Quote:
Originally Posted by the 'stache
I still love batting average. It's fallen out of favor with a lot of statisticians, but I think that's a mistake. If a hitter's job is to get on base, yes, OBP is the ultimate measure of how effective a player is doing their given job. But I want to see the batting average component. To me, it's a pure metric. Before one starts tossing in things like BABIP, AVG calculates how well a player sees the field, sees and adjusts to the ball, and is able to deliver the ball where there's no fielder. And I want hitters with high averages because that tells me that they are effective with the bat. A player can draw walks for a variety of reasons. Power hitters might get more walks, if they are patient, because a pitcher doesn't want to get burned. So, that pitcher might throw around the outside of the strike zone. They may also get pitched around with runners on base. But in those instances where a pitcher goes after the hitter, I want somebody like a Clemente, or a Gwynn, or a Gehrig-guys that hit for pure average. Ted Williams drew a lot of walks. I mean walks made up for 138 points of his OBP. But the man could flat out hit, as shown by his career .344 average.
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Perfectly said Bill. I too like to look at batting averages. A walk is
not as good as a hit in all situations. Come late innings or playoff time, give me a guy that can swing it over a guy who's strictly a high OBP guy.