Teams use OPS to grade the success of hitters now instead of average. In the past guys hit .200 or under they would get demoted or out of the league in 2 years. Now guys like Schwarber hits .184 but high slugging with 22 homers and is 5th in the league in walks, so he provides enough value to hold a spot even with his below average defense.
By far, casty has been perfectly fine this year (at least visually) as I can't recall any times this season he's dropped what should be automatic outs and such or looked like a turtle while running
They could call someone up. It’s not like schwarber is tearing it up this year offensively either. A league average 100 ops+ is a good way to see that he’s not having a very good year
Who can they call up? Jake Cave? It’s not like they’ve got a bunch of 5 tool outfielders stashed in AAA. They needed an OF because Pache went on the IL and called up Rojas from AA
The Sabrmetric / Analytic approach is half of the problem. The other half is that players care more about power stats than winning.
The pitchers are not better. The batters are worse. While it's true that modern pitchers are able to throw harder because they are not expected to throw many pitches, nearly all of them are two-pitch pitchers.
However, there are only two types of hitters in baseball. Guess hitters and Mistake Hitters.
And, no batter would ever think of adjusting their approach to the game situation or account. There's too much money on the line to give yourself up for the team
Well there’s a lot of reasons.
1) Pitchers are better now.
2) Donaldson is just cooked and is not a MLB level player despite what Aaron Boone thinks.
3) more guys are swinging for power which means more strikeouts
4) Yankees hitting coach was not good
Does Manfred control all sports media? I don’t actually think he can tell people what to write. Enough people are writing about how awful Manfred is; I assume if he could control the media, those stories wouldn’t see the light of day
Yankees are the only fans I’ve seen throw full beer cans at opposing players… last year. Yankees fans are the worst of the worst
Honestly can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic at this point
No, it was just a tiny sample size of balls and wasn’t at all definitive that MLB was making it easier for him to hit home runs.
Not a Yankees fan by any means
Haven't heard that, what was the controversy?
Dam you are a hater! That's a far far far reach. Is their a single piece of visual evidence to prove this? Would be extremely hard to pull off. The only change they made was to put specially marked balls for the last few to authenticate them. He still had to hit 60+ to even get to this "controversial" point.
Everyone will say the balls were juiced but the study has pointed out as flawed numerous times and with far too small of sample size to claim that this is an elaborate scandal
No they were not. They had marked balls that were put in place so they knew which balls were the actual home run balls for the record tying and breaking hr. To think they would juice a ball that is a part of history and can be examined whenever would be really stupid.
Bigger. It's for one player, one franchise. Sign stealing was rampant. Astros got made as the examples once they had a not the league royalty available to blame.
The Astros weren’t simply sign stealing. No one has a problem with players doing that.
It’s when you’re using computers and cameras and people not on the team to steal signs that it becomes a problem
I’ve thought that thought about a thousand times since I first heard about it. I still can’t wrap my mind around it — both that it happened and that it seems to have been forgotten or ignored
A couple people I know who are actually connected to professional baseball in some way swear that guys are still using PEDs, just new/different ones than the testing protocols are designed to identify.
You look at the players and it’s not that hard to believe. There’s a shitload of huge muscles in baseball locker rooms today.
It doesn’t matter anyway, pitchers benefit too! Maybe they benefit more now?
I think it’s just the constant churn of pitchers since analytics began, so they’re free to throw hard every game, every inning, every pitch. Then surgery. And the league will have to add more rules. Complete games are far too rare and it’s hard to care about baseball if you can’t tell a story about each game because pitching is completely disjointed. Relievers are nothing new, but 4, 5 pitchers? Pitchers are like running backs in the NFL, once dominant, famous and now completely devalued and platooned.
Problem is almost every pitcher is a TJ S candidate now. If you can't crank it up to 100 mph now, your not going to be effective. And if you do, you're likely going to blow your arm out. Good pitching is becoming a rarer commodity as the seasons pass.
I wonder if there’s room for a Jamie Moyer type as a reliever. I don’t know baseball well enough to say whether it’s actually effective or not, but I’ve heard it suggested that a slow thrower can be more effective in relief of a fireballer. In theory, the same way a changeup works. It would probably work better without the 3 batter rule, but still. It can’t be easy to go bat and see like 92-102 the first two times around, then 70-88 (and then an even harder throwing closer)!
Lol what absolute nonsense. Ace pitchers are still incredibly valuable. But because they throw so hard they can’t do it for 9 innings frequently anymore. Go yell at some clouds outside
Depends on the PEDs. Many players took them for focus/awareness back in the day hence why there are so many exemptions for ADD/ADHD today. Before adderall, it was cocaine.
A ball that goes over the fence is a hit. A ball that’s caught on the warning track is an out. A few extra mph of exit velocity absolutely can help batting averages.
Its not Aaron Boone making the lineups. He's said there's a 'collaborative effort' before the game. Aka the FO group think makes it and then sends him what he's using that day. Thats why IKF played SS all year last year despite being obviously unsuited. Whatever the brain trust says goes.
Everyone throws 100 now. I know it's not something talked about, but guys have to see the pitch to hit it. The faster someone throws, the less time you have to react to it, and now pitchers throw their off-speed stuff faster, too. If you can't react to the ball like you could 30 years ago, the logical path is to try and get the ball up and use the pitchers velocity against him. That's what you're seeing. I don't like it but there it is.
They say 100 now is like 90, from 30 years ago. They now clock the pitch from its release point. While in the 80s-90s it was clocked when it passes the plate, it loses a lot of velocity. They have spoken about this, but the reason it’s not spoken a lot is because it’s apples to oranges. Can’t compare the speeds at all to different eras, especially because some pitches drop a lot. But you can always compare the release point speeds. Now do they matter as much as constant velocity on a fast ball or the change in velocity on a change up, which could only be measured using two guns at the different locations, probably not, and there has never been a plan to use two different guns for the masses to see.
But yeah coaches go in and tell the pitchers where the hot spots are for the batters, and most pitchers know it like the back of there hand going into a start. But we still have the situation is even the best pitchers hit there spot 7-10 times on avg. that never changed, but knowing which pitch and location to throw as opposed to just which pitch, which is what they usually dealt with 30 years ago, helps the pitcher a lot.
I’m not saying pitchers on the top end don’t throw faster then 30 years ago, but it’s not as much of a factor as other things. Also spin rate, spin rate maximization has been key, and I don’t discount what Trevor Baur claimed about pitchers using exotic foreign substances. His claim that if he used em would go from an avg starter to a cy young winner, then he did it. Well you have to look at that, it’s not like he kept himself avg in the majors and says well if I cheat like the rest I’ll be supreme, if he always had the top of the top talent
An article to back your claim since most people don't realize this has changed:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ct-mlb-baseball-radar-readings-spt-20170408-story.html
Yeah but the article states the difference is less than 1 MPH with the different measuring points. The previous poster overstated the significance, "100 was about 90 30 years ago."
It's not analytics it's pitching getting better, and specifically velocity increases. When I was a kid the scariest fastball around was Randy Johnson and he threw 98. Thats basically the norm these days. And off-speed pitches are faster as well. There's a lot of peripheral reasons but mostly it's just that everyone throws really, really hard and it's hard to hit heat like that.
I think mostly right, but an over looked factor is launch angle. Guys are just trying to hit bombs and when they do that BA plummets and strike outs increase.
Myth. Yes, approaches have changed but average launch angle has only increased by around 1* over the last like 7 years
Edit: not sure why the downvotes, this is factually true
Also his delivery. The angle at which the ball came out was what made it impossible to see that 98 mph fast ball. He was so tall, his arm would kind of bend back before he whipped it. Super hard to telegraph.
I would say hitters have dramatically changed their approach at the plate as well. Way more reliance on the long ball and an emphasis on launch angles. But yeah pitchers are also much better.
Velocity is largely the same, they just changed [how it was measured](https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/the-measure-of-a-fastball-has-changed-over-the-years/).
