Most overrated baseball stats????

[Peter_Spaeth]

Batting average is overrated.
Can vastly overstate worth of guys who hit high but not for power and/or who don't get on base via walks, and the opposite.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Batting average is overrated.
Can vastly overstate worth of guys who hit high but not for power and/or who don't get on base via walks, and the opposite.

I couldn't disagree more. Walks often don't advance runners and rarely score runners. The goal of the game is to score runners not get on base. I agree that power is important, but average is also very important.

OBP is the most misused stat. If you are arguing for a lead off guy like Tim Raines, I think it is a good metric. However, throwing it out for Ted Williams, to me that is a huge negative. Williams career with RISP BA .333 OBP .518, almost a 200 point gap. As the "best player" on his team, his job is to drive in runs, not get on base. Maybe I am being harsh, but maybe if Williams had sacrificed for his team by expanding his strike zone instead of enhancing his personal stats, he would have more than ZERO World Series rings.

[howard38]

Ted Williams's job was to create runs whether he scored them, drove them in or arvanced a runner who eventually scored.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by rats60

I couldn't disagree more. Walks often don't advance runners and rarely score runners. The goal of the game is to score runners not get on base. I agree that power is important, but average is also very important.

OBP is the most misused stat. If you are arguing for a lead off guy like Tim Raines, I think it is a good metric. However, throwing it out for Ted Williams, to me that is a huge negative. Williams career with RISP BA .333 OBP .518, almost a 200 point gap. As the "best player" on his team, his job is to drive in runs, not get on base. Maybe I am being harsh, but maybe if Williams had sacrificed for his team by expanding his strike zone instead of enhancing his personal stats, he would have more than ZERO World Series rings.

Or............

Some of that OBP is intentional walks, some of it essentially undeclared intentional walks where the pitcher throws a bunch of poor pitches and takes a chance on the umpire rather than the hitter. Some of it is probably also walks either leading off or with the bases empty which are genuinely just as good as a hit.

If he'd expanded his strike zone and swung at a lot of bad pitches, a few things would have happened. He might have a few more hits, but would also hit into a few more doubleplays, fielders choices etc. Whether we like it or not, a players reputation has some effect on the strike calling, if a player is known to swing at nearly anything he doesn't get that little benefit of the doubt on a close pitch. Someone with a good eye and discipline often does.
So still fewer walks.

And with all that, perhaps he doesn't even get a chance at a WS.

As far as I know there's no stat that looks at things more broadly. Most try to isolate performance, but nothing in the game happens in a vacuum.

Williams faced "better" pitching than Ruth. But I'd have to ask if that pitching was better on its own, or was better because it didn't have to pitch against a better group of hitters. (Just read an article about how the Pats play in a weak AFC east. Perhaps, or are the teams weak because they have to play the pats twice a year? Just like one point during the early 2000s when the AL east was called weak, but the teams got to play the Yankees and Red Sox more than other teams. )

Steve B

[jhs5120]

WAR is a counting stat. It is the number of wins above the "replacement player" you contribute in a season. WAR is incorrectly used as a rate stat: Al Kaline has a career WAR of 92.5 (meaning he single handedly generated 92.5 extra wins for his team), Wade Boggs has a career WAR of 91.1. Some people would claim Boggs contributed less than Kaline, however Boggs was able to generate 91.1 WAR with 856 fewer plate appearances. I would venture to guess Wade Boggs would have been able to generate 1.4 WAR with an extra856 plate appearances (more than one full season).

Here are the WAR/100PA leaders (at least 8,000 PA) (obviously offensive only):
Babe Ruth: 1.535
Mike Trout: 1.343 (added for reference )
Rogers Hornsby: 1.340
Barry Bonds: 1.288
Mike Schmidt: 1.275
Ted Williams: 1.259
Willie Mays: 1.250
Lou Gehrig: 1.163
Ty Cobb: 1.155
Honus Wagner: 1.115
Tris Speaker: 1.115
Mickey Mantle: 1.107
Eddie Collins: 1.029
Hank Aaron: 1.023
Stan Musial: 1.007
Jimmie Foxx: 1.007
Albert Pujols: .965
Alex Rodriguez: .964
Eddie Mathews: .954
Roberto Clemente: .925
Joe Morgan: .885
Wade Boggs: .848
Rickey Henderson: .830
Cap Anson: .828
Al Kaline: .798
Adrian Beltre: .790
Cal Ripken Jr.: .741
Carl Yastrzemski: .687

Additionally, WAR cannot be used to compare players over multiple eras. There is no stat that does this.

