@Brick said:
If a superior hitter is walked intentionally to set up a force at multiple bases or the pitcher would prefer to pitch to the next guy in the lineup, that is not as good as a single. That is unless the sabermetrics prove me wrong.
The only time a walk, intentional or otherwise, is equal to a single is when the bases are empty.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Intentional walks do throw a wrench into an analysis of offense, but it's an itty-bitty teeny-weeny wrench, so I think everyone just ignores it. Take the Stargell-McCovey comparison in the other thread; over a combined 19,000 or so plate appearanes, McCovey was intentionally walked 33 more times than Stargell. In other words, they make no difference.
The one exception to this is players who hit in the 8 spot for a big chunk of their careers in the NL; they get intentionally walked enough that it inflates their OBP to a measurable degree. But you know what? Players who hit in the 8 spot for big chunks of their career don't make the HOF, they don't contend for leading the league in anything, and they generally don't play in the majors for all that long. So if you are comparing good players, intentional walks won't matter; if you are comparing bad players, they might. But who compares bad players?
And no, Barry Bonds is not an exception because Barry Bonds was not a player. Not of baseball, anyway.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
One statistic I always like to point out when the discussion of elite hitters comes up is the very short list of players who had a season in which they had more home runs than strikeouts. I used to know all the names of the top of my head (no longer)
but the group was a pretty impressive one and I think Tony Gwynn was the last player to have a realistic chance. DiMaggio, Kluzewski, Williams, Berra - among others. Again, its a pretty short list...
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Joe Sewell did it, too; his strikeout numbers are mind-boggling. But, "hard to strike out" is pretty meaningless as a measure of value. At one end, you have Ted Williams who is in that tiny sliver of players that you can argue was the GOAT without making a fool of yourself. At the other end you have Joe Sewell and Bill Buckner and Dave Cash and a bunch of mediocrities. The problem is that, with the exception of Williams, players who don't strike out much also don't take many walks. And all of them, again with the exception of Williams, would have been better had they not tried so hard to "make contact" and put more thought into swinging harder at strikes and not swinging at balls. That applies to average players like Buckner, who could have been above average if he didn't swing so much, and it also applies to great players like Gwynn and DiMaggio who could have been even greater.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
It is actually a pretty impressive list (power hitters with that kind of eye and contact rate are incredibly rare, forever and especially today). I think most (all?) of the guys who did it multiple times are Hall of Famers. Did not doubl check this, though.
In the 1980s, Sports Illustrated wrote a great article about it when Tony Gwynn - who didn't have enough power to ultimately get it done - was chasing this 'record' in the 80s. Like I said originally, a very unique stat that pulls a small list of very elite hitters. Since 1980, only George Brett and Barry Bonds. Pujols in the middle 2000s came pretty close, but never a cigar.
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My "tiny sliver" includes Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle. I believe Ruth is the GOAT, but the others were both exceptionally great, different enough from Ruth in what they were great at to create a debate, and/or separated enough in time from Ruth to change context.
It bothers me that this list leaves the past 50 years without a candidate, but I just don't see Morgan (the greatest of the 70's), or Schmidt (80's) as GOAT candidates. If someone has a compelling case to make, though, I'll listen. That brings us to Barry Bonds who would be on the list had he played baseball and not an alternative sport where steroids were allowed. Ditto for A-Rod. After Bonds there's Pujols, and he was on a track to make this list but dropped off too quickly after he hit 30. Trout is now on track to make this list, but he's 26 years old so we'll check again in 10 years and see if he still is.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
George Brett is actually on another more elite list than the 'more HR than K list' in a season.
Players who have hit at least 20 doubles, 20 triples, and 20 HRs in a season.
I know there haven't been many, Willie Mays was one.
Brett did it in 1979.
Jim Bottomley did that a long time ago, Jeff Heath in the 40's and Curtis Granderson and Jimmy Rollins more recently (there may be more). There's no question that if you hit 60 extra base hits in a season you've had a good year, but not all of these seasons were what I'd call "great". Jimmy Rollins won the MVP when he did it, but Chipper and a couple others had better years. Granderson came in 10th in the MVP voting and that was about right. It's the triples that make it sort of random. The year Mays did it was a great season, but in the greatest season of his career he hit 3 triples. The correlation of home runs to great seasons is strong; with triples it's weak, and hitting 20 doubles is something every good player does almost every year.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
No room for Mays or Aaron in that sliver? Particularly Mays?
My list goes Babe, Mickey, Williams, Mays, Cobb.
I consider pitchers separately with Walter Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson as the top 3 pitchers in history of the game. Too many bunched after to call our 4-5...
It is not based solely on stats though they're obviously a big factor as a sound argument should be.
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I would go Ruth #1 and Williams #2 and Mantle #3. The rest of the aforementioned group can go in any order. They were all great. I'm a big Mays fan but I can't jam him above those 3. I used too.
m
Walker Proof Digital Album Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Mays was a contemporary of Mantle and played the same position as Mantle, so there's no intangible or context to separate them. And I just don't see how to rank Mays ahead of Mantle.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@dallasactuary said:
Mays was a contemporary of Mantle and played the same position as Mantle, so there's no intangible or context to separate them. And I just don't see how to rank Mays ahead of Mantle.
Me neither.
m
Walker Proof Digital Album Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
@Brick said:
If a superior hitter is walked intentionally to set up a force at multiple bases or the pitcher would prefer to pitch to the next guy in the lineup, that is not as good as a single. That is unless the sabermetrics prove me wrong.
Any walk with men on base is never as good as a single with men on base...I already said that. The good measurements account for that. As for the part of the superior hitter vs the inferior, it comes down to the percentages. Is it better to pitch to Joe Schmore with a man on second and two outs, or is it better to pitch to Mr. judy with Joe Schmoe now on first and a man on second. Not that hard to figure out. Lefty/righty pitcher and batter make a difference too.
Usually the middle of the order hitters have a viable major league baseball hitter behind them, so when you present scenarios as you did, it isn't very often. The only time where it is clear cut is when the pitcher is batting...then it is almost always advantageous to give a walk and pitch to the pitcher(but probably not to the degree that you are thinking even in this case).
Win Probability Added answers 95% of all that with all the play by play data...so it is moot even debating it.
I always find it funny though for the guys who fail to understand the value of the walk(which is already explained), that those same guys can't seem to fathom that players with historically poor walk rates, also have poor walk rates with nobody on base, and players like Mike Schmidt have high walk rates with nobody on base......in that case a WALK IS AS GOOD AS A HIT. Roughly half of a players at bats come with nobody on base...so if you figure that mike schmidt is getting 50 walks with nobody on base, then that is as good as getting fifty singles with nobody on base. So if you 'add' those 50 more walks he is getting with nobody on base to his batting average, then you would see the value.
For example, look at Ichiro vs Adam Dunn. Here are their lifetime OB% in plate appearances when they come up with NOBODY ON BASE, and in that case we know that a walk is every bit as good as a single.
Dunn .344 OB% in 4,442 plate appearances with nobody on base
Ichiro .341OB% in 6,819 plate appearances with nobody on base.
Knowing that info above, why would you even bother looking at their batting average???
Dunn batting average of .237 with nobody on base
Ichiro Batting average of .311 with nobody on base
You know right there that in over HALF of their plate appearances that the batting average figure is basically a lie, because we know for certain that with nobody on base that a walk is as good as a hit, and therefore the OB% is 100% correct because it is showing that, and batting average is not.
We also know that with men on base that walks and singles have varied values, depending on how many on base, and that singles are better than walks, but walks also still have value(just not as much). That is also accounted for in the good measurements. OPS+ gives the average of those measurements. Stats like Win Probabiliy Added the more specific of each, as they account for the game situation, men on base, score, etc...
We also know that a home run with men on base and the bases empty carrier far more value than a single in either case, and that is where slugging percentage starts to factor in during the OPS component.
DUNN 124 OPS+
Ichiro 107 OPS+
Dunn Win Probability Added 23.5 wins over average. His best five years being 4.4, 4.1, 3.1, 2.9, and 2.6
Ichiro Win probability Added 12.5 wins over average. His best five years 3.7, 3.7, 3.2, 2, and 1.7
For the record, with men on base:
Dunn .875 OPS
Ichiro .777 OPS
Dunn is doing better with men on base.
Ichiro simply is not as good a hitter as everyone thinks. Dunn is no Hall of Fame hitter either, BTW. I chose Dunn because he is basically at the opposite end of the spectrum from where a hitter draws his value from(in Dunn's case Home Runs and Walks). In Ichiro's case lots of singles. Ichiro's singles have value.
So in layman's terms next time you want to relegate the value of a walk to virtually nothing, keep in mind that over half of their plate appearances are with nobody on base and that walks and singles have the exact same value over half the time! Also know that they have varied value with men on base which overall gives the walk about 2/3 the value of a single...which common sense should be telling you already when you realize that half of them are already EQUAL in value!
Most of it is common sense, if you step back and look at it like that. Then it is backed up by millions of play by play results of every game dating back to the 1940's. So the walk value isn't a matter of opinion at all.
I can still hit 85MPH on the gun nearing age 50. Can still hit a pitched ball over a 375 foot fence. Can still rain three pointers like nobody's business, and throw one of the prettiest football passes with touch. My golf game sucks, as I am more in line with Happy Gilmore philosphy there. I am average at bags because I haven't mastered the ninja star throw.
My most recent deadlift was 395 pounds, squat 365, and incline bench 250 pounds(some reason my incline bench doesn't hurt as much, but my presses always suffer as my shoulder gives out and I can only make so much gains on them).
Six feet, 195 pounds. Can still run quickly...but foot hurts too much after the pounding.
As of this past spring I was still able to touch the rim.
So yes, I did play and can still play....
.....and none of that changes the value of the walk in MLB
I can still hit 85MPH on the gun nearing age 50. Can still hit a pitched ball over a 375 foot fence. Can still rain three pointers like nobody's business, and throw one of the prettiest football passes with touch. My golf game sucks, as I am more in line with Happy Gilmore philosphy there. I am average at bags because I haven't mastered the ninja star throw.
My most recent deadlift was 395 pounds, squat 365, and incline bench 250 pounds(some reason my incline bench doesn't hurt as much, but my presses always suffer as my shoulder gives out and I can only make so much gains on them).
Six feet, 195 pounds. Can still run quickly...but foot hurts too much after the pounding.
As of this past spring I was still able to touch the rim.
So yes, I did play and can still play....
.....and none of that changes the value of the walk in MLB
But can you finger roll? ; )
m
Walker Proof Digital Album Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
I can still hit 85MPH on the gun nearing age 50. Can still hit a pitched ball over a 375 foot fence. Can still rain three pointers like nobody's business, and throw one of the prettiest football passes with touch. My golf game sucks, as I am more in line with Happy Gilmore philosphy there. I am average at bags because I haven't mastered the ninja star throw.
My most recent deadlift was 395 pounds, squat 365, and incline bench 250 pounds(some reason my incline bench doesn't hurt as much, but my presses always suffer as my shoulder gives out and I can only make so much gains on them).
Six feet, 195 pounds. Can still run quickly...but foot hurts too much after the pounding.
As of this past spring I was still able to touch the rim.
So yes, I did play and can still play....
.....and none of that changes the value of the walk in MLB
That should take care of the arguments of the value of walks. If one needs more, then see the posts I have made in regard to Mantle and Mays specifically in regard to the value of walks and the batters behind them. You will have to do a search of threads on that.
As for the Reds fans that wish Joey Votto would swing more? What they should be wishing are for better players on their team, and a leadoff hitter not named Billy Hamilton who is allergic to first base....not for Joey Votto to change what he does. What he does as a hitter is truly elite, unlike Ichiro.