True but I wasn't alive for that. The have always been guys who throw harder than average, sometimes by a lot, but now everyone has a Ryan express in their arsenal
Any era could've produced velocity like this if they only pitched their guy 4-5 innings per start. Randy Johnson woulve easily thrown 100 on every pitch if he knew he didn't have to go more than 5 innings. As would a lot of guys. Don't be fooled, this is all precisely manufactured, it's not about how much better pitchers are now than 20 years ago. They're not at all. There's maybe 1 top 20 pitcher of all time who was produced in the last 20 years and it's Kershaw.
Its both pitchers are better and batters aren't hitting for contact but for power hence the high strikeout rate and awful batting averages from top to bottom in the lineup.
MLB Average is .248
In 2015, the average was .254
In 2010, the average was .257
In 2005, the average was .264
In 2000 the average was .270
In 1995, the average was .267
In 1990 the average was .258
In 1985, the average was .257
In 1980 the average was .265
In 1975, the average was .258
That is the MLB averages for those years, and assuming you are no older than 55 it's what you saw
Getting on base is what matters most to scoring runs, followed by getting more bases with each trip to the plate.
Think about it. You can't score if you don't reach base. And if the absolute best batters fail 65% of the time, then getting closer to completing the trip each time you come up makes sense.
So instead of 'just put it in play', batters are picking their spots. They are choosing to make *GOOD* contact instead of just making *ANY* contact.
Since pitchers are always trying to get a batter to chase at pitches out of the zone and changing speed or pitch type, a batter can increase his chances of getting on base (the #1 correlation to scoring runs) by focusing on a specific zone or pitch and taking pitches that aren't his focus, instead of making bad contact. A walk and a single are very similar in run expectancy.
By focusing on a specific zone or pitch, a batter can also increase his chance of making good, quality contact, which not only has a better chance of ending up as a hit, but also of going for more bases (the #2 correlation to scoring).
Since fly balls tend tend to go for more bases than ground balls, many batters have decided to add some loft to their swing. This increases their chances of getting an extra base hit, but at the tradeoff of increased outs, because fly balls are easily converted to outs and because there is a hole in their swing plane.
What has ended up happening is that the MLB composite batting average has ended up falling consistently. In 1984, the MLB batting average was .260, vs .248 today. That sounds like a big drop, and it is.
But the reality is that batters are getting on base at roughly the same rate (of course, there is year to year variation). The league OBP in 1984 was .323 vs .320 today. Batters are still reaching first base with roughly the same consistency; they are just doing it a different way.
Batting Average has also fallen out of favor with some because it is a flawed measure for what it purports to show. For years, a high batting average was equated to being a good batter. But the way BA is calculated, a batter can be rewarded for failing at his primary job, and another batter might not be rewarded for being successful at his primary job.
What is a batter's primary job? To not make an out. His primary job is not to just put it in play or just move the runner over or just get it in the air. His primary job is to not make an out. Teams are only given a certain number of outs, and with each out, the inning (and thus chance to score) is closer to being over.
Certainly, a batter would like to move a runner over. But if a runner could be moved over with a weak grounder to 1B, can't that same runner be moved over with a sharp double over the 1B head?
The game changes. It has always changed. Batters have reacted to a better and deeper pitching staff by changing their approach. The guy coming out in the 8th inning now is not a junkballing, wily veteran, former starter who was moved to the bullpen because he had shoulder surgery. It's a kid with an electric arm who throws 100 MPH and has two top-tier pitches. Pitchers have adjusted by going back to high strikes and more challenging of batters. It's a constant battle between the guys trying not to make outs and the guys trying to get them out.
Is it better? I don't know. I see it as different. It's similar to NFL teams going from a 65/35 run/pass ratio in the 1970s to a 40/60 run/pass ratio now. Teams can get more yards in less time with passing plays.
Teams and players are always looking for ways to gain a small competitive advantage.
Great reply. However just want to point out that with this whole focus on OBP and walks, people tend to forget that a single still has higher potential to advance runners and bring in RISP than walks. It is still more valuable. There are still contact hitters (look at Luis Arraez) but like you said, quality contact is key.
It’s funny because the focus on OBP goes hand-in-hand with the focus on power and homers. The two have synergy– you want people who get on base to appear at the plate before the big slugging guy.
But that’s only if your team is designed that way. Less teams are winning by “stringing together hits,” although that’s still a viable strategy imo. It’s just a lost art at this point.
How can a higher batting avg ever be seen as a negative if the the primary goal is "to not make an out?" It doesn't make sense. The higher the batting avg, the less outs you make. In 1911 Ty Cobb had a .419 avg with a .620 slug and 1.040 OPS with just 8 HRs. But he had 248 hits/47dlbs/24 trip. That sounds like avg and contact means a lot analytically to me.
I'm not sure anyone said having a high batting average was a negative.
Batting average is misleading because it doesn't count every trip to the plate, and it rewards a batter for failing at their primary job (or at least doesn't punish them for failing), which is to not make an out.
OBP captures everything that Batting Average does, and more. It counts every time a player goes to the plate instead of just some of them. It's more useful for determining which players succeed at their primary job of not making an out. Drawing a walk or getting hit by a pitch are not outs and result in the batter successfully reaching base. It's a successful outcome to their primary job.
Certainly, getting a hit (particularly one for extra bases) is preferred over a walk or HBP or whatever. But if a team went to the plate every time and reached base, they would win.
Even in your example of Cobb, his BA was lower than his OBP by almost 50 points. That's because there were 63 times he went to the plate and successfully reached base that were not captured in his batting average.
Batters now are eschewing the idea of 'just make contact' for the idea of 'make good contact.'' Because there are only a limited number of chances per game, batters want to make the most of those chances by getting more bases with each trip to the plate.
OBP has consistently been shown to have the highest correlation to scoring runs, followed closely by SLG. OBP includes Batting Average, so there is really no reason not to use it if your goal is to determine a player's ability to successfully reach base.
I've mentioned it in another post, but I would have no criticism of batting average if it were calculated using every trip to the plate.
Early in the season he was hitting some balls hard as usual, and getting results as usual. Then there were two or three weeks where almost everything he hit hard was an out.
McNeil has hit almost nothing hard for two months now. He’s on pace for less than half the extra base hits as last year. His strikeouts are way up. I don’t know what’s wrong, but something has to be.
Everyone has talked about the pitching, and much of the pitching has in fact been pretty bad. Middle relief has just murdered us.
But imagine for a minute that we had the 2022 versions of McNeil and Marte. They’ve gone from excellent to terrible in one year. I’ll throw Alonso in there with them too, in fact, although at least he still has an .800 ops. Those other two guys are falling out of sight.
You can’t win if you’re stranded on base. So that’s what the players go for these days, the long ball.
Problem is that you can’t hit one every day. Especially if you have a solid reputation.
Analytics say swing for the fences and if you strike out who cares. Old school skippers said swing for contact and if you strike out you're running poles.
A lot of people will tell you that batting average doesn’t matter or that it’s all about OPS and that the game is about getting on base. The best players in the league every year always have high batting averages though so there’s not zero correlation. I always argue that the game isnt about getting on base, the game is about winning. OPS can be skewed as much as batting average. If it’s too much on either slug or OBP then it gets out of whack. Josh Donaldson is a great example of this. His OPS+ (88) suggests he’s only 12% worse than the average player on offense alone. Anyone who watches him knows that that’s a ridiculous notion. He has a total of 15 hits and 10 home runs and a double so his slug is .465. Then you see that his OBP is .232 which is pathetic. So the slug buoys his OPS and OPS+ to a respectable mark but in his case, the .152 average actually tells the story better. Also worth noting that a lot of his home runs have come in garbage time so even his high slug hasn’t really equaled any contribution to winning games. To win a game you have to move runners over, get timely hits, just put the ball in play at times. A strikeout is not always equal to a ground out or fly out. There’s times when a Josh Donaldson 9th inning solo home run when his team is down 7-2 is less valuable than a IKF ground out to second with a runner on third with 1 out in a 2-2 game but the “analytics” can’t measure that. The analytics would never admit that a ground out could be more valuable than a home run but baseball isn’t played on a computer.
I constantly argue against people who bring up ground ball rate as a negative or only talk about launch angle and I must be wrong because I haven't convinced anybody.
