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Many analytics guys are saying this stat is meaningless. What about a bloop single that drives in 2 in a close game in the late innings?
What about a soft double down the line that drives in 3? They would have a very low “exit velocity”. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that talks about the fact that MLB batting averages in the aggregate are at their lowest in over 40 years. A number of teams are showing more strike outs than hits. That’s not even including the number of walks. Guys are still at the end of the bat swinging from the heels with a 2 strike count. Pure contact hitters are in the minority.Thanks Some think that emphasis on “Launch Angle” and “Exit Velocity” are boring the game down. Attendance has been declining over the past 5 years. Kids want to play and watch games that have more action. What are we doing to the sport?
Please share one example of a respected analyst calling BA “meaningless”.
That is a red herring.
Most simply point out there are other stats that provide more insight – and that is true.
Posters on Cardinal sites who champion analytics (and are great at using analytics for measurement and assessment) are saying that BA is a meaningless stat.
BA is not meaningless. It is the foundation of OBP, which is over half of OPS total value (even tho OPS incorrectly treats OBP + SLG as one-for-one equals).
BA is a foundation piece that accurately fulfills its design, but IT IS NOT a summary stat, of a players offensive value.
This is where the conflict begins. When posters use BA as a summary stat, they are met with push back. BA is sooo limited that it CAN NOT define the difference between a HR and a single. To BA, everything is just a hit.
Fortunately we have summary stats that can fulfill their role of defining a batters offensive value.
Again, BA is not meaningless. The BA crowd is asking/using it incorrectly as a summary stat, which should be met with push back.
I think we all know the answer to this, as JJ has stated. Where the evolution has taken place in batting average, is that it once was considered the succinct number to define the best hitters, whereas other metrics have been shown to carry more weight than they were given in the past.
Because other numbers have gained in value, the appearance is that batting average has declined in importance. Taken to an extreme, “it no longer matters.”
Like many things the truth is in between. Batting average matters a great deal, but there are other metrics that can, when combined with betting average, give a better overall assessment of a player’s offensive value.
Even “back in the day” though, there were examples where batting average was not the “be all, end all”. The classic example is Max Bishop, Connie Mack’s lead off hitter on those great Philadelphia Athletics teams of the late ‘20s and early ‘30s. Bishop was a lifetime .271 hitter in an era when batting averages were high. But his OBP was .423 lifetime. Mack saw the importance of using him to lead off, even though the batting average was not impressive, especially by the standards of that era.
The average MLB batting average at the turn of the century was .270. This season so far it’s .242. Of course it needs to be taken with other stats to tell a more complete story, jj. But the decline is startling.
OPS? In 2000 the average was .782. This season it’s .707. Even with today’s emphasis on OBP and “launch angle”. What does that mean, jj?
I’m lost.bccran said:
Posters on Cardinal sites who champion analytics (and are great at using analytics for measurement and assessment) are saying that BA is a meaningless stat.
Then why not take the disagreement to those sites? Why bring the argument here when no one here is a part of it? Our posters here know better than that, as the comments above confirm. No one here is saying BA is “meaningless”.
Many posters right here “champion analytics” but they also realize others see things differently. Finding understanding in others’ views is a great way to learn. Others are satisfied with what they are most familiar with and don’t want to embrace newer stats. Some go even further in deriding them via gibberish. I am sorry they do that, rather than have meaningful dialogue, but so be it. Change can be hard.
Very sorry, Brian. I just thought in light of the Wall Street Journal article on the decline in BA and emphasis on exit velocity it might be a good subject for posters to discuss. Especially since it’s such an important topic going around baseball circles. The Journal wouldn’t have written about it if it wasn’t. I’ll be cautious about starting threads in the future.
If one really wanted to have a good discussion, one might not start by disparaging those on other side of the topic.
Providing a link to the Wall Street Journal article referenced later in the thread could have provided context, too, to better understand where you are coming from.
The fact that you’re so fast to criticize a poster and call them out at will, Brain, is what makes this such a disciplined forum. Keeps things in order. As a former military officer I appreciate the way you keep things structured. By the way, though, for the record I didn’t disparage anyone.
