimes steals second. Pierre steals about 60 bases a year, roughly double the number of doubles Manny Ramirez hits. Unlike the double, it doesn’t do anything for the runners already on base.
250 OBP: This is pretty much the Mendoza line for on-base … a .250 OBP is roughly like a .200 hitter.
So which is worse, Tony Pena Jr. hitting .158 (79 percent of the Mendoza line) or Tony Pena Jr.’s OBP of .178 (71.2 percent of your suggested OBP Mendoza line)?
Editor’s note: No question … .178 OBP is worse.
I’d pick Liverpool, the ‘Mighty Reds’ as the team to support.
To get a flavor of what the fans are like over there, you have to watch and listen to one of the game replays that are on Fox Soccer channel, where they have fans of the respective clubs talking over the action. It’s hilarious. They probably won’t have that on until the new season starts in August, but it’s a must see.
Mike,
OPS+ is really simple to read (harder to understand the math behind it). The idea is that the average hitter (by OPS) would have a 100 OPS+ in a neutral park (neutral for hitters, not “neutral” in the home/road sense).
So someone with a 110 OPS+ is 10% better than average, someone with a 90 OPS+ is 10% below average. There are other adjustments that I don’t understand (I’m not sure how someone could have a negative, as Junior Pena has had much of the year), but you get it, I think.
Your LF, RF, 1B, and DH should be well above 100 OPS+. 100 OPS+ is about average for a 3B (maybe a little below average). It’s good for a CF or 2B. It’s well above average for a SS or C.
I think of it as an easy way to read OPS. If you buy OPS as a good indicator for offensive performance(and you probably should, at least as a rough guide), OPS+ is a little truer and a little easier to read.
At least that’s how I understand it.
As far as the negatives, there’s probably a baseline, something like a .400 OPS, that the number is figured over. For example, say .750 is league average and someone has a 1.000 OPS. The numerator would be .600 and the denominator .350 for a 171 OPS+ (that seems about right). Of course, if you have a .350 OPS, then the numerator is negative.
I still haven’t actually looked it up, but that’s my guess on the negative stuff.
Liverpool? Seriously?
C’mon. How could Joe or anyone with a lick of baseball understanding want to become a fan of a team that’s half-owned by Tom Hicks?
Don’t you guys like Joe? Why saddle him with an owner who’s demonstrated his incompetence for years with the Rangers?
For goodness sake, you can’t pick Liverpool. The bandwagon quotient would be enormous, and they’re still the team that’s won the league more times than anyone else (the only reason they’re not the Yankees of the Premier League is because they haven’t won it in 20 years, so think of Yankees circa early 1990’s).
Anyone can pick up one of the Sky 4. Be original and pick one of the other 88 teams.
If you are not picking a ‘massive’ club, and you want to be quaint, you might consider a team like West Bromwich Albion, Queens Park Rangers, Nottingham Forest, Plymouth Argyle, etc.
There’s always the Rangers/Celtic thing in Scotland. Or Queen of the South.
Joe,
I must take objection. The “brilliant” reader whose request you so graciously filled was actually my brother. I’ve known him my whole life. He is far from brilliant.
(Love ya Bro!!)
Pick Newcastle so you and Simmons can both not write anything about the same favorite team!
How about avoiding the EPL entirely and picking from a different league?
Actually, OPS+ is computed kind of oddly, so it isn’t actually “the percent better than league average” you are. For instance, say you have a guy who has an OBP 15% better than league average, and an SLG 15% better than league average. You would expect his OPS+ to be 115, right? It is actually 130.
Here’s how OPS+ is calculated:
(OBP/lgOBP + SLG/lgSLG)*100 – 100
where lgOBP and lgSLG are the league averages for OBP and SLG. That’s where the negative numbers come from; the worst possible score is -100, for someone who goes 0 for the year.
@Josh
“A fast guy who hits a single sometimes steals second. Pierre steals about 60 bases a year, roughly double the number of doubles Manny Ramirez hits. Unlike the double, it doesn’t do anything for the runners already on base.”
Now I think this is worth examining.
With the obvious exception of the infield single with runners on base, what is the statistical difference between a double and a single?
With a runner on 2nd or 3rd (or both), what percentage of the time will that runner(s) score on a single? Obviously with a double both runners will score darn near 100% of the time.
Conversely, what is the percentage of time the runner on 2nd scores on a single?
Finally, what percentage of time does a runner on 1st score on a double, what percentage does a runner of 1st go 1st to 3rd on a single?
I’m not so sure the single + a steal doesn’t have more relative value than you’re giving it credit for.