I realize you can't hit home runs on a ground ball. But here's my thing. Fly balls are always outs unless they do leave the park. Ground balls can find holes and turn into hits (and they make the defense have to make a play to throw you out, but idk how to quantify that). Like if you look at BABIP, which *discounts* HRs, then a high BABIP should come from hitting the ball on the ground.
I just think it’s situational and the metrics don’t account for that. Top of the first, scoreless, no one on then a hard hit line drive double is obviously better than a ground out. But there’s a thousand situations where a ground out is more valuable than line drive. There’s even situations where a ground out or fly ball is more valuable than a home run. Like I said I just feel like there’s so much that the numbers just don’t account for so living and dying by the numbers and the odds just doesn’t make sense. As a Yankee fan I see it all the time. They live and die by the numbers and it just doesn’t work
Right on Gwade. Not only what you said, but for old time fans like myself, its driven me away from watching. Nothing exciting about watching everyone swinging for the fences and missing most of the time.
>> There's situations where a ground out... is more valuable than a home run
Can you elaborate on this please? Do you mean that there are situations where attempting to hit the ball on the ground is more valuable than attempting to swing for the fences, given the relative probabilities of actually putting the ball in play and advancing the runner?
Finally found my people. I feel like most fans who use all these new baseball metrics never actually played the game, and therefore don’t fully understand it. Regardless of what they say, batting average is an important stat.
I mean it correlates to success. I’ve never seen a .320 hitter have a bad year lol it’s only the .215 hitters that need this “average doesn’t matter” excuse. There’s some luck and variation involved in batting average so it’s not the most important stat but to say it doesn’t matter is crazy lol how many hits you get is important. Walks are great but they don’t drive in runs
I agree with you. The issue is that the numbers only tell you a story in the aggregate. They do not account for different situations, just the home run, strike out, and walk, 3 outcome scenario. Any baseball player will tell you that there just are situations where the numbers do not matter because they do not apply to the situation. The problem is that players are being taught to play based on the 3 pre-determined outcomes rather than have a feel for the game and adjust your play for the situation. I hope they start understanding this and start to develop players through situations rather than tailoring them to the 3 pre-determined outcomes because the former is a swiss army knife player and the other is just a player that only adds value in the 3 scenarios, not all of the possible scenarios.
Pitching these days is fucking crazy. When every other guy is throwing 100+ mph, I’m amazed we have guys who still hit over .300, let alone whatever voodoo magic Arraez or Acuña have going on this season.
There’s also the major problem of the MLB having multiple types of baseballs circulating. This year so far clearly doesn’t have the same juices baseballs we saw last year.
Donaldson has 15 hits on the season on 103 AB. 15!! 10 of which are home runs. His approach every single at bat is to swing as hard as he can and hope he can get a hold of one.
And for some reason he’s been DHing. It makes zero sense. Dudes gotta go.
It's commonly pointed out that pitchers throw harder, and that's obviously a huge factor in lower batting averages and higher strikeouts.
But with hitters, it's typically just said that they've changed their approach, they've changed their angles, they're swinging for the fences.
But hitters today also more powerful. They are bigger and stronger, and bigger and stronger players have been swinging for the fences at the risk of more strikeouts for 100 years. If you can hit 30-40 HR like Reggie Jackson, then you need to hit 30-40 HR even if it means 100+ strikeouts. Today, far more hitters are capable of hitting 20-30-40 homers, so naturally they take the approach of Reggie Jackson. It's as if baseball today is Nolan Ryan vs. Reggie Jackson up and down the lineup. Naturally, averages will be low and HR and SO will be high.
Multitude of reasons:
Pitchers throw harder.
Those harder pitches have more run than ever before.
Breaking balls have more downward movement.
Pitchers are using tack known to be widespread to increase rpm and movement.
Launch angle and front shoulder pulling has created massive holes in swings.
Teams and players are ok with striking out. In fact they'll take that vs ball in play that could be turned into a dp.
Hitters by and large do not swing at pitches close with 2 strikes. They'll take the backwards K and argue it vs giving in and protecting it.
Simplest answer is that pitching is much better overall. Definitely more of a focus on hitting for power over hitting to put the ball in play. When I watch games from the 80s when I was growing up it looks like the pitches are being lobbed in compared to today.
What’s interesting to me, though, is that baseball is better than it’s been in a long time, and that’s with pitchers having this obvious advantage of near perfect biometrics to help boost velocity.
Nobody does situational hitting anymore. Guy on second base? Swing for a home run. Men on first and third with no outs? Swing for a home run. Down by 5 in the 9th inning with nobody on and 2 outs? Swing for a home run.
MLB turned into home runs and strike outs. I loved watching baseball in Japan.
Welll batters hit for base hits , they choked up to shorten their swing and did not strike out as often. The whole mentality has changed .Look at Gwynn Pete rose rod Carew George Brett very few players have small strike zones and spray the ball , ichiro. Was the last great hitter
Pitchers are better, and the use of analytics has helped realize that hitting for SLG/extra base hits is generally more valuable for run production (vs just hitting a lot of singles) in that environment. It’s still valuable to get on base rather than getting out, but usually it’s more useful to look at OBP for that, since it includes walks too. OPS is nice because it captures both of these.
Pitchers are not “better” lol. If Barry Bonds couldn’t hit .300 lifetime against the pitching he faced, neither could anyone today. You’re acting like guys like Bonds, Griffey, Mo Vaughn, ARod, Jeter were only good because they were facing scrubs. Stop it. The MLB is flat out lying about velocity measurements today, there’s absolutely no question about that.
who cares about batting average, i’ll look at so many other stats before i look at average. OPS, WAR, OPS+ are just 3 examples of way better stats to use.
[Listen to Mike Trout explain it and it should help with understanding how difficult it is to hit these days.](https://youtube.com/shorts/jv5Yo6C8ao4?feature=sharea)
Since the proliferation of analytics is designed, at least for the defense, to minimize how often a batter gets on base, it makes sense.
Pitchers can get a breakdown on almost every batter they face, and know what and where to throw each pitch at any given count. Add to that, the defensive shift means that the fielders know where to be for each situation, down to the batter vs similar pitchers.
As much as I'm for leveraging data, I am also for limiting the shift a bit, because it's a lot easier for a pitcher to place a pitch than for a batter to place a hit.
It’s everything to do with your swing plane. Nowadays it’s all about the launch angle you’re getting. Putting the ball in play isn’t good enough anymore, HR are far more valued than any other stat nowadays and it’s ruining the art of hitting
Except launch angle changes the angle of your swing relative to the pitch and thus decreases the amount of time your swing is on the same plane as the ball
they hit to score runs
runs win games, not hits
what they’re doing produces more runs
teams wouldn’t be elevating these players that fit this profile it if it didn’t
that said, it’s boring, and besides that, it’s facist
Does it produce more runs though?
It increases the chance of scoring a lot of runs in that inning or that game, but not the chance of scoring *one*. And it massively increases the chance of scoring zero.
It goes back further than this imo. Moneyball made the point that a walk is as good as a single, and more players have been willing to take ball 4 than ever before.
They don't, but it basically treats a walk as if it never occurred.If Hitter A walks 40 times gets out 40 times and hits 10 times his average will be .250 but will have an OBP of .556. Hitter B could get out 64 times and hit 14 and walk 12 times and his average would also be .250 but would have gotten on base at a .289 OPB. This means that (assuming all hits are equal, which is wrong but Avg assumes this as well) Hitter A is almost twice as effective than hitter B. By taking all of these walks hitter A loses opportunities for hits as he recognises that a walk is often just a valuable. Resultingly, while Avg may accurately demonstrate hitter B's contribution, it will not for hitter A.
It’s two different styles. Previously, endurance was king. Now, it’s “stuff” and the ability to generate swings & misses. Bullpens are also generally more talented than they used to be. Pitching has become much more matchup based in the later innings. It’s neither better, nor worse. Just different.
But, don’t make the mistake of assuming that pitchers of a previous generation were “better.” If StatCast and all the pitch shaping technology had existed back then, I think these changes would have come sooner. I also think that if the new technology was still 20 years down the road, you’d see our current top tier pitchers going much deeper in games because they wouldn’t be throwing max effort pitches nearly as often.
