Article: MIN 4, BOS 1: For Grossman and Kepler, The Price Was Right

[Andrew Thares]

 

As far as slugging v obp is concerned, all I know is that the players carry a bat to the plate for a reason and if a hitter's goal is to do anything other than drive a baseball somewhere with some authority that hitter has the wrong mind set in most cases. If they can do that and be selective at the same time, so much the better.

A player doesn't always need to use the bat to be productive at the plate. You should give this a watch, it is pretty interesting.

 

https://www.sbnation.com/2017/4/11/15264034/barry-bonds-2004-stats-chart-party

 

[Mike Sixel]

To your point about it being lucky the other team can't get a hit with men on base, does that mean the Twins had been unlucky the entire first third of the season?

Yes, there was definitely bad luck in some of their losses. Luck plays a much bigger role in sports than many like to acknowledge.

[USAFChief]

 

Your scenario works when you're only talking about one game and assuming no other impacts from other players. Over the course of a season, avoiding making outs is a more important individual skill for scoring runs than hitting for power.

 

The same thinking applies to the cliche of "a walk is as good as a hit". In isolation, that's true: both have avoided spending an out. But a hit, even a single, is more valuable than a walk because of all the other things that can happen because of it (driving in a run, creating the possibility of a fielding error, creating the possibility of a throwing error, advancing a runner an extra base, etc).

Concur with paragraph two, although even in isolation, a walk isn't as good as a hit.

[ChrisKnutson]

If the Twins pull off the sweep today you’d think the FO would reward the team with a trade, right?

[Circus Boy]

 

It's really nice to look at the starting pitching assignments for the Twins.  Each day the starter gives us hope, expectation of a good game.  Unlike past years where one or two starters were good, the rest gave us dread of impending loss.  Go Twins!

Just curious.... Did you know Eddie Mathews? I saw the Tigers play in 1968 but Eddie only came to the plate 50-some times that season, so never saw him take any swings.

[jkcarew]

 

A player doesn't always need to use the bat to be productive at the plate. You should give this a watch, it is pretty interesting.

 

https://www.sbnation.com/2017/4/11/15264034/barry-bonds-2004-stats-chart-party

Barry Bonds actually proves the point that, within the context of real actual games...with real actual win/loss scenarios...that SLG can be way more important than OBP.  He was intentionally given a base 688 times, and pitched around many, many more times than that...all to avoid his SLG...the manager deciding, correctly, that OBP would not hurt him as much as SLG would in those scenarios.

 

Again, within the context of a game, you need both to win consistently.  Dexter Fowler 362/421 career OBP/SLG for a 783 OPS.  Bo Jackson 309/474 for 783, or Dave Kingman 302/478 for 780.  Are there more instances where I'd rather see Fowler come to the plate than Jackson or Kingman.  Probably.  Are there almost as many at-bats where I'd rather have Jackson or Kingman come to the plate.  Yes.

 

This actually gets to sequencing and batting orders, which is a whole 'nuther discussion

[alarp33]

 

Barry Bonds actually proves the point that, within the context of real actual games...with real actual win/loss scenarios...that SLG can be way more important than OBP.  He was intentionally given a base 688 times, and pitched around many, many more times than that...all to avoid his SLG...the manager deciding, correctly, that OBP would not hurt him as much as SLG would in those scenarios.

 

 

I don't think you understand. No one has said slugging is not a very important part of baseball.  Your Barry Bonds example proves exactly nothing, except that Barry Bonds was really frickin' good and lots of times managers would prefer him on 1st than rounding the bases. No one is denying a HR is more important than a walk in an isolated at bat

 

Bonds was .582/.799/ 1.381 in 2002. It is a proven fact that line is more important to a team than if someone was .400/.981/1.381

Edited June 21, 2018 by alarp33

[jkcarew]

 

No one is denying a HR is more important than a walk in an isolated at bat

You're right.  I don't understand.  I would have thought home runs are more important than walks in about 99.99 at-bats.  I guess I'm really having trouble staying with these advanced metrics.

[ashbury]

Not to weigh in particularly on either side, but a confounding factor in discussing OBP versus SLG is that they aren't on the same scale. By definition, the maximum OBP is 1.000 while for SLG it's 4.000.

 

While batters routinely reach a larger fraction of the maximum of OBP than for SLG, it's still the case that the league leader in OBP will be ahead of the league average by fewer points than the leader of SLG is. This year Mike Trout leads the majors in OBP with .152 more than MLB average, while for SLG it's Trout (again) by .282 more than the average. You can't just compare the two stats directly.

 

It's a bit like comparing Celsius and Fahrenheit, except that those two scales are measuring the same actual thing.

 

For me it means that .010 of additional OBP is more valuable than .010 more SLG. If someone's regression study doesn't attempt to correct for scale, then the conclusion will be that getting on base is more important than hitting for power. And I'm not sure that it's answering the actual question, done that way.

 

This difference of scale has always been one of the prime criticisms of OPS. You're adding a pound of apples to a dozen oranges.