An example:
In 1920, when Babe Ruth played, there were 18.25 million white men between the age of 20-44 and 208 pitchers in the league; so Babe Ruth faced (on average) the best pitcher in a pool of 87,786 people.

In 2010, when Alex Rodriguez played, there were approximately 88.62 million men between the age of 20-44 between the US, Japan, DR, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. There were 635 pitchers in the league; so Alex Rodriguez faced (on average) the best pitcher in a pool of 139,558 people.

If we use 2010 as the point of reference (to compare older players to the players of today) then every stat, including WAR would need to be adjusted 62.9%. So Babe Ruth's 11.9 WAR for 1920, would be adjusted to 7.5 in 2010, which would be tied for 6th with Albert Pujols.

Edited to add: Wins is the most overrated stat. No one really pays attention to saves, the all time career saves leader has never been inducted into the Hall of Fame while holding the title. So, I don't think anyone over rates it.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by rats60

I couldn't disagree more. Walks often don't advance runners and rarely score runners. The goal of the game is to score runners not get on base. I agree that power is important, but average is also very important.

OBP is the most misused stat. If you are arguing for a lead off guy like Tim Raines, I think it is a good metric. However, throwing it out for Ted Williams, to me that is a huge negative. Williams career with RISP BA .333 OBP .518, almost a 200 point gap. As the "best player" on his team, his job is to drive in runs, not get on base. Maybe I am being harsh, but maybe if Williams had sacrificed for his team by expanding his strike zone instead of enhancing his personal stats, he would have more than ZERO World Series rings.

Batting avg is seriously flawed. It only tells us hits per at bat. It doesn't tell us the type of hits, it doesn't tell us how many times they were walked or hit by a pitch, it doesn't tell us much of anything.

OBP has been PROVEN to relate directly to wins more than any other single stat. The object of a batter is to not make an out and generate bases. A single and a walk are worth nearly the same as the majority of plate appearances take place with nobody on base. Stuff like RISP is worthless because there is no skill of "clutch" it's just confirmation bias. Good hitters tend to hit good and bad hitters tend to hit bad (and not every RISP situation has the same amount of leverage).

Seriously, go look from year to year at RISP numbers for players, they vary wildly. A .300 avg hitter might have a RISP of one year of .360 then the next of .240 then .430 .....etc Generally the larger the sample size the more it will move toward the mean of their career numbers in all situations, but no evidence exists to show that it is a repeatable skill.

The job of Ted Williams was to hit the ball hard. That's it. He was there to get on base, (home plate if that was possible with one swing) and not make outs. He has no control over any baserunners that may or may not have gotten on in front of him,(which is why RBI's is such a silly stat for an individual) All he can do is get on base and hit for power. These are the things he can control.


Would you really rather have Ben Revere, who in his best years hit .300 with a .335 OBP and .340 slugging, over Jim Thome ,who in his best years hit .270 with a .402 OBP and .580 slugging?

defense and base running aside, a team of Thomes blows a team of Reveres out of the water. They get on base more, and they hit for more power these are the two fundamental virtues of a quality hitter. average? it is irrelevant. It's major use is as a describing stat for HOW player accomplished their OBP (along with BB%)

[celoknob]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

OBP has been PROVEN to relate directly to wins more than any other single stat.

OPS is better. OBP is better than BA but OPS is better than both. The correlation between team Runs Scored and BA is 0.82. For OBP it is 0.88 and 0.95 for OPS (The Sabermetric Revolution by Baumer and Zimbalist).

