30 replies to this topic

[greengoblinrulz]

Batting average tells you something about a player, OBP tells you something as well. Knowing both tells you something even more valuable.

All OBP is not created equally. I would rather have a hitter who batted .300 with a .350 OBP than a hitter who batted .250 with a .350 OBP. In spite of what your little league coach told you, in most cases a walk is NOT as good as a hit.

again, I think its hitter to hitter. Willingham is a .250 hitter with a .350 OBP. Span is a .300 hitter with .350OBP. A power hitter is more valuable than a singles hitter hitting .300 with .350OBP. Have to compare some numbers within positions/types of hitters. NOW, 2 singles hitters w/equal ISO....absolutely you'ld rather have the .300 hitter

[Willihammer]

BA is useful if you want to know a very specific thing: How efficiently a hitter reaches 1b not including walks. Worthless, not necessarily. Just sort of boring imho and not a very good snapshot type stat anymore. Anyone who wins the batting title most likely had a good season, but it doesn't say if it was '04 Ichiro-good or '04 Bonds good, or where in between. There's a lot of room in between.

[greengoblinrulz]

Ive always paid attention to differnce in OBP in regards to BAve also. Is there a basic number that shows what that difference is between em ( same as ISO for power )

[snepp]

There's isolated discipline (IsoD), same thing as ISO for power, just OBP-BA.

[Curt]

Last Night's Results:

Cabrera	0-3	.329
Mauer	3-4	.326

Mauer is, effectively, 2 hits behind. If he goes 2-4 and Cabrera goes 0-4, Mauer will take over the lead.

Cabrera	0-4	.3266
Mauer	2-4	.3270

Well, Cabrera did his part by going 0 for 4 but Mauer did the same and made up no ground. In fact, because he has fewer at-bats than Cabrera, he lost ground (0.3 points). Trout went 0-3 and closed in on both.





[TD="width: 52"]9/27[/TD]
[TD="width: 52"][/TD]

	9/26
Cabrera	.329	.327
Mauer	.326	.323	(.3232)
Trout	.324	.323	(.3226)

However, another 0-4 by Cabrera coupled with a 2-4 by Mauer would still put Joe ahead of Cabrera by seven hundredths of a point. But the Twins are off today. The Tigers and the Angels are both playing. After today, all three teams will have six games left.

[John Bonnes]

I'll interrupt the BA/OBP/OPS discussion for an update. Mauer is still in second (.3232), but he's just a smidge ahead of Trout (.3226). Cabrera (.3266) still leads the race, still essentially two hits ahead of Mauer. The Twins don't play today, but Detroit has a noon game. Cabrera would need to go 0-7 to slip behind Mauer in the race, but going 0-6 puts them nearly in a dead heat (.3234).

[Brock Beauchamp]

It's hard (impossible, really) to have a .330 average and a bad season and it's very difficult to have a .200 average and a good season. Spread out over an entire team, you're going to have your plus/minus power and OBP guys (in most cases, anyway), which balances out the weaknesses of using only BA to evaluate total offense.

Exceptions to the Rule for $800, Alex. Who is Adam Dunn? Is there a record for difference in OPS and BA? Dunn has to be in the running. Remarkable, really.

Which is why I said "very difficult". It's possible to have an extremely low BA and still be a productive offensive player but it's pretty rare.

[John Bonnes]

IN the afternoon game vs the Royals, Cabrera went 1-4, losing a half point, but still at .326, still about two hits ahead of Mauer.

[biggentleben]

Batting average is not overrated. The issue is that the Sids of the world will tell you that batting average alone will tell you something. Along with Chief's mention of OBP/SLG, it is important to note a BABIP for a guy. Someone like Mike Napoli who runs about as well as Fridge Perry sporting a .320 average looks like a great season until you note that his BABIP was 44 points higher than his career number. Lo and behold, he's back to the .250-.270 hitter he's been most of his career this season.

[stringer bell]

Nobody wants to win the batting championship. Since Wednesday morning Cabrera is 1-8, Mauer 0-4, Trout 0-7 and Jeter 0-7 and likely done for the evening. That is 1-26 from the four top hitters in the league.