1951wheaties, Just so you know, in case you have never been a good hitter, and don't know how that feels. I know that feeling. Since you asked if I ever played, I am assuming you played, but probably weren't that good, because if you knew how pitchers treated you when you were the best hitter in the league, you would not be recommending Joey Votto to swing more. After my baseball playing days, I was once intentionally walked in slow pitch 12 inch softball....with nobody on base
When pitchers know your abilities, they will often try and paint the corners on you, so if you are wishing for Votto to swing at more of those pitcher strikes, then you are looking at a long of ground ball outs to the second baseman instead of the walks he is getting. Its not as if Votto is letting c&*k shots go by, as evidenced by his elite slugging percentage. He is doing what only elite hitters can do...lay off the borderline pitches, and crush the hittable pitches. That results in a lot of walks, high on base percentage, and high slugging percentage.
As of now, Joey Votto's lifetime OB% is .404 with nobody on base. .404! Since we know for a fact that a walk is as good as a single with nobody on base, that is the same has having a .404 batting average. If his batting average were .404 you would be creaming in your pants. So look at it like this, when nobody is on base, Joey Votto is .404 lifetime hitter. .404!!!
His slugging percentage with runners in scoring position is .590! So it isn't like he isn't doing the job when he swings with men on base . He is getting it done in both facets.
Case is closed on walks in MLB. 1951wheaties, if you want to talk about their value in youth baseball, I can do that too. Banzi, I don't even know why you are in this discussion, as I already dismantled your flawed theories in the Mickey Mantle discussions, and in several others.
I appreciate you explaining the value of the walk. You are not the first person I've ever seen do the Dunn-Ichiro hitting comparison and that Dunn is the 'better hitter'. It becomes a bit murkier, though, when you are hypothetically picking players for a team and can have either one. One could make the case that a dynamic leadoff hitter can be harder to find in some years/circumstances than that .350 OBP slugger. Even in a vaccum, I saw both play, poured over their stats as they both logged seasons on my roto/fantasy teams and whatever the stats may say, I wouldn't call Adam Dunn a 'better hitter' than Ichiro. If anything, I think that argument is proof that stats don't really tell the whole story bout a players hitting prowess but I think we'll forever disagree here - and that's ok. We can probably agree that, in baseball history, each guy was unique and had a skill set suited to their body - the human element.
My question of 'did you play sports?' was not an attempt to troll you. We're around the same age and probably in similar shape. I still play hoops. Can still dunk, too, but I'm 6'3.
Just a bit more on the human element of sports. Since you played, you can reflect on your own experience. I played organized from the age of 3, watched everything and I am almost 40. In that time, I have seen a lot of things impacted by the human element. Right off the bat, there's a game from a few years back where a pitcher threw a no hitter - if you watched the game. If you looked at the box score the day after, it was a one hitter. Player's yelled, umps cried and the box score didn't change but if memory serves, some replay rules did - after the fact. And that's the point - umps make bad calls, have different strike zones and have personal issues with players in today's game. Scores are also human; some hits are recorded as errors, other errors as hits. Ever notice that a close one in the 7th of a no-hitter is almost always an error? I could go on at length about this (I won't) but it leads to some level of data corruption. Not enough to invalidate the data, mind you, but enough to consider it imperfect. Not to mention the fact the the crowd rarely erupts for a walk the way it does for a hit. Which is the segue to my last little more personal aspect. Since you played, did you know anyone who was really good in a packed gym and sucked in an empty one? Guys who could dominate on the playground/sandlot and not make the team in school? Played great against great teams and bad against bad ones? How about rivalry games - why do they seem to bring the best out in teams? Ever played with an official who was biased against you - or kind to you? (I had a 2 refs in high school hoops who were friends with my dad and I saw an exponential number of trips to the foul line. I also had a guy who T'd me up in almost every game I ever played. Once for a soundless facial expression!) Ever played hungover or under the influence? And if you were good - and it seems you likely were - what impact did that have on your teammates. Ever had a teammate or coach get you fired up for a game and then rolled the team that was supposed to beat you?
As a Yankee fan, I have a love hate relationship with Roger Clemens. He had a great statistical season with the Astros (I think his first) that resulted in about 10 wins. I think to fully understand it, you need elements of both stats and the human element to explain it. Stats say he was unlucky as the Astros failed to score runs or the bullpen blew leads (my memory thinks a lot of the former as he had many games that year where he left in 0-0 or down/up 1-0.) I think you should factor in that he has always been described as an abrasive and selfish player and that perhaps on some level his teammates just didn't get after it that day. People like to act like this is impossible (these guys are pros) but I have had the good fortune to know a few pro athletes and I would say, unequivocally. that team chemistry, emotion and the human element carry much greater weight that statisticians give credit or explain away as an 'anomaly.'
Fun chatting.
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I appreciate you explaining the value of the walk. You are not the first person I've ever seen do the Dunn-Ichiro hitting comparison and that Dunn is the 'better hitter'. It becomes a bit murkier, though, when you are hypothetically picking players for a team and can have either one. One could make the case that a dynamic leadoff hitter can be harder to find in some years/circumstances than that .350 OBP slugger. Even in a vaccum, I saw both play, poured over their stats as they both logged seasons on my roto/fantasy teams and whatever the stats may say, I wouldn't call Adam Dunn a 'better hitter' than Ichiro. If anything, I think that argument is proof that stats don't really tell the whole story bout a players hitting prowess but I think we'll forever disagree here - and that's ok. We can probably agree that, in baseball history, each guy was unique and had a skill set suited to their body - the human element.
My question of 'did you play sports?' was not an attempt to troll you. We're around the same age and probably in similar shape. I still play hoops. Can still dunk, too, but I'm 6'3.
Just a bit more on the human element of sports. Since you played, you can reflect on your own experience. I played organized from the age of 3, watched everything and I am almost 40. In that time, I have seen a lot of things impacted by the human element. Right off the bat, there's a game from a few years back where a pitcher threw a no hitter - if you watched the game. If you looked at the box score the day after, it was a one hitter. Player's yelled, umps cried and the box score didn't change but if memory serves, some replay rules did - after the fact. And that's the point - umps make bad calls, have different strike zones and have personal issues with players in today's game. Scores are also human; some hits are recorded as errors, other errors as hits. Ever notice that a close one in the 7th of a no-hitter is almost always an error? I could go on at length about this (I won't) but it leads to some level of data corruption. Not enough to invalidate the data, mind you, but enough to consider it imperfect. Not to mention the fact the the crowd rarely erupts for a walk the way it does for a hit. Which is the segue to my last little more personal aspect. Since you played, did you know anyone who was really good in a packed gym and sucked in an empty one? Guys who could dominate on the playground/sandlot and not make the team in school? Played great against great teams and bad against bad ones? How about rivalry games - why do they seem to bring the best out in teams? Ever played with an official who was biased against you - or kind to you? (I had a 2 refs in high school hoops who were friends with my dad and I saw an exponential number of trips to the foul line. I also had a guy who T'd me up in almost every game I ever played. Once for a soundless facial expression!) Ever played hungover or under the influence? And if you were good - and it seems you likely were - what impact did that have on your teammates. Ever had a teammate or coach get you fired up for a game and then rolled the team that was supposed to beat you?
As a Yankee fan, I have a love hate relationship with Roger Clemens. He had a great statistical season with the Astros (I think his first) that resulted in about 10 wins. I think to fully understand it, you need elements of both stats and the human element to explain it. Stats say he was unlucky as the Astros failed to score runs or the bullpen blew leads (my memory thinks a lot of the former as he had many games that year where he left in 0-0 or down/up 1-0.) I think you should factor in that he has always been described as an abrasive and selfish player and that perhaps on some level his teammates just didn't get after it that day. People like to act like this is impossible (these guys are pros) but I have had the good fortune to know a few pro athletes and I would say, unequivocally. that team chemistry, emotion and the human element carry much greater weight that statisticians give credit or explain away as an 'anomaly.'
Fun chatting.
I appreciate all that you say there and don't really disagree with any of it. Yes, I once played in a a game hung over and not getting a minute of sleep the night prior. I spent the first half of the game on the bench. Coach sent me up to pinch hit and I hit a three run homer.
All those things happen in the big leagues too, but none of it negates the value of the walk. Those measurements are accurate to about 95% degree, and some minor things that you bring up, or Dallas brings up, or I bring up are unaccounted for...but they are minor enough that it usually isn't even worth debating.
The only major things in the baseball measurements are on the defensive side of the equation, and that is where problems arise. The defensive aspect in WAR is horsepooey, and I treat it as such. Same for the positional adjustments. THat one year where Ben Zobrist was the league leader in WAR based primarily on the defensive aspect and positional adjustment, speaks volumes on those issues. All one has to do is look at some common sense with that.
I actually spent a good part of the 1990's trying to devalue the walk. I am still looking for things to try and refute it, because like you, my knee jerk reaction was to not give it as much value as it has. I am having a very hard time devaluing it from where it currently stands in the good measurements.
BTW, my weakness in basketball was my ball handling skills.
Hungover pinch hit HRs? Shades of Mickey Mantle. I love it.
Outside of empty bases, a walk isn't as good as a hit. Empty bases, it is the same and I fully understand the math behind it. Again, I am well versed in the statistical side of baseball - including advanced sabermetrics.
If you include the human factor, you get more : four pitch wild walk? Bad call walk? Pitcher missed? 15 pitch AB? How was the pitcher affected - kicking dirt? Yelling at ump? Mad at himself? I feel like it has an impact not just on that AB but the next one too.
Its also worth mentioning there is researcher bias as well - most of these metrics, with little exception, were designed to prove something. And then the components are adjusted and played with to prove it. I'm not saying the stats have no value nor that they're unimportant. Freakonomics is a great read on the topic of stats and their application and interpretation.
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Pardon my intrusion on this fascinating thread. To start on topic, I see the locks as Ichiro, Miggy, Pujols, Kershaw, and Beltre with the others mentioned likely HOFers and closing in on lock status.
On the sub-topics, stats are pretty good at valuing what actually happened but are less good at imagining what might have happened and comparing to what did happen--for my money, where the rubber meets the road. A walk with no one on may have the same retroactive "value" as a single, but that does not take into account the opportunity cost of not swinging inherent in the walk. The real question is how well did the hitter maximize the potential value of the individual at bat. A walk is the product of generally 4 to 10 individual decisions, each of which have a set of potential outcomes and opportunity costs. Sometimes a walk will be the best potential outcome of an at bat (taking borderline balls and fouling off borderline strikes that would have likely produced an out if put in play). Sometimes a walk will involve such opportunity costs that it is arguably a worse outcome than a ball in play, even taking into account that a swing might have produced an out.
Take Votto. He hit .769 and slugged 1.615 on low middle strikes when ahead in the count last year. If he takes a 2-0 pitch in that zone he has given up a prime opportunity to hit a double, triple, or home run. If he later walks, can we really say that he has maximized the potential value of that at bat? Or that the walk was as good as the hypothetical single that might have been produced with a swing, given the other potential outcomes of swinging at that pitch? If he does it routinely and throughout his career, wouldn't it be a fair to criticize him for failing to swing, and suggesting his value was less than it should have been? (I'm not saying that's the case--I don't watch the Reds and have no idea what sorts of pitches Votto swings at or doesn't swing at).
You can also argue that walks with no one on are more valuable than singles because walks are rarer (3-ish/9 innings) than hits (8-ish/9 innings). If you walk, a hit is more likely to follow while you are on base because you didn't use one of the hits your team will on average get that day, whereas if you get a hit, you've used one of your team's hits already making it less likely one is to follow!