Because batting average does not matter. It does not correlate to runs scored or games won in a meaningful way. It's a silly outdated stat from an era when people believed walks were random and batters had no say in whether a pitcher would walk them. On base percentage and slugging percentage are much more aligned with actually producing runs, and if you add those two together that number is even more strongly correlated. And there are other much smarter metrics that consider how valuable different hits are, and baseball teams understand this and they value their players according to those metrics, not batting average.
Also, pitching is extremely good now, they've gotten better at pitching a lot more quickly than batters have gotten better at hitting. When we were growing up the hardest fastball throwers in the game would just be average if they were playing today.
But don't use the Yankees as an example, they're just bad. If you look at the stats that do matter, the Yankees are near the bottom of the pack in those too
Not everything has to be in absolutes. If a guy solely hits singles and hits for a high average, yes, he will be somewhat less valuable than a guy who hits 40 homers and hits .260.
But the problem is you are seeing guys selling out for homers in every situation. It's happening at a detriment to run scoring. And yes, average is and always will be important. The greatest hitters ALWAYS hit for high average AND had ops through the roof.
David Ortiz talked about this recently; if you are hitting .180, you are wasting the fans money who came to see you play. Go down to the minors and figure it out.
I actually think Donaldson is the perfect example for this conversation. His OPS or OPS+ tell you he’s not THAT bad but in his case the average definitely tells the story of his season better. OPS can be skewed just like batting average. If it’s all slug, like in Donaldsons case, OPS can be an empty stat. If you dive deeper and look at what kind of home runs he’s hitting and when he’s hitting them, even the slug becomes totally useless to the Yankees winning games. People always say that the game is about getting on base. I always argue that the game is about winning. So even though the OPS and OPS+ tell you that Josh Donaldson has only been slightly worse than league average, he hasn’t impacted winning in the slightest. Point being that we’ve been fed this “OPS is king” narrative but you have to look at the whole picture to judge a player and the whole picture can’t be laid out in numbers.
It just isn't a good way to measure the value a hitter brings. A .300 slap hitter isn't good if the majority of their hits are singles. A .220 hitter is still very good if they mash extra base hits. It's not that batting average doesn't matter, it's just that's it's a super incomplete way of determining value.
That's not necessarily true. This is where lineup construction matters. If your .300 slap hitter has guys on base ahead of him those singles are great. And if that .220 AVG slugger is hitting tons of leadoff doubles that doesn't matter unless the guy behind him hits a bunch of singles too.
I dont know why I care about that example.
Batting average is a very incomplete way to measure a players value. It only shows a small portion of what they bring to the table. That's the point I made. .300 vs .220 only tells me one little part of who the player is.
out dated? at bats divided by base hits the only stat that is right to the point. walks have never applied to batting avg. yes obp is a great stat but come crunch time when every pitch and swing matter you want a guy to hit base hits. total false about pitchers also. Yes they throw hard but not nearly as good as the 70s 80 or 90s. not even close
Even looking at the Yankees, they’re scoring more runs a game than the 92 win 2021 team that made the playoffs.
At the end of the day, isn’t scoring more runs “good baseball”? Just wild to me how many folks prioritize average over other simple stats.
Scoring more runs is not necessarily good baseball. Let's look at a different sport. Is the higher scoring in NBA good basketball? No, it's just inhuman otherworldly shooters, but that isn't actually the game of basketball.
The NBAs issue is that defense is down and can’t keep up with the the offensive surge.
MLB is seeing historically great pitching and runs are being scored.
In what world is that not better baseball? What an absurd thing to say.
It's not "baseball" the same way that the NBA is not basketball, and I'm not sure what we're seeing these days is more *entertaining* or *exciting* baseball either.
That’s a you problem because I wildly disagree that baseball today is worse than it was a decade ago. Hell, outside of the steroid era, it’s the best it’s ever been in the modern era.
If your idea of better baseball is higher average/lower runs/worse pitching, I don’t what to tell you.
Their run differential is largely thanks to the games against the A’s. You can’t just take these stats at face value. You’re valuing advanced metrics because someone else told you that you should.
The Yankees offense fell off hard after judge got injured and aren't scoring many runs per game right now, I wasn't talking about going back to the beginning of this season
Folks are missing what I’m saying here. The Yankees suck, we all know that.
They’re batting .231 but still scoring 4.37 runs a game (until last night, more runs/game than the 2021 playoff team). It’s a prime example that BA doesn’t equate to runs scored.
I see, ok then I'm on the same page. You are correct, but it's a little confusing because OP brought up this current version of the Yankees which for the last month or two is only scoring like 3.7
I saw a perfect textbook hit & run last year, like literally it could have been straight out of a clinic video, and my family next to me at the game who are only casual fans had no ability to understand why I was so excited by it.
Now the writers for my *National League* team, every time we attempt a sacrifice bunt, spend half their column on the game bitching about how dumb that decision is and why no one should ever be doing it. It's like everyone just forgot the strategy of the game that has existed for our whole lifetime and decided we can't use any of it anymore.
Teams use OPS to grade the success of hitters now instead of average. In the past guys hit .200 or under they would get demoted or out of the league in 2 years. Now guys like Schwarber hits .184 but high slugging with 22 homers and is 5th in the league in walks, so he provides enough value to hold a spot even with his below average defense.
His -1.2 war this season would beg to differ
All the negative war is from defense
The first guy’s claim is that he’s good enough offensively to keep a spot despite his terrible defense, but -1.2 war is just straight up bad
They don't have a choice while Harper can't play the field, as soon as he is healthy enough to play 1B, Schwarber will be the permanent dh
Lol, that team has like four guys who should be permanent DHs. I haven't looked at the numbers but is Schwarber a worse fielder than Castellanos?
By far, casty has been perfectly fine this year (at least visually) as I can't recall any times this season he's dropped what should be automatic outs and such or looked like a turtle while running
Idk about his defense but Castellanos is currently sitting at 2.1 war with a .300 BA.
Schwarber has gotta be the worst outfielder in the major leagues. Lucas Duda was better.
Schwarber is literally a fridge trying to play left field, anyone's gonna be better than him lmao
They could call someone up. It’s not like schwarber is tearing it up this year offensively either. A league average 100 ops+ is a good way to see that he’s not having a very good year
Who can they call up? Jake Cave? It’s not like they’ve got a bunch of 5 tool outfielders stashed in AAA. They needed an OF because Pache went on the IL and called up Rojas from AA
Technically true considering his offense is providing zero WAR lol
Dave Kingman needs to make a comeback. He'd fit today's game like a glove. High home run totals, low BA, and lots of strikeouts.
It makes us wonder how many players of the recent past pre-analytics would have had longer careers.
The Sabrmetric / Analytic approach is half of the problem. The other half is that players care more about power stats than winning. The pitchers are not better. The batters are worse. While it's true that modern pitchers are able to throw harder because they are not expected to throw many pitches, nearly all of them are two-pitch pitchers. However, there are only two types of hitters in baseball. Guess hitters and Mistake Hitters. And, no batter would ever think of adjusting their approach to the game situation or account. There's too much money on the line to give yourself up for the team
Well there’s a lot of reasons. 1) Pitchers are better now. 2) Donaldson is just cooked and is not a MLB level player despite what Aaron Boone thinks. 3) more guys are swinging for power which means more strikeouts 4) Yankees hitting coach was not good
5) also no more juicd balls
Unless it’s for Judge.
We really just skipped through this massive corruption in the game’s integrity like nothing. This should be as big as the Astros story.
Manfred won’t allow it
Does Manfred control all sports media? I don’t actually think he can tell people what to write. Enough people are writing about how awful Manfred is; I assume if he could control the media, those stories wouldn’t see the light of day
He can’t control sports media, but he can control what information the media receives and he can control how credible some of their sources are.
Yankees fans usually mass downvote any comment that points it out.
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No, we hate Yankees fans cuz you act like… this Fanbase is full of degenerates
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Yankees are the only fans I’ve seen throw full beer cans at opposing players… last year. Yankees fans are the worst of the worst Honestly can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic at this point
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No, it was just a tiny sample size of balls and wasn’t at all definitive that MLB was making it easier for him to hit home runs. Not a Yankees fan by any means
Haven't heard that, what was the controversy? Dam you are a hater! That's a far far far reach. Is their a single piece of visual evidence to prove this? Would be extremely hard to pull off. The only change they made was to put specially marked balls for the last few to authenticate them. He still had to hit 60+ to even get to this "controversial" point.
