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And batting average or RBIs are not just as arbitrary of a stat? I’m confused Willie. If anything, batting average and RBIs are far more arbitrary as they are singularly focused and rely on a great deal of chance – especially when you’re talking about the difference between a .250 and .280 hitting line.
There is no way to reliably say a .280 hitter is actually better than a .250 hitter without looking deeper into the metrics. That’s what all those advanced stats are trying to do. Look deeper. They aren’t perfect either. They are just closer.
You guys can talk yourself into whatever suits you. JJ has hit .187 since the AS break and shows no sign of pulling out as of yet. He needs to get his butt in gear if he wants to win anything.
Now that I agree with BB. JJ is not hitting well at all lately.
But you need to dig into the metrics to help learn why that is. And then the coaches need to come up with a game plan on how to fix whatever they find. Perhaps he just needs rest with it being his first long big league season? I have no clue. But it needs to be discovered and fixed.
This discussion makes me think of Luis Arraez and how much the game has changed in my lifetime. Arraez has a career average of .318 and has won three or four batting titles but is essentially just a journeyman bouncing from team to team on one year contracts. He was born 40 years too late. In the 80’s he would have been considered a star.
It makes me wonder how players like Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, or Pete Rose would be valued now.
It is likely opponents have been fine tuning how to pitch and defense him all year. He had a monster April but the rest of the season has been mostly unremarkable offensively and has trended downward since around the end of June.
Part of Arraez’s problem was he was always considered a really poor defender. If he had been an average defender, he would have been far more valued because of his bat. This season though, he’s suddenly become a much better defender, hence the reason he had some better trade value.
Arraez also hardly ever takes a walk. That also tends to negate some of his value. On the flip side, he almost always puts the ball in play, which is good.
I’m certain Gwynn would still be highly valued. And Rose too if he wasn’t running his mouth. I’m not sure about the others GScottar as Carrew was mostly before my time and I didn’t ever pay much attention to Boggs career.
Those hard contact flat trajectory hitters shined in the expansive ballparks and carpet fields of the era. The best of them like gscottar mentioned probably had enough skill to adjust their launch angle upward for todays fields. But even back then, the terrible fielders that were regulars were usually home run hitters.
Jnevel, batting avg isnt arbitrary in any way when you are comparing players playing similiar competition. A guy consistently hitting 280 IS a better hitter than a guy consistently hitting 250. Dont have to look at it deeper. Its not rocket science. Can it be a one off season and totally switch the next, sure. People have career seasons and then dont do as well. But if we are talking consistently, its easy to say a 280 hitter is better than a 250 hitter. Quite a bit actually. So no the metrics do nothing in that case. Most times a player is what he is. There is no magic formula gonna change it. Rbis can fall into an arbitrary because it relies more on those hitting ahead of you than avg does so you can get those highs and lows. But there are guys that have a better knack for coming up with a big hit in a situation vs others or can always get that sac fly. No great mystery to it and no magic formula to make it so everyone can do it.
I dont think arraez was born too late though i can see why you say that gscottar. The league has failed him and players like him. Hitting a baseball is a skill, always has been. But just like any skill, there are those that have more of it. Some a lot more, some more but not as much. Since its really mostly something that cant be taught or improved much by metrics, its been devalued because it doesnt fit the agenda of these teams analytics departments. As ive always said, i believe a whole team of above avg hitters would do quite well though obviously good pitching would still be a requirement and as always would determine a lot. A power guy would still be nice but nor totally neccessary. I would prefer a power guy with some bat ability vs an all or nothing power guy. As you say, those guys can be found on the market, just not enough smart people to put it all together.
I’m sorry Willie. But you’re just wrong. I am happy that you at least admit that it needs to be over the course of a season rather than just a few weeks or months. That’s progress anyway from where we were.
Batters hit in different ballparks. Batters face different pitchers. Even the same pitchers throw different pitches to different batters. Pitchers sometimes hang pitches. Batters hit in different situations. Batters have different hitters hitting behind them. Batters hit against different defenses. Sometimes a defender fields a play poorly. These all impact batting average. They do tend to normalize some over time – especially over full seasons or multiple seasons. But .280 vs .250 over a few months certainly does not tell you which hitter is better. Not even for a season. That’s just not enough difference. All it tells you is which one averaged a hit more often over the course of a series of at bats. That’s why the underlying data on hitters is valuable. The quality of contact leads to far more predictable results over time than simply using batting average. Teams know this and that’s why they use advanced data to help them know which hitters to target. No one just uses batting average anymore because they know how faulty that can be.
Jnevek, you are so far wrong that i wouldnt even expect a person who never watched a game or played the sport to ever say such a thing. You might as well be one of those that believes the earth is flat. Ball park configuratiins are an intersting thing to talk about but matters hardly nil. In the end the pitchers for the most part are doing same thing and are of comparable quality. And 30 points is a hive difference. Just like 30 homeruns is a big difference from 20. Little things can change but good hitters are good hitters and not good hitters are not good hitters. It hasnt changed through the 150 years or so of baseball. But you be you and think what you will. Who am i tell you that you wont fall off the earth just past your neighborhood.
Either I need to accept that me, millions of fans, and all of the rest of baseball GMs and analysts are fools or I need to give up trying to convince you of what I see as an obvious math issue on your part. I guess I will do the latter. No more convincing from me on this subject. Not worth the effort.
Willie, you don’t think the park matters? The park has a massive effect. I’m not sure how you could think it is an apples to apples comparison for the hitters or pitchers pitching in Colorado versus Seattle. Coors can make very mediocre hitters look amazing counting stat wise.
Ill give you coors but really to me thats the big outlier. Rockies hit better at home than road by 17 points. No one on their team is putting up historic numbers so it isnt that big a deal. Now some parks have better power numbers than others but im mainly talking about hitting overall. Hitting a single or double for that matter is mostly the same. Busch is fairly expansive should be easier to hit for average. Ive seen guys do it. Everybody plays everywhere now, its just not the big difference in my opinion that people make it out to be other than say coors. People talk about the field in cincy but when play there, usually neither team really tears it up.
I have long noticed that a line drive sometimes appears to rise. I have seen this explained as the effect of underspin. A spinning ball will experience higher pressure on the side where the surface is spinning toward the direction of travel and lower pressure on the side where the surface spins away from the direction of travel. That is due to friction between the surface of the ball and the air, and the ball will move toward the lower pressure and away from the higher pressure. It is claimed to be the same reason that a curve ball curves. For a line drive with underspin, the higher pressure below and lower pressure above creates lift exactly as with an airplane wing.
If all that is true, then a spinning ball in the thinner air in Denver would experience a lesser difference in pressure, and would therefore have less cause to move as a consequence of the difference. It follows that this would apply to both pitched balls and batted balls. A curve ball curves less. A batted ball with underspin has less lift.
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