@graygator said:
Pardon my intrusion on this fascinating thread. To start on topic, I see the locks as Ichiro, Miggy, Pujols, Kershaw, and Beltre with the others mentioned likely HOFers and closing in on lock status.
On the sub-topics, stats are pretty good at valuing what actually happened but are less good at imagining what might have happened and comparing to what did happen--for my money, where the rubber meets the road. A walk with no one on may have the same retroactive "value" as a single, but that does not take into account the opportunity cost of not swinging inherent in the walk. The real question is how well did the hitter maximize the potential value of the individual at bat. A walk is the product of generally 4 to 10 individual decisions, each of which have a set of potential outcomes and opportunity costs. Sometimes a walk will be the best potential outcome of an at bat (taking borderline balls and fouling off borderline strikes that would have likely produced an out if put in play). Sometimes a walk will involve such opportunity costs that it is arguably a worse outcome than a ball in play, even taking into account that a swing might have produced an out.
Take Votto. He hit .769 and slugged 1.615 on low middle strikes when ahead in the count last year. If he takes a 2-0 pitch in that zone he has given up a prime opportunity to hit a double, triple, or home run. If he later walks, can we really say that he has maximized the potential value of that at bat? Or that the walk was as good as the hypothetical single that might have been produced with a swing, given the other potential outcomes of swinging at that pitch? If he does it routinely and throughout his career, wouldn't it be a fair to criticize him for failing to swing, and suggesting his value was less than it should have been? (I'm not saying that's the case--I don't watch the Reds and have no idea what sorts of pitches Votto swings at or doesn't swing at).
You can also argue that walks with no one on are more valuable than singles because walks are rarer (3-ish/9 innings) than hits (8-ish/9 innings). If you walk, a hit is more likely to follow while you are on base because you didn't use one of the hits your team will on average get that day, whereas if you get a hit, you've used one of your team's hits already making it less likely one is to follow!
Well said - baseball rocks and I'm finding this place does as well.
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If Votto is indeed letting co*&k shots go by to earn a walk, then yes, he may not be maximizing his at bats, but....
1)Is he indeed doing that? It is highly doubtful he would be hitting as many home runs as he does if he was letting too many juicy pitches go by for the sake of earning the walk.
2)Even if he was not maximizing his at bat, his outcome(the walks, HR, and making less outs) is still vastly more productive than the outcome of Ichiro type results, and leads to more run production, as evidence by the millions of play by play data that shows the run outcome following each of those events....so it is moot when compaing players vs other players. It doesn't matter what they could have done better, if their outcomes already WERE better.
1951wheaties, those human examples you gave are neat, have a niche, and are enjoyable...but they are such small things, that while yes, they 'may' factor into things, but compared to the very large factors, it is usually not worth the effort.
Also, the human element is already manifested in the outcome. If I hit a three run home run, does it matter if I was hung over, peppy, or having marriage problems? It is still a three run homer. Were my partying habits preventing me from being better? That is possible...but then that becomes part of my skill set as a player, a skill set that is measured by my produced outcomes. If you were a scout, you may very well raise your eyebrow and be worried about my future outcomes due to my behavior, but if my outcomes are already in the book, it matters little what it took to get there.
If you are saying my behavior is affecting other players, that may be possible, but realistically, the player's ability at the bat is rarely affected by anyone. If it was, then those players who are said to be able to affect at bats of other people should be able to transfer that ability, but they don't. That being said, two teammates of equal ability, one being a d*$khead, and the other not...i'd rather not have to deal with the D**khead.
Lineup protection is another thing that may not be perfectly shown one way or another. I was looking into that a little, and was looking at Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray. The fact that Cal Ripken received zero intentional walks from 1982-1986(when Murray was batting behind him , which was 95% of the time), showed that there was a definite effect from lineup protection...we just don't know how much it helped Ripken's outcomes, or held Murray's back because he had reduced favorable situations to hit in as he was the guy who was pitched around.
Even if we compared it to the following years when he no longer had Murray behind him and still did good, we never know if those earlier years he was helped. I did have some figures that were showing that there may have been a tangible effect, but I lost them. Probably isn't worth the effort to re-do it.
Looking back at them in 1983 with Murray at a 4.8 WPA, and Ripken a 2.5...and also knowing that the defensive value isn't quite as high as sabermetrics proposes, and then adding the lineup protection, it could easily swing that MVP from Ripken to Murray in that year.
No idea on Votto, just used him as an example because he was mentioned earlier. The point is that there is more to the game and evaluating players than even the best stats currently reflect. Doesn’t mean we should throw them out, just recognize their limitations. Now Jayson Werth, I’d be interested in seeing swing stats on. As a Nats fan I am left with the firm impression that he takes many, many hittable fastballs early in counts only to later walk or swing at a breaking ball in the dirt.
I don’t really care on Ichiro v Votto. Votto probably is the more valuable player. But WAR and WAA, whatever their flaws, put Ichiro as a little better than borderline HOFer. That combined with his actual, you know, FAME, are good enough for me.
I agree with Dallas on Ichiro, it won't bother me to see him elected...it is the "greatest hitters" comment that goes along with him that is wrong...unless one sees the 1,200th best hitter in MLB history as one of the greatest hitters ever, then I can't argue with that. It is when the nonsense of 100 greatest hitters talk begins, and when I began to speak up, lol.
Believe me, I know what you mean. I've been at war with WAR for a while. The defensive metrics are poor, and so are the positional adjustment ones. The best hitting ones are very solid, but then on a case by case basis there could be some fluctuation there(like the Ripken/Murray example).
@graygator said:
No idea on Votto, just used him as an example because he was mentioned earlier. The point is that there is more to the game and evaluating players than even the best stats currently reflect. Doesn’t mean we should throw them out, just recognize their limitations. Now Jayson Werth, I’d be interested in seeing swing stats on. As a Nats fan I am left with the firm impression that he takes many, many hittable fastballs early in counts only to later walk or swing at a breaking ball in the dirt.
I don’t really care on Ichiro v Votto. Votto probably is the more valuable player. But WAR and WAA, whatever their flaws, put Ichiro as a little better than borderline HOFer. That combined with his actual, you know, FAME, are good enough for me.
As a Nationals fans, your biggest concern probably should be that there are actually people in the front office who thought it was a good idea to hire Dusty Baker as their manager. Good lord.
If Votto is indeed letting co*&k shots go by to earn a walk, then yes, he may not be maximizing his at bats, but....
1)Is he indeed doing that? It is highly doubtful he would be hitting as many home runs as he does if he was letting too many juicy pitches go by for the sake of earning the walk.
2)Even if he was not maximizing his at bat, his outcome(the walks, HR, and making less outs) is still vastly more productive than the outcome of Ichiro type results, and leads to more run production, as evidence by the millions of play by play data that shows the run outcome following each of those events....so it is moot when compaing players vs other players. It doesn't matter what they could have done better, if their outcomes already WERE better.
You demonstrated that Votto was a better hitter than Ichiro. The argument involving Votto possibly not maximizing his ABs does not refute that, but rather offers the possibility that Votto could have been better than Ichiro by even more. I agree with you that this is unlikely, but wanted to make that distinction clear. Woulda, coulda, shouldas are fascinating to talk about and consider, but how good a player actually was (or about 95% of it, as you said) is just sitting there in his stats for anyone to see, if they'd just take the time to look.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
If Votto is indeed letting co*&k shots go by to earn a walk, then yes, he may not be maximizing his at bats, but....
1)Is he indeed doing that? It is highly doubtful he would be hitting as many home runs as he does if he was letting too many juicy pitches go by for the sake of earning the walk.
2)Even if he was not maximizing his at bat, his outcome(the walks, HR, and making less outs) is still vastly more productive than the outcome of Ichiro type results, and leads to more run production, as evidence by the millions of play by play data that shows the run outcome following each of those events....so it is moot when compaing players vs other players. It doesn't matter what they could have done better, if their outcomes already WERE better.
You demonstrated that Votto was a better hitter than Ichiro. The argument involving Votto possibly not maximizing his ABs does not refute that, but rather offers the possibility that Votto could have been better than Ichiro by even more. I agree with you that this is unlikely, but wanted to make that distinction clear. Woulda, coulda, shouldas are fascinating to talk about and consider, but how good a player actually was (or about 95% of it, as you said) is just sitting there in his stats for anyone to see, if they'd just take the time to look.
My argument was not really about Votto and Ichiro at all; what I was trying to argue is that even what appears to be a logical and sound statement like walk=single when the bases are empty is at best a necessary simplification, imposed after the fact, that can't capture fully what actually happens in an actual baseball game because there is no way to factor in the opportunity costs as well as a myriad other factors. I was merely using Votto's stats to demonstrate the point--it could have been anyone.
You may say it won't matter over time, but I'm not so sure. Statistics are awesome but incomplete. It may be that stats show 95% of value or it may be less, but the gap is there. Our eyes and memories may deceive in many ways, but they also help to close this gap between what happens in a game, or a career, and what the statistics reveal about it. And hopefully recognizing that can continue to improve what the stats can tell us over time.
The advanced statistics at our disposal provide as comprehensive and complete an analysis as we are ever going to expect when evaluating player performance. The problem with implementing other factors like human spirit, playing with heart and whether an at bat made the pitcher upset or not, is that there is no way to quantify such factors with any degree of confidence. I think the 95% rule mentioned above is about as accurate a percentage we can ever expect to attain. A walk with the bases empty equating to a single is not a simplification~it is a fact. All the other possibilities and effects are superficial. And if it's one thing that we can say with certainty, it is that human beings are not accurate caretakers when it comes to measuring player performance as we are all inherently biased and subjective when it comes to performance recollections. I understand there is this resistance to statistics when it comes to providing complete and comprehensive player analysis, but it is foolhardy to minimize the tools already at our disposal to establish such analysis, especially when those tools already account for virtually any factor or game situation one can reasonably expect. Inviting other, subjective criteria that cannot be effectively measured or quantified reduces the reliability of that analysis, instead of enhancing it.
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@graygator said:
My argument was not really about Votto and Ichiro at all; what I was trying to argue is that even what appears to be a logical and sound statement like walk=single when the bases are empty is at best a necessary simplification, imposed after the fact, that can't capture fully what actually happens in an actual baseball game because there is no way to factor in the opportunity costs as well as a myriad other factors. I was merely using Votto's stats to demonstrate the point--it could have been anyone.
You may say it won't matter over time, but I'm not so sure. Statistics are awesome but incomplete. It may be that stats show 95% of value or it may be less, but the gap is there. Our eyes and memories may deceive in many ways, but they also help to close this gap between what happens in a game, or a career, and what the statistics reveal about it. And hopefully recognizing that can continue to improve what the stats can tell us over time.
I got your argument and it's probably valid when applied to certain situations. My point was simply that your argument doesn't have any application to how good any player actually was, but to how good any player might have been had they done something differently than they actually did. With respect to Votto's walks (or indeed with respect to any outcome, like a walk, that is "good") I doubt that an analysis of opportunity cost will uncover much "missing" value. Good hitters, like Votto, tend to have very good eyes at the plate; they swing hard at strikes (the pitches that they can drive a long way if they make contact), and they don't swing at balls (the pitches that they will miss most of the time, and will not hit as hard when they do make contact). Votto got his walks that way, and that's the way to maximize your value at the plate.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
For the record, I'm getting a little cherry picked here as to what I am saying so let me clarify. My posts are certainly long winded so I'll try to be more succinct here. (No promises.)