 

As an aside, by sheer coincidence, yesterday I ran across a reference to a precursor to OPS, in which OBP plus SLG plus BA were added together. The guy called it ''combined triple average." I kind of like it. It over-weights batting average, but that means the criticism of OPS that it gives too much weight to walks is mitigated, likewise the outsize effect of a few extra wallops over the fence. If it overweights base hits, well, that's IMO the single most valuable skill in the sport, so it's not a major sin - but like OPS the combined triple average is better than BA alone.

 

http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2005/06/23/his_numbers_are_in_the_ballpark/

[USAFChief]

 

Not to weigh in particularly on either side, but a confounding factor in discussing OBP versus SLG is that they aren't on the same scale. By definition, the maximum OBP is 1.000 while for SLG it's 4.000.

 

While batters routinely reach a larger fraction of the maximum of OBP than for SLG, it's still the case that the league leader in OBP will be ahead of the league average by fewer points than the leader of SLG is. This year Mike Trout leads the majors in OBP with .152 more than MLB average, while for SLG it's Trout (again) by .282 more than the average. You can't just compare the two stats directly.

 

It's a bit like comparing Celsius and Fahrenheit, except that those two scales are measuring the same actual thing.

 

For me it means that .010 of additional OBP is more valuable than .010 more SLG. If someone's regression study doesn't attempt to correct for scale, then the conclusion will that getting on base is more important than hitting for power. And I'm not sure that it's answering the actual question, done that way.

 

This difference of scale has always been one of the prime criticisms of OPS. You're adding a pound of apples to a dozen oranges.

 

As an aside, by sheer coincidence, yesterday I ran across a reference to a precursor to OPS, in which OBP plus SLG plus BA were added together. The guy called it ''combined triple average." I kind of like it. It over-weights batting average, but that means the criticism of OPS that it gives too much weight to walks is mitigated, likewise the outsize effect of a few extra wallops over the fence. If it overweights base hits, well, that's IMO the single most valuable skill in the sport, so it's not a major sin.

 

http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2005/06/23/his_numbers_are_in_the_ballpark/

But doesn't mean that OBP is twice as valuable as SLG.

[alarp33]

 

Not to weigh in particularly on either side, but a confounding factor in discussing OBP versus SLG is that they aren't on the same scale. By definition, the maximum OBP is 1.000 while for SLG it's 4.000.

 

While batters routinely reach a larger fraction of the maximum of OBP than for SLG, it's still the case that the league leader in OBP will be ahead of the league average by fewer points than the leader of SLG is. This year Mike Trout leads the majors in OBP with .152 more than MLB average, while for SLG it's Trout (again) by .282 more than the average. You can't just compare the two stats directly.

 

It's a bit like comparing Celsius and Fahrenheit, except that those two scales are measuring the same actual thing.

 

For me it means that .010 of additional OBP is more valuable than .010 more SLG. If someone's regression study doesn't attempt to correct for scale, then the conclusion will that getting on base is more important than hitting for power. And I'm not sure that it's answering the actual question, done that way.

 

This difference of scale has always been one of the prime criticisms of OPS. You're adding a pound of apples to a dozen oranges.

 

As an aside, by sheer coincidence, yesterday I ran across a reference to a precursor to OPS, in which OBP plus SLG plus BA were added together. The guy called it ''combined triple average." I kind of like it. It over-weights batting average, but that means the criticism of OPS that it gives too much weight to walks is mitigated, likewise the outsize effect of a few extra wallops over the fence. If it overweights base hits, well, that's IMO the single most valuable skill in the sport, so it's not a major sin - but like OPS the combined triple average is better than BA alone.

 

http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2005/06/23/his_numbers_are_in_the_ballpark/

 

Good summary.  Also worth pointing out, OBP and SLG don't even use the same denominator.  OBP uses plate appearances and SLG uses at bats. 

[ashbury]

But doesn't mean that OBP is twice as valuable as SLG.

Yeah, I don't know what the multiplier should be. As I stated, the 4X difference in maximums is obviously too high to use. While 1X is too low. "Twice as valuable" is getting closer, but is still probably too high. I think I've seen values around 1.6, which would be in the ballpark of my very simplistic example with Trout. There have been careful studies, probably the some of the ones mentioned in this thread, that give a useful answer - I don't have one at hand to recommend at the moment, and I'm just cautioning against being careless when comparing two very different kinds of number.

[KGB]

Barry Bonds actually proves the point that, within the context of real actual games...with real actual win/loss scenarios...that SLG can be way more important than OBP.  He was intentionally given a base 688 times, and pitched around many, many more times than that...all to avoid his SLG...the manager deciding, correctly, that OBP would not hurt him as much as SLG would in those scenarios.

 

Again, within the context of a game, you need both to win consistently.  Dexter Fowler 362/421 career OBP/SLG for a 783 OPS.  Bo Jackson 309/474 for 783, or Dave Kingman 302/478 for 780.  Are there more instances where I'd rather see Fowler come to the plate than Jackson or Kingman.  Probably.  Are there almost as many at-bats where I'd rather have Jackson or Kingman come to the plate.  Yes.

 

This actually gets to sequencing and batting orders, which is a whole 'nuther discussion

 

If OBP was most important, they would teach bunting instead of launch angle to beat the shifts. But that isn't happening anytime soon.