Josh Hamilton will sign with phillies!!! (he gone!)

[The A Team]

And here's what I meant. If a player hits under .220, he's probably not a good hitter. If he hits over .330, he probably is a good hitter.

You can still find the occasional counter example, for instance Adam Dunn is generally considered a good hitter and can sometimes find himself on the wrong side of a .220 average.

[Synyster89]

I wouldn't call a 4 year deal a mega deal.

I said IN 4 years, meaning starting in four years. That doesn mean just a four year deal. Please read carefully

[Synyster89]

And here's what I meant. If a player hits under .220, he's probably not a good hitter. If he hits over .330, he probably is a good hitter.

You can still find the occasional counter example, for instance Adam Dunn is generally considered a good hitter and can sometimes find himself on the wrong side of a .220 average.

Dont even bother ATeam...the common folk will never understand advanced statistics...BA IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS...oh and RBIs too!!!

[TheIlladelph16]

Use Bing and take a look at the 2010 averages and you will see extremes. No need to get into geek moneyball stats when the discrepency in basic production is so huge.

Geek moneyball stats are a more accurate tool to determine how good a player is and how much they contribute. RBI's for instance are essentially useless when measuring a player as it is a completely dependent stat. Now they are not the end all be all, but they are far less flawed then looking at a players AVG, RBIs, etc.

EDIT: There's a thread in the main MLB forum tackling this very issue if your interested in learning more about advanced stats and how they are used.

[Synyster89]

Use Bing and take a look at the 2010 averages and you will see extremes. No need to get into geek moneyball stats when the discrepency in basic production is so huge.

...enough said

[TheIlladelph16]

Why on earth would I use Bing?

You made me choke and spit out my coffee this morning A-Team. Thank you so much for this laugh hahah

[The A Team]

Dont even bother ATeam...the common folk will never understand advanced statistics...BA IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS...oh and RBIs too!!!

This isn't advanced statistics though. You wouldn't use a screwdriver to hammer nails, so why would you use BA to assess player value.

Technically you CAN do both. But it's a bad process and will lead to many mistakes. Mashed fingers, broken tools, and piss poor evaluations.

[The A Team]

Let's define "Basic Production"

That can be summarized as some combination of outs made and total bases.

Does anybody disagree that these are the basic units of offensive production? I'll give some time for dissent before we move to step two.

[Synyster89]

This isn't advanced statistics though. You wouldn't use a screwdriver to hammer nails, so why would you use BA to assess player value.

Technically you CAN do both. But it's a bad process and will lead to many mistakes. Mashed fingers, broken tools, and piss poor evaluations.

hahaha A-Team you really couldnt grasp the sarcasm??? I even put a winky face

[Synyster89]

Let's define "Basic Production"

That can be summarized as some combination of outs made and total bases.

Does anybody disagree that these are the basic units of offensive production? I'll give some time for dissent before we move to step two.

That was the point I was making
Thats why I bolded "basic production" in his statement because I was pointing out that basic production means little to nothing in analyzing player value or skill set

[The A Team]

I got the sarcasm, but the statement was also painfully accurate.

Bear with me on this. Basic production actually means something very specific in regards to hitting. I'll give people a little more time to dispute that basic production is about outs and total bases.

[Synyster89]

I got the sarcasm, but the statement was also painfully true.

Bear with me on this. Basic production actually means something very specific in regards to hitting. I'll give people a little more time to dispute that basic production is about outs and total bases.

Just want to make sure that its clear that I am agreeing with you becuase it seems like your treating me like Im disputing what your saying haha. Its a well known fact, or atleast it should be, that BA shows very little in terms of evaluation.

[The A Team]

Ok nobody's dissented so far so I'm going to take this the next step.

We agree that outs and total bases are the basic units to evaluate a hitter's ability. Let's start with outs.

A raw out total doesn't tell us much, we need to make it a ratio of outs to total plate appearances, an Out Percentage (OP). Because that is a negative stat, it's better if we do 1-OP to change it to the number of times a player does NOT make an out. I'm sure you recognize that is basically OBP (some non-outs don't show up in OBP like catcher's interference or reaching on error or a non-out, fielder's choice).

The other item was total bases and I'm sure you see where I'm going. We can go very basic and just take total bases as a percentage of plate appearances. That's not actually the same as slugging percentage (that uses at bats rather than plate appearances), but the principle is the same.

So if you agree that the basics of hitter evaluation is about outs and total bases, then you're saying that OBP and something like SLG are the stats you want to use. As you get fancier, you can use a stat like wOBA which combines the two concepts into a more powerful stat.

[Liney3506]

A Team, you make my man parts tingle when you start talking all nerdy like that.

[crankyrayhanky]

Why on earth would I use Bing?