WOBA!

GET IT

Resolved: 3 years ago

http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question...=1006043020063

How is Pujols better than a guy who automatically produces 162 runs for your team over a season?

Pujols is not even on pace for that this year in his best season ever.

LOL @ other answers.

It's completely unfair to assume a SLG% of 0 for somebody who walks every time. It's 0/0 in the formula, which is undefined. Why do you think it should be 0?

Making it zero doesn't make sense given that a guy that got an infield hit every AB and never moved the runners up except on forces, exactly what a walk does, would have a SLG% of 1. I don't think 1 would be a reasonable assumption either since a batter getting a variety of singles every time up would advance baserunners more than heads-up whiffle ball rules would allow.

I proposed changing it so that a walk was worth some percentage of a hit and the denominator was AB + BB instead. Using any percentage .5 or higher, a guy walking would obliterate Bonds's best year. Depending on the percentage used, the walk specialist would have a higher adjusted slugging, which makes sense since Barry getting out almost half the time really dragged down the average bases per plate appearance.

Here's another way to see this. Let's separate Barry's plate appearances into his at bats and BBs, conveniently ignoring the plate appearances that were neither. Obviously when he was walked he got 1 base, so his average number of bases is 1. On the other hand, the times he wasn't walked his slugging percentage, which is the average bases per at bat, was "only" .863 his best season. So he got more average bases when he was walked than when he wasn't. In that sense you could say he had more power on his walks than when he was pitched to, but again that's questionable as moving runners is part of the benefit of hitting for power. Even making a reasonable adjustment for that, he couldn't have much worse power, and probably better, when he walked than when he didn't and he got on base three times as often when he was walked.

Even in Bonds's best seasons, Giants' fans should have been happy to see the other manager put four fingers up.

It doesn't because OPS is undefined for this hypothetical.

why isn't a walk counted the same as a single for slugging, and i don't mean officially by MLB who cares about that... i mean in advanced analysis?

(i'm no expert, just a question)

Walks are inferior to singles. But they aren't counted since they aren't hits.

Because he doesn't get on base 100% of the time?

And having a guy who never gets out or having the best player in baseball is also a huge edge.

Let's say you have someone who can steal 2nd or 3rd 100% of the time (but never home obviously).

Any idea what his OBP would need to be to be better than the 100% walk guy?

What rockhead is disputing a ~.240, 162 HR, 162 R, ~240 RBI, ~0.800 Slug stat line!?!?! Get smarter friends (or better yet, make more bets against them).

Edit: And for those computing what the OPS is for this player, just stop. OPS is only useful in that it helps predict how good a player is in manufacturing runs. The HR every 1st at bat guy will generate a ~240 runs over the season. So it doesn't really matter what his OPS is since you know the results (e.g., two doubles over a game don't always produce a run despite a higher OPS than a single HR, but a HR every first time up after 2 leadoff batters is ~1.5 runs per game guaranteed). (1.5 R since two leadoff hitters at ~.300 will have at least one reach base half the time.) Anyone who would take Pujols over a guy who gives the starting pitcher a 1-3 run advantage every single 1st inning is not good at baseball hypotheticals.

karak didnt say vs pujols who gets walked 100% he said just Pujols

Pujols doesn't get on base 100% of the time either

He would accumulate about 680 total non-batted bases with zero outs.

I think that's better than 360 batted total bases + 90 BB = 450 "total" bases, with 400 accompanying outs.

at what point does the best Bonds/Ruth seasons start beating the walk nearly ever time guy

.90/.00
.80/.00

my guess is somewhere in the low 80's

I think the 1HR guy > AP and I don't think it's too close. Two things everyone is missing are: 1) to maximize his value, you'd bat him 8th or 9th and construct the rest of the lineup from there and 2) run-scoring environment is not even across games and he hits better in low run scoring environments (consider what it means for him to have 5 PAs batting ninth). This is huge given obvious assumptions that AP hits worse in low run scoring environments and runs are more valuable in low run scoring environments than in high run scoring environments (the latter isn't necessarily true, but probably so for most teams).

wOBA is just linear weights put in a form that looks like OBA so people have a basis on what is good, right?

Anyway, pretty sure peak Bonds is a lot more valuable than .200/.200/.800 HR/K guy. The wOBA works out to like .390 for HR guy whereas Bonds was in the .500-.530 range during his inhuman years.

/edit obv. talking about in current MLB run scoring environment or whatever the sample years Tango used to figure out his linear weights.

/edit2 Pujols wins the wOBA comparison too, .430 career and .470 this season.

The 1HR guy is close to .250/.250/.1000, btw, assuming you bat him 8th (NL) or 9th (AL). I think that's close to Pujols this season based on LW/wOBA. Pujols has an edge in playing time, but the 1HR guy has a gigantic edge in terms of run scoring context (which reverses for extra-inning games, which I didn't previously consider, but probably doesn't change the answer too much).

A lefty and a righty, you know, to force a pitching change.

idk, i read the page 2 article, it sounded pretty interesting.

andy roddick with a frying pan ainec, by the way

MicroBob,

The book is good. What did you want the author to do, find 200 midgets and 40 pitchers in the big leagues who wanted to volunteer their time to conduct a real scientific study? GTFO.

at first i figured it was pujols, but it's kinda hard to ignore 162 R, 162 HR and approx. 240 RBI, isn't it? the rest of his numbers don't matter that much, even if you give him 5 AB's in every game, i've got to think.

I haven't read the book and would be interested to do so. But I think not calling (bugging) a bunch of GM's with your awesome findings about this obviously faulty experiment involving a washed-up 45 year old former pitcher might be a good start.

And you don't even need to set up the 'real' scientific study with midgets. You can go see 13-14 years olds playing with 60'6" mounds and inevitably there will be a couple really short dudes and even at that level they don't walk every time.

not to mention he will get on base an additional few times a year on wild pitch/passed ball strikeouts!

But rule 7(b) of this hypothetical says:

"If player manages to advance to first base safely after a 3rd-strike wild pitch or passed ball, he will take his lead off at 7'4", and will place both hands on bended knees, in an effort to appear non-interested in advancing to 2nd base on the following pitch. However, if pitcher throws pick-off attempt to first base, said runner trips and falls on face 100% of the time. (See rule 14(d)(2)(a)(ii) for further help."

The pisser is that rule 14(d)(2)(a)(ii) states: "33% of the time runner falls on face, he will be injured for 6 weeks."

Now how valuable is he?