You make some good points above. First of all, I didn't say OBP was unimportant altogether! Second of all, there are times when a bunt (out) or a sac fly (out) are MORE PRODUCTIVE than a BB. The statement, "the player’s ULTIMATE responsibility is to NOT make an out" to me betrays an overplayed importance of OBP (the ultimate measure of not making outs). A batter's ULTIMATE responsibility, I would argue, is to do what is MOST LIKELY to produce RUNS. Since the guy behind you rarely is hitting better than 3/10, with a runner on 3rd the sac fly is far better than taking a walk.
Great post. Pitching is the biggest deficiency right now as the team stands. Its Oswalt and then everyone else.
11 RBIs is a big deal. It makes no sense to argue that a walk is better than a sac fly with less than 2 outs and a man on 3rd. Secondly, the 11 sac flies tells us that the guy can make contact--and go deep enough--when it's necessary. So there are probably more doubles and dingers on this guy's resume than a guy with a nice OBP but fewer RBI. It's called situational hitting. Hitting behind the runner, hitting the ball deep, knowing what to do when, and doing it more often than others.
RBI's are team dependent. Period. Anyway, this is what I think should happen for the offense. Resign Huff, sign Lee. Platoon Huff and Ensberg, Platoon Scott and Lane. vs. RHP Willy Scott Berkman Lee Huff Burke/Biggio Ausmus Everett vs. LHP Willy Ensberg Lee Berkman Burke/Biggio Lane Ausmus Everett
Sure it does. Situation: What if Berkman is the guy on deck? Well, it's actually a 3-way tie. Let's take the one guy with more RsBI per 162 games in his career than Dunn. Career averages: 32 2Bs 31 HRs 111 RsBI .501 SLG .338 OBP 7 SF And Dunn: 30 2Bs 39 HRs 92 RsBI .513 SLG .380 OBP 2 SF Strange that Dunn would average 19 less RsBI, right? Then again, he has never played on a winning team in his 6 years, while the mystery player's team has won 3 division titles in his 4 years--in the AL. The other 2 guys are nowhere near Dunn's power numbers, and he beats them in OBP (Dunn even beats Kevin Youkilis, though only by .001).
Aramis Ramirez filed for Free Agency.....if we could find a suitor for Ensberg he would be a nice fit @ 3b. I know, not likely, but the guy has been nails against us.
Ric, I did an interesting statistical study shortly after I read Moneyball, and I think Billy Beane would now agree that OBP is now over-valued. His major find in creating his player evaluation was that OPS predicts runs scored with an R^2 of 0.81 (which is excellent). I invented a stat that was BA + SLG%. It predicts runs scored with an R^2 of 0.80. More interestingly, if you screen for games where the opposing pitcher is in the top 3rd of ERA's, BA + SLG% actually predicts runs scored better than OPS. Billy Beane put out a paper with similar conclusions where he found that in the playoffs, the team that walks the most loses more often than wins. (Interestingly, the best offensive predictor of success in the playoffs: stolen base attempts, the more the better.) I explained it logically this way: A walk is an effective weapon if and only if the batter behind him is effective against that pitcher. The best pitchers don't often walk a batter by mistake, so a walk can generally be seen as getting themselves in higher percentage situations.
Wait, wait, wait... Beane ran a regressions analysis and determined a causal relationship between walking and losing? Ditto for stealing and winning? I find that highly unlikely. Are you sure it wasn't just a correlation analysis? I read a BP article in their new book which was really interesting. They think that there are 3 things that win in the playoffs: having a dominant closer, having an excellent defense, and strikeout rate of the pitching staff.
See, I just think they carry the very real and measurable observations beyond their logical ends. You can have *all* of those things, but ask Mr. Clemens if they'll win you a game if you fail to score any runs. There needs to be *balance*, and although I'm not one to throw statistics out the door the folks at BP are just a little too far on the rotogeek side for my tastes.
I'm sorry, it wasn't Billy Beane, and the team that walked more was .500 in the playoffs, and stolen base attempts were second to strikeouts among offensive categories in predicting playoff success. No it's not proving a causal relationship any more than OPS is causal to runs. My memory failed me somewhat. Even so, read it and weep. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/so-billy-what-does-work-in-the-playoffs/
It seems a team is more likely to try and steal once they are already ahead in the game, so I think that's why winning teams in the playoffs have more steal attempts.
Perhaps I misread you (*very* possible). I was responding to this: Silly me; I thought it was scoring more runs than the other guy. At any rate, all three of those things didn't help Rocket much during the regular season, because they can't be "three things that win" if your offense gets shut out.
These three things should be relabed . . . the three things that give you a chance in the playoffs . . .
You can send them back to the lab as many times as you like; you still won't win if you score 0.25 runs per game.
