As you might know, I’m in the final days of writing my new book, WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL, a countdown of the 50 (plus!) most magical moments in baseball history.
When the math is close, isn't the player you want the one who costs less? Other than a few teams like the Yankees/Mets/Dodgers etc the rest of the teams more or less have a budget to stick to.
So you'd rather have the one who would costs less to sign to a long term deal. Something tells me the .260 hitter is coming a LOT cheaper than the .315 hitter if both are looking for a new contract...
I know this comment is late, so won’t get as many views, but a lot of the comments pushing back on Tango are missing the point. It’s not that batting average doesn’t matter; it’s that it’s ALREADY a big part of BOTH of the other two slash stats. Batting average is only “not useful” because we’ve already counted it twice.
Being very rough here (not mathematical):
OBP: batting average + walk rate
SLG: batting average + isolated power
So by this heuristic, OBP and SLG together are 50% hitting (I.e. batting average), 25% walking, and 25% power. If we also include stand-alone batting average, the composite stat would be 67% hitting, 17% walking, and 17% power, which is very skewed towards batting average.
I’ll say it another way: getting hits is REALLY IMPORTANT. So much so that if Player A is better at getting hits (I.e. higher batting average) Player B must be better at BOTH getting walks AND hitting with power, just to pull even. It’s just a quirk of the statistics that this is hidden.
I have to strongly disagree on Corre. (I strenuously object! In the parlance of A Few Good Men.)
The structure of Correa's deal with the Twins shows just how much the leg is a concern. They didn't just decrease their offer. If he's hurt, they cut it in half. And they made their original $285M offer *before* his first physical. So, no, I don't think the Mets got buyers remorse. I think they saw the legitimacy in the Giants concerns.
Rightly or wrongly ... I pretty much stopped listening to new R.E.M. after Bill Berry retired from the band. I tried to give Up a fair shake ... really, I did. But, it just didn’t work for me. I still listen to and enjoy the music from the Berry years, and, for me ... that’s the story (rightly or wrongly) of the band. Jacoby Ellsbury’s career is like that for me. I enjoyed the Red Sox years, and, after that, well, in my memory, those later years never happened.
As a Dodgers fan, this seems like a comparison between 2019 Max Muncy vs. 2022 Trea Turner if they provided equal defensive value (which they didn't). I would lean towards Muncy. It's mostly an aesthetic question. I generally will favor a guy who raises the floor on instant impact plays and puts pressure on the pitcher to execute every pitch to a guy who you expect to make it from home plate to home plate in the widest variety of ways. It's the most first world of problems.
Gwynn vs Raines is a fairly apt comparison for the Tango question. Virtually the same career WAR although Gwynn outhit Raines by .40 points. Raines had 500 fewer hits but also 500 more walks. And 500 more stolen bases. Same OBP, Gwynn has the edge in slugging, he hit more doubles, Raines had more triples and HRs. Gwynn also has a slight edge in OPS and OPS+. Gwynn hit into more than 100 double plays than Raines.
However, I would bet that even today the vast majority of fans would choose Gwynn; I believe they're pretty even. Depends on how much value you assign to those 500 extra SBs. Of course, Gwynn's 434 strike outs in over 10,000 PAs is simply absurd.
I love guys who hit, so yeah I'd rather have the guy with the higher BA. But, you could argue that in drawing more walks, that player drives up pitch counts and therefore is more valuable.
That's a great comparison. I love both (who doesn't) but I was also a huge Rock Raines guy, and STILL think he's wildly underrated, as arguably the best leadoff man of all-time that doesn't refer to himself in the 3rd person.
That's another great comparison, although Boggs was underrated he still comes closer to Gwynn as a pure hitter, plus he played great defense at a tougher position. Way more value added in his career.