I think much of this discussion, appreciated or not, revolves around why we love baseball. Large numbers of old farts, such as myself, see the game mostly from an aesthetic point of view. It’s a thing of beauty, often a metaphor for life itself. The hitting, the running, The leaping, the arguing, the bench clearing, the pitches curving, sizzling, sinking for some is a rich tableau that stimulates a deep sense of joy and satisfaction in its mere existence, measured when necessary with simple arithmetic. Others view it as a mechanical function to be disassembled, dissected, measured, reduced to mathematics and derive pleasure and satisfaction in the pure scientific completeness of examining the game and its players. Of course those preparing to invest millions of dollars in what frequently turns out to be a mediocre product prefer mathematics to art and that understandable difference is honest. It’s like my oldest and dearest friend who among other things is a respected economist when we discuss whether or not the country is going to hell in a handbasket. I’m quite satisfied with a few essentials such as growth, inflation, employment and debt but after five minutes he starts making my eyes glaze over with references to J curves and monetary policy. Unfortunately, he is also a Braves fan from the days of Milwaukee and Warren Spahn. But that doesn’t prevent us from attending games and downing a few beers together while shouting at the ump during my occasional refueling trips back to the States.
Rah Cardinals!
I agree with you, CIF. Abner designed the game for lots of different types of action – stolen bases, hit and runs, steals, squeeze bunts with the game on the line, strategies because of the pitcher batting, etc. Many can remember Willie flying around second from first to third, fans yelling “Lou, Lou, Lou” when Brock got on base, Whitey stomping out to the mound making multiple pitching changes in an inning to get the match ups he wanted, Gibby pitching complete game after complete game, etc.
I referred to a Wall Street article in this thread because it raised some questions, after doing some further research. In 2000 the average batting average in MLB was .270. This season it’s .243. OPS has gone from .792 to .708. Slugging from .437 to .396. And on base percentage from .345 to .312. Even with the emphasis being placed on launch angle, exit velocity, and Billy Beane stressed OBP. Runs per game have gone from 5.34 to 4.35.
I’m not disparaging any other poster or putting down analytics guys. I’m simply wondering what’s going on that has created a situation where some teams have more strike outs than hits. Stolen bases have decreased. Total bases have decreased. Etc. Etc. Etc.Is the pitching that much better? Or is the emphasis too much on launch angle and exit velocity, and still swinging for the fences with a 2 strike count?
I don’t know. Just thought others might have some answers. If asking is out of line, my apologies.
The fact that BA has trended substantially lower over time is meaningful in itself whatever is said about the stat itself.
Most offensive stats have trended downward over the past 20 years or so, BB. Even with all the analytics stressed by MLB organizations. Is it because pitchers have adjusted to elevated launch angles? Seems like power hitters are more susceptible to the letter high fastball.
It seems to me that the decline in offense is at least partly due to the emphasis on the extremes in Major League Baseball, which has resulted in devaluing the middle ground.
To explain that, it seems that the only acceptable outcome for an offensive player is power, and the only acceptable outcome for a pitcher is, well, power (pitch speed). An offensive player is expected to hit the ball hard every time. Small ball is not as good as power. Not sure we will ever see a guy like Matty Alou again – a guy who could hit .330, place the ball about anywhere but without power.
For pitchers, you have to throw mid 90s or better. There is no place for a finesse guy. About the closest you can get is an Adam Wainwright, but he still needs to at least throw 90.
Back to offense. I was watching an at bat of Edmundo Sosa last week, and with two strikes he was still down at the end of the bat. Sosa is a talent. I think if he would shorten up a bit with two strikes he would be even better, but the chance of launching one is where the value is, so that is preached over everything else.
It seems to me that the decline in offense is at least partly due to the emphasis on the extremes
bicyclemike well said. They gotta pull that ball. It plays right into the shift.
Batting average has been isolated because it was a little overvalued in the past. There was a misconception a good hitter had to hit around .300 and anyone hitting around .300 was a good hitter, which was not true. Much like guys with a lot of barrels or average a high exit velocity does not necessarily make a good hitter. The one example of the batting average fallacy that always stood out to me was Juan Pierre. He was a career .295 hitter, but he only slashed .295/.343/.361 with a wRC of 86. So, he was really good at hitting singles, but it did not really do much for the team.
