My Washington Expos just won two in a row! Actually, I'm an Astros fan first and foremost, but I'm very excited about getting a team in Washington. And the Expos surpisingly look like a pretty nice, little team, which even makes me more excited since they are the prime candidates to be relocated. I don't expect them to keep it up, but they've already proven they have some talent. Seriously..is there anyone in the league better than Vlad Guerrero? Not so far this season. Unfortunately, he'll probably be in pinstripes next year. Frickin' yankees.
Of our regular starters, Ward is batting ~0.360. After that, Bagwell is 2nd at a lowly 0.277. Biggio, amazingly, is 3rd at 0.267. Our hitting is just terrible!
Batting Average is not a judge of how well a team is hitting. The slow start is not so much to blame on hitting(which though less than expected is good enough that this team should be doing better), but on erratic pitching, and bad luck(2-6 record in one run games). Also, when mentioning regular starters, don't forget that Gregg Zaun starts at least one/fifth of the games, and Lance Berkman - who is our best player.
While batting average may not be the best measure, you can't just completely throw it out the window. I haven't done any statistical analysis, but I'd be willing to bet that over the course of major league baseball history, there is at least some direct correlation between team batting average and winning percentage.
Batting Average is not a judge of how well a team is hitting. Sure it is ... you can get all the doubles and triples and walks and HBPs you want. If the team is batting like 0.240, none of those guys are going to get home very often, because it means we rarely put together consecutive hits. Also, when mentioning regular starters, don't forget that Gregg Zaun starts at least one/fifth of the games, and Lance Berkman - who is our best player. Berkman is in the 0.230-0.250 range, I believe, along with Hidalgo, Ausmus and others.
The ONLY thing going right for the 'Stros is the starting pitching (with the exception of the WaMi/Redding spot in the rotation). Their hitting (esp. situational hitting), fielding, & relief pitching have been quite poor. Still, they're only 6 games out with 136 games to be played.
Even though the Astros have great starting pitchers in Oswalt and Hernandez (and lately Mlicki), they are geared towards the offense. The starting pitching, relief pitching and defense on the Astros are not good enough to carry the team when they are not hitting. That is why the Astros have such a bad record in one run games. If they do not correct this, they will be a middle of the pack team in the NL Central this year.
The offense has been inconsistent, and a lot worse than their stats may indicate. Too many games where we lose because we score 1-3 runs. Then the next day we win 10-4 or something.
<B>Berkman is currently at .276.</B> My bad. He was at 0.255 before yesterday's game and I thought I saw he went 0-4. Apparently, he went 3-4 with a HR!
Yep and so far today he is 2-2 (1 RBI) with a BB and HBP. Still early in the season, it's amazing how that .255 becomes .290 (and vice versa). Ensberg also has a couple more hits. Whoops, make that 3-3 and .297.
major: Nobody has ever claimed that BA is irrelevant to team success. However, it's not very good to use it when OBP is an even better measure, and encompasses BA.
<B>Nobody has ever claimed that BA is irrelevant to team success.</b> hmm... <B>Batting Average is not a judge of how well a team is hitting. </B> <B>However, it's not very good to use it when OBP is an even better measure, and encompasses BA.</B> What OBP doesn't measure is moving baserunners around the bases. The team could have a BA of 0 and an OBP of 0.500 and they wouldn't score many runs. On the other hand, a BA of 0.400 and an OBP of 0.400 would score quite a few runs. Hits are always better than walks, and OBP doesn't consider that.
Hits are indeed better than walks, but batting average doesn't exactly take that into consideration unless you consider all the hits a player acquires as having moved a runner over, which is not true. A single with no one on base is no better than a walk, but batting average doesn't really consider this. That is why I think most stat people (unless they look at some of the more complicated offensive stats like RC/27 or VORP) like OPS, because it takes into account how often the player gets on base as a whole, as well as how many bases that player advances for each hit...which partially accounts for moving runners over.
Hits are indeed better than walks, but batting average doesn't exactly take that into consideration unless you consider all the hits a player acquires as having moved a runner over, which is not true Agreed -- by no means is BA a perfect measure. However, a low BA is indicative of some offensive problems, no matter how high your OBP is, in my opinion. If nothing else, it increases your reliance on "the big inning" since you're not likely stringing together hits. That, in turn, creates this inconsistent offense we're seeing where we'll blow someone out and then not score for a few games. Of course, over the two days, much of this has changed as many players got some big games.
