MLB Daily Thread: 5/18 Bryce Harper Best Hitter/Player In Baseball, Indians Suck

[chappee11]

I'm not crazy about the super fancy stats, but I think On Base Percentage (OBP), Slugging Percentage (SLG), On Base Plus Slugging (OPS) and OPS+ are extremely useful when evaluating hitters.

A "slash line" usually consists of BA/OBP/SLG/OPS and is a great way to quickly and fairly accurately look at a hitter's performance.

I fought the whole nerd revolution in baseball stats for a while. But I agree. Especially on OPS+ for hitters and ERA+ for pitchers. I don't get too deep into them beyond that.

 

[Indrid Cold]

I'm not crazy about the super fancy stats, but I think On Base Percentage (OBP), Slugging Percentage (SLG), On Base Plus Slugging (OPS) and OPS+ are extremely useful when evaluating hitters.

A "slash line" usually consists of BA/OBP/SLG/OPS and is a great way to quickly and fairly accurately look at a hitter's performance.

I like OPS+ because it makes some attempt to take park factors into account...but not LH/RH favoring tendencies of parks, which may or may not be a good thing depending upon what you care about. OPS+ arguably screws Joe DiMaggio because it doesn't reflect that Yankee was killing his power while helping most lefties, but you could argue that it doesn't in that it gives an unbiased measure of his offensive production compared to the overall run environment in which he played.

 

[Indrid Cold]

Don't worry. I'm pretty sure you can still get them the way you like. I just remember they came out with these full sandwiches that you put in the microwave. You saved a lot of the effort that way. I can't imagine those damn things soaked in butter! Yikes.

I had so much butter in my system that I had to keep moving and warm my extremities in winter or I'd be like the tin man with no oil can.

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

I fought the whole nerd revolution in baseball stats for a while. But I agree. Especially on OPS+ for hitters and ERA+ for pitchers. I don't get too deep into them beyond that.

For me to put much stock in a rate stat, I want to know the formula and understand how and why it's used. The ones you and I have discussed here, I can do that. For pitchers, I do like WHIP and some of the other ratios like K/9, K/BB and BB/9. While I don't look at it too often, Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) can help you understand why a hitter or pitcher is having a particularly good or bad stretch.

I've also messed around with and have a reasonable understanding of the basic Runs Created formula, but I don't find it particularly useful.