Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

[snepp]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

"Baseball statistics are like a girl in a bikini. They show a lot, but not everything."

-Toby Harrah

"Some baseball statistics are like a girl in a sweater four sizes too big. They show absolutely nothing, while hiding the truth."

-snepp

[DrJones]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

I do not agree, you never want to strike out, ever. A waste of an at bat. I used to hate walking but I'll gladly take a walk over a strikeout any day. Striking out over 200 times in a season is totally unacceptable to me, even with good power numbers.

So what do you do if you're the D-Backs' hitting coach (or the Phillies with Howard)? Tell him that despite hitting for average, power, and taking a significant number of walks, 200 K's in a season is unacceptable and that he's got to change his approach? Unless you're supremely confident that Reynolds can cut back on the K's while maintaining a high AVG, SLG, and OBP, I'd leave him be. Not everybody can be Albert Pujols.

[DrJones]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

And besides, the most insignificant/overrated stat is relief pitcher holds.

Insignificant? Absolutely. Overrated? No, since I can't think of a single commentator/writer/fan who gives a crap about holds.

[snepp]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

Not everybody can be Albert Pujols.

Bingo. Guys like Pujols an enormous exception.

Everybody can be Yuniesky Betancourt though, swing early and swing often with no regard for contact quality. He never strikes out, hooray! Guys like him will hit the most pathetic groundballs with 2 strikes, utterly worthless. You may as well take a quality cut and go down swinging if that's all you're going to do.

[snepp]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

Insignificant? Absolutely. Overrated? No, since I can't think of a single commentator/writer/fan who gives a crap about holds.

The Twins FSN broadcasts tried to push this "newfangled holds statistic" on the viewers for a while. All I could do was laugh every time they put the holds leaderboard graphic up. I don't know if they do it anymore, I stopped watching the pre-game stuff when I realized my baseball knowledge was decreasing because of it.

[Coug00]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

"Some baseball statistics are like a girl in a sweater four sizes too big. They show absolutely nothing, while hiding the truth."

-snepp

[Hammerhunker]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

This has turned into a pretty good discussion.

I feel a little stung by YankeePride mentioning I didn't know about baseball-reference, it is on my tool bar. I knew there probably was a stat that would show it, I just worded it poorly.

I did think later of the only time a strikeout is significant, as Yogi said, "when you think you're going to hit into a double-play."

One significant stat that I can't believe that the media or commentators don't use more religiously is OBP. Even the mileage that stat got from Moneyball.

[JEM]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

Quality Starts.

[Speedy]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

Quality Starts.

It wouldn't be if it was defined better - 6 IPs & 3 ERs is not a quality start IMO, regardless of the run support he's given.

[ryanm1058123]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

I agree, Pitchers W-L (sick and tired of people trying to tell me Greinke isn't the CY Young cause of his W-L) and strikeouts (sick and tired of people trying to tell me that a-rod isn't as great of a hitter beause he strikes out a lot

[TheLetterZ]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

They suck as evaluation tools, often pointing to horribly inaccurate conclusions while providing absolutely no context. The problem isn't with what they are, or what they measure, it's how they get used.

I can't count how many times I've had to hear about how good Jason Tyner was because of his batting average, or how much better Justin Morneau is than Joe Mauer because of his RBI totals.

Right, the stats mentioned in this thread are the ones people use most frequently to make judgments on skills or values that the stats don't actually measure.

When you look at RBIs and say, "Wow, Ryan Howard sure has driven in a lot of runs this year!" that's fine. When you look at RBIs and say, "Wow, Ryan Howard is a better player than Albert Pujols,' you're misusing a stat.

It's the same as the people who judge fielding ability solely by errors or fielding percentage. Are they great stats? Not really, they can be quite subjective sometimes. They're probably decent at evaluating what they're intended to measure: how often a player mishandles a ball, resulting in a baserunner. But people get caught in the trap of using those stats as an all-encompassing defensive measure, which they're not.

[Hammerhunker]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

Quality Starts.

Who determined that 6 innings pitched and 3 runs or less is the definitive official quality start? For instance Friday night. Aaron Cook of the Rockies coming off the DL, throws 5 innings of shutout ball. He exited the 5th with a 1-0 lead against Chris Carpenter and the Cardinals, a team that was 1 win away from clinching their division. Now, in my book, that is a quality start.

I think any starting pitcher that has gone at least 5 that has their team in a position to win the game, ie, game tied or ahead, should be considered having a quality start.

Love seeing comments from all the Official Baseball Rocket Scientists members. If we all just had beers in front of us, bellied up to bar watching a ballgame, this would be perfect.

[TheLetterZ]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

Love seeing comments from all the Official Baseball Rocket Scientists members. If we all just had beers in front of us, bellied up to bar watching a ballgame, this would be perfect.

Are there other forums out there for deranged lunatics like us? Sometimes it's nice to get away from the batting average crowd.