Stats tell a massive part of the story of a baseball player and the record of what happened and how they did in any given game. Using statistics alone will produce a very clear picture of who a player was (used as historical analytics tool) and who they will be (predictive tools for active players). There are also metrics one can use that attempt to isolate everything a player does to compare how players would do regardless of park, teammate, etc.
All I am asking people to recognize when I mention the human factor is that I'm talking more about anecsotes and happy sad drunk divorced with one guy. I list only a few scenarios because it's tedious to detail but here's one more - Andy Pettitte pitched to the game; pitched fine in close games, pitched to contact with big leads. This undoubtedly hurt his stats while also bolstering good hitters on AL East teams that were losing to the Yankees from 1996-2003 and later on. Stats may or may not support this and I honestly never bothered to check if the stats backed up what I observed and heard Andy and others say. But that's one guy who had an approach where winning trumped trying to pitch for statistical brilliance. This often is referred to as old school so I assume it was more common back in the day but this is another, insignificant little example. But, add up thousands of little examples? Hundreds of thousands? It becomes harder to ignore. And add in the fact that in any given play in a baseball game, between umps, the batter, the managers, the pitcher, the fielders there are 14-17 people who have an opportunity to have some degree of influence on the final outcome of the play, each and every play! And they all get stuff right and wrong and their performance effects and it is also affecting others around them. A lot of moving parts.
Adding this in helps complete the picture.
_I came not to abolish the stats but I fulfill them
_
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@1951WheatiesPremium said:
Andy Pettitte pitched to the game; pitched fine in close games, pitched to contact with big leads. This undoubtedly hurt his stats while also bolstering good hitters on AL East teams that were losing to the Yankees from 1996-2003 and later on.
For the record, if skin sees this you're going to get a beat down. And if you think about it, if a pitcher had two ways of pitching, one of them allowed fewer runs than the other, and he could switch between them at will - why would he ever choose the one where he allowed more runs? To make blowouts last longer? To make the other team not feel so bad? If the point is to save his arm by throwing easier pitches to hit, then why stay in the game at all? What manager is just going to sit and watch while his pitcher throws batting practice for the other team? No, Andy Pettitte did not "pitch to the game". And Andy Pettitte was very good; the "pitch to the game" argument is usually reserved for mediocrities like Jack Morris.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@1951WheatiesPremium said:
Andy Pettitte pitched to the game; pitched fine in close games, pitched to contact with big leads. This undoubtedly hurt his stats while also bolstering good hitters on AL East teams that were losing to the Yankees from 1996-2003 and later on.
For the record, if skin sees this you're going to get a beat down. And if you think about it, if a pitcher had two ways of pitching, one of them allowed fewer runs than the other, and he could switch between them at will - why would he ever choose the one where he allowed more runs? To make blowouts last longer? To make the other team not feel so bad? If the point is to save his arm by throwing easier pitches to hit, then why stay in the game at all? What manager is just going to sit and watch while his pitcher throws batting practice for the other team? No, Andy Pettitte did not "pitch to the game". And Andy Pettitte was very good; the "pitch to the game" argument is usually reserved for mediocrities like Jack Morris.
Oh boy, the same silly Jack Morris argument. It is really simple, if Andy Pettitte had the ability to pitch to the score, then if the team with the worst offense in the league(scoring two runs per game) obtained him, then Andy Petite would be expected to have an ERA of 2.00 or better since he pitches to the score of the game just well enough to win.
Pettitte did pitch in a high octane offensive era, and in the DH league, so it is a good thing ERA+ takes that into account. He was a very good pitcher.
It is like the Ozzie Smith comment on defense of him "saving two runs per game" with his glove. If that really were the case, then any team that obtained Smith would see their team ERA decrease by two runs.
Baseball hitting is very conducive to be measured to a very high validity using statistics(the ones shown to be valid).
Football and basketball performances are not, and those are far more in line with what a lot of people are saying about unmeasureable effects and variables playing a significant role.
The same can be said for the defensive side of baseball. Those also have a lot of factors that make it nearly impossible to isolate the value of the individual defender.
But to even waste a breath or sentence to argue against the fact that a walk and a single have the same value with nobody on base, is an exercise in futility. There probably isn't anything else in the entire universe that is a close to the validity of saying that a walk and a single have the same value when they occur with nobody on base. Yes,I know pitch count may play a tiny factor(but that would be on the side of a walk, not the single). Nowadays, it is even more valid and concrete than discerning if a human is male or female.
The linear and isolated nature of baseball hitting, and touching each of the four bases to score a run, lends itself very well to be measured with statistical analysis. It is when people start using stats that have big variables(such as RBI or Runs scored), or stats that don't correlate as well to run producing(such as raw hit totals), where the problems come in.
If you want to talk about Tom Brady's passer rating and compare it to Joe Montana's, and then mention all the unmeasurable variables making that statistic as only a part of the story, then that would be accurate to say. But the same cannot be said toward baseball hitting.
Also, if you want to talk about umpire influence, groundskeeper influence, etc....great, they do have influences, but for the vast majority of time that evens out for everyone over the course of a season, and certainly over the course of a career. Then, they are also so minor, that it will never make up for the ground that Ichiro is behind on elite hitters like Votto....so it is a waste of breath on topics such as those.
Now if you want to talk about peak factors and longevity where stats can be a little harder to interpret, then there can be some fun and interesting discussion, such as the Ken Phelps factor, or the Jim Rice/Eddie peak/longevity factors that can murk the statistical percentages.
Semi OT - which is in line with the thread? I sometimes feel like longevity has turned into a bad thing. The ability to play a sport at a high level into late thirties early forties used to be a testament to greatness and work ethic whereas the current connotation is more 'he's hanging on for stats.' In most cases, guys don't get the red carpet treatment - once you stink you go - no matter how good you once were. Only a handful of guys went out on their own terms ; for the rest, there just wasn't anyone willing to pay them to play baseball anymore - for whatever reason though usually a decline in performance is the ultimate one. I guess some of it is economic; when any guy today who could play that old reaches that age, he's already made enough money where the only thing keeping him playing is desire. Not the case in the old days...
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But to even waste a breath or sentence to argue against the fact that a walk and a single have the same value with nobody on base, is an exercise in futility. >
And here I am about to waste another lengthy post on it. If it weren't already obvious, I am not steeped in advance statistics and their methods. Not out of any hostility (I like them!) but out of a lack of time. When you say a walk and a single have the same value with nobody on base, does that assume that the compared walk and single occur in the same situation? Are they the same value regardless of the innings, score, or number of outs? I have a hard time believing that a first pitch single with two outs in the first inning, following a three-run home run, carries the same value as a 14 pitch walk with nobody out in a tie game in the 9th. Does a stat like Win Probability Added incorporate that and we are talking about something else when we say they are the same value?
But even if we take the same situation, I'm still not entirely convinced. In the Gibson home run thread someone mentioned the preceding Mike Davis at bat. Eckersley got the first 2 outs of the inning in 5 pitches. To Davis, first pitch foul ball, strike one. Followed by four straight fastballs that missed outside. In the Gibson at bat, Eckersley gets to a 2-2 count with 2 misses on fastballs outside. Then he throws a bad slider for a ball. The only thing Gibson could possibly hit in his condition was a slider. Yet he threw one 3-2 as well. He didn't want to walk Gibson and put the winning run on, given that he thought Gibson couldn't do any damage. Was he influenced by the 6 misses on fastballs away to throw Gibson the one pitch he could hit, instead of throwing a fastball? I don't know, you don't know, Eckersley probably doesn't know. But to this day, Eckersley says he is bothered more by the walk than the home run. Was he bothered by the walk in the moment? Maybe--Eckersley pretty much never walked anyone. 11 walks total in 1988. 3 total walks in all of 1989 and 4 in 1990! A 2-out walk to a sub-.200 hitter had to bug him a little.
Now imagine the counterfactual. If Davis connects with the first pitch strike for a single, does Eckersley pitch Gibson the same way? No amount of stats can tell us that. But he approaches the at bat having thrown 6 pitches and 5 strikes instead of 10 pitches and 5 strikes, including 4 balls on the outer half to the preceding lefty. I'd say in that situation Davis's walk was more valuable to the Dodgers than a hit would have been, but there's really no way to know. Which is the point. When you say they have the same value, that's an assumption that strips away the individuals playing in the context of a specific game, but the individuals playing that game, at that time, are all that matter. Otherwise, what are we watching for?
To be clear, I'm not making a big point here even though it is taking me a lot of words to make it. It may even be mathematically speaking, so minor a point as to be insignificant (or, a futile one). I'm not arguing that stats should do anything different with respect to a walk and single, or that it doesn't even out over time. Maybe it does, but that is an assumption that it impossible to prove. My ultimate point is that even the very best stats--the ones as certain as anything in the universe (though I doubt baseball hitting is quite astro-physics)--even those stats can't capture everything about the game, and that is true even when there is no way to define a difference mathematically between a walk and single with no one on. But just because it is impossible to define does not mean it is meaningless. The game of baseball is played in the human mind, and in the gaps between the stats, just as much as it is played on the field.
To return to topic, consider Ichiro. When a widely held perception, such as Ichiro was one of the best hitters of his generation, conflicts with the advanced stats, it may be that the perception needs to be reevaluated or it may be that the stats aren't capturing everything that we, as human fans, perceive. Our perceptions about a player matter and are not based on mere whimsy and are not unintelligent even when they cannot be fully captured by the stats. Were hundreds of thousands of fans suffering a mass delusion or a lack of sufficient baseball knowledge to reach a conclusion about Ichiro's greatness after watching him play? I kind of doubt it, but maybe it is so. I find advanced stats arguments much more endearing when they elevate players who were previously undervalued, like Grich or Simmons, than when they seek to devalue players that we, as fans and students of the game, concluded were great after watching them play.
@Brick said:
If a superior hitter is walked intentionally to set up a force at multiple bases or the pitcher would prefer to pitch to the next guy in the lineup, that is not as good as a single. That is unless the sabermetrics prove me wrong.
@Brick said:
If a superior hitter is walked intentionally to set up a force at multiple bases or the pitcher would prefer to pitch to the next guy in the lineup, that is not as good as a single. That is unless the sabermetrics prove me wrong.
Walks are not equally valuable depending on where you are in the batting order and what type of hitter and baserunner you are.
A walk to a slugger (Killebrew for example) really had little value during most of his career. Most of the time he was a slow runner and the guys hitting behind him had limited hitting abilities.
Same with Mantle the last couple of years he played. His walk totals massively overinflate his OPS+. The Yankees had no one hitting behind him and Mickey was practically a cripple by then, yet he could still hit home runs. Why not just put him on via a base on balls, he's not going anywhere.
Stats can tell us a LOT about a players value, but certainly not everything. Not yet anyway.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
I'm not going to go too crazy on the Andy Pettite stuff as I never pitched. However, I have heard many former MLB pitchers who HAVE spoken at length about 'pitching differently with a lead' and 'being more aggressive in the zone' with a lead. David Cone, Ron Darling, Jim Kaat and many others (NY tv stations). They also express frustration with players they played with or watch now who wouldn't and acknowledge that some probably couldn't. But, I don't think they're all lying or misremembering (as Dodgy Rogy Clemens would say ) either. Guys DO pitch different batters differently, no? This can't be applied strategically to a game? 5 run lead against the Rays, more fastballs except to everyone but Longoria type thing? I'm asking, not baiting. Again, my playing organized baseball ended in 8th grade so I simply don't have the knowledge.