In the Tom Tango scenario we have the .364/.511 dudes with varying batting averages. It's relatively safe to assume that a further profile of each might look something like:
700 PA 645 AB 203 Hits 52 BB .315/.364/.511 329 TB 255 Times Reached 120 Runs Created
700 PA 600 AB 156 Hits 99 BB .260/.364/.511 307 TB 255 Times Reached 112 Runs Created
Runs created is derived by a simple total bases x OBA....however, we further can derive a 7.33 RC per 27 outs for player 1 and a mere 6.81 RC per 27 outs for player 2. So, not only is player one accumulting more runs created, he's doing it by producing 442 outs versus 444 outs for player 2.
Since you're familiar with this proposed comparison more than anyone else, please advise what would be each player's RC/27..... and why wouldn't you take the guy who produces a greater number of runs per game? Like, you know, Mantle was a better hitter than Mays, right?
By normal situations I thought that you meant caught stealings and GIDP don't count. So, you're telling me they make the same number of outs but have different total base numbers and somehow they're equivalent as offensive entities?
The key to this question is that OBP and Slugging both equal, therefore the only difference is aesthetic. Put another way, they both make the same amount of outs.
My thought is that a single moves runners up at least one base, usually more. And a walk moves some runners over one base at most. Isn’t that the biggest difference?
Not sure if anyone has done this research. We hear the proponents of the batting average and the importance of putting the ball in play (errors and moving runners over). This also has to be seen in conjunction with GIDP and baserunning errors. In today's world of pitch count, does the walker add any advantage in terms of increasing pitch count. I.e. a walk has to be at least 4 pitches (not counting intentional walks) while a ball in play could just be one. I assume it is not significant but would be interested how many pitches an average walk takes versus a ball put safely into play.
I think there is some value there, but it's getting less important now that the strategy of knocking the starter out due to pitch count to get to the bullpen is turned on it's ear. It's not just the Rays that now are counting batters, not pitches, until they can get to their 8-9 arms out there in the pen.
I think we've gone from "batting average is the most important stat" to "batting average doesn't matter *at all*," and both are wrong, in my opinion.
I saw Michael Lewis do a book reading when "Moneyball" came out, and I wanted to ask him this: on-base = wins = asses in the seats, but could a team be so boringly victorious that people just stop showing up? Because they just walk and walk and walk? Around this time I remember turning on a Mariners game. This was after their 116-win season when they were still good but kept losing the division to the Moneyball A's. In this game, they were ahead 2-0 "on a sacrifice fly and a bases-loaded walk," the announcer said, and I laughed out loud. It was so them. When I told my friend Jim, he responded, "Sac flies are fine but it's nothing like a ringing double down the left-field line."
Anyway, I care way more about batting average than I did 20 years ago. Even if I'm the only one.
MLBPA should be filing collusion (or tighter fitting word) on Correa. A) penalties on team salaries are exorbitant, B) SF, then the Mets, individually CAPPED CORREA salary by TAKING HIM OFF THE MARKET, then throwing him back on market C) when teams that would have competed for Correa were no longer positioned to do so, & D) after those clubs disparaged via an injury which — to Joe’s point — is immaterial in light of/ comparison to frequency of regular player injury occurrences. It’s not a tree, it’s a forest. And — implicit, defacto or intentional — the forest has a name.
I agree that is what happened but would be really hard for Correa to prove. The player union must have agreed to physicals in the collective bargaining and the right for teams to use them as they will (look at Rocker and maybe the Mets are really guilty of this). I think this is like service manipulation. We all know why they are doing it but almost impossible to prove for the player. Love to see what Miller would have said about this.
Another reason to remove the antitrust exemption. If this occurred on a security across a couple of trading floors … say WF, GS, JPM (pick) … and SEC got wind of this kind of ‘price manipulation’, they’d announce an investigation.
