|
So someone on a different forum is trying to say that BABIP is a completely useless stat because you can just look at the guy's batting average to determine the same thing (compared to previous years). Would you agree with this and if not, why not?
|
| # ? May 18, 2013 15:15 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2013 17:30 |
|
|
TrixR4kids posted:So someone on a different forum is trying to say that BABIP is a completely useless stat because you can just look at the guy's batting average to determine the same thing (compared to previous years). Would you agree with this and if not, why not? Batting average lowers for strikeouts. Players who are slumping at the plate and whiffing a lot are going to see their BA go down. More importantly, players who are facing an elite pitcher are probably going to see their BA go down. You can't exactly declare a player sucks because he strikes out when Darvish is dealing, that's kind of what he does to everyone. BABIP erases strikeouts (where the hitter had no chance to put the ball into the field of play) and home runs (where the defense never had a chance to field it) and only changes when somebody actually manages to hit the ball. When the player does hit the ball and starts dashing to first, what's the likelihood that they're actually going to make it there? Slow guys hitting weak grounders who can't beat out the throw are going to have a lower BABIP. Of course, a player's BABIP can go through a slump if infielders make superman vertical jumps to catch his line drives and outfielders somehow always seem to be in the right place. This is why some people refer to it as a 'luck' stat, though that's not always correct either. However, when a hitter hits it hard across the park, and the outfielder makes an insane dash and sliding dive of doom and just manages to catch it in a play that'll make SportsCenter highlight reels, you'll see a lot of "oh goddamnit BABIP" style commentary online. While I've never paid attention to xBABIP, SporkOfTruth's post above applies, the talent pool is too varied for there to be one true median for all players. EDIT: Likewise, for a pitcher who has been seeing a lot of baserunners in this game, if the strikeout and walk rates are normal but BABIP against is very high, it means either incredible contact or (more likely) that the seven guys behind him fielding the balls aren't doing a very good job. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at May 18, 2013 around 16:08 |
| # ? May 18, 2013 16:01 |
|
|
BABIP is not more useful than AVG for evaluating whether a player is good or not based on one metric alone. But the whole point of BABIP is to provide more context for a player's other stats.
|
| # ? May 18, 2013 16:06 |
|
|
See I get that BABIP takes out K's and HR's for obvious reasons and measures percentage of balls that don't become outs that are actually put in play. I personally think it's useful when you see a player has an abnormally high BABIP and you wonder if some of his other stats are a mirage or not. I obviously don't think it's completely useless and I do agree that it provides context. Here are some quotes from the guy in question.quote:BABIP is a completely useless offensive stat. Why is it a completely useless offensive stat? Follow along now. quote:Carlos Gomez is hitting .120 points higher than what his career average is. I don't need a BABIP to tell me that what he's doing is in all likelihood unsustainable. It does nothing but state the obvious. See to me, none of his arguments really make a good case as for why the stat is useless for hitters. But I guess I have a tough time explaining that. I try to use examples and what not but then he basically juts repeats those talking points above.
|
| # ? May 18, 2013 16:16 |
|
|
I'm going to leave that to the others, as predictive stats are a weird sort, and I don't know what "on pace to strike out" would be. But it doesn't seem to me to be a very fair or very analytical (players who play in divisions with a bunch of elite pitchers are on pace to strike out more than players who don't. So?) To be honest, it's the kind of comment I associate with old fashioned scouting reports. Like that Barry Bonds report in Diamond Mines that said "will strike out 100 times" (even though he only ever did his first season and had not ever done so again).
|
| # ? May 18, 2013 16:24 |
|
|
The one caveat to all of this is that you can't handwave a Mauer or a Joey Votto away as a BABIP mirage like you would, say, Lorenzo Cain or Starling Marte. Even if Mauer or Votto's BABIP comes down (and both of those guys have much higher career BABIPs than you'd expect), they've consistently shown a broad base of offensive skills. With a Cain or a Marte, these are guys who weren't expected to do a whole lot offensively and would be kind of dreadful if you let the average out of the balloon.
|
| # ? May 18, 2013 16:31 |
|
|
Agreed, the context it provides there is useful imo. He'll probably just come back and say "well their batting average is much higher than previous years therefore I don't need BABIP and therefore BABIP is useless". I would think BABIP would be useful here simply because those guys haven't been in the league that long and there just isn't as much data on them as there is Votto or Mauer.
|
| # ? May 18, 2013 16:43 |
|
|
Saying that BABIP is meaningless because you can just look at a player's batting average, home run rate, and K rate is exactly the same as saying that batting average is meaningless because you can just look at a player's hits and at-bats. People make new statistics that are "redundant" with old ones because they present the information in a different way or isolate a particular aspect of performance.
