The Stat Geek Thread

[JMW IV]

Let's talk about Stats, bay-bee!

no really, a thread to discuss all things Statistical. which stats are good, which stats are useless, explanation of exactly what that silly acronym stands for, etc. stat philosophy, etc.

ask questions, get answers here.

Go.

[Nathan]

BABIP.  What's it mean, how is it calculated, and how do i use it to compare pitchers?

[JMW IV]

I'll start with a question:  what are your preferred Offensive Metrics? i.e. when you go to look at a player's stats to judge whether they are good or not, which stats do YOU primarily look at.

asking for personal preference here, not what everyone else says.

I'm all for simple stats, personally. I look at OBP, OPS and all kinds of Stat Splits. along with the standard HR/2B/BB etc. depending on what type of hitter I am looking at, I may look at BA, i may not.

[houston-nat]

My favorite stat is WHIP................................... ..........................it's kinky.

[Minty Fresh]

I'll start with a question:  what are your preferred Offensive Metrics? i.e. when you go to look at a player's stats to judge whether they are good or not, which stats do YOU primarily look at.

asking for personal preference here, not what everyone else says.

I'm all for simple stats, personally. I look at OBP, OPS and all kinds of Stat Splits. along with the standard HR/2B/BB etc. depending on what type of hitter I am looking at, I may look at BA, i may not.

I really love the OPS+ on baseball-reference.com.  That stat helps me determine at a quick glance how a player compares to the rest of his league in terms of that statistic.

[PatsNats28]

I'll start with a question:  what are your preferred Offensive Metrics? i.e. when you go to look at a player's stats to judge whether they are good or not, which stats do YOU primarily look at.

asking for personal preference here, not what everyone else says.

I'm all for simple stats, personally. I look at OBP, OPS and all kinds of Stat Splits. along with the standard HR/2B/BB etc. depending on what type of hitter I am looking at, I may look at BA, i may not.

i like WAR (not huge on war though)

[UMDNats]

Batting average is by far the most important batting stat. I don't care what anyone says, it is a fact in my mind.

[sportsfan882]

Batting average is by far the most important batting stat. I don't care what anyone says, it is a fact in my mind.

hits > walks

[PatsNats28]

hits > walks

id say a walk about equals a single. singles can advance runners, but a walk usually means you worked the pitch count (could have worked the pitch count too for a single, but on average probably higher for a walk)

[HalfSmokes]

hits > walks

but (Hits + Walks + Hit by Pitch) / (At Bats + Walks + Hit by Pitch + Sacrifice Flies) is more telling that hits / At Bats

[Mathguy]

What about ERA ?

Batting average is by far the most important batting stat. I don't care what anyone says, it is a fact in my mind.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

My favorite stat is WHIP................................... ..........................it's kinky.

Any stat DeVo devoted a song to.

[Mathguy]

Buts having only hits in the numerator means more than 1 base at a time.  Isn't that more valuable than the inclusion of walks, hbp, and Sac ?  Those 3 water down the value of getting on base, when comparing onbase % to batting average.

but (Hits + Walks + Hit by Pitch) / (At Bats + Walks + Hit by Pitch + Sacrifice Flies) is more telling that hits / At Bats

[epic_phalanx]

BABIP.  What's it mean, how is it calculated, and how do i use it to compare pitchers?

"Batting average on balls in play (abbreviated BABIP) is a statistic measuring the percentage of plate appearances ending with a batted ball in play (excluding home runs) for which the batter is credited with a hit. BABIP is commonly used as a red flag in sabermetric analysis, as a consistently high or low BABIP is hard to maintain - much more so for pitchers than hitters. Therefore, BABIP can be used to spot fluky seasons by pitchers, as those whose BABIPs are extremely high can often be expected to improve in the following season, and those pitchers whose BABIPs are extremely low can often be expected to regress in the following season."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BABIP

[HalfSmokes]

Buts having only hits in the numerator means more than 1 base at a time.  Isn't that more valuable than the inclusion of walks, hbp, and Sac ?  Those 3 water down the value of getting on base, when comparing onbase % to batting average.

hence slugging

[epic_phalanx]

I'll start with a question:  what are your preferred Offensive Metrics? i.e. when you go to look at a player's stats to judge whether they are good or not, which stats do YOU primarily look at.

OPS and wOBA are pretty standard for me. Walk and strikeout rates for hitters are very usefel as well.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I like stats that tend to correlate to runs. I am not good enough at stats to do any sort of advanced manipulation of them. 

I tend to like stats that try to neutralize the effect of the surrounding players on an event.  Because runs, RBI, pitching wins, and even ERA are not so much dependent on individual performance, I put less weight on them. 

I like stats like ERA+, OPS+, wOBA, FIP, xFIP, and the like because they try to isolate the player's contribution for things like ballpark effects and can be compared to what an "average" player can do, or isolate fielding from the quality of the contact, or even attempt to normalize luck. 