How are "catcher's interferences" scored? ... like a walk, or HBP, or are they errors by the catcher? ... do they affect OBP positively? ... I mean, maybe we need to know how many catcher's interferences were induced by hypothetical Players A and B to properly evaluate the Tango question! And maybe the Clemens quote should be revised: batting average “adds no useful information if you already know OBP and SLG and CI." (I know I cold have googled this, but where's the fun in that?)
I believe they are an error on the catcher, but not charged as an AB. I don't know what column (if any) you would find ROCI in a player's baseballreference.com page.
Catchers interference is one of those plays where it kind of disappears. It is a PA, but not a an at bat, and is not singled out in most stats for it's own category. It also, despite being a PA, is not counted as one for OBP purposes. As far as I know, it is the only thing besides a sacrifice hit (bunt) that works this way. (Anyone who can think of another, feel free to enlighten me.
For most player seasons (and often careers) you can subtract At Bats, Walks, Hit by Pitch, Sacrifice hits and sacrifice flies from Plate Appearances, and come up with zero. If you don't, chances are the PAs that are missing are Catchers interference. In Ellsbury's 2016, you come up with 12, the number of catcher's interference plays.
Likewise, OBP is usually thought of as (H+W+HBP) / (PAs - SH). If you tried to do this with that year, you would come up with .323, where Ellsbury has .330. This is because they subtract catchers interference from the denominator as well, leaving 610 PAs for the purpose of that rather than 622. Using the same thinking, you can see from the career numbers that he drew 31 Catchers interference plays in his career. The recently retired Albert Pujols, with over 13,000 PAs, never had one.
Baseball moments I'll never forget- Josh Hamilton's home run derby performance at Yankee Stadium. It felt like something right out of a movie.
When the math is close, isn't the player you want the one who costs less? Other than a few teams like the Yankees/Mets/Dodgers etc the rest of the teams more or less have a budget to stick to.
So you'd rather have the one who would costs less to sign to a long term deal. Something tells me the .260 hitter is coming a LOT cheaper than the .315 hitter if both are looking for a new contract...
I know this comment is late, so won’t get as many views, but a lot of the comments pushing back on Tango are missing the point. It’s not that batting average doesn’t matter; it’s that it’s ALREADY a big part of BOTH of the other two slash stats. Batting average is only “not useful” because we’ve already counted it twice.
Being very rough here (not mathematical):
OBP: batting average + walk rate
SLG: batting average + isolated power
So by this heuristic, OBP and SLG together are 50% hitting (I.e. batting average), 25% walking, and 25% power. If we also include stand-alone batting average, the composite stat would be 67% hitting, 17% walking, and 17% power, which is very skewed towards batting average.
I’ll say it another way: getting hits is REALLY IMPORTANT. So much so that if Player A is better at getting hits (I.e. higher batting average) Player B must be better at BOTH getting walks AND hitting with power, just to pull even. It’s just a quirk of the statistics that this is hidden.
J=7
I have to strongly disagree on Corre. (I strenuously object! In the parlance of A Few Good Men.)
The structure of Correa's deal with the Twins shows just how much the leg is a concern. They didn't just decrease their offer. If he's hurt, they cut it in half. And they made their original $285M offer *before* his first physical. So, no, I don't think the Mets got buyers remorse. I think they saw the legitimacy in the Giants concerns.
The Twins gave him a physical both before last season and at the end of last season and then made that 10/$285 offer.
Rightly or wrongly ... I pretty much stopped listening to new R.E.M. after Bill Berry retired from the band. I tried to give Up a fair shake ... really, I did. But, it just didn’t work for me. I still listen to and enjoy the music from the Berry years, and, for me ... that’s the story (rightly or wrongly) of the band. Jacoby Ellsbury’s career is like that for me. I enjoyed the Red Sox years, and, after that, well, in my memory, those later years never happened.
Esoteric SATs for Posnanski fans
REM:Post-Berry Years::Ellsbury:Post Boston Years
I love those guys who competed the best, and outperformed “expectations”. How about a list of players who did so by the most?