|
| # ? May 18, 2013 19:36 |
|
|
Does anyone currently do any baseball coaching specifically hitting coaching? I'm helping some friends who are otherwise good athletes work on their baseball swing so they can get a little better at hitting for a wiffleball team (I know...). I'm trying to work with them on modern hitting without overwhelming them (these are people who never played organized ball or didn't go much beyond t-ball). I have a decent feel for rotational (current major league style) hitting since it was becoming very popular at the end of my high school years but I'm just trying to give them a few good pointers on how to start their swing a little better and how to meet and follow-through the ball better. It seems like it's really hard for outsiders to learn how weight transfer and hip rotation should work in a swing. I was wondering if anybody does this regularly and can give me a little help. I realize hitting is something that is very personal and takes a lot of practice to work on but I feel like these are people who would enjoy it a lot more if I can help them work on a few basic concepts. I'm not trying to teach them "THIS IS HOW YOU DO ROTATIONAL HITTING" but just apply the best concepts to help them get more out of swinging the bat. I noticed a lot of current hitting coaches are against using terms you'd hear in the late 80's/early 90's (hands straight to the ball, squish the bug, hit on top of the ball, etc.) so I just want to make sure I'm not crossing up my terminology.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 19:17 |
|
|
A Wiffle ball swing is pretty different from a baseball swing because a wiffle ball bat weighs like 8 oz
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 20:04 |
|
|
Also unlike baseball, a wiffle ball pitch can ACTUALLY rise on it's trajectory to the plate.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 20:09 |
|
|
Badfinger posted:Also unlike baseball, a wiffle ball pitch can ACTUALLY rise on it's trajectory to the plate. And of course no two wiffle ball pitches are alike because the sport encourages doctoring balls and as a result it's all basically knucklers Wiffle ball rules
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 20:22 |
|
|
Declan MacManus posted:And of course no two wiffle ball pitches are alike because the sport encourages doctoring balls and as a result it's all basically knucklers Finding a league that's less douchey than kickball and more accessible than competitive leagues has been awesome.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 20:30 |
|
|
Stress them using their top hand and starting with their hands farther back rather than starting at the hips, cocking back and then swinging. That's all I've got.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 20:34 |
|
|
Chief McHeath posted:Stress them using their top hand and starting with their hands farther back rather than starting at the hips, cocking back and then swinging. That's all I've got. I've considered advising them "Just swing hard because hitting dingers is the only thing worth doing".
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 20:47 |
|
|
See ball hit ball
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 20:48 |
|
|
Harlock posted:See ball hit ball Swing and miss on crazy-assed wiffle eephus that has 6 feet of break.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 21:50 |
|
|
Give them tape of Jeff Francouer At-Bats.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:17 |
|
|
tadashi posted:I've considered advising them "Just swing hard because hitting dingers is the only thing worth doing". Teach them pitch differentiation by getting a good wiffle ball pitcher to throw them practice on a regular basis. Set up a batters box and strike zone and everything--using a baking pan helps because it makes a loud ping sound so you know when it's a strike. Split any batting practice into two parts. The first part, have them sit in the batters box (in their swing stance) and watch a 6-10 pitches. Second part, have them swing on their own prerogative for a 10-15 pitches. Any more will tire both the pitcher and batter out.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:32 |
|
|
Hope this wasnt covered multiple times but my dumb question involves IBB's. I always hear "First base is open so intentional walking is an option". Is there a rule that you can not IBB unless first base is open, or is it not wanting to unnecessarily put a(nother) guy in scoring position if you dont have to
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:33 |
|
|
the_american_dream posted:Hope this wasnt covered multiple times but my dumb question involves IBB's. I always hear "First base is open so intentional walking is an option". Is there a rule that you can not IBB unless first base is open, or is not wanting to unnecessarily but a(nother) guy in scoring position if you dont have to The commentators are just talking strategically when they say this. You can issue an IBB whenever you like, but it's generally not advisable if you're moving other runners up. Managers don't always follow this, though, and there have been rare instances where a manager has even issued an intentional walk with the bases loaded.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:35 |
|
|
<raising hand> Can I answer, can I answer?!!! Well, there's no rule in baseball that you can't intentionally walk anyone if first base is open, mainly because the MLB can't read minds. A lot of times you'll see a player being pitched to but he isn't being anything that he can possibly hit. Same thing. You don't normally want to walk a guy into scoring position although you could if the next batter is the pitcher and he's not a hitter. edit: dammit late!
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:37 |
|
|
You will occasionally hear the idea of first base being "open" taken to the absurd extreme of "it was a bad idea for that runner to steal second, because now the other team can just IBB our good hitter." (Or the reverse, "it's okay that they allowed a stolen base because...") e: This can be less absurd when it's framed around what a manager will actually do, rather than what he should do, e.g. "the manager should have given an IBB here, but he wouldn't have realized it if the runner didn't steal." That said, it's fairly rare for an intentional walk to be actually correct, so in some cases leaving first base open will actually help convince the opposing team to make a mistake. Mornacale fucked around with this message at May 20, 2013 around 22:41 |
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:38 |
|
|
If we look at the run expectancy tables the difference in an IBB from first to first and second versus from second to first and second is significantly worse. It's almost twice as bad of a move with two outs. code:
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:47 |
|
|
If there is a man on second but first is open, it also creates force plays at 3 bases rather than just at first. It's still a net negative move like 98% of the time to do, but you can derive a sliver of strategic value from it.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:50 |
|
|
Badfinger posted:If there is a man on second but first is open, it also creates force plays at 3 bases rather than just at first. It's still a net negative move like 98% of the time to do, but you can derive a sliver of strategic value from it. Yeah I meant to say if there are two outs and the pitcher is coming up to hit. Might as well get an out at any base.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:53 |
|
|
Lorini posted:Yeah I meant to say if there are two outs and the pitcher is coming up to hit. Might as well get an out at any base. Things that make an IBB a better strategy is how good the guy you are IBBing is, how bad the next batter is, how many outs there are, how likely your pitcher is to give up another walk. Basically the ideal IBB situation is Barry Bonds at bat with the pitcher on deck, runner on second in the bottom on the ninth, two outs. It's still a bad strategy far more often than it's used.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 22:55 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2013 17:30 |
|
|
One of our pitchers is hitting .250 which is better than probably half the hitters on the team (Dodgers). He still bats last though.
|
| # ? May 20, 2013 23:15 |
|