Good stuff. I wrote something about this for Dugout Central because it drives me crazy when people view batting average in a way they should be viewing on-base percentage.
http://www.dugoutcentral.com/blog/?p=1154
Joe – how did you compute the “equivalent” OBPs to AVGs? Did you factor an “average” rate of BBs for a hitter, or did you use percentiles?
Also – Blackadder, based on Eric J’s formula, it would seem that a player with 15% better than average OBP and 15% better than average SLG would have a 115 OPS+, not 130.
@G Young, you’re officially beyond my abilities to calculate.
I’ll say this, though: while a walk is as good as a single if there’s no one on base, as soon as there are runners on, a single is clearly better. My least favorite players — guys like Brad Wilkerson, when he was in DC comes to mind — have pretty good OBP and lousy BAs.
I have a hunch that OBP plus SLG plus BA would correlate with runs scored better than OPS does. I should have done the math back when I was in grad school and had statistic software.
If you are going to take a team from Liverpool, at least take the original club, Everton… they qualified for Cup play and Tim Howard has been one of their constants for several seasons. The Reds are a bunch of lame underachievers.
Yeah that’s all well and good Posnanski but there are a lot of players that don’t fit into the great OBP. OBP is just a new stat that writers and ESPN.com love because they get bored with AVE-HR-RBI-SB. They want to be new and hip. Jack Cust has a OBP of 370, but he hits 240. Carlos Gomez has an OBP of 310 but he ain’t hitting 247 he is around 280. All it is… and REALLY this is all it is is a stat for walks. Lets add the walks and hits together and then we have a cooler stat to play around with. Ugh give me a break now RBI’s , SB’s and AVE really don’t matter. It’s all about Home Runs and OBP. Oh and you better not stike out either or you suck. But if you strike out AND have a high OBP well then maybe. I hate the Internet sometimes…
SLG already has batting average in it. The difference between SLG and AVG is has been called “isolated power.” But to say OPS does not contain batting average is inaccurate. It counts it twice (obviously, it’s also inside OBP). It’s possible SLG+OBP minus batting average seems more likely to be better, so that batting average is only counted once.
If someone has a high OBP but a low batting average, it’s going to show up in a relatively low SLG. If it doesn’t, they are probably making up for their low batting average with power in regards to driving runners along, just like they’re making up for their low batting average with BB and HBP for the purposes of getting on base.
Here’s how OPS+ is calculated:
(OBP/lgOBP + SLG/lgSLG)*100 – 100
where lgOBP and lgSLG are the league averages for OBP and SLG. That’s where the negative numbers come from; the worst possible score is -100, for someone who goes 0 for the year.
I knew I should have just looked up the silly formula. The way it’s calculated does det up some sort of baseline, though, by substracting that 100 (it would work out to half the league average in SLG plus half the league average in OBP), which is probably going to end up at about a .400 OPS. That helps me feel better about my guess, anyway.
Jack Cust has a OBP of 370, but he hits 240. Carlos Gomez has an OBP of 310 but he ain’t hitting 247 he is around 280.
Wouldn’t you rather have the guy that gets on base more often?
Pos was saying the .310 OBP is similar in value to a .247 average, not that everyone who has a .310 OBP is hitting .247. That’s silly.
“I have a hunch that OBP plus SLG plus BA would correlate with runs scored better than OPS does. I should have done the math back when I was in grad school and had statistic software.”
It wouldn’t, and OPS doesn’t correlate with runs scored as strongly as OBP by itself. Absolutely the most important thing you can do as a hitter is to not get out.
At the risk of being insulted, I suggest Arsenal as the side to support. They play the beautiful game as it was meant to be.
Note that no one has suggested that you support ManUre.
Joe, I’m disappointed to hear of you offering to sell your fandom for a futbol team like Simmons.* I think what we all learned from that debacle is that fandom can’t be bought or just started from nothing. The passion has to come from somewhere. Such as living in that city. Or your parents. Or your friends. There’s gotta be some kind of gut-level connection, not a logical, mindful decision.
*Though I am confident you aren’t just copying him and that your inspiration came from elsewhere.
The Simmons parallels are obvious, so don’t make the same mistake he did by picking a single team and refusing to reconsider for fear of becoming a bigamist.
I recommend picking a few teams for whichever reasons strike your fancy, then start following them a bit during the season and see which one you gravitate towards. There’s no need to commit your emotion and wallet before you even see them on the pitch.
I think Simmons picked Tottenham Hotspur, not Newcastle as he should have.
Go with the Magpies. You can drink a Newcastle brown while you cheer and support the local economy.