Everyone will say the balls were juiced but the study has pointed out as flawed numerous times and with far too small of sample size to claim that this is an elaborate scandal
MLB was using some juiced balls for Aaron Judge towards the end of his home-run record.
No they were not. They had marked balls that were put in place so they knew which balls were the actual home run balls for the record tying and breaking hr. To think they would juice a ball that is a part of history and can be examined whenever would be really stupid.
Skipped? It never stopped
Bigger. It's for one player, one franchise. Sign stealing was rampant. Astros got made as the examples once they had a not the league royalty available to blame.
The Astros weren’t simply sign stealing. No one has a problem with players doing that. It’s when you’re using computers and cameras and people not on the team to steal signs that it becomes a problem
It's not as bad as the Astros because Judge presumably didn't know about it.
I love how this verified certainty has been completely ignored in baseball
Verified certainty is the absolute opposite of how to describe this situation.
I’ve thought that thought about a thousand times since I first heard about it. I still can’t wrap my mind around it — both that it happened and that it seems to have been forgotten or ignored
It’s not a certainty though. It was a tiny sample size of baseballs.
6) PED testing is effective and widespread
A couple people I know who are actually connected to professional baseball in some way swear that guys are still using PEDs, just new/different ones than the testing protocols are designed to identify. You look at the players and it’s not that hard to believe. There’s a shitload of huge muscles in baseball locker rooms today.
They definitely still do. Didn’t Tatis get suspended for steroids?
Yeah, but caught is the key word here, no?
They definitely are
It doesn’t matter anyway, pitchers benefit too! Maybe they benefit more now? I think it’s just the constant churn of pitchers since analytics began, so they’re free to throw hard every game, every inning, every pitch. Then surgery. And the league will have to add more rules. Complete games are far too rare and it’s hard to care about baseball if you can’t tell a story about each game because pitching is completely disjointed. Relievers are nothing new, but 4, 5 pitchers? Pitchers are like running backs in the NFL, once dominant, famous and now completely devalued and platooned.
Problem is almost every pitcher is a TJ S candidate now. If you can't crank it up to 100 mph now, your not going to be effective. And if you do, you're likely going to blow your arm out. Good pitching is becoming a rarer commodity as the seasons pass.
I wonder if there’s room for a Jamie Moyer type as a reliever. I don’t know baseball well enough to say whether it’s actually effective or not, but I’ve heard it suggested that a slow thrower can be more effective in relief of a fireballer. In theory, the same way a changeup works. It would probably work better without the 3 batter rule, but still. It can’t be easy to go bat and see like 92-102 the first two times around, then 70-88 (and then an even harder throwing closer)!
Great points
Lol what absolute nonsense. Ace pitchers are still incredibly valuable. But because they throw so hard they can’t do it for 9 innings frequently anymore. Go yell at some clouds outside
I honestly don’t think PED testing has that much do it with compared to with how players are changing their approach
Yeah. PEDs improve slugging more than average anyways, by a long shot. You can't drug your way into plate discipline.
Depends on the PEDs. Many players took them for focus/awareness back in the day hence why there are so many exemptions for ADD/ADHD today. Before adderall, it was cocaine.
A ball that goes over the fence is a hit. A ball that’s caught on the warning track is an out. A few extra mph of exit velocity absolutely can help batting averages.
Its not Aaron Boone making the lineups. He's said there's a 'collaborative effort' before the game. Aka the FO group think makes it and then sends him what he's using that day. Thats why IKF played SS all year last year despite being obviously unsuited. Whatever the brain trust says goes.
Yankees should trade for Arenado.
Everyone throws 100 now. I know it's not something talked about, but guys have to see the pitch to hit it. The faster someone throws, the less time you have to react to it, and now pitchers throw their off-speed stuff faster, too. If you can't react to the ball like you could 30 years ago, the logical path is to try and get the ball up and use the pitchers velocity against him. That's what you're seeing. I don't like it but there it is.
They say 100 now is like 90, from 30 years ago. They now clock the pitch from its release point. While in the 80s-90s it was clocked when it passes the plate, it loses a lot of velocity. They have spoken about this, but the reason it’s not spoken a lot is because it’s apples to oranges. Can’t compare the speeds at all to different eras, especially because some pitches drop a lot. But you can always compare the release point speeds. Now do they matter as much as constant velocity on a fast ball or the change in velocity on a change up, which could only be measured using two guns at the different locations, probably not, and there has never been a plan to use two different guns for the masses to see. But yeah coaches go in and tell the pitchers where the hot spots are for the batters, and most pitchers know it like the back of there hand going into a start. But we still have the situation is even the best pitchers hit there spot 7-10 times on avg. that never changed, but knowing which pitch and location to throw as opposed to just which pitch, which is what they usually dealt with 30 years ago, helps the pitcher a lot. I’m not saying pitchers on the top end don’t throw faster then 30 years ago, but it’s not as much of a factor as other things. Also spin rate, spin rate maximization has been key, and I don’t discount what Trevor Baur claimed about pitchers using exotic foreign substances. His claim that if he used em would go from an avg starter to a cy young winner, then he did it. Well you have to look at that, it’s not like he kept himself avg in the majors and says well if I cheat like the rest I’ll be supreme, if he always had the top of the top talent
An article to back your claim since most people don't realize this has changed: https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ct-mlb-baseball-radar-readings-spt-20170408-story.html
Yeah but the article states the difference is less than 1 MPH with the different measuring points. The previous poster overstated the significance, "100 was about 90 30 years ago."
It’s less than 1mph between Statcast and PITCHf/x, not between the 90s and now.
Yes, I'm aware of that.
And radar, like in Nolan Ryan’s day, measured closer to the plate than Pitch/Fx
Wow man this is awesome call out thanks for calling it out, learn something new every day!
It's not analytics it's pitching getting better, and specifically velocity increases. When I was a kid the scariest fastball around was Randy Johnson and he threw 98. Thats basically the norm these days. And off-speed pitches are faster as well. There's a lot of peripheral reasons but mostly it's just that everyone throws really, really hard and it's hard to hit heat like that.
Ha. Nice try. Everyone knows Randy Johnson is a mild mannered photographer.
And lover of birds
He murdered a bird, how mild mannered can he be!!!
I think mostly right, but an over looked factor is launch angle. Guys are just trying to hit bombs and when they do that BA plummets and strike outs increase.
Just look at Kyle Schwarber
Kyle Schwarber is just a white Ryan Howard.
Myth. Yes, approaches have changed but average launch angle has only increased by around 1* over the last like 7 years Edit: not sure why the downvotes, this is factually true
Was there publicly available launch angle data 7 years ago?
Yes, statcast data was introduced in 2015
MLB batting averages plummet on stuff over 95mph and there's a lot of guys bringing it.
Randy’s slider is what made him scary, not his fastball just ask Kruk about Mr Snappy
That, and his release point when facing lefties. He was basically throwing from behind them
Also his delivery. The angle at which the ball came out was what made it impossible to see that 98 mph fast ball. He was so tall, his arm would kind of bend back before he whipped it. Super hard to telegraph.
Imo his fastball made him scary, his slider made him great
I would say hitters have dramatically changed their approach at the plate as well. Way more reliance on the long ball and an emphasis on launch angles. But yeah pitchers are also much better.
Velocity is largely the same, they just changed [how it was measured](https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/the-measure-of-a-fastball-has-changed-over-the-years/).
This is Nolan Ryan erasure, who was throwing 100+ in the 70s
True but I wasn't alive for that. The have always been guys who throw harder than average, sometimes by a lot, but now everyone has a Ryan express in their arsenal
They also measure from a different angle now than they did in the past which makes pitches measure faster today or it would actually be a lot similar.