On another point, which has already been made, there is no doubt that OPS, WRC+ and WAR are vastly better stats than the old standards of BA, HR, RBI etc. The new stats are more complicated to explain easily and thus rejected by some but they are just plain better because they are directly based on run scoring value and winning.

[the 'stache]

I understand Trout is a phenomenal player. But when I compare players side by side, and I see such an enormous difference in something like oWAR, I don't get it.

Compare Mike Trout and Ryan Braun...just their offense, this season.

oWAR (offensive WAR)

Mike Trout 7.8
Ryan Braun 3.5

Ok, Braun is a right fielder. Trout's a center fielder. Obviously, Trout is worth more putting up the numbers he is as a center fielder, a premium position. But is he worth more than double Braun's season with the bat? 4.3 more wins?

Here are their numbers:

Trout .314 AVG, 541 PAs, 27 2B, 3 3B, 24 HR, 21 SB, 4 CS (84%), 99 BB, 109 K, slash line of .431/.551/.981. 244 TB, 170 OPS +
Braun .318 AVG, 449 PAs, 21 2B, 2 3B, 24 HR, 14 SB, 3 CS (82%), 38 BB, 74 K, slash line of .379/.557/.935. 226 TB, 145 OPS +

Their SLG is comparable; Braun is ahead by 6 points. The main difference is Trout walks more, so his OBP is 52 points higher. But he also strikes out more (25% vs 18%).

Trout should have a higher oWAR, absolutely. But show me where he's worth double what Ryan Braun is at the plate? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Braun came into the night 4th in the National League in batting, seventh in SLG, and 5th in OPS.

Trout has a career .960 OPS right now. At the same point in his career, Braun had a .943 OPS.

Compare Trout's 2013 season, where he had a 10.0 oWAR, to Ryan Braun's 2011 MVP season:

Trout: .323 AVG, 39 2B, 9 3B, 27 HR, 33 SB, 7 CS (82.5%), 110 BB, 136 K, slash line of .432/.557/.988. 328 TB, 179 OPS +.
Braun: .332 AVG, 38 2B, 6 3B, 33 HR, 33 SB, 6 CS (84.6%), 58 BB, 93 K, slash line of .397/.597/.994. 336 TB, 166 OPS +.

Braun's oWAR in 2011? 7.4. Again, Trout has a higher OBP (35 points), but Braun's SLG is 40 points higher, and his OPS is 6 points higher. They have the same number of stolen bases (Braun with a slightly better percentage). Since this doesn't account for defense, show me where Mike Trout, as an offensive player, was a better offensive performer....by 35%?? Again, he's providing offense as a center fielder, where Braun is a left fielder in 2011. But Trout's contribution as a center fielder is 33% more valuable? Celoknob referenced that OPS is more predictive of wins added than other metrics like OBP alone. Braun had a higher OPS in his MVP season than Trout did in 2013, yet, after positional adjustments, Trout's a 35% more valuable offensive performer? I do think there should be bonuses given to center fielders, catchers, second basemen and shortstops. But the idea that, left fielders, right fielders, first basemen and third basemen should then also be penalized for the positions they play seems incongruous to me. You've already rewarded a guy playing a premium position for the offense they provide. Why, then, penalize a player for filling one of the other positions?

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

I understand Trout is a phenomenal player. But when I compare players side by side, and I see such an enormous difference in something like oWAR, I don't get it.

Compare Mike Trout and Ryan Braun...just their offense, this season.

oWAR (offensive WAR)

Mike Trout 7.8
Ryan Braun 3.5

Ok, Braun is a right fielder. Trout's a center fielder. Obviously, Trout is worth more putting up the numbers he is as a center fielder, a premium position. But is he worth more than double Braun's season with the bat? 4.3 more wins?

Here are their numbers:

Trout .314 AVG, 541 PAs, 27 2B, 3 3B, 24 HR, 21 SB, 4 CS (84%), 99 BB, 109 K, slash line of .431/.551/.981. 244 TB, 170 OPS +
Braun .318 AVG, 449 PAs, 21 2B, 2 3B, 24 HR, 14 SB, 3 CS (82%), 38 BB, 74 K, slash line of .379/.557/.935. 226 TB, 145 OPS +

Their SLG is comparable; Braun is ahead by 6 points. The main difference is Trout walks more, so his OBP is 52 points higher. But he also strikes out more (25% vs 18%).

