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Friday, June 13, 2008
Aramis Ramirez: a new approach to hitting?
Eric takes a look. The most stable of the output stats is strikeouts and walks. If you see a big change there, then you know that something is going on. Now however, we don’t have to rely on the output stats. We can look at the quasi-input stats: how much is he swinging at pitches out of the zone (making sure to compare by count)? How often is he taking? All the things that lead to Ks and BBs would be based on his swing/take approach at each count. And while you might need say 100-200 PA to achieve 50% reliability, if you look at his Ks and BBs numbers, we’d need to have fewer than 100 PA if we know his swing/take approach. That’s why scouts are so important: their uncertainty level is much lower than the output stats at under 100 PA.