Bill James

[wazzu31]

Bill James is the Karl Marx of baseball, prove me wrong

 

[Fountain City Blues]

They created analytical tools lots of people agree or disagree with strenuously? One sociopolitical, and another about baseball?

Well, ok, that’s an attempt at a thread. Boring one though. Way more pumped I can watch the Royals on Bezos Prime

 

[Cedrique]

Bill James is the Karl Marx of baseball, prove me wrong

You bet your life!

 

[nynasty]

He's a little eccentric. He is right that RBI is a bullshit stat though

 

[steveringo]

I remember someone trying to explain how batting average is still a good stat...

 

[navamind]

I remember someone trying to explain how batting average is still a good stat...

It's not a useless stat, but it all it does is tell you how often a batter gets a hit. It doesn't tell you about the quality of the hits (singles, doubles, triples, home runs) and it's only a component in OBP (which includes HBPs and BBs). It is hard to be a productive hitter while hovering around/below the Mendoza line, but a .300 hitter isn't necessarily a better hitter than a .250 hitter. I'd say BA is important in that it's hard to be productive with a .230 or lower BA unless you have good OBP and/or hit for 30+ home run power, but it's not a very revealing statistic otherwise.

That's why I'd recomment wOBA and wRC+.

 

[Cedrique]

It's not a useless stat, but it all it does is tell you how often a batter gets a hit. It doesn't tell you about the quality of the hits (singles, doubles, triples, home runs) and it's only a component in OBP (which includes HBPs and BBs). It is hard to be a productive hitter while hovering around/below the Mendoza line, but a .300 hitter isn't necessarily a better hitter than a .250 hitter. I'd say BA is important in that it's hard to be productive with a .230 or lower BA unless you have good OBP and/or hit for 30+ home run power, but it's not a very revealing statistic otherwise.

That's why I'd recomment wOBA and wRC+.

Yeah there's also a lot of luck involved in batting average so it is not very predictive cause there can be so much variance unless you have a really big sample size. But if a guy had a 20 year career and ended up with a .300 batting average, chances are he was pretty good.

 

[Cedrique]

In my opinion one of the worst stat people use (especially when a team is on a winning or losing streak) is batting average with RISP. It's just flawed in so many ways.

 

[wazzu31]

They created analytical tools lots of people agree or disagree with strenuously? One sociopolitical, and another about baseball?

Well, ok, that’s an attempt at a thread. Boring one though. Way more pumped I can watch the Royals on Bezos Prime

No, they created a theory that someone works but generally bombs. Took a great sport (country) and made it lame.

 

[msgkings322]

In my opinion one of the worst stat people use (especially when a team is on a winning or losing streak) is batting average with RISP. It's just flawed in so many ways.

What about a team RISP stat? Is there any value to trying to track if a team tends to hit well in those situations?

 

[MilkSpiller22]

I remember someone trying to explain how batting average is still a good stat...

Might have been me. I’m kind of tired of how people need to find the all mighty stat.

Ba is the stat that measures how often you get a hit. I don’t see why that is a bad stat.

The bigger problem with BA is the difference between AB and PA. And how sac outs don’t count as an AB.

 

[Cedrique]

What about a team RISP stat? Is there any value to trying to track if a team tends to hit well in those situations?

No, in my opinion there's just too much noise in that. Calling 2nd base Scoring Position is flawed to begin with. If Kyle Schwarber is up, first base is scoring position. If Juan Pierre is up, you might have to be on 3rd to be in scoring position. And they always use Batting Average with RISP. A bases loaded walk is good. A ground ball out to score a runner from third late in a tie game is good. It just seems way too flawed to be valuable.

The other thing I hate is when a team is struggling and people keep pointing out how many runners they've left on base. Like if they leave a lot on base it is why they are losing. Unless you're hitting homeruns to clear the bases every inning runners left on is a good sign. Better than not getting anyone on base.

 

[steveringo]

Might have been me. I’m kind of tired of how people need to find the all mighty stat.

Ba is the stat that measures how often you get a hit. I don’t see why that is a bad stat.

The bigger problem with BA is the difference between AB and PA. And how sac outs don’t count as an AB.

Well... every stat has a purpose.

Some just tell a little more than others...

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Well... every stat has a purpose.

Some just tell a little more than others...

Not as true as you think. Most of the sabremetric stats are used incorrectly by everyone other than the mathematicians who invented it. And most of the all telling stats tell you things that you don’t realize you are not asking.

Most Sabre stats are predictive. They are not intended to answer the how good of a season a player is having.

Also the great thing about stats is that you can weigh all data however you want. But these already created stats already have weights to it. That you may not agree with.

Look at most advanced offensive stats. They weigh walks very heavily.

All pitching stats weigh strike outs way to heavily.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Simple stats measure something in particular. Might you call it an actual skill or result of a skill

For example
a batters walk rate measures patience

A batters strike out rate measures contact(sure there is a swing by swing contact rate as well but that complicates and is very imperfect)

A pitchers walk rate measures how accurate the pitcher is. How wild they are. (Sure you can be wild in the strike zone but that is another type of wild)

A pitchers strike out rate measures their dominance of the batter

But now if we take a more advanced stat, what does it measure??

Imo measuring skills and making your own analysis from those numbers is much better than using advanced stats.

All advanced stats are good for is for letting someone else answer your questions the way they believe is best. Not how you think.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Also. Players have specific roles on their team. So using the same stats for everyone is not a good strategy

For example. A top of the lineup guy you care more about getting on base however they can. Who cares if it is a walk or a hit. So OBP is the most important stat. Not ops, as slugging is for the sluggers.