Trout should have a higher oWAR, absolutely. But show me where he's worth double what Ryan Braun is at the plate? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Braun came into the night 4th in the National League in batting, seventh in SLG, and 5th in OPS.

Trout has a career .960 OPS right now. At the same point in his career, Braun had a .943 OPS.

all numbers from Fangraphs- (btw, most of Braun's time has been in LF this year)

2016 Mike Trout has a slash line of .432/.548/ .980 a wOBA of .413 and a wRC+ of 167 (best in MLB) his base running is an elite 8.0 and his defense a -0.4 (but will still add value due to positional adjustment as he plays CF)


2016 Braun has a slash of .377/.551/.928, a wOBA of .388 and a wRC+ of 139, his base running is a pedestrian 0.8 and his defense -7.3 at a position that does not have value added.

OPS is valuable, but it's not as good of a gauge as wRC+ or wOBA as it values OBP and SLG equally (and OBP is nearly twice as valuable as slugging is).

Remember, players all go through the same formula, the only change is based on defense, just by playing CF Trout gets a boost, by playing it well enough not to lose his positional adjustment the boost is larger. Being an elite baserunner adds value too. When you combine this with 28 pts of wRC+ you end up with one player being worth 7.1 fWAR and the other 3.0 fWAR.


to clarify, much of the difference comes from defense. Of 12 qualified LF'ers Braun is 8th in defense (of the 20 with at least 500 inn at LF this seasons, he is 13th) Of the 29 CF players Trout is 18th in defense (which makes them both in that avgish range at their position) But the difference is CF get's a defensive weighting boost because it is much harder to play. Trout gains 1 win just from that even with his -0.4 DEF rating.

If you removed defense and baserunning, it would pretty much be Trout with around 5.5 WAR and Braun with around 3.8ish- 4 WAR (which now appears much more reasonable considering Trout's fairly large OBP edge)

[steve B]

Centerfield is harder???

I guess watching so many games in Fenway has skewed my perception of fields being harder or easier. Center there is pretty easy, there's only a couple odd spots and not many balls get hit there, plus it's pretty small. Right isn't horrible for odd corners, but when it goes bad...... I've seen a couple outfielders chase what should be singles around the curve until it's a triple. Left must be hellish for a fielder as it's somewhat short, and there's a load of weird places for the ball to hit even after some fixing of the wall.

What makes center harder in a normal park? The size?

Steve B

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by rats60

I couldn't disagree more. Walks often don't advance runners and rarely score runners. The goal of the game is to score runners not get on base. I agree that power is important, but average is also very important.

OBP is the most misused stat. If you are arguing for a lead off guy like Tim Raines, I think it is a good metric. However, throwing it out for Ted Williams, to me that is a huge negative. Williams career with RISP BA .333 OBP .518, almost a 200 point gap. As the "best player" on his team, his job is to drive in runs, not get on base. Maybe I am being harsh, but maybe if Williams had sacrificed for his team by expanding his strike zone instead of enhancing his personal stats, he would have more than ZERO World Series rings.

Straw man argument, nobody has ever claimed a walk is as good as a hit, but it is a hell of a lot better than an out and BA just doesn't capture it. I stand by my opinion that BA tends to overstate (or understate) the worth of a lot of players. I would take Joe Morgan over Rod Carew for example despite a much lower BA, and so would almost everyone who has made rankings of players.

[egri]

Originally Posted by rats60

Maybe I am being harsh, but maybe if Williams had sacrificed for his team by expanding his strike zone instead of enhancing his personal stats, he would have more than ZERO World Series rings.