Also, sometimes expressions and colloquialisms should not be interpreted in a literal sense. Saving two runs a game with his glove is said often as justification for playing light hitting slick fielding players at any position; has been for generations. Always 2 runs, too. (Makes you wonder if Rizzuto was at short in 1956 for Don Larsons perfect game, would the Dodgers have actually had negative 2?). We all know a guy can't have a hand in every Yankee win when he had days off where they won games. Even the old common baseball wisdom statement 'a walk is as good as a hit' has varying degrees of truth to it depending on the situation, as the statistician have already proven beyond a shadow of doubt.
Still, I like to think Cool Papa Bell really did tag from first to third on a fly ball to left, stat books be damned!
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@1951WheatiesPremium said:
I'm not going to go too crazy on the Andy Pettite stuff as I never pitched. However, I have heard many former MLB pitchers who HAVE spoken at length about 'pitching differently with a lead' and 'being more aggressive in the zone' with a lead. David Cone, Ron Darling, Jim Kaat and many others (NY tv stations). They also express frustration with players they played with or watch now who wouldn't and acknowledge that some probably couldn't. But, I don't think they're all lying or misremembering (as Dodgy Rogy Clemens would say ) either. Guys DO pitch different batters differently, no? This can't be applied strategically to a game? 5 run lead against the Rays, more fastballs except to everyone but Longoria type thing? I'm asking, not baiting. Again, my playing organized baseball ended in 8th grade so I simply don't have the knowledge.
I don't care when you stopped playing, I like a lot of what you say!
Anyone who doesn't think most players pitch AND play differently with a lead is just fooling themselves. This is a job to these guys, day in and day out. Depending on the situation and standing,s contract status and even home life it's going to affect any human's behavior.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
Of course pitchers pitch differently with a lead, if they're locked in a 0-0 duel through
six innings, then your team scores five runs, the main thing on your pitchers mind when
he gets back out there is to not walk the leadoff, because that is how rallies start.
So with that on his mind, it surely has to affect the way he pitches.
@Brick said:
If a superior hitter is walked intentionally to set up a force at multiple bases or the pitcher would prefer to pitch to the next guy in the lineup, that is not as good as a single. That is unless the sabermetrics prove me wrong.
@Brick said:
If a superior hitter is walked intentionally to set up a force at multiple bases or the pitcher would prefer to pitch to the next guy in the lineup, that is not as good as a single. That is unless the sabermetrics prove me wrong.
Walks are not equally valuable depending on where you are in the batting order and what type of hitter and baserunner you are.
A walk to a slugger (Killebrew for example) really had little value during most of his career. Most of the time he was a slow runner and the guys hitting behind him had limited hitting abilities.
Same with Mantle the last couple of years he played. His walk totals massively overinflate his OPS+. The Yankees had no one hitting behind him and Mickey was practically a cripple by then, yet he could still hit home runs. Why not just put him on via a base on balls, he's not going anywhere.
Stats can tell us a LOT about a players value, but certainly not everything. Not yet anyway.
Banzi, a walk and a single with nobody on base are equal. It doesn't matter your speed as in each case you are still on first base, but in the case of a single, you are getting more credit in traditional and flawed methods...and that is the whole point.
Banzi, in your point, the same can be said for hitting a double. A player who runs faster would then have more value in that double than the slower player. The same can be said in all those cases....and you know what? It isn't hard to find a player's ability to run the bases in terms of being able to adavance on subsequent hits, as that is measureable too....so again, it becomes moot when determining the value of a walk, single, double, etc...because those areas you speak of are easily measureable and can be added to a player's value.
Funny too, becauuse you made a claim about Mantle not being able to go from first to third, or second to home, in his later years, and it was something you read in a book, and it was wrong and he in fact did have that ability. His runs scored total being low was a result of having putrid hitters behind him, not his lack of ability. Then that goes back to the Votto example....you don't chase balls out of the zone and ground out to the second basemen....you take the ball, and crush the strikes(if you get them). If you don't get them, then you take the walk, and that is as good ripping a line drive to centerfield in about half the cases, because with nobody on they are of EQUAL value. With men on they are of varying value, and Win Probability Added nails it...but common sense nails it too.
In the end, OPS+ gets there pretty fine on its own, and Win Probablity Added nails everything you guys are talking about, and more...and it isn't clouded by opinion or misunderstanding of things.
Pitchers 'may' say they pitch differently based on the score, but it doesn't manifest itself in their ERA, as in the case of Jack Morris or Pettite, or whomever.
Yes, a walk with zero outs is more valuable than a walk with two outs. THat was said a while ago and is common sense. Same for a single with zero outs compared to two outs. Yes, Win Probability accounts for that, as that is the entire point of that measurement. It accounts for all of that.
The whole story about Gibson and Davis doesn't really matter on the thought process, the result is what mattered....and it is ironic that Davis drew a walk, and you are using that example in a thread where people don't understand the value of a walk
@1951WheatiesPremium said:
Semi OT - which is in line with the thread? I sometimes feel like longevity has turned into a bad thing. The ability to play a sport at a high level into late thirties early forties used to be a testament to greatness and work ethic whereas the current connotation is more 'he's hanging on for stats.' In most cases, guys don't get the red carpet treatment - once you stink you go - no matter how good you once were. Only a handful of guys went out on their own terms ; for the rest, there just wasn't anyone willing to pay them to play baseball anymore - for whatever reason though usually a decline in performance is the ultimate one. I guess some of it is economic; when any guy today who could play that old reaches that age, he's already made enough money where the only thing keeping him playing is desire. Not the case in the old days...
The answer is "it depends". Nobody - nobody who wasn't cheating anyway - plays as well after 35 or so as they played before that age. Never happened, probably never will. But not being as good as you once were is not the same thing as "hanging on for stats", depending on how good you were in the first place. A few quick examples:
Carl Yastrzemski had an OPS+ of 139 through age 34, 116 from 35-39, and 108 at 40+. At no point was he merely "hanging on" because he remained a productive player, and a benefit to his team, right up to retirement. Longevity in his case was a good thing.
Ichitro had an OPS+ of 117 through age 36 (I shifted a little since he started so late), 87 through age 40, and 77 after that. He has been "hanging on for stats" for the past seven years, producing nothing that a player called up from the minors couldn't produce (at a fraction of the salary), and he has been hurting his teams by hanging on. Longevity in his case was a bad thing.
I am more than willing to cheer a truly great player who hangs on for one year too many, because you don't know if it's one year too many until you play that year. Willie Mays is a perfect example. He had on OPS+ of 131 at age 41 in his penultimate season, then crashed to 81 the next year. And then he retired. That's not hanging on, that's playing until you have no more to give. It's when players reach that point and keep coming back, year after year, that grinds my gears. When Mays ends a 21 year career on a bad note, you just remember the 20 years of greatness. At this point Ichiro has been bad almost as long as he was good, and that's now how I'll remember him.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Tell ya this much a great Skin/Dallas thread with their input is nothing short of spectacular, second only to these guys locking up in a heated baseball debate
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The only time a walk, intentional or otherwise, is equal to a single is when the bases are empty.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
@skin2 - Did you play sports?
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Intentional walks do throw a wrench into an analysis of offense, but it's an itty-bitty teeny-weeny wrench, so I think everyone just ignores it. Take the Stargell-McCovey comparison in the other thread; over a combined 19,000 or so plate appearanes, McCovey was intentionally walked 33 more times than Stargell. In other words, they make no difference.
The one exception to this is players who hit in the 8 spot for a big chunk of their careers in the NL; they get intentionally walked enough that it inflates their OBP to a measurable degree. But you know what? Players who hit in the 8 spot for big chunks of their career don't make the HOF, they don't contend for leading the league in anything, and they generally don't play in the majors for all that long. So if you are comparing good players, intentional walks won't matter; if you are comparing bad players, they might. But who compares bad players?
And no, Barry Bonds is not an exception because Barry Bonds was not a player. Not of baseball, anyway.
One statistic I always like to point out when the discussion of elite hitters comes up is the very short list of players who had a season in which they had more home runs than strikeouts. I used to know all the names of the top of my head (no longer)
but the group was a pretty impressive one and I think Tony Gwynn was the last player to have a realistic chance. DiMaggio, Kluzewski, Williams, Berra - among others. Again, its a pretty short list...
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Joe Sewell did it, too; his strikeout numbers are mind-boggling. But, "hard to strike out" is pretty meaningless as a measure of value. At one end, you have Ted Williams who is in that tiny sliver of players that you can argue was the GOAT without making a fool of yourself. At the other end you have Joe Sewell and Bill Buckner and Dave Cash and a bunch of mediocrities. The problem is that, with the exception of Williams, players who don't strike out much also don't take many walks. And all of them, again with the exception of Williams, would have been better had they not tried so hard to "make contact" and put more thought into swinging harder at strikes and not swinging at balls. That applies to average players like Buckner, who could have been above average if he didn't swing so much, and it also applies to great players like Gwynn and DiMaggio who could have been even greater.
More HR than K. Here's the list:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/10091.html
It is actually a pretty impressive list (power hitters with that kind of eye and contact rate are incredibly rare, forever and especially today). I think most (all?) of the guys who did it multiple times are Hall of Famers. Did not doubl check this, though.
In the 1980s, Sports Illustrated wrote a great article about it when Tony Gwynn - who didn't have enough power to ultimately get it done - was chasing this 'record' in the 80s. Like I said originally, a very unique stat that pulls a small list of very elite hitters. Since 1980, only George Brett and Barry Bonds. Pujols in the middle 2000s came pretty close, but never a cigar.
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And there's the caveat that tightens the list - a minimum of 20 HR. And I suppose as you raise the HR number you get an even better list...
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@dallasactuary
Who's in your 'tiny sliver'?
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My "tiny sliver" includes Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle. I believe Ruth is the GOAT, but the others were both exceptionally great, different enough from Ruth in what they were great at to create a debate, and/or separated enough in time from Ruth to change context.
It bothers me that this list leaves the past 50 years without a candidate, but I just don't see Morgan (the greatest of the 70's), or Schmidt (80's) as GOAT candidates. If someone has a compelling case to make, though, I'll listen. That brings us to Barry Bonds who would be on the list had he played baseball and not an alternative sport where steroids were allowed. Ditto for A-Rod. After Bonds there's Pujols, and he was on a track to make this list but dropped off too quickly after he hit 30. Trout is now on track to make this list, but he's 26 years old so we'll check again in 10 years and see if he still is.
George Brett is actually on another more elite list than the 'more HR than K list' in a season.
Players who have hit at least 20 doubles, 20 triples, and 20 HRs in a season.
I know there haven't been many, Willie Mays was one.
Brett did it in 1979.
Stupid list…. Mistlin
Jim Bottomley did that a long time ago, Jeff Heath in the 40's and Curtis Granderson and Jimmy Rollins more recently (there may be more). There's no question that if you hit 60 extra base hits in a season you've had a good year, but not all of these seasons were what I'd call "great". Jimmy Rollins won the MVP when he did it, but Chipper and a couple others had better years. Granderson came in 10th in the MVP voting and that was about right. It's the triples that make it sort of random. The year Mays did it was a great season, but in the greatest season of his career he hit 3 triples. The correlation of home runs to great seasons is strong; with triples it's weak, and hitting 20 doubles is something every good player does almost every year.
No room for Mays or Aaron in that sliver? Particularly Mays?
My list goes Babe, Mickey, Williams, Mays, Cobb.
I consider pitchers separately with Walter Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson as the top 3 pitchers in history of the game. Too many bunched after to call our 4-5...
It is not based solely on stats though they're obviously a big factor as a sound argument should be.
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I would go Ruth #1 and Williams #2 and Mantle #3. The rest of the aforementioned group can go in any order. They were all great. I'm a big Mays fan but I can't jam him above those 3. I used too.