Setanta Sports, if you can get it, has good coverage of the English Premiere League, Scottish Premiere League and Coca-Cola Championship League. And they show a lot of the UEFA matches.
Don’t be a Eurosnob, Joe. Follow Kansas City. Or return to your Ohio roots and follow Columbus.
I have grown to love soccer. I have tried to “adopt” a Premiership team in the past, and it just doesn’t work. Soccer’s a game of emotion, and if there’s no emotional connection, it won’t work.
Obviously the EPL is better than MLS, but it means nothing personal to me. I can relate to MLS. I know the teams, the cities, and I can see the matches in person. Like you, I’m just a guy from Cleveland, and as such, the American league means something to me in a way that the English, German, Spanish, or Italian leagues can’t. And while MLS isn’t near the quality of the upper-half teams in each of the Big 4 leagues, it’s much better than some would have you believe.
I realize that sporting a Kansas City or Columbus jersey doesn’t offer the appearance of worldly sophistication that a Man U, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, or AC Milan jersey can offer, but watching a league you can relate to and, most importantly, see in person might go a longer way toward learning and appreciating the game than solely watching foreign broadcasts at strange hours.
Don’t get me wrong…I enjoy watching EPL matches, and I’ll be watching Euro2008, and I’m not saying don’t do those things…but I don’t feel the passion within me while watching those games that I feel while watching the Tribe or Browns. Or, yes, the Columbus Crew.
But everybody’s different. Maybe long-distance, pick-a-team-because-somebody-suggested-them fandom will work for you. If so, go for it! But if it doesn’t, I’d suggest turning to MLS. Once you feel the passion locally, your appreciation of the game will carry over to other more worldly endeavors.
Cheers,
Sirk
I like the cover on OPB. I’m sort of new to understanding the statistics behind baseball (I’m a chemical engineer in training), so I guess I’m just more willing to listen to and understand such values as simple as OBP and try to figure out the exact values that produce things like FIP values.
But guess what, I’m international! So football teams … People will tell you about English teams like Man. U. (I’ve been a fan of since I was a kid), Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. The Germans will talk about Bayern Munich. The Spanish about Real Madrid or Barcelona (depending on lots of things).
But the real questions are, what do you value, what part of the world (doesn’t have to be Europe) do you feel identifiable with, and just how irrational and crazy you want to be?
So, to help with this, I’ll recommend a few just for thoughts that some of your readers (fans?) may not bring up. One would be any Dutch team, just because of how outrageous and infectious it can be to follow a team like Ajax or PSV (and also, a lot of N. European teams work on getting players who can run and ‘muscle’ their way to play, in defense or offense). Then I’d recommend any S. American club (Especially Brazilian ones, but the adverts on their jerseys sort of ruin them), because again, infectious crowd, but more their style is ball control, near-artful passing and strategy in player location to maximize results for minimal effort (not to say they don’t play, it’s just REALLY hot, you’d get heat stroke or terrible exhaustion otherwise).
I can’t say I follow soccer that closely, but my favorite club is 1. FC Köln, from the German Bundesliga. When I was in high school, we had a foreign exchange student from Cologne, and so I adopted his team. Not the greatest team (they’ve been relegated, then promoted agan a few times over the last decade), but as a Royals fan, I’m used to cheering for a team that doesn’t win a title every year.
> (OBP/lgOBP + SLG/lgSLG)*100 – 100
Are you guys sure about this? I thought OPS+ is park-adjusted.
And Deucesdown, OBP has been around for decades, at least since the time of Branch Rickey. Just because it’s new to you doesn’t mean it’s new.
AS Roma!
In baseball history, only five players have OBP’d .504 in a season — Ruth did it five times, Bonds did it four times, Ted Williams did three times, Mickey Mantle and Rogers Hornsby did it once each.
Probably safe to say Williams would have added to his total if not for taking time out of his prime to fly fighter planes in two wars.
Tony Pena Jr’s OBP is hovering around .180. How many full time players have ever totted a worse OBP? (assuming he stays a fairly full time guy the rest of the way)
Second Michael. Your club will be AS Roma.
Bill Bergen, a catcher for the 1909 Brooklyn Superbas was the only player that came up in a search for a player who played in at least 108 games and had an OBP of under .200. The most PA someone has gotten in a season they finished under .200 OBP since the end of the Dead Ball Era is 227 by Hughie Critz of the 1935 Giants (.198 OBP). Pena already has 166 PA. His OBP would have to be a “lofty” .278 in his next 61 PA to get him over .200 by the time he reaches Critz’s level of PA.