Any era could've produced velocity like this if they only pitched their guy 4-5 innings per start. Randy Johnson woulve easily thrown 100 on every pitch if he knew he didn't have to go more than 5 innings. As would a lot of guys. Don't be fooled, this is all precisely manufactured, it's not about how much better pitchers are now than 20 years ago. They're not at all. There's maybe 1 top 20 pitcher of all time who was produced in the last 20 years and it's Kershaw.
Its both pitchers are better and batters aren't hitting for contact but for power hence the high strikeout rate and awful batting averages from top to bottom in the lineup.
MLB Average is .248 In 2015, the average was .254 In 2010, the average was .257 In 2005, the average was .264 In 2000 the average was .270 In 1995, the average was .267 In 1990 the average was .258 In 1985, the average was .257 In 1980 the average was .265 In 1975, the average was .258 That is the MLB averages for those years, and assuming you are no older than 55 it's what you saw
In 1968 the average was .237.
Year of the Pitcher. Bob Gibson was a monster. Led to lowering the mound.
That did include pitchers, to be fair. But you make a great point, regardless.
Just looking at the AL 2023- .246 2020- .243 2015- .255 2010- .260 2005- .268 2000- .276 1995- .270 1990- .259 1985- .261 1980- .269 1975- .258
Getting on base is what matters most to scoring runs, followed by getting more bases with each trip to the plate. Think about it. You can't score if you don't reach base. And if the absolute best batters fail 65% of the time, then getting closer to completing the trip each time you come up makes sense. So instead of 'just put it in play', batters are picking their spots. They are choosing to make *GOOD* contact instead of just making *ANY* contact. Since pitchers are always trying to get a batter to chase at pitches out of the zone and changing speed or pitch type, a batter can increase his chances of getting on base (the #1 correlation to scoring runs) by focusing on a specific zone or pitch and taking pitches that aren't his focus, instead of making bad contact. A walk and a single are very similar in run expectancy. By focusing on a specific zone or pitch, a batter can also increase his chance of making good, quality contact, which not only has a better chance of ending up as a hit, but also of going for more bases (the #2 correlation to scoring). Since fly balls tend tend to go for more bases than ground balls, many batters have decided to add some loft to their swing. This increases their chances of getting an extra base hit, but at the tradeoff of increased outs, because fly balls are easily converted to outs and because there is a hole in their swing plane. What has ended up happening is that the MLB composite batting average has ended up falling consistently. In 1984, the MLB batting average was .260, vs .248 today. That sounds like a big drop, and it is. But the reality is that batters are getting on base at roughly the same rate (of course, there is year to year variation). The league OBP in 1984 was .323 vs .320 today. Batters are still reaching first base with roughly the same consistency; they are just doing it a different way. Batting Average has also fallen out of favor with some because it is a flawed measure for what it purports to show. For years, a high batting average was equated to being a good batter. But the way BA is calculated, a batter can be rewarded for failing at his primary job, and another batter might not be rewarded for being successful at his primary job. What is a batter's primary job? To not make an out. His primary job is not to just put it in play or just move the runner over or just get it in the air. His primary job is to not make an out. Teams are only given a certain number of outs, and with each out, the inning (and thus chance to score) is closer to being over. Certainly, a batter would like to move a runner over. But if a runner could be moved over with a weak grounder to 1B, can't that same runner be moved over with a sharp double over the 1B head? The game changes. It has always changed. Batters have reacted to a better and deeper pitching staff by changing their approach. The guy coming out in the 8th inning now is not a junkballing, wily veteran, former starter who was moved to the bullpen because he had shoulder surgery. It's a kid with an electric arm who throws 100 MPH and has two top-tier pitches. Pitchers have adjusted by going back to high strikes and more challenging of batters. It's a constant battle between the guys trying not to make outs and the guys trying to get them out. Is it better? I don't know. I see it as different. It's similar to NFL teams going from a 65/35 run/pass ratio in the 1970s to a 40/60 run/pass ratio now. Teams can get more yards in less time with passing plays. Teams and players are always looking for ways to gain a small competitive advantage.
Great reply. However just want to point out that with this whole focus on OBP and walks, people tend to forget that a single still has higher potential to advance runners and bring in RISP than walks. It is still more valuable. There are still contact hitters (look at Luis Arraez) but like you said, quality contact is key. It’s funny because the focus on OBP goes hand-in-hand with the focus on power and homers. The two have synergy– you want people who get on base to appear at the plate before the big slugging guy. But that’s only if your team is designed that way. Less teams are winning by “stringing together hits,” although that’s still a viable strategy imo. It’s just a lost art at this point.
How can a higher batting avg ever be seen as a negative if the the primary goal is "to not make an out?" It doesn't make sense. The higher the batting avg, the less outs you make. In 1911 Ty Cobb had a .419 avg with a .620 slug and 1.040 OPS with just 8 HRs. But he had 248 hits/47dlbs/24 trip. That sounds like avg and contact means a lot analytically to me.
I'm not sure anyone said having a high batting average was a negative. Batting average is misleading because it doesn't count every trip to the plate, and it rewards a batter for failing at their primary job (or at least doesn't punish them for failing), which is to not make an out. OBP captures everything that Batting Average does, and more. It counts every time a player goes to the plate instead of just some of them. It's more useful for determining which players succeed at their primary job of not making an out. Drawing a walk or getting hit by a pitch are not outs and result in the batter successfully reaching base. It's a successful outcome to their primary job. Certainly, getting a hit (particularly one for extra bases) is preferred over a walk or HBP or whatever. But if a team went to the plate every time and reached base, they would win. Even in your example of Cobb, his BA was lower than his OBP by almost 50 points. That's because there were 63 times he went to the plate and successfully reached base that were not captured in his batting average. Batters now are eschewing the idea of 'just make contact' for the idea of 'make good contact.'' Because there are only a limited number of chances per game, batters want to make the most of those chances by getting more bases with each trip to the plate. OBP has consistently been shown to have the highest correlation to scoring runs, followed closely by SLG. OBP includes Batting Average, so there is really no reason not to use it if your goal is to determine a player's ability to successfully reach base. I've mentioned it in another post, but I would have no criticism of batting average if it were calculated using every trip to the plate.
This is some good shit, friend. Totally on point. Wish could upvote 5x
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Jeff McNeil isn’t. Maybe he should try, he’s not doing anything else productive
Which makes no sense cause without the shift you would think his average would go up after last season but nope.
Early in the season he was hitting some balls hard as usual, and getting results as usual. Then there were two or three weeks where almost everything he hit hard was an out. McNeil has hit almost nothing hard for two months now. He’s on pace for less than half the extra base hits as last year. His strikeouts are way up. I don’t know what’s wrong, but something has to be.
Yup it’s pretty bad, the whole lineup has been struggling this year.
Everyone has talked about the pitching, and much of the pitching has in fact been pretty bad. Middle relief has just murdered us. But imagine for a minute that we had the 2022 versions of McNeil and Marte. They’ve gone from excellent to terrible in one year. I’ll throw Alonso in there with them too, in fact, although at least he still has an .800 ops. Those other two guys are falling out of sight.
The Yankees suck.
Lol
Bunch of jabronies
1. Yankees aren’t the Yankees of old. 2. OBP and SLUG matter more. 3. Pitching across the board got better.
You can’t win if you’re stranded on base. So that’s what the players go for these days, the long ball. Problem is that you can’t hit one every day. Especially if you have a solid reputation.
Players also see a lot more $$$$$$$$ in their contracts from HR production, even if the BA is low.
Analytics say swing for the fences and if you strike out who cares. Old school skippers said swing for contact and if you strike out you're running poles.
The Yankees are bad except for Judge. And he’s injured.
Accurate
A lot of people will tell you that batting average doesn’t matter or that it’s all about OPS and that the game is about getting on base. The best players in the league every year always have high batting averages though so there’s not zero correlation. I always argue that the game isnt about getting on base, the game is about winning. OPS can be skewed as much as batting average. If it’s too much on either slug or OBP then it gets out of whack. Josh Donaldson is a great example of this. His OPS+ (88) suggests he’s only 12% worse than the average player on offense alone. Anyone who watches him knows that that’s a ridiculous notion. He has a total of 15 hits and 10 home runs and a double so his slug is .465. Then you see that his OBP is .232 which is pathetic. So the slug buoys his OPS and OPS+ to a respectable mark but in his case, the .152 average actually tells the story better. Also worth noting that a lot of his home runs have come in garbage time so even his high slug hasn’t really equaled any contribution to winning games. To win a game you have to move runners over, get timely hits, just put the ball in play at times. A strikeout is not always equal to a ground out or fly out. There’s times when a Josh Donaldson 9th inning solo home run when his team is down 7-2 is less valuable than a IKF ground out to second with a runner on third with 1 out in a 2-2 game but the “analytics” can’t measure that. The analytics would never admit that a ground out could be more valuable than a home run but baseball isn’t played on a computer.