Looking at batting average during Pierre’s career made you assume he was a good player, but the reality is he was just okay and a lot of his value was highly dependent on having a strong cast around him. It’s the same issue people face when they focus on barrel rates. For example, Gary Sanchez is 8ths in baseball for barrels per plate appearance and he’s only slashing .215/.274/.402 and he only has a wRC of 90. At the end of the day, you can’t isolate one statistic to determine good hitters. You have to look at the whole and some of these statistics only exist to give more insight, which is why batting average is slowly shifting from focus.
Do I think that baseball players need to change their approach? Yes. I think they should more willing to take an outside pitch to the opposite field among several other basic hitting ideals.
Do I think that batting average is a meaningless stat? No. It can provide part of an overall picture of how successful a hitter has been.
Do I think I can tell who is a better hitter just by looking at batting average? No. There is so much more to a hitter than how many times he gets a hit as compared to the number of official at bats. A home run is a better result than a bloop single. The home run will not be caught. A bloop single, since it is in the field of play, has an opportunity to be caught. Would you rather have a hitter who gets a lot of infield hits (knowing when his speed goes, the singles go) or one who finds the gaps?
Take a look at some of the players who are generally the most talked about as the best hitters in the game. Listed is the number of batting titles they have and their career batting average. We all know the career average takes into account the good and the bad years.
Trout – 0 (.303)
Soto – 1 NL (.292)
Goldschmidt – 0 (.296)
Freeman – 0 (.297)
Machado – 0 (.281)
Harper – 0 (.281)
Judge – 0 (.279)
Riley – 0 (.277)
Ramirez – 0 (.279)I recall “back in the day” again, Pete Rose used to say he wanted to become the “first $100,000 singles hitter.”
Rose could muscle up on occasion, clubbing 16 round trippers one year. I imagine if Rose came up to the big leagues today he would be taught to elevate the ball and pull.
Pete put an 8+ WAR year together in 1973 when he hit only 5 homers, slashing .338/.401/.437.
I think the game and players would be better if guys were not cast into a mold of “elevate and pull”, which is the Jeff Albert mantra. Sure, some guys should hit that way. But I think maybe a guy like Paul DeJong has been hurt by it. He does have decent power, but not enough to where he benefits from trying to jack every pitch out. If he focused more on hitting line drives up the middle and to right field, it just seems like he would be a much better hitter.
I think the same thing happened to Matt Carpenter. He went from hitting doubles in the gap to lifting the ball and had the big home run year. Then it became a situation of going for home runs every time up. He got messed up and could not square up the ball enough to warrant hitting that way. He seems to have found the secret again in making better contact, and the home runs are following. He won’t maintain the other-worldly pace he is on, but has been in a zone since donning the pinstripes. That one may be an outlier – seems like the ghosts of Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle, among others too numerous to mention, inhabit those uniforms and guys just automatically are better when pulling on the jersey (Luke Voit, another example). 🙂
I believe the fact that averages have slowly went down is one of the reasons for people claiming it isn’t that big of a stat. They have to find some other facet to prop up to make the player look better than they are. Hitting for average is a skill. Hitting for power is not. So it’s a lot easier to become a power hitter and can be easily tied to metrics. Also doesn’t require a lot of skill to coach power hitting. Launch angle, quick fast wrist, good body mechanics. So to get these power hitters to look good so they could get paid and recognized, they started the trend of downplaying striking out. Once upon a time you had to be baseball royalty like a Ruth or mantle to get away with striking out a lot, now it’s ok for everyone as long as you hammer out a fair number of extra base hits. Someone mentioned a player that averaged 295 and saying he didn’t really help his team that much cause it was a lot of singles. That would only be true if the rest of his team just couldn’t hit. So it’s not his failure, his mates were failures. I’d take a 295 single hitting guy on my team. Surround him with quite a few other similar guys who can play good defense, throw in a couple big boppers, a smart catcher, and my offense would be set.
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