Your Single Best/Favorite "Catch All" Statistic For Hitting, Pitching, and Defense

[JohnU]

Sometimes I worry Omar will go down the JDM road and convince himself he's actually smarter than the rest of the world.

It'd be a shame. But predictable.

For sure, it's not a good way to make points on these forums, which are already as wild as the hair on a witch's ass. A whole bunch of us are not stupid. I only post on these boards because ... well, crap ... I have no idea why I post on these boards.

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

So....you can't answer if your stats helped anyone at all. You might as well say that the secret to winning is carrying a green rabbit's foot in your front left pocket.

I keep mine in my underwear, safely tucked beneath my middle testicle.

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

Not at all. That would be donkeycocktarded. See Angels, Los Angeles of Anaheim.

 

[navamind]

Grit. Of course, the top 100 players are all white infielders.

 

[knowyourenemy]

Hitting -- Batting Average
Pitching -- Strikeouts
Fielding -- Fielding Percentage

 

[knowyourenemy]

Hitting: RBI
Pitching: W
Fielding: Gold Gloves

I'd rank those second. I really don't know how you don't pick batting average as the most important for hitting. Pitching, it's a toss up for me. I guess wins are technically more important than strikeouts . . . but if we're basing it off individual performance, then I think you go strikeouts over wins. Close call. Gold gloves may be more important then fielding percentage because it allows experts to use the "eye test" to determine value in the field whereas fielding percentage is a purely mathematical statistic. I generally agree with you though.

 

[JohnU]

Hitting -- Batting Average
Pitching -- Strikeouts
Fielding -- Fielding Percentage

Is that Fielding Percentage as in FPRPOGv+ ... or just the regular?

 

[knowyourenemy]

Is that Fielding Percentage as in FPRPOGv+ ... or just the regular?

I think it's the number of balls fielded minus the number of errors committed divided by the number of balls fielded. Simple and beautiful.

 

[JohnU]

Hitting: RBI
Pitching: W
Fielding: Gold Gloves

Please provide towels for all the metrics geeks who just choked up their cheese sammies.

 

[JohnU]

I think it's the number of balls fielded minus the number of errors committed divided by the number of balls fielded. Simple and beautiful.

Are these balls the ones hit from the left side of the batter's box and did they arrive fully in spin mode? We need to pro-rate this shit out. And were these Wilson gloves or just the regular old-fashioned Rawlings untanned leather version?

But I did get the "catch" part of this.

 

[Guy Incognito]

I'd rank those second. I really don't know how you don't pick batting average as the most important for hitting. Pitching, it's a toss up for me. I guess wins are technically more important than strikeouts . . . but if we're basing it off individual performance, then I think you go strikeouts over wins. Close call. Gold gloves may be more important then fielding percentage because it allows experts to use the "eye test" to determine value in the field whereas fielding percentage is a purely mathematical statistic. I generally agree with you though.

Time to drop some serious baseball knowledge on you here.

Hardest thing to do in baseball is score without someone driving you in. Anybody can get a hit, but can you hit a weak grounder to short with a runner on third and less than two outs? RBI > average.

Second hardest thing to do is win the game. I want winners. Besides, as everyone who's seen "Bull Durham" knows, strikeouts are fascist. This is America's game.

Smart people know that good fielding percentage leads to Gold Gloves. So, someone who wins a lot of Gold Gloves obviously was good at fielding (see: Palmeiro, Raffy).

 

[JohnU]

This is some really smart stuff here.

 

[JohnU]

Smart people know that good fielding percentage leads to Gold Gloves. So, someone who wins a lot of Gold Gloves obviously was good at fielding (see: Palmeiro, Raffy).

I know that if you fuck up a lot in the field, you won't make your high school team and the odds against playing in the majors goes up quite a bit if that happens.

 

[tducey]

Hitting- Batting Average
Pitching- Strikeouts
Fielding- Fielding %

 

[OutlawImmortal]

The # of sacrifice flys a player gets.

 

[UK Cowboy]

All I read was the Title.

I dislike what fans of your ilk have done to being a baseball fan though. Baseball is not a science. Eras, days, nights, parks, leagues, all different. And there isn't an equation to level the field. There isn't a true indicator to give any of those "+" signs merit.

Spreadsheets full of concoted numbers make for simple comparisons, easier assumptions and less discussion. But adjusting the actual performances on the field, however slanted it may be on account of this or that, in the sake of fairness, or whatever the sake it is that you people reference them, is a damn shame imo.

I don't like it. Never will.

Here's how that goes....18 year old kid wants to think he knows more about the game than a guy with 30 years in the game. Any rational person would know this is impossible... Unless said kid knows the dreaded "catch all" statistic....in which the kid then knows it all, even when he doesn't know Jack shit lol

 

[navamind]

Why do people think FIP is a predictor? It isn't. It measures what actually happened.

 

[JohnU]

Why do people think FIP is a predictor? It isn't. It measures what actually happened.

I agree. It appears FCoV is a much more accurate measurement.

 

[molsaniceman]

Why do people think FIP is a predictor? It isn't. It measures what actually happened.

actually it doesnt
Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) measures what a player’s ERA would look like over a given period of time if the pitcher were to have experienced league average results on balls in play and league average timing

Its an assumption just like WAR

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Why do people think FIP is a predictor? It isn't. It measures what actually happened.

How so?? look at how it is calculated, it is just another Stike out stat... Sabremetrics loves SO stats... but ignores that there are other types of outs...