Or maybe just biggest era minus fip pitchers? After the book, of course!
As a Dodgers fan, this seems like a comparison between 2019 Max Muncy vs. 2022 Trea Turner if they provided equal defensive value (which they didn't). I would lean towards Muncy. It's mostly an aesthetic question. I generally will favor a guy who raises the floor on instant impact plays and puts pressure on the pitcher to execute every pitch to a guy who you expect to make it from home plate to home plate in the widest variety of ways. It's the most first world of problems.
Gwynn vs Raines is a fairly apt comparison for the Tango question. Virtually the same career WAR although Gwynn outhit Raines by .40 points. Raines had 500 fewer hits but also 500 more walks. And 500 more stolen bases. Same OBP, Gwynn has the edge in slugging, he hit more doubles, Raines had more triples and HRs. Gwynn also has a slight edge in OPS and OPS+. Gwynn hit into more than 100 double plays than Raines.
However, I would bet that even today the vast majority of fans would choose Gwynn; I believe they're pretty even. Depends on how much value you assign to those 500 extra SBs. Of course, Gwynn's 434 strike outs in over 10,000 PAs is simply absurd.
I love guys who hit, so yeah I'd rather have the guy with the higher BA. But, you could argue that in drawing more walks, that player drives up pitch counts and therefore is more valuable.
That's a great comparison. I love both (who doesn't) but I was also a huge Rock Raines guy, and STILL think he's wildly underrated, as arguably the best leadoff man of all-time that doesn't refer to himself in the 3rd person.
But in Joe’s example stolen bases, GIDPs don’t matter, right? Sure, they matter a lot when comparing players, just not this example.
Interesting, though, because my first thought was Gwynn vs Boggs. And you did Gwynn vs Raines. Haven’t looked at the numbers though
That's another great comparison, although Boggs was underrated he still comes closer to Gwynn as a pure hitter, plus he played great defense at a tougher position. Way more value added in his career.
In the Tom Tango scenario we have the .364/.511 dudes with varying batting averages. It's relatively safe to assume that a further profile of each might look something like:
700 PA 645 AB 203 Hits 52 BB .315/.364/.511 329 TB 255 Times Reached 120 Runs Created
700 PA 600 AB 156 Hits 99 BB .260/.364/.511 307 TB 255 Times Reached 112 Runs Created
Runs created is derived by a simple total bases x OBA....however, we further can derive a 7.33 RC per 27 outs for player 1 and a mere 6.81 RC per 27 outs for player 2. So, not only is player one accumulting more runs created, he's doing it by producing 442 outs versus 444 outs for player 2.
Player 1 is superior offensively....sorry
Your math is off. They have the same OBP, so naturally, they have the same number of outs.
And you are using the antiquated RC formula from 40 years ago. It may work in "normal" situations. It doesn't work here.
Since you're familiar with this proposed comparison more than anyone else, please advise what would be each player's RC/27..... and why wouldn't you take the guy who produces a greater number of runs per game? Like, you know, Mantle was a better hitter than Mays, right?
Those two players have the same number of runs created. It's the reason I started the thread to begin with.
Thanks
By normal situations I thought that you meant caught stealings and GIDP don't count. So, you're telling me they make the same number of outs but have different total base numbers and somehow they're equivalent as offensive entities?
The key to this question is that OBP and Slugging both equal, therefore the only difference is aesthetic. Put another way, they both make the same amount of outs.
My thought is that a single moves runners up at least one base, usually more. And a walk moves some runners over one base at most. Isn’t that the biggest difference?
You’d think any idiot would get the implied “all else being equal” in the Tango question.
Not sure if anyone has done this research. We hear the proponents of the batting average and the importance of putting the ball in play (errors and moving runners over). This also has to be seen in conjunction with GIDP and baserunning errors. In today's world of pitch count, does the walker add any advantage in terms of increasing pitch count. I.e. a walk has to be at least 4 pitches (not counting intentional walks) while a ball in play could just be one. I assume it is not significant but would be interested how many pitches an average walk takes versus a ball put safely into play.