[Misfit]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

Strikeouts only suck because there is little chance a hitter can reach base via a strikeout. Typically, the hitters who reach base the most are the ones who put the ball in play, but everything is relative to the hitter. With pitchers, we have seen over the years it's really hard to limit opposing hitters to a sub .300 average on balls in play, with hitters there is really no standard. Some guys excel when putting the ball in play consistently, some do not. The often maligned (and justifiably so) Yuniesky Betancourt is a hitter who puts the ball in play, but does not consistently reach base via a hit. In his case, the fact that he doesn't accumulate high strikeout totals can be summed up by Mark Reynolds, "so what?" Reynolds is the obvious extreme end of a guy who can strike out about a third of the time and still be more valuable than a Betancourt. Reynolds has now had back to back years with over 200 K's and low batting average, but a high OBP and high SLG. I'm not going to even ask what player most (sane) managers would rather have. A guy like Adam Dunn has shown that such numbers can be sutainable so there's no reason to think Reynolds will all of a sudden be useless next year. Its possible such an approach will be hard to maintain into his mid to late 30's but Jim Thome, Frank Thomas, and the like have been able to do it so who knows? The only thing I know is that I will happily take the hitter with 40 homeruns who reaches base 38% of the time over the singles hitter who rarely strikes out and reaches base 30% of the time.

A 5 inning start, no matter what the outcome, is not a quality start in my book. Scrub starters are making 8 to 10 million these days and if they can only eat up 56% of the innings in a typical game that's not a job well done. If the bullpen has to be relied on that heavily a team is going to have a hard time maintaining any kind of success. The only time when 5 innings of a shut out ball might be considered "quality" is when expectations are low (guy coming off the DL, first Major League start by a rookie, Paul Byrd, etc.) and the team is happy to get anything. If a team's ace goes out and only makes it through five or six innings, that's not considered quality. Six innings and 3 earned runs isn't even very good, that's a 4.50 ERA. How many fans are happy to see their favorite team sign a guy with a 4.50 career ERA? Not many, I would guess.

[Hammerhunker]

Re: Most Insignificat/Overrated stat in baseball

Are there other forums out there for deranged lunatics like us? Sometimes it's nice to get away from the batting average crowd.

When I noticed all of the posters with the Offical OS Baseball Rocket Scientist Association moniker, I had this funny image of this portal from the bowels of OS creaking open and these stat geek creatures emmerging, free to discuss baseball stats without judgement If there is a such a place for deep appreciators of statistics to discuss without judgement, I hope I will be allowed in.

Strikeouts only suck because there is little chance a hitter can reach base via a strikeout. Typically, the hitters who reach base the most are the ones who put the ball in play, but everything is relative to the hitter. With pitchers, we have seen over the years it's really hard to limit opposing hitters to a sub .300 average on balls in play, with hitters there is really no standard. Some guys excel when putting the ball in play consistently, some do not. The often maligned (and justifiably so) Yuniesky Betancourt is a hitter who puts the ball in play, but does not consistently reach base via a hit. In his case, the fact that he doesn't accumulate high strikeout totals can be summed up by Mark Reynolds, "so what?" Reynolds is the obvious extreme end of a guy who can strike out about a third of the time and still be more valuable than a Betancourt. Reynolds has now had back to back years with over 200 K's and low batting average, but a high OBP and high SLG. I'm not going to even ask what player most (sane) managers would rather have. A guy like Adam Dunn has shown that such numbers can be sutainable so there's no reason to think Reynolds will all of a sudden be useless next year. Its possible such an approach will be hard to maintain into his mid to late 30's but Jim Thome, Frank Thomas, and the like have been able to do it so who knows? The only thing I know is that I will happily take the hitter with 40 homeruns who reaches base 38% of the time over the singles hitter who rarely strikes out and reaches base 30% of the time.

A 5 inning start, no matter what the outcome, is not a quality start in my book. Scrub starters are making 8 to 10 million these days and if they can only eat up 56% of the innings in a typical game that's not a job well done. If the bullpen has to be relied on that heavily a team is going to have a hard time maintaining any kind of success. The only time when 5 innings of a shut out ball might be considered "quality" is when expectations are low (guy coming off the DL, first Major League start by a rookie, Paul Byrd, etc.) and the team is happy to get anything. If a team's ace goes out and only makes it through five or six innings, that's not considered quality. Six innings and 3 earned runs isn't even very good, that's a 4.50 ERA. How many fans are happy to see their favorite team sign a guy with a 4.50 career ERA? Not many, I would guess.

I totally respect your opinion and admired your well thought out response...but I have to counter a couple of points:

1. Abstractly thinking, Mark Reynolds is effective with his current approach, but how much more effective would he be if he were to cut his strikeout totals by say, a third, as I pointed out in my original post? Now his approach at the plate is directly linked to his results. If he were to be that hitter that shortens up with 2 strikes and tries to put the ball in play, he most likely wouldn't get the results he does, he wouldn't be Mark Reynolds. With two strikes, he is still looking for his pitch, and looking to square it up and drive it hard somewhere. Is there a way for him to keep his current approach and still cut down on the k's? I don't know. I hope he doesn't figure it out, personally :wink:
2. I see your point that a 5 inning performance is not quality because of the tax that pitcher will put on the bullpen, but in the case of Aaron Cook, that was quality, considering the circumstances. The quality start does not include "circumstance." The quality is this static number and if not met, is not considered. I personally think some 5 inning performances could be considered quality. Not all, but some, depending on the circumstance.