While defensive numbers need to taken with a grain of salt, even traditional ones like errors and fielding percentage, I find the numbers generated by consistent, quality controlled video review more descriptive but not perfect.  Thus, I'll obsess about UZR but fully recognize that it does not reflect defensive positioning, that contact quality is an approximation, and may miss a bunch of other stuff.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

This piece by Tom Tango makes a point about wOBA vs. OBP and SLG.  What wOBA tells you that OBP does not is it tells a bit about what the OBP is made of. They are scaled simarly, but if you see OBP near or higher than wOBA, it is kind of the slugging-less hollow OBP some don't like.  If you see wOBA greatly exceeding OBP, then it tells you it is slugging heavy relative to walks.  OBP tends to correlate more closely with runs scored than SLG (and batting average), thus wOBA is expressed on a scale similar to OBP.

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/getting_to_know_woba/

[shoeshineboy]

I'll start with a question:  what are your preferred Offensive Metrics? i.e. when you go to look at a player's stats to judge whether they are good or not, which stats do YOU primarily look at.

asking for personal preference here, not what everyone else says.

I'm all for simple stats, personally. I look at OBP, OPS and all kinds of Stat Splits. along with the standard HR/2B/BB etc. depending on what type of hitter I am looking at, I may look at BA, i may not.

Offensively, I look at OBP and OPS. OPS is a nice overall number, but I think that OBP should be weighted as more important. So, in a case where someone may have a lower SLG, I'll value the higher OBP more. In the end, getting on base is the fundamental key offensively.

[KnorrForYourMoney]

I'll start with a question:  what are your preferred Offensive Metrics? i.e. when you go to look at a player's stats to judge whether they are good or not, which stats do YOU primarily look at.

asking for personal preference here, not what everyone else says.

I'm all for simple stats, personally. I look at OBP, OPS and all kinds of Stat Splits. along with the standard HR/2B/BB etc. depending on what type of hitter I am looking at, I may look at BA, i may not.

I like OPS+ because it's park adjusted, OBP, K/BB, and BABIP.  Altogether, I feel like those stats give a fairly good picture of how well a guy is doing.  If I really want to delve deeper, I'll look at line drive rates and such, but that's mostly if I want to pick out a fluky stretch.

[PANatsFan]

"Batting average on balls in play (abbreviated BABIP) is a statistic measuring the percentage of plate appearances ending with a batted ball in play (excluding home runs) for which the batter is credited with a hit. BABIP is commonly used as a red flag in sabermetric analysis, as a consistently high or low BABIP is hard to maintain - much more so for pitchers than hitters. Therefore, BABIP can be used to spot fluky seasons by pitchers, as those whose BABIPs are extremely high can often be expected to improve in the following season, and those pitchers whose BABIPs are extremely low can often be expected to regress in the following season."

(Image removed from quote.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BABIP

I don't like that it penalizes for sac flies but not for sac bunts or sac ground outs. Those are balls in play just like sac flies. Seems arbitrary.

[NatsAddict]

I don't like that it penalizes for sac flies but not for sac bunts or sac ground outs. Those are balls in play just like sac flies. Seems arbitrary.

There are no sac ground outs.  A sac is only credited when the intent is clearly to sac an out for advancing a runner.  The reason sacs bunts are not included in BABIP is that the primary intent was to sac an out whereas on a sac fly, the primary intent was to get a hit.  The purpose of BABIP is to measure the hits over balls put in play with primary intention to get a hit, and thus sac bunts are excluded.

There has been contention that a ground to a middle IF that results in a 4-3 or 6-3 GO with RBI should be considered as a sacrifice similarly to a sac fly.  However, the rules consider a fly ball deep enough to score a run more of a batting achievement than a ground ball, and thus the SF results in a more favorable scoring so far as BA is concerned.  OBP and BABIP eliminate that "favoritism." 

Sac bunts can result in some weird score keeping scenarios.  On sac bunts, at least one runner must safely advance one base other than as result of an error that resulted in the failure of a PO of the runner (as opposed to an error that would not have resulted in a PO or a runner but still allowed  one or more runners to advance further), and no runners be put out.  If the batter reaches safely, it can be a sac bunt with an error, a sac bunt with a fielders choice, or a hit (it could also be catcher interference, but that would be really unusual on a bunt). 

Weird sac bunt scoring scenarios:
Runners on 1b and 3b.  Bunt fielded by pitcher, who could have easily gotten batter out at 1b, but chose to make instead play chicken with the runner on 3b keeping him from advancing, had no play at 2b as runner advanced from 1b, and batter safe at 1b.  Sac to account for runner advancing from 1b to 2b with FC to account for batter reaching 1b.

Runner on 1b, bunt field by C who has play at 1b, but not 2b, and yet heaves the ball into CF, runner on going to 2b advances to 3b.  CF throws out batter at 1b.  Runner now scores.  Sac to account for runner advancing from 1b to 2b, E-2 on throw to account for further advancement to 3b, FC to account for run scoring, no RBI, run unearned at that point (later became earned as subsequent batter HR), batter put out 8-4 on a friggin' bunt (second baseman was covering 1b and C ineligible for an assist due to the error).

[tomterp]

Forget FOP, I'm a VORP man.

[PatsNats28]

how slow is the runner that the bunt can be thrown into center and then to first before he reaches?

[PANatsFan]

There are no sac ground outs.  A sac is only credited when the intent is clearly to sac an out for advancing a runner. 

I appreciate the distinction, and that makes sense in view of the rules.

However, this inserts the scorer's opinion into the mix, which defeats the purpose of the stat. If a grounder is considered intentional and ruled a sacrifice, is really that different than just making contact to advance runners and then hauling ass to 1st?