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Mays was a contemporary of Mantle and played the same position as Mantle, so there's no intangible or context to separate them. And I just don't see how to rank Mays ahead of Mantle.
Me neither.
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Any walk with men on base is never as good as a single with men on base...I already said that. The good measurements account for that. As for the part of the superior hitter vs the inferior, it comes down to the percentages. Is it better to pitch to Joe Schmore with a man on second and two outs, or is it better to pitch to Mr. judy with Joe Schmoe now on first and a man on second. Not that hard to figure out. Lefty/righty pitcher and batter make a difference too.
Usually the middle of the order hitters have a viable major league baseball hitter behind them, so when you present scenarios as you did, it isn't very often. The only time where it is clear cut is when the pitcher is batting...then it is almost always advantageous to give a walk and pitch to the pitcher(but probably not to the degree that you are thinking even in this case).
Win Probability Added answers 95% of all that with all the play by play data...so it is moot even debating it.
I always find it funny though for the guys who fail to understand the value of the walk(which is already explained), that those same guys can't seem to fathom that players with historically poor walk rates, also have poor walk rates with nobody on base, and players like Mike Schmidt have high walk rates with nobody on base......in that case a WALK IS AS GOOD AS A HIT. Roughly half of a players at bats come with nobody on base...so if you figure that mike schmidt is getting 50 walks with nobody on base, then that is as good as getting fifty singles with nobody on base. So if you 'add' those 50 more walks he is getting with nobody on base to his batting average, then you would see the value.
For example, look at Ichiro vs Adam Dunn. Here are their lifetime OB% in plate appearances when they come up with NOBODY ON BASE, and in that case we know that a walk is every bit as good as a single.
Dunn .344 OB% in 4,442 plate appearances with nobody on base
Ichiro .341OB% in 6,819 plate appearances with nobody on base.
Knowing that info above, why would you even bother looking at their batting average???
Dunn batting average of .237 with nobody on base
Ichiro Batting average of .311 with nobody on base
You know right there that in over HALF of their plate appearances that the batting average figure is basically a lie, because we know for certain that with nobody on base that a walk is as good as a hit, and therefore the OB% is 100% correct because it is showing that, and batting average is not.
We also know that with men on base that walks and singles have varied values, depending on how many on base, and that singles are better than walks, but walks also still have value(just not as much). That is also accounted for in the good measurements. OPS+ gives the average of those measurements. Stats like Win Probabiliy Added the more specific of each, as they account for the game situation, men on base, score, etc...
We also know that a home run with men on base and the bases empty carrier far more value than a single in either case, and that is where slugging percentage starts to factor in during the OPS component.
DUNN 124 OPS+
Ichiro 107 OPS+
Dunn Win Probability Added 23.5 wins over average. His best five years being 4.4, 4.1, 3.1, 2.9, and 2.6
Ichiro Win probability Added 12.5 wins over average. His best five years 3.7, 3.7, 3.2, 2, and 1.7
For the record, with men on base:
Dunn .875 OPS
Ichiro .777 OPS
Dunn is doing better with men on base.
Ichiro simply is not as good a hitter as everyone thinks. Dunn is no Hall of Fame hitter either, BTW. I chose Dunn because he is basically at the opposite end of the spectrum from where a hitter draws his value from(in Dunn's case Home Runs and Walks). In Ichiro's case lots of singles. Ichiro's singles have value.
So in layman's terms next time you want to relegate the value of a walk to virtually nothing, keep in mind that over half of their plate appearances are with nobody on base and that walks and singles have the exact same value over half the time! Also know that they have varied value with men on base which overall gives the walk about 2/3 the value of a single...which common sense should be telling you already when you realize that half of them are already EQUAL in value!
Most of it is common sense, if you step back and look at it like that. Then it is backed up by millions of play by play results of every game dating back to the 1940's. So the walk value isn't a matter of opinion at all.
I can still hit 85MPH on the gun nearing age 50. Can still hit a pitched ball over a 375 foot fence. Can still rain three pointers like nobody's business, and throw one of the prettiest football passes with touch. My golf game sucks, as I am more in line with Happy Gilmore philosphy there. I am average at bags because I haven't mastered the ninja star throw.
My most recent deadlift was 395 pounds, squat 365, and incline bench 250 pounds(some reason my incline bench doesn't hurt as much, but my presses always suffer as my shoulder gives out and I can only make so much gains on them).
Six feet, 195 pounds. Can still run quickly...but foot hurts too much after the pounding.
As of this past spring I was still able to touch the rim.
So yes, I did play and can still play....
.....and none of that changes the value of the walk in MLB
But can you finger roll? ; )
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Not everyone can finger roll
That should take care of the arguments of the value of walks. If one needs more, then see the posts I have made in regard to Mantle and Mays specifically in regard to the value of walks and the batters behind them. You will have to do a search of threads on that.
As for the Reds fans that wish Joey Votto would swing more? What they should be wishing are for better players on their team, and a leadoff hitter not named Billy Hamilton who is allergic to first base....not for Joey Votto to change what he does. What he does as a hitter is truly elite, unlike Ichiro.
1951wheaties, Just so you know, in case you have never been a good hitter, and don't know how that feels. I know that feeling. Since you asked if I ever played, I am assuming you played, but probably weren't that good, because if you knew how pitchers treated you when you were the best hitter in the league, you would not be recommending Joey Votto to swing more. After my baseball playing days, I was once intentionally walked in slow pitch 12 inch softball....with nobody on base
When pitchers know your abilities, they will often try and paint the corners on you, so if you are wishing for Votto to swing at more of those pitcher strikes, then you are looking at a long of ground ball outs to the second baseman instead of the walks he is getting. Its not as if Votto is letting c&*k shots go by, as evidenced by his elite slugging percentage. He is doing what only elite hitters can do...lay off the borderline pitches, and crush the hittable pitches. That results in a lot of walks, high on base percentage, and high slugging percentage.
As of now, Joey Votto's lifetime OB% is .404 with nobody on base. .404! Since we know for a fact that a walk is as good as a single with nobody on base, that is the same has having a .404 batting average. If his batting average were .404 you would be creaming in your pants. So look at it like this, when nobody is on base, Joey Votto is .404 lifetime hitter. .404!!!
His slugging percentage with runners in scoring position is .590! So it isn't like he isn't doing the job when he swings with men on base
. He is getting it done in both facets.
Case is closed on walks in MLB. 1951wheaties, if you want to talk about their value in youth baseball, I can do that too. Banzi, I don't even know why you are in this discussion, as I already dismantled your flawed theories in the Mickey Mantle discussions, and in several others.
That you hear is the sound of the gavel.
@Skin2
I appreciate you explaining the value of the walk. You are not the first person I've ever seen do the Dunn-Ichiro hitting comparison and that Dunn is the 'better hitter'. It becomes a bit murkier, though, when you are hypothetically picking players for a team and can have either one. One could make the case that a dynamic leadoff hitter can be harder to find in some years/circumstances than that .350 OBP slugger. Even in a vaccum, I saw both play, poured over their stats as they both logged seasons on my roto/fantasy teams and whatever the stats may say, I wouldn't call Adam Dunn a 'better hitter' than Ichiro. If anything, I think that argument is proof that stats don't really tell the whole story bout a players hitting prowess but I think we'll forever disagree here - and that's ok. We can probably agree that, in baseball history, each guy was unique and had a skill set suited to their body - the human element.
My question of 'did you play sports?' was not an attempt to troll you. We're around the same age and probably in similar shape. I still play hoops. Can still dunk, too, but I'm 6'3.
Just a bit more on the human element of sports. Since you played, you can reflect on your own experience. I played organized from the age of 3, watched everything and I am almost 40. In that time, I have seen a lot of things impacted by the human element. Right off the bat, there's a game from a few years back where a pitcher threw a no hitter - if you watched the game. If you looked at the box score the day after, it was a one hitter. Player's yelled, umps cried and the box score didn't change but if memory serves, some replay rules did - after the fact. And that's the point - umps make bad calls, have different strike zones and have personal issues with players in today's game. Scores are also human; some hits are recorded as errors, other errors as hits. Ever notice that a close one in the 7th of a no-hitter is almost always an error? I could go on at length about this (I won't) but it leads to some level of data corruption. Not enough to invalidate the data, mind you, but enough to consider it imperfect. Not to mention the fact the the crowd rarely erupts for a walk the way it does for a hit. Which is the segue to my last little more personal aspect. Since you played, did you know anyone who was really good in a packed gym and sucked in an empty one? Guys who could dominate on the playground/sandlot and not make the team in school? Played great against great teams and bad against bad ones? How about rivalry games - why do they seem to bring the best out in teams? Ever played with an official who was biased against you - or kind to you? (I had a 2 refs in high school hoops who were friends with my dad and I saw an exponential number of trips to the foul line. I also had a guy who T'd me up in almost every game I ever played. Once for a soundless facial expression!) Ever played hungover or under the influence? And if you were good - and it seems you likely were - what impact did that have on your teammates. Ever had a teammate or coach get you fired up for a game and then rolled the team that was supposed to beat you?
As a Yankee fan, I have a love hate relationship with Roger Clemens. He had a great statistical season with the Astros (I think his first) that resulted in about 10 wins. I think to fully understand it, you need elements of both stats and the human element to explain it. Stats say he was unlucky as the Astros failed to score runs or the bullpen blew leads (my memory thinks a lot of the former as he had many games that year where he left in 0-0 or down/up 1-0.) I think you should factor in that he has always been described as an abrasive and selfish player and that perhaps on some level his teammates just didn't get after it that day. People like to act like this is impossible (these guys are pros) but I have had the good fortune to know a few pro athletes and I would say, unequivocally. that team chemistry, emotion and the human element carry much greater weight that statisticians give credit or explain away as an 'anomaly.'
Fun chatting.
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I appreciate all that you say there and don't really disagree with any of it. Yes, I once played in a a game hung over and not getting a minute of sleep the night prior. I spent the first half of the game on the bench. Coach sent me up to pinch hit and I hit a three run homer.
All those things happen in the big leagues too, but none of it negates the value of the walk. Those measurements are accurate to about 95% degree, and some minor things that you bring up, or Dallas brings up, or I bring up are unaccounted for...but they are minor enough that it usually isn't even worth debating.
The only major things in the baseball measurements are on the defensive side of the equation, and that is where problems arise. The defensive aspect in WAR is horsepooey, and I treat it as such. Same for the positional adjustments. THat one year where Ben Zobrist was the league leader in WAR based primarily on the defensive aspect and positional adjustment, speaks volumes on those issues. All one has to do is look at some common sense with that.
I actually spent a good part of the 1990's trying to devalue the walk. I am still looking for things to try and refute it, because like you, my knee jerk reaction was to not give it as much value as it has. I am having a very hard time devaluing it from where it currently stands in the good measurements.
BTW, my weakness in basketball was my ball handling skills.
Hungover pinch hit HRs? Shades of Mickey Mantle. I love it.
Outside of empty bases, a walk isn't as good as a hit. Empty bases, it is the same and I fully understand the math behind it. Again, I am well versed in the statistical side of baseball - including advanced sabermetrics.
If you include the human factor, you get more : four pitch wild walk? Bad call walk? Pitcher missed? 15 pitch AB? How was the pitcher affected - kicking dirt? Yelling at ump? Mad at himself? I feel like it has an impact not just on that AB but the next one too.
Its also worth mentioning there is researcher bias as well - most of these metrics, with little exception, were designed to prove something. And then the components are adjusted and played with to prove it. I'm not saying the stats have no value nor that they're unimportant. Freakonomics is a great read on the topic of stats and their application and interpretation.