“.340 OBP: .Like a .270 hitter. I think most people believe .270 is an average hitter. I would say a .340 OBP guy is an average on-base guy”
Mark Kotsay is the ultimate definition of “the average Major League Player” to me. Career OPS+ of? Yup, 100. Career OBP of? .338. Sounds good to me.
“I am reading the blog from the Netherlands, but I’m American and don’t have a soccer team,”
This struck me as funny. I myself am reading the blog from the US, but I’m Dutch. And I don’t have a soccer team. But if I did, it would be PSV Eindhoven.
“OBP is just a new stat that writers and ESPN.com love because they get bored with AVE-HR-RBI-SB”
1) OBP is not new. Joe Morgan back in the 70s was defending his ability to walk as being crucial.
2) Nobody is getting “bored” with AVG-HR-RBI-SB, they’re just not really very useful in telling us what’s going on. A guy with 20 homers and 88 RsBI must be a pretty good hitter, right? Oh wait, he played in Coors Field his entire career, and had 578 runners on base in his at-bats. Wow, that’s really not very good at all. But he has 88 RsBI!
“All it is… and REALLY this is all it is is a stat for walks. Lets add the walks and hits together and then we have a cooler stat to play around with.”
3) That’s REALLY not really all it is. What it actually does is show how good you are at “Not Making Outs.”
Which I’m probably pretty sure (channeling A-Rod here) is the most important skill a batter can have.
4) If BA wasn’t calculated so stupidly, we probably never would have needed OBP. But BA is dumb. “Let’s ignore walks. Those never happened. Let’s ignore sacrifice flies, those never happened. Let’s ignore sacrifice bunts. Those never happened. A grounder to first that scores a run counts against you, however. Let’s ignore hit by pitch. Never happened. But if you hit into an error, it counts against you.”
No, you’re right. That’s a brilliant stat.
{FJM} Batting Average was good enough for George Sissler and it’s good enough for you, dammit! {/FJM}
“Ugh give me a break now RBI’s , SB’s and AVE really don’t matter. It’s all about Home Runs and OBP.”
5) I wouldn’t say that they don’t matter. A batter getting a hit is great. A batter driving in a run is excellent. That doesn’t change. We just like to look at statistics that are more informative than plain “Well, you drove in 88 runs, so you must be an awesome hitter!”
6) A stolen base is good. A guy who steals 20 bases but gets caught 25 times is not really helping his team.
7) Yes, homeruns and OBP are important. A homerun is the single best outcome in any at-bat, ever. Unless you’re Tim McCarver or Al Cooper (manager of the Astros), who feel that homeruns are “Rally Killers.”
Which is the height of insanity.
“Oh and you better not stike out either or you suck.”
9) This is a flawed argument. Babe Ruth led the league in Strike Outs pretty much every year. The years where he didn’t, he was second in strike outs. Didn’t hurt the Babe much, did they?
Strikeouts, in general, are pretty much like every other out. Which is : bad. But not noticeable worse.
So yeah, if you strike out 200 times and have an OBP of .300, you’re probably a pretty sucky hitter.
If you strike out 181 times, but also hit 58 taters and 149 ribbies, you’re probably pretty good. Which is why Ryan Howard got the MVP that year.
“But if you strike out AND have a high OBP well then maybe.”
10) Exactly! See how simple it is? If you make an out 300 times a year, but get on base 42% of the time, the fact that you strike out 150 times a year isn’t that important. Alex Rodriguez, widely considered to be the best player in baseball, routinely strikes out 120-130 times a year. He’s still the best player in baseball. Why? Because he gets on base quite a lot (though .389 pales a bit compared to some of the true OBP monsters), he scores a lot of runs, he drives in a lot of runs, and he hits for +++ power.
” I hate the Internet sometimes…”
11) I recommend turning it off and going outside and enjoying the sun.
The whole failing 70 percent of the time thing refers batting average — that even the best hitters only hit .300. That line of thinking ignores OBP completely.
Hi Joe,
Stumbled across your blog, and enjoy it. Cheers.
A quick question, and what led me here: I maintain the stats for a youth baseball team. Do you know, if a batter reaches first base due to a third strike not caught, does that impact his OBP? I think it dings his batting average (since it’s a K) but does it boost his OBP (since he reached)? Ideas?
Thanks!
[...] 2) It is the only game I can think of that directly mimics life, in that you fail much much more than you succeed. Those who succeed only 30% of the time for their whole career are seen as the game’s biggest stars. 30%!!!!* And yet, the beauty of the game is that though all the fans know in their minds that their favorite player only succeeds 3 out of every 10 times up, in their heart they still expect him to get a hit every time up to bat. (Update: This reasoning has been thoroughly debunked by this article.) [...]