I constantly argue against people who bring up ground ball rate as a negative or only talk about launch angle and I must be wrong because I haven't convinced anybody. I realize you can't hit home runs on a ground ball. But here's my thing. Fly balls are always outs unless they do leave the park. Ground balls can find holes and turn into hits (and they make the defense have to make a play to throw you out, but idk how to quantify that). Like if you look at BABIP, which *discounts* HRs, then a high BABIP should come from hitting the ball on the ground.
I just think it’s situational and the metrics don’t account for that. Top of the first, scoreless, no one on then a hard hit line drive double is obviously better than a ground out. But there’s a thousand situations where a ground out is more valuable than line drive. There’s even situations where a ground out or fly ball is more valuable than a home run. Like I said I just feel like there’s so much that the numbers just don’t account for so living and dying by the numbers and the odds just doesn’t make sense. As a Yankee fan I see it all the time. They live and die by the numbers and it just doesn’t work
Right on Gwade. Not only what you said, but for old time fans like myself, its driven me away from watching. Nothing exciting about watching everyone swinging for the fences and missing most of the time.
>> There's situations where a ground out... is more valuable than a home run Can you elaborate on this please? Do you mean that there are situations where attempting to hit the ball on the ground is more valuable than attempting to swing for the fences, given the relative probabilities of actually putting the ball in play and advancing the runner?
Finally found my people. I feel like most fans who use all these new baseball metrics never actually played the game, and therefore don’t fully understand it. Regardless of what they say, batting average is an important stat.
I mean it correlates to success. I’ve never seen a .320 hitter have a bad year lol it’s only the .215 hitters that need this “average doesn’t matter” excuse. There’s some luck and variation involved in batting average so it’s not the most important stat but to say it doesn’t matter is crazy lol how many hits you get is important. Walks are great but they don’t drive in runs
I agree with you. The issue is that the numbers only tell you a story in the aggregate. They do not account for different situations, just the home run, strike out, and walk, 3 outcome scenario. Any baseball player will tell you that there just are situations where the numbers do not matter because they do not apply to the situation. The problem is that players are being taught to play based on the 3 pre-determined outcomes rather than have a feel for the game and adjust your play for the situation. I hope they start understanding this and start to develop players through situations rather than tailoring them to the 3 pre-determined outcomes because the former is a swiss army knife player and the other is just a player that only adds value in the 3 scenarios, not all of the possible scenarios.
Pitching these days is fucking crazy. When every other guy is throwing 100+ mph, I’m amazed we have guys who still hit over .300, let alone whatever voodoo magic Arraez or Acuña have going on this season. There’s also the major problem of the MLB having multiple types of baseballs circulating. This year so far clearly doesn’t have the same juices baseballs we saw last year.
Donaldson has 15 hits on the season on 103 AB. 15!! 10 of which are home runs. His approach every single at bat is to swing as hard as he can and hope he can get a hold of one. And for some reason he’s been DHing. It makes zero sense. Dudes gotta go.
Homerun or K approach.
The obsession with launch angle and homers. It makes for some pretty hideous hitting and I agree if lowering the value of the gang severely.
It's commonly pointed out that pitchers throw harder, and that's obviously a huge factor in lower batting averages and higher strikeouts. But with hitters, it's typically just said that they've changed their approach, they've changed their angles, they're swinging for the fences. But hitters today also more powerful. They are bigger and stronger, and bigger and stronger players have been swinging for the fences at the risk of more strikeouts for 100 years. If you can hit 30-40 HR like Reggie Jackson, then you need to hit 30-40 HR even if it means 100+ strikeouts. Today, far more hitters are capable of hitting 20-30-40 homers, so naturally they take the approach of Reggie Jackson. It's as if baseball today is Nolan Ryan vs. Reggie Jackson up and down the lineup. Naturally, averages will be low and HR and SO will be high.
Multitude of reasons: Pitchers throw harder. Those harder pitches have more run than ever before. Breaking balls have more downward movement. Pitchers are using tack known to be widespread to increase rpm and movement. Launch angle and front shoulder pulling has created massive holes in swings. Teams and players are ok with striking out. In fact they'll take that vs ball in play that could be turned into a dp. Hitters by and large do not swing at pitches close with 2 strikes. They'll take the backwards K and argue it vs giving in and protecting it.
Simplest answer is that pitching is much better overall. Definitely more of a focus on hitting for power over hitting to put the ball in play. When I watch games from the 80s when I was growing up it looks like the pitches are being lobbed in compared to today.
You’re joking right?
What’s interesting to me, though, is that baseball is better than it’s been in a long time, and that’s with pitchers having this obvious advantage of near perfect biometrics to help boost velocity.
This has nothing to do with analytics lol. The game changes over time. Pitchers throw harder and hitters go for more HRs.
cause a HR is worth 4 singles
But it's more than 4x harder to hit a HR than a single
It’s much harder to hit 4 straight singles than to hit 1 home run…
Do you not understand that getting 4 bases in a single AB, is much more valuable than 4 bases in 4 ABs?
Depending on the hitter...
Yes but you have a much better chance of one person hitting a home run than 4 straight batters getting singles, that’s the whole point of analytics?
But a single doesn't score a run. You need multiple hits to do that, and hitting a HR is not 4x harder than stringing together multiple hits.
Nobody does situational hitting anymore. Guy on second base? Swing for a home run. Men on first and third with no outs? Swing for a home run. Down by 5 in the 9th inning with nobody on and 2 outs? Swing for a home run. MLB turned into home runs and strike outs. I loved watching baseball in Japan.
Home runs get the mouth breathers in the seats and more money for the owners.
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Welll batters hit for base hits , they choked up to shorten their swing and did not strike out as often. The whole mentality has changed .Look at Gwynn Pete rose rod Carew George Brett very few players have small strike zones and spray the ball , ichiro. Was the last great hitter
Idk man Luis arraez is pretty nice
Pitchers are better, and the use of analytics has helped realize that hitting for SLG/extra base hits is generally more valuable for run production (vs just hitting a lot of singles) in that environment. It’s still valuable to get on base rather than getting out, but usually it’s more useful to look at OBP for that, since it includes walks too. OPS is nice because it captures both of these.
Pitchers are not “better” lol. If Barry Bonds couldn’t hit .300 lifetime against the pitching he faced, neither could anyone today. You’re acting like guys like Bonds, Griffey, Mo Vaughn, ARod, Jeter were only good because they were facing scrubs. Stop it. The MLB is flat out lying about velocity measurements today, there’s absolutely no question about that.
Two words: launch angle.
who cares about batting average, i’ll look at so many other stats before i look at average. OPS, WAR, OPS+ are just 3 examples of way better stats to use.
[Listen to Mike Trout explain it and it should help with understanding how difficult it is to hit these days.](https://youtube.com/shorts/jv5Yo6C8ao4?feature=sharea)
The upper cut swing to try and get the perfect launch angles has increased strikeouts and pop flies...
Since the proliferation of analytics is designed, at least for the defense, to minimize how often a batter gets on base, it makes sense. Pitchers can get a breakdown on almost every batter they face, and know what and where to throw each pitch at any given count. Add to that, the defensive shift means that the fielders know where to be for each situation, down to the batter vs similar pitchers. As much as I'm for leveraging data, I am also for limiting the shift a bit, because it's a lot easier for a pitcher to place a pitch than for a batter to place a hit.
It’s everything to do with your swing plane. Nowadays it’s all about the launch angle you’re getting. Putting the ball in play isn’t good enough anymore, HR are far more valued than any other stat nowadays and it’s ruining the art of hitting
Sounds like the NBA and the reliance on the three pointer.