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Pardon my intrusion on this fascinating thread. To start on topic, I see the locks as Ichiro, Miggy, Pujols, Kershaw, and Beltre with the others mentioned likely HOFers and closing in on lock status.
On the sub-topics, stats are pretty good at valuing what actually happened but are less good at imagining what might have happened and comparing to what did happen--for my money, where the rubber meets the road. A walk with no one on may have the same retroactive "value" as a single, but that does not take into account the opportunity cost of not swinging inherent in the walk. The real question is how well did the hitter maximize the potential value of the individual at bat. A walk is the product of generally 4 to 10 individual decisions, each of which have a set of potential outcomes and opportunity costs. Sometimes a walk will be the best potential outcome of an at bat (taking borderline balls and fouling off borderline strikes that would have likely produced an out if put in play). Sometimes a walk will involve such opportunity costs that it is arguably a worse outcome than a ball in play, even taking into account that a swing might have produced an out.
Take Votto. He hit .769 and slugged 1.615 on low middle strikes when ahead in the count last year. If he takes a 2-0 pitch in that zone he has given up a prime opportunity to hit a double, triple, or home run. If he later walks, can we really say that he has maximized the potential value of that at bat? Or that the walk was as good as the hypothetical single that might have been produced with a swing, given the other potential outcomes of swinging at that pitch? If he does it routinely and throughout his career, wouldn't it be a fair to criticize him for failing to swing, and suggesting his value was less than it should have been? (I'm not saying that's the case--I don't watch the Reds and have no idea what sorts of pitches Votto swings at or doesn't swing at).
You can also argue that walks with no one on are more valuable than singles because walks are rarer (3-ish/9 innings) than hits (8-ish/9 innings). If you walk, a hit is more likely to follow while you are on base because you didn't use one of the hits your team will on average get that day, whereas if you get a hit, you've used one of your team's hits already making it less likely one is to follow!
Well said - baseball rocks and I'm finding this place does as well.
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graygator,
If Votto is indeed letting co*&k shots go by to earn a walk, then yes, he may not be maximizing his at bats, but....
1)Is he indeed doing that? It is highly doubtful he would be hitting as many home runs as he does if he was letting too many juicy pitches go by for the sake of earning the walk.
2)Even if he was not maximizing his at bat, his outcome(the walks, HR, and making less outs) is still vastly more productive than the outcome of Ichiro type results, and leads to more run production, as evidence by the millions of play by play data that shows the run outcome following each of those events....so it is moot when compaing players vs other players. It doesn't matter what they could have done better, if their outcomes already WERE better.
1951wheaties, those human examples you gave are neat, have a niche, and are enjoyable...but they are such small things, that while yes, they 'may' factor into things, but compared to the very large factors, it is usually not worth the effort.
Also, the human element is already manifested in the outcome. If I hit a three run home run, does it matter if I was hung over, peppy, or having marriage problems? It is still a three run homer. Were my partying habits preventing me from being better? That is possible...but then that becomes part of my skill set as a player, a skill set that is measured by my produced outcomes. If you were a scout, you may very well raise your eyebrow and be worried about my future outcomes due to my behavior, but if my outcomes are already in the book, it matters little what it took to get there.
If you are saying my behavior is affecting other players, that may be possible, but realistically, the player's ability at the bat is rarely affected by anyone. If it was, then those players who are said to be able to affect at bats of other people should be able to transfer that ability, but they don't. That being said, two teammates of equal ability, one being a d*$khead, and the other not...i'd rather not have to deal with the D**khead.
Lineup protection is another thing that may not be perfectly shown one way or another. I was looking into that a little, and was looking at Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray. The fact that Cal Ripken received zero intentional walks from 1982-1986(when Murray was batting behind him , which was 95% of the time), showed that there was a definite effect from lineup protection...we just don't know how much it helped Ripken's outcomes, or held Murray's back because he had reduced favorable situations to hit in as he was the guy who was pitched around.
Even if we compared it to the following years when he no longer had Murray behind him and still did good, we never know if those earlier years he was helped. I did have some figures that were showing that there may have been a tangible effect, but I lost them. Probably isn't worth the effort to re-do it.
Looking back at them in 1983 with Murray at a 4.8 WPA, and Ripken a 2.5...and also knowing that the defensive value isn't quite as high as sabermetrics proposes, and then adding the lineup protection, it could easily swing that MVP from Ripken to Murray in that year.
No idea on Votto, just used him as an example because he was mentioned earlier. The point is that there is more to the game and evaluating players than even the best stats currently reflect. Doesn’t mean we should throw them out, just recognize their limitations. Now Jayson Werth, I’d be interested in seeing swing stats on. As a Nats fan I am left with the firm impression that he takes many, many hittable fastballs early in counts only to later walk or swing at a breaking ball in the dirt.
I don’t really care on Ichiro v Votto. Votto probably is the more valuable player. But WAR and WAA, whatever their flaws, put Ichiro as a little better than borderline HOFer. That combined with his actual, you know, FAME, are good enough for me.
I agree with Dallas on Ichiro, it won't bother me to see him elected...it is the "greatest hitters" comment that goes along with him that is wrong...unless one sees the 1,200th best hitter in MLB history as one of the greatest hitters ever, then I can't argue with that. It is when the nonsense of 100 greatest hitters talk begins, and when I began to speak up, lol.
Believe me, I know what you mean. I've been at war with WAR for a while. The defensive metrics are poor, and so are the positional adjustment ones. The best hitting ones are very solid, but then on a case by case basis there could be some fluctuation there(like the Ripken/Murray example).
As a Nationals fans, your biggest concern probably should be that there are actually people in the front office who thought it was a good idea to hire Dusty Baker as their manager. Good lord.
You demonstrated that Votto was a better hitter than Ichiro. The argument involving Votto possibly not maximizing his ABs does not refute that, but rather offers the possibility that Votto could have been better than Ichiro by even more. I agree with you that this is unlikely, but wanted to make that distinction clear. Woulda, coulda, shouldas are fascinating to talk about and consider, but how good a player actually was (or about 95% of it, as you said) is just sitting there in his stats for anyone to see, if they'd just take the time to look.
My argument was not really about Votto and Ichiro at all; what I was trying to argue is that even what appears to be a logical and sound statement like walk=single when the bases are empty is at best a necessary simplification, imposed after the fact, that can't capture fully what actually happens in an actual baseball game because there is no way to factor in the opportunity costs as well as a myriad other factors. I was merely using Votto's stats to demonstrate the point--it could have been anyone.
You may say it won't matter over time, but I'm not so sure. Statistics are awesome but incomplete. It may be that stats show 95% of value or it may be less, but the gap is there. Our eyes and memories may deceive in many ways, but they also help to close this gap between what happens in a game, or a career, and what the statistics reveal about it. And hopefully recognizing that can continue to improve what the stats can tell us over time.
The advanced statistics at our disposal provide as comprehensive and complete an analysis as we are ever going to expect when evaluating player performance. The problem with implementing other factors like human spirit, playing with heart and whether an at bat made the pitcher upset or not, is that there is no way to quantify such factors with any degree of confidence. I think the 95% rule mentioned above is about as accurate a percentage we can ever expect to attain. A walk with the bases empty equating to a single is not a simplification~it is a fact. All the other possibilities and effects are superficial. And if it's one thing that we can say with certainty, it is that human beings are not accurate caretakers when it comes to measuring player performance as we are all inherently biased and subjective when it comes to performance recollections. I understand there is this resistance to statistics when it comes to providing complete and comprehensive player analysis, but it is foolhardy to minimize the tools already at our disposal to establish such analysis, especially when those tools already account for virtually any factor or game situation one can reasonably expect. Inviting other, subjective criteria that cannot be effectively measured or quantified reduces the reliability of that analysis, instead of enhancing it.
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I got your argument and it's probably valid when applied to certain situations. My point was simply that your argument doesn't have any application to how good any player actually was, but to how good any player might have been had they done something differently than they actually did. With respect to Votto's walks (or indeed with respect to any outcome, like a walk, that is "good") I doubt that an analysis of opportunity cost will uncover much "missing" value. Good hitters, like Votto, tend to have very good eyes at the plate; they swing hard at strikes (the pitches that they can drive a long way if they make contact), and they don't swing at balls (the pitches that they will miss most of the time, and will not hit as hard when they do make contact). Votto got his walks that way, and that's the way to maximize your value at the plate.
For the record, I'm getting a little cherry picked here as to what I am saying so let me clarify. My posts are certainly long winded so I'll try to be more succinct here. (No promises.)
Stats tell a massive part of the story of a baseball player and the record of what happened and how they did in any given game. Using statistics alone will produce a very clear picture of who a player was (used as historical analytics tool) and who they will be (predictive tools for active players). There are also metrics one can use that attempt to isolate everything a player does to compare how players would do regardless of park, teammate, etc.
All I am asking people to recognize when I mention the human factor is that I'm talking more about anecsotes and happy sad drunk divorced with one guy. I list only a few scenarios because it's tedious to detail but here's one more - Andy Pettitte pitched to the game; pitched fine in close games, pitched to contact with big leads. This undoubtedly hurt his stats while also bolstering good hitters on AL East teams that were losing to the Yankees from 1996-2003 and later on. Stats may or may not support this and I honestly never bothered to check if the stats backed up what I observed and heard Andy and others say. But that's one guy who had an approach where winning trumped trying to pitch for statistical brilliance. This often is referred to as old school so I assume it was more common back in the day but this is another, insignificant little example. But, add up thousands of little examples? Hundreds of thousands? It becomes harder to ignore. And add in the fact that in any given play in a baseball game, between umps, the batter, the managers, the pitcher, the fielders there are 14-17 people who have an opportunity to have some degree of influence on the final outcome of the play, each and every play! And they all get stuff right and wrong and their performance effects and it is also affecting others around them. A lot of moving parts.
Adding this in helps complete the picture.
_I came not to abolish the stats but I fulfill them
_
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For the record, if skin sees this you're going to get a beat down. And if you think about it, if a pitcher had two ways of pitching, one of them allowed fewer runs than the other, and he could switch between them at will - why would he ever choose the one where he allowed more runs? To make blowouts last longer? To make the other team not feel so bad? If the point is to save his arm by throwing easier pitches to hit, then why stay in the game at all? What manager is just going to sit and watch while his pitcher throws batting practice for the other team? No, Andy Pettitte did not "pitch to the game". And Andy Pettitte was very good; the "pitch to the game" argument is usually reserved for mediocrities like Jack Morris.
Pitching according to how the game is going makes sense to me. But what do I know? I'm old and senile.
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Oh boy, the same silly Jack Morris argument. It is really simple, if Andy Pettitte had the ability to pitch to the score, then if the team with the worst offense in the league(scoring two runs per game) obtained him, then Andy Petite would be expected to have an ERA of 2.00 or better since he pitches to the score of the game just well enough to win.
Pettitte did pitch in a high octane offensive era, and in the DH league, so it is a good thing ERA+ takes that into account. He was a very good pitcher.
It is like the Ozzie Smith comment on defense of him "saving two runs per game" with his glove. If that really were the case, then any team that obtained Smith would see their team ERA decrease by two runs.
Baseball hitting is very conducive to be measured to a very high validity using statistics(the ones shown to be valid).
Football and basketball performances are not, and those are far more in line with what a lot of people are saying about unmeasureable effects and variables playing a significant role.
The same can be said for the defensive side of baseball. Those also have a lot of factors that make it nearly impossible to isolate the value of the individual defender.
But to even waste a breath or sentence to argue against the fact that a walk and a single have the same value with nobody on base, is an exercise in futility. There probably isn't anything else in the entire universe that is a close to the validity of saying that a walk and a single have the same value when they occur with nobody on base. Yes,I know pitch count may play a tiny factor(but that would be on the side of a walk, not the single). Nowadays, it is even more valid and concrete than discerning if a human is male or female.
