What's Wrong With Batting Ave?

[Fike85]

While I am aware that many within sabermetric believe that batting average should be banned, I have never fully accepted why. I know that one of the arguements is that BA does not indicate the players ability to score runs, but I do not find that alone to be convincing enough to persuade me against BA. In fact, I think that BA still has a lot of relevance.

 

For instance, if you compare the BA of Jim Edmonds (.263) to his OBP (.385) you will be able to determine without thinking that he is able to draw a lot of walks. If he had a .330 BA and a .350 OBP you would easily be able to determine the opposite.

 

I also think that BA comes in handy late in games. Let's say that you're at home and you're tied in the bottom of the ninth with a runner on second an one out. What you need here is a player to drive in that run. What you don't need is a player to draw a walk. Thus you may want to sub a player with a high OBP (.375) but a low BA (.250) for a player with a high BA (.300) and a low OBP (.315).

 

Just a thought. I look forward to what the rest of you nerdy stat-heads who know nothing about baseball have to say.*

 

*Sarcasm is indicated by italics.

[pogokat]

I agree with what you are saying...

 

Batting Average has it's value...I think the point most statheads have is that obp and slg give almost all the information you need, just at a glance...

 

In the scenarios yopu described, knowing the ba is very helpful, but maybe not so much as the OPS

 

You see, Batting Average is a great stat to help you once you already know the OPS...that's the way i see it at least...just like other corollary stats like k's, hr's, rbi's, etc...

[endaround]

Batting average is important. In fact OPS takes it into account heavily since BA makes up the major proportion of OBP and is a major component of SLG%. That said, its the idea that BA conveys everything. All .300 hitters are not the same thought often they are treated as such. Alex Sanchez(or Willy Tevaras) can hit .300 and still be a bad player. At the same time, Adam Dunn only hits .250 but is one of the best hitters in the league.

[rluzinski]

No one wants to ban batting average. Since a walk is only worth about 2/3rds of a hit, it would be foolish to ignore it. SLG actually contains batting average, however (ISO + BA = SLG).

 

Most of the times, you'll see BA, OBP and SLG all listed, since each shows pertinent information. To ignore OBP and SLG in favor of BA and HR is just wrong, however. You miss alot of very important information.

[Frisbee Slider]

My thought (borrowed from Moneyball, of course) has been:

 

You get 27 outs to do as much as you possibly can. Don't waste outs. Try not to make outs.

 

Batting average in and of itself, holds some relevance, but does not do a good job in terms of measuring how good a player is.

 

Alex Sanchez hitting .322 and Albert Pujols hitting .322 is deceptive on the surface. Of course, everyone would rather have Pujols, but according to batting average...they're just as good.

 

Pujols OPS: 1.000

Sanchez: .700

 

Perhaps bottom of the 9th with runners in scoring position, you may want someone to go up there hacking. However, runs scored in the bottom of the 3rd inning count exactly the same as runs scored in the bottom of the 9th.

 

A more patient approach throughout the game should mean more baserunners/opportunities and will tire the pitcher earlier.

[robfuhr]

OPS has onbase + Slugging. To me OPS includes batting average twice since the major component of both slugging and on base includes batting average. I think OPS - BA might be a better way to look at players when comparing them.

 

A player that bats 350 slugs 450 and has on base of 400 would have an OPS of 850 (600) of these points can be attributed to BA.

 

A player that bats 250 slugs 450 and has on base of 400 would also have an ops of 850 (500) of these points can be attributed to BA.

 

Now if you subtract BA from the first player you have a number of 500 for the OPS - BA. For player two you have an OPS -BA of 600. To me this better illustrates the difference between these two players and gives more credit to a player who hits for power.

 

I think OPS gives to much credit to a singles hitter.

 

Just my thought

[pogokat]

I hear you...but I don't know..

 

You see the way you do it, you give all the credit to the guy who walks more...

 

that's not really the best approach...ops is cool because it shows you how the stats work together...if you pull out the ba, then you've removed a part of the stat that shows something..

 

I'd rather have the guy who batted .350 with the .400 obp than the guy who batted .250...as silly as rbi's are..the guy who walked didn't drive any runs in that weren't forced, and the singles hitter scores the guy on third...and maybe the guy on second, depending on where the ball is..

[rluzinski]

I think OPS gives to much credit to a singles hitter.

 

Runs are scored by doing two things, getting on base and moving runners along. A single can do both of those things, while a walk is only guaranteed to do one of them. While a double IS better than a single, it's not TWICE as good (in terms of scoring runs) because while a double moves runners over about twice as good, the "get on base" portion of it's value is still the same.

 

Subtracting out BA would undervalue singles.

[dadofandrew]

BA has no use to me. AS stated by others, a .300 hitter that never walks and slaps singles is, at best, OK. Some .270 hitters are HOF'ers.

 

Mainly, OBP and SLG "work". There's no such formula that uses BA, as far as I know.

[rluzinski]

Mainly, OBP and SLG "work". There's no such formula that uses BA, as far as I know.

 

There are about a million "runs created" formulas and they all work better than AB*OBP*SLG. While simple runs created is a great "back of the envelope" type calculation, even it's creator has moved on long ago.

 

Run Estimation History

[backup catchers]

I like BA when looking at real young players. Just gives me an idea of how good his hitting ability is. If he k's a lot and doesn't walk much he can learn patience and the strike zone. If he just doesn't have the hand eye coordination it takes he usually has a pretty poor average. Conversly if the guy has a slider speed bat he can get away with it at the lower levels if he has patience and strike zone knowlege. That doesn't mean he can be a major league hitter though. No real science or stats to back it up just my personal way of looking at A ball or lower guys.

[rluzinski]

If he k's a lot and doesn't walk much he can learn patience and the strike zone.

 

These's still alot of debate over whether a player can "learn" the strike zone enough to significantly raise his walk rate as his career goes on. While there are some examples in MLB of players doing just that (Sexson is usually mentioned) it doesn't seem typical. Once a hacker, always a hacker.

[RobertR]

I like using BA/OBP/SLG along with OPS myself. OBP, SLG and OPS gives you plenty of quantitative detail about a player and in the macro view that is most important. But adding BA gives you qualitative information about what type of hitter a player is. I think we'd all agree there's quite a bit of difference between a .250/.350/.400 hitter and a .333/.350/.400 hitter. They might have similar overall value, but you'd ideally use them differently tactically.

 

I will say that I find AB*OBP*SLG very useful when doing calculations by myself. It is a "back of the envelope" type thing and imperfect as it does underestimate the value of guys who can steal bases at a high success rate. And, I'd point out that BA is present as a component of OBP and SLG and also implicitly affects ABs. A player or team with a higher BA and the same OBP will have more ABs than a team that relies on the walk more.

 

Robert

[rluzinski]

I think we'd all agree there's quite a bit of difference between a .250/.350/.400 hitter and a .333/.350/.400 hitter.

 

Well, let's look at what those two players might look like over a season:

 

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/hitsvswalks.gif

 

Player A is obviously the slugging walker and Player B is the slap hitter. While player B has the higher batting average, player A has more power (ISO = SLG - BA). Because B has more AB, it's "runs created" (AB x OBP x SLG) is higher. The problem is RC over-values singles with respect to walks.

 

... more later