I think there is some value there, but it's getting less important now that the strategy of knocking the starter out due to pitch count to get to the bullpen is turned on it's ear. It's not just the Rays that now are counting batters, not pitches, until they can get to their 8-9 arms out there in the pen.
I was at the game when Ellsbury stole home. Only time I’ve seen that.
I think we've gone from "batting average is the most important stat" to "batting average doesn't matter *at all*," and both are wrong, in my opinion.
I saw Michael Lewis do a book reading when "Moneyball" came out, and I wanted to ask him this: on-base = wins = asses in the seats, but could a team be so boringly victorious that people just stop showing up? Because they just walk and walk and walk? Around this time I remember turning on a Mariners game. This was after their 116-win season when they were still good but kept losing the division to the Moneyball A's. In this game, they were ahead 2-0 "on a sacrifice fly and a bases-loaded walk," the announcer said, and I laughed out loud. It was so them. When I told my friend Jim, he responded, "Sac flies are fine but it's nothing like a ringing double down the left-field line."
Anyway, I care way more about batting average than I did 20 years ago. Even if I'm the only one.
MLBPA should be filing collusion (or tighter fitting word) on Correa. A) penalties on team salaries are exorbitant, B) SF, then the Mets, individually CAPPED CORREA salary by TAKING HIM OFF THE MARKET, then throwing him back on market C) when teams that would have competed for Correa were no longer positioned to do so, & D) after those clubs disparaged via an injury which — to Joe’s point — is immaterial in light of/ comparison to frequency of regular player injury occurrences. It’s not a tree, it’s a forest. And — implicit, defacto or intentional — the forest has a name.
I agree that is what happened but would be really hard for Correa to prove. The player union must have agreed to physicals in the collective bargaining and the right for teams to use them as they will (look at Rocker and maybe the Mets are really guilty of this). I think this is like service manipulation. We all know why they are doing it but almost impossible to prove for the player. Love to see what Miller would have said about this.
Another reason to remove the antitrust exemption. If this occurred on a security across a couple of trading floors … say WF, GS, JPM (pick) … and SEC got wind of this kind of ‘price manipulation’, they’d announce an investigation.
How are "catcher's interferences" scored? ... like a walk, or HBP, or are they errors by the catcher? ... do they affect OBP positively? ... I mean, maybe we need to know how many catcher's interferences were induced by hypothetical Players A and B to properly evaluate the Tango question! And maybe the Clemens quote should be revised: batting average “adds no useful information if you already know OBP and SLG and CI." (I know I cold have googled this, but where's the fun in that?)
I believe they are an error on the catcher, but not charged as an AB. I don't know what column (if any) you would find ROCI in a player's baseballreference.com page.
Catchers interference is one of those plays where it kind of disappears. It is a PA, but not a an at bat, and is not singled out in most stats for it's own category. It also, despite being a PA, is not counted as one for OBP purposes. As far as I know, it is the only thing besides a sacrifice hit (bunt) that works this way. (Anyone who can think of another, feel free to enlighten me.
For most player seasons (and often careers) you can subtract At Bats, Walks, Hit by Pitch, Sacrifice hits and sacrifice flies from Plate Appearances, and come up with zero. If you don't, chances are the PAs that are missing are Catchers interference. In Ellsbury's 2016, you come up with 12, the number of catcher's interference plays.
Likewise, OBP is usually thought of as (H+W+HBP) / (PAs - SH). If you tried to do this with that year, you would come up with .323, where Ellsbury has .330. This is because they subtract catchers interference from the denominator as well, leaving 610 PAs for the purpose of that rather than 622. Using the same thinking, you can see from the career numbers that he drew 31 Catchers interference plays in his career. The recently retired Albert Pujols, with over 13,000 PAs, never had one.