The Red Sox needed pitching to have a shot at winning the World Series, and Tom Yawkey needed to integrate the team earlier than he did. During Williams's career, the three years that they came the closest to winning the pennant without actually winning it were 1948, 1949 and 1950. In 1948, the only two pitchers of note were rookie Mel Parnell, and talented but erratic Ellis Kinder. The rest of the pitching staff was kids and old men. That staff wasn't going to make it past Spahn, Sain, Bickford and Voiselle. The next year, Kinder and Parnell both had breakout seasons, but they would have had to carry the team against Robinson, Campanella, Snider, Hodges, Furillo, and Reese. Then in 1950, Williams smashed his elbow in the All Star game and played in only 89 games. That year, Boston had only one pitcher with an ERA under 4.00 (Parnell, 3.61).

Apart from those three years, the Red Sox finished at least 10 games out every year. Maybe Williams could have gotten them a tad closer, but he couldn't have made up 10+ games in one season.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by rats60

I couldn't disagree more. Walks often don't advance runners and rarely score runners. The goal of the game is to score runners not get on base. I agree that power is important, but average is also very important.

OBP is the most misused stat. If you are arguing for a lead off guy like Tim Raines, I think it is a good metric. However, throwing it out for Ted Williams, to me that is a huge negative. Williams career with RISP BA .333 OBP .518, almost a 200 point gap. As the "best player" on his team, his job is to drive in runs, not get on base. Maybe I am being harsh, but maybe if Williams had sacrificed for his team by expanding his strike zone instead of enhancing his personal stats, he would have more than ZERO World Series rings.

That is about as speculative as one can get. Not to mention that it is never good hitting to swing at bad pitches. All those walks undoubtedly helped his team a great deal.

Bill James in his 2003 book ran a computer model that, if I recall the details, put Babe Ruth from 1927 on one of the KC Royals teams, then put a guy who just drew a walk every at bat, and the team with the guy who walked did better.

[sycks22]

Pitching victories are the most overrated stat by far. King Felix had 13 wins a couple years back an a 2.23 era while last year Colby Lewis had 17 wins with a 4.46 era. Wins are dependent on so many things (quality of their offense, opposing pitcher, bullpen, defense, weather, etc).

[the 'stache]

Yup.

Originally Posted by sycks22

Pitching victories are the most overrated stat by far. King Felix had 13 wins a couple years back an a 2.23 era while last year Colby Lewis had 17 wins with a 4.46 era. Wins are dependent on so many things (quality of their offense, opposing pitcher, bullpen, defense, weather, etc).

[KCRfan1]

Originally Posted by sycks22

Pitching victories are the most overrated stat by far. King Felix had 13 wins a couple years back an a 2.23 era while last year Colby Lewis had 17 wins with a 4.46 era. Wins are dependent on so many things (quality of their offense, opposing pitcher, bullpen, defense, weather, etc).

Completely disagree. Pitching controls the game. Great pitching will put their team in a position to win every time. Bad pitching, regardless of the team, will never put their team in a position to win.

Sure, other factors come into play, but it all comes down to the ability of the one on the mound.

[Touch'EmAll]

A lot of folks pick Pitching wins as overrated. Nolan Ryan played on a sub-.500 team most of his career - especially with the Angels in the 1970's. How many more wins would he have had if he played on the Orioles like Palmer, the A's like Catfish, or on the Big Red Machine? His wins totals would be a heckuva lot better, way way better!

[nat]

You can use WAR to compare players between eras. Now, it won't tell you how Babe Ruth would do in today's game. You'd need a time machine to answer that question. But given what it took to win games in Ruth's time, it'll tell you how many victories above a replacement player he added to his teams. And given what it took to win games in today's game, it'll tell you how many wins above replacement ARod contributed to his teams, and those two figures can be compared.

And it's meaningful to compare them. Wins have value in the context in which they're produced - in particular, in the particular seasons in which they are produced. So WAR can help you figure out how much value Ruth produced for his teams, and how much value ARod produced for his. (N.B.: WAR doesn't actually measure value, but it can help with figuring it out.) Even if it's the case that if you put Ruth in a time machine he would only put up 7.5 WAR seasons in today's game, he still generated more value for his teams than ARod did for his.

And yeah, Trout is really really good.