The linear and isolated nature of baseball hitting, and touching each of the four bases to score a run, lends itself very well to be measured with statistical analysis. It is when people start using stats that have big variables(such as RBI or Runs scored), or stats that don't correlate as well to run producing(such as raw hit totals), where the problems come in.
If you want to talk about Tom Brady's passer rating and compare it to Joe Montana's, and then mention all the unmeasurable variables making that statistic as only a part of the story, then that would be accurate to say. But the same cannot be said toward baseball hitting.
Also, if you want to talk about umpire influence, groundskeeper influence, etc....great, they do have influences, but for the vast majority of time that evens out for everyone over the course of a season, and certainly over the course of a career. Then, they are also so minor, that it will never make up for the ground that Ichiro is behind on elite hitters like Votto....so it is a waste of breath on topics such as those.
Now if you want to talk about peak factors and longevity where stats can be a little harder to interpret, then there can be some fun and interesting discussion, such as the Ken Phelps factor, or the Jim Rice/Eddie peak/longevity factors that can murk the statistical percentages.
Semi OT - which is in line with the thread? I sometimes feel like longevity has turned into a bad thing. The ability to play a sport at a high level into late thirties early forties used to be a testament to greatness and work ethic whereas the current connotation is more 'he's hanging on for stats.' In most cases, guys don't get the red carpet treatment - once you stink you go - no matter how good you once were. Only a handful of guys went out on their own terms ; for the rest, there just wasn't anyone willing to pay them to play baseball anymore - for whatever reason though usually a decline in performance is the ultimate one. I guess some of it is economic; when any guy today who could play that old reaches that age, he's already made enough money where the only thing keeping him playing is desire. Not the case in the old days...
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But to even waste a breath or sentence to argue against the fact that a walk and a single have the same value with nobody on base, is an exercise in futility. >
And here I am about to waste another lengthy post on it. If it weren't already obvious, I am not steeped in advance statistics and their methods. Not out of any hostility (I like them!) but out of a lack of time. When you say a walk and a single have the same value with nobody on base, does that assume that the compared walk and single occur in the same situation? Are they the same value regardless of the innings, score, or number of outs? I have a hard time believing that a first pitch single with two outs in the first inning, following a three-run home run, carries the same value as a 14 pitch walk with nobody out in a tie game in the 9th. Does a stat like Win Probability Added incorporate that and we are talking about something else when we say they are the same value?
But even if we take the same situation, I'm still not entirely convinced. In the Gibson home run thread someone mentioned the preceding Mike Davis at bat. Eckersley got the first 2 outs of the inning in 5 pitches. To Davis, first pitch foul ball, strike one. Followed by four straight fastballs that missed outside. In the Gibson at bat, Eckersley gets to a 2-2 count with 2 misses on fastballs outside. Then he throws a bad slider for a ball. The only thing Gibson could possibly hit in his condition was a slider. Yet he threw one 3-2 as well. He didn't want to walk Gibson and put the winning run on, given that he thought Gibson couldn't do any damage. Was he influenced by the 6 misses on fastballs away to throw Gibson the one pitch he could hit, instead of throwing a fastball? I don't know, you don't know, Eckersley probably doesn't know. But to this day, Eckersley says he is bothered more by the walk than the home run. Was he bothered by the walk in the moment? Maybe--Eckersley pretty much never walked anyone. 11 walks total in 1988. 3 total walks in all of 1989 and 4 in 1990! A 2-out walk to a sub-.200 hitter had to bug him a little.
Now imagine the counterfactual. If Davis connects with the first pitch strike for a single, does Eckersley pitch Gibson the same way? No amount of stats can tell us that. But he approaches the at bat having thrown 6 pitches and 5 strikes instead of 10 pitches and 5 strikes, including 4 balls on the outer half to the preceding lefty. I'd say in that situation Davis's walk was more valuable to the Dodgers than a hit would have been, but there's really no way to know. Which is the point. When you say they have the same value, that's an assumption that strips away the individuals playing in the context of a specific game, but the individuals playing that game, at that time, are all that matter. Otherwise, what are we watching for?
To be clear, I'm not making a big point here even though it is taking me a lot of words to make it. It may even be mathematically speaking, so minor a point as to be insignificant (or, a futile one). I'm not arguing that stats should do anything different with respect to a walk and single, or that it doesn't even out over time. Maybe it does, but that is an assumption that it impossible to prove. My ultimate point is that even the very best stats--the ones as certain as anything in the universe (though I doubt baseball hitting is quite astro-physics)--even those stats can't capture everything about the game, and that is true even when there is no way to define a difference mathematically between a walk and single with no one on. But just because it is impossible to define does not mean it is meaningless. The game of baseball is played in the human mind, and in the gaps between the stats, just as much as it is played on the field.
To return to topic, consider Ichiro. When a widely held perception, such as Ichiro was one of the best hitters of his generation, conflicts with the advanced stats, it may be that the perception needs to be reevaluated or it may be that the stats aren't capturing everything that we, as human fans, perceive. Our perceptions about a player matter and are not based on mere whimsy and are not unintelligent even when they cannot be fully captured by the stats. Were hundreds of thousands of fans suffering a mass delusion or a lack of sufficient baseball knowledge to reach a conclusion about Ichiro's greatness after watching him play? I kind of doubt it, but maybe it is so. I find advanced stats arguments much more endearing when they elevate players who were previously undervalued, like Grich or Simmons, than when they seek to devalue players that we, as fans and students of the game, concluded were great after watching them play.
Walks are not equally valuable depending on where you are in the batting order and what type of hitter and baserunner you are.
A walk to a slugger (Killebrew for example) really had little value during most of his career. Most of the time he was a slow runner and the guys hitting behind him had limited hitting abilities.
Same with Mantle the last couple of years he played. His walk totals massively overinflate his OPS+. The Yankees had no one hitting behind him and Mickey was practically a cripple by then, yet he could still hit home runs. Why not just put him on via a base on balls, he's not going anywhere.
Stats can tell us a LOT about a players value, but certainly not everything. Not yet anyway.
I'm not going to go too crazy on the Andy Pettite stuff as I never pitched. However, I have heard many former MLB pitchers who HAVE spoken at length about 'pitching differently with a lead' and 'being more aggressive in the zone' with a lead. David Cone, Ron Darling, Jim Kaat and many others (NY tv stations). They also express frustration with players they played with or watch now who wouldn't and acknowledge that some probably couldn't. But, I don't think they're all lying or misremembering (as Dodgy Rogy Clemens would say ) either. Guys DO pitch different batters differently, no? This can't be applied strategically to a game? 5 run lead against the Rays, more fastballs except to everyone but Longoria type thing? I'm asking, not baiting. Again, my playing organized baseball ended in 8th grade so I simply don't have the knowledge.
Also, sometimes expressions and colloquialisms should not be interpreted in a literal sense. Saving two runs a game with his glove is said often as justification for playing light hitting slick fielding players at any position; has been for generations. Always 2 runs, too. (Makes you wonder if Rizzuto was at short in 1956 for Don Larsons perfect game, would the Dodgers have actually had negative 2?). We all know a guy can't have a hand in every Yankee win when he had days off where they won games. Even the old common baseball wisdom statement 'a walk is as good as a hit' has varying degrees of truth to it depending on the situation, as the statistician have already proven beyond a shadow of doubt.
Still, I like to think Cool Papa Bell really did tag from first to third on a fly ball to left, stat books be damned!
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Cool Papa Bell is the greatest nickname in baseball!
Got his autograph on a perez-steele card, James 'cool papa' Bell.LOL.
Stupid list…. Mistlin
I don't care when you stopped playing, I like a lot of what you say!
Anyone who doesn't think most players pitch AND play differently with a lead is just fooling themselves. This is a job to these guys, day in and day out. Depending on the situation and standing,s contract status and even home life it's going to affect any human's behavior.
Of course pitchers pitch differently with a lead, if they're locked in a 0-0 duel through
six innings, then your team scores five runs, the main thing on your pitchers mind when
he gets back out there is to not walk the leadoff, because that is how rallies start.
So with that on his mind, it surely has to affect the way he pitches.
Stupid list…. Mistlin
Banzi, a walk and a single with nobody on base are equal. It doesn't matter your speed as in each case you are still on first base, but in the case of a single, you are getting more credit in traditional and flawed methods...and that is the whole point.
Banzi, in your point, the same can be said for hitting a double. A player who runs faster would then have more value in that double than the slower player. The same can be said in all those cases....and you know what? It isn't hard to find a player's ability to run the bases in terms of being able to adavance on subsequent hits, as that is measureable too....so again, it becomes moot when determining the value of a walk, single, double, etc...because those areas you speak of are easily measureable and can be added to a player's value.
Funny too, becauuse you made a claim about Mantle not being able to go from first to third, or second to home, in his later years, and it was something you read in a book, and it was wrong and he in fact did have that ability. His runs scored total being low was a result of having putrid hitters behind him, not his lack of ability. Then that goes back to the Votto example....you don't chase balls out of the zone and ground out to the second basemen....you take the ball, and crush the strikes(if you get them). If you don't get them, then you take the walk, and that is as good ripping a line drive to centerfield in about half the cases, because with nobody on they are of EQUAL value. With men on they are of varying value, and Win Probability Added nails it...but common sense nails it too.
In the end, OPS+ gets there pretty fine on its own, and Win Probablity Added nails everything you guys are talking about, and more...and it isn't clouded by opinion or misunderstanding of things.
Pitchers 'may' say they pitch differently based on the score, but it doesn't manifest itself in their ERA, as in the case of Jack Morris or Pettite, or whomever.
Yes, a walk with zero outs is more valuable than a walk with two outs. THat was said a while ago and is common sense. Same for a single with zero outs compared to two outs. Yes, Win Probability accounts for that, as that is the entire point of that measurement. It accounts for all of that.
The whole story about Gibson and Davis doesn't really matter on the thought process, the result is what mattered....and it is ironic that Davis drew a walk, and you are using that example in a thread where people don't understand the value of a walk
The answer is "it depends". Nobody - nobody who wasn't cheating anyway - plays as well after 35 or so as they played before that age. Never happened, probably never will. But not being as good as you once were is not the same thing as "hanging on for stats", depending on how good you were in the first place. A few quick examples:
Carl Yastrzemski had an OPS+ of 139 through age 34, 116 from 35-39, and 108 at 40+. At no point was he merely "hanging on" because he remained a productive player, and a benefit to his team, right up to retirement. Longevity in his case was a good thing.
Ichitro had an OPS+ of 117 through age 36 (I shifted a little since he started so late), 87 through age 40, and 77 after that. He has been "hanging on for stats" for the past seven years, producing nothing that a player called up from the minors couldn't produce (at a fraction of the salary), and he has been hurting his teams by hanging on. Longevity in his case was a bad thing.
I am more than willing to cheer a truly great player who hangs on for one year too many, because you don't know if it's one year too many until you play that year. Willie Mays is a perfect example. He had on OPS+ of 131 at age 41 in his penultimate season, then crashed to 81 the next year. And then he retired. That's not hanging on, that's playing until you have no more to give. It's when players reach that point and keep coming back, year after year, that grinds my gears. When Mays ends a 21 year career on a bad note, you just remember the 20 years of greatness. At this point Ichiro has been bad almost as long as he was good, and that's now how I'll remember him.
Tell ya this much a great Skin/Dallas thread with their input is nothing short of spectacular, second only to these guys locking up in a heated baseball debate