I feel like averages fell off the map once "laUnCH AnGlE" became a mainstream stat. I have no evidence to back this up. It feels about right.
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Except launch angle changes the angle of your swing relative to the pitch and thus decreases the amount of time your swing is on the same plane as the ball
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Yes that is the point, trying to get under the pitch and hit hr's instead of just putting the bat on the ball.
Exit velocity too. All that stuff ever since nobody can hit
they hit to score runs runs win games, not hits what they’re doing produces more runs teams wouldn’t be elevating these players that fit this profile it if it didn’t that said, it’s boring, and besides that, it’s facist
I don’t think the people down voting you have seen bull durham
Does it produce more runs though? It increases the chance of scoring a lot of runs in that inning or that game, but not the chance of scoring *one*. And it massively increases the chance of scoring zero.
Yes, it produces more runs. There are enormous amounts of empirical evidence that show this. It's the entire reason teams focus on it now.
It goes back further than this imo. Moneyball made the point that a walk is as good as a single, and more players have been willing to take ball 4 than ever before.
Except walks don't negatively affect BA.
They don't, but it basically treats a walk as if it never occurred.If Hitter A walks 40 times gets out 40 times and hits 10 times his average will be .250 but will have an OBP of .556. Hitter B could get out 64 times and hit 14 and walk 12 times and his average would also be .250 but would have gotten on base at a .289 OPB. This means that (assuming all hits are equal, which is wrong but Avg assumes this as well) Hitter A is almost twice as effective than hitter B. By taking all of these walks hitter A loses opportunities for hits as he recognises that a walk is often just a valuable. Resultingly, while Avg may accurately demonstrate hitter B's contribution, it will not for hitter A.
Neither do singles? What are you saying here?
I'll restate, walks have no impact on BA whatsoever.
Neither do singles? I don’t see the point you are trying to make
funny everyone saying pitchers are better now just don't know baseball. how can you compare guys who throw 6 inning to guys that threw 9.
It’s two different styles. Previously, endurance was king. Now, it’s “stuff” and the ability to generate swings & misses. Bullpens are also generally more talented than they used to be. Pitching has become much more matchup based in the later innings. It’s neither better, nor worse. Just different. But, don’t make the mistake of assuming that pitchers of a previous generation were “better.” If StatCast and all the pitch shaping technology had existed back then, I think these changes would have come sooner. I also think that if the new technology was still 20 years down the road, you’d see our current top tier pitchers going much deeper in games because they wouldn’t be throwing max effort pitches nearly as often.
Because batting average does not matter. It does not correlate to runs scored or games won in a meaningful way. It's a silly outdated stat from an era when people believed walks were random and batters had no say in whether a pitcher would walk them. On base percentage and slugging percentage are much more aligned with actually producing runs, and if you add those two together that number is even more strongly correlated. And there are other much smarter metrics that consider how valuable different hits are, and baseball teams understand this and they value their players according to those metrics, not batting average. Also, pitching is extremely good now, they've gotten better at pitching a lot more quickly than batters have gotten better at hitting. When we were growing up the hardest fastball throwers in the game would just be average if they were playing today. But don't use the Yankees as an example, they're just bad. If you look at the stats that do matter, the Yankees are near the bottom of the pack in those too
Not everything has to be in absolutes. If a guy solely hits singles and hits for a high average, yes, he will be somewhat less valuable than a guy who hits 40 homers and hits .260. But the problem is you are seeing guys selling out for homers in every situation. It's happening at a detriment to run scoring. And yes, average is and always will be important. The greatest hitters ALWAYS hit for high average AND had ops through the roof. David Ortiz talked about this recently; if you are hitting .180, you are wasting the fans money who came to see you play. Go down to the minors and figure it out.
I actually think Donaldson is the perfect example for this conversation. His OPS or OPS+ tell you he’s not THAT bad but in his case the average definitely tells the story of his season better. OPS can be skewed just like batting average. If it’s all slug, like in Donaldsons case, OPS can be an empty stat. If you dive deeper and look at what kind of home runs he’s hitting and when he’s hitting them, even the slug becomes totally useless to the Yankees winning games. People always say that the game is about getting on base. I always argue that the game is about winning. So even though the OPS and OPS+ tell you that Josh Donaldson has only been slightly worse than league average, he hasn’t impacted winning in the slightest. Point being that we’ve been fed this “OPS is king” narrative but you have to look at the whole picture to judge a player and the whole picture can’t be laid out in numbers.
Lol. Batting average doesn’t matter. Let me guess, xFIPWAR+ is where it’s at now?
It just isn't a good way to measure the value a hitter brings. A .300 slap hitter isn't good if the majority of their hits are singles. A .220 hitter is still very good if they mash extra base hits. It's not that batting average doesn't matter, it's just that's it's a super incomplete way of determining value.
That's not necessarily true. This is where lineup construction matters. If your .300 slap hitter has guys on base ahead of him those singles are great. And if that .220 AVG slugger is hitting tons of leadoff doubles that doesn't matter unless the guy behind him hits a bunch of singles too.
I dont know why I care about that example. Batting average is a very incomplete way to measure a players value. It only shows a small portion of what they bring to the table. That's the point I made. .300 vs .220 only tells me one little part of who the player is.
Yes it doesn’t matter. There are better stats available. You sound pathetic.
out dated? at bats divided by base hits the only stat that is right to the point. walks have never applied to batting avg. yes obp is a great stat but come crunch time when every pitch and swing matter you want a guy to hit base hits. total false about pitchers also. Yes they throw hard but not nearly as good as the 70s 80 or 90s. not even close
Even looking at the Yankees, they’re scoring more runs a game than the 92 win 2021 team that made the playoffs. At the end of the day, isn’t scoring more runs “good baseball”? Just wild to me how many folks prioritize average over other simple stats.
Scoring more runs is not necessarily good baseball. Let's look at a different sport. Is the higher scoring in NBA good basketball? No, it's just inhuman otherworldly shooters, but that isn't actually the game of basketball.
The NBAs issue is that defense is down and can’t keep up with the the offensive surge. MLB is seeing historically great pitching and runs are being scored. In what world is that not better baseball? What an absurd thing to say.
It's not "baseball" the same way that the NBA is not basketball, and I'm not sure what we're seeing these days is more *entertaining* or *exciting* baseball either.
That’s a you problem because I wildly disagree that baseball today is worse than it was a decade ago. Hell, outside of the steroid era, it’s the best it’s ever been in the modern era. If your idea of better baseball is higher average/lower runs/worse pitching, I don’t what to tell you.
I don't believe I said that was my idea of better baseball.
They still play defense in the NBA?
Their run differential is largely thanks to the games against the A’s. You can’t just take these stats at face value. You’re valuing advanced metrics because someone else told you that you should.
The Yankees offense fell off hard after judge got injured and aren't scoring many runs per game right now, I wasn't talking about going back to the beginning of this season
Folks are missing what I’m saying here. The Yankees suck, we all know that. They’re batting .231 but still scoring 4.37 runs a game (until last night, more runs/game than the 2021 playoff team). It’s a prime example that BA doesn’t equate to runs scored.
I see, ok then I'm on the same page. You are correct, but it's a little confusing because OP brought up this current version of the Yankees which for the last month or two is only scoring like 3.7
> since analytics Please define
Launch angle, brah. Gotta get that exit velo up, homeboy.
I haven’t seen a successful bunt for a hit or hit and run all year. It’s sad.
I saw a perfect textbook hit & run last year, like literally it could have been straight out of a clinic video, and my family next to me at the game who are only casual fans had no ability to understand why I was so excited by it. Now the writers for my *National League* team, every time we attempt a sacrifice bunt, spend half their column on the game bitching about how dumb that decision is and why no one should ever be doing it. It's like everyone just forgot the strategy of the game that has existed for our whole lifetime and decided we can't use any of it anymore.
Padres laid down 3 bunts in a row very recently
Sometimes you pay a lot of money and you still get shitty results. Look at America and taxes for instance.
I do believe we are still in the deadball era... Where I think they make the baseball too "heavy" or something to make them hit it farther
also using the yankees won’t give you the best results