THE BOOK cover
The Unwritten Book is Finally Written!
An in-depth analysis of: The sacrifice bunt, batter/pitcher matchups, the intentional base on balls, optimizing a batting lineup, hot and cold streaks, clutch performance, platooning strategies, and much more.
Read Excerpts & Customer Reviews

Buy The Book from Amazon


SABR101 required reading if you enter this site. Check out the Sabermetric Wiki. And interesting baseball books.
MOST RECENT ARTICLES
MAIL : You ask | We say

Advanced


THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Filter posts by...

 

Monday, May 09, 2011

Reader Mail of the minute: apparent vagaries in wOBA

By Tangotiger, 02:46 PM

1. IBB, NIBB, HBP: why the different coefficient values for each?

Hit batters occur more randomly than NIBB.  IBB occur in a very non-random fashion.  So, because a hit batter occurs more often when it can actually move a runner from 1B to 2B, it gets a slightly higher weight.

The implicit coefficient value of the IBB is around 0.33.  (It’s actually dynamic, according to the performance of the player, and a player with a .400 wOBA overall has an implicit coefficient of .40 for the IBB.) If you ignore the IBB in both the numerator and denominator, you’d get the implicit coefficient for the IBB: it’s the batter’s wOBA.

2. Why errors for batters?

When hitters reach base on error, they actually reached base safely.  This is a good thing.  In terms of IMPACT, reaching base on error is a bit more valuable than reaching base on a single (because of multi-base errors).  As for the “cause” of the error: yes, the batter’s identity is more reflective of the single than of reaching on error.  But, we don’t care about that.  We only care about the results of events, not the reason for the events.  If we cared for the reasons, we’d overweight the HR and BB and underweight the single and double (because the identity of the player is more important for HR and BB, and SO).

3. What about steals?

If you need it, give SB a .25 and CS a -.50, in the numerator.  Don’t touch the denominator.  If you don’t need it, don’t put it in.

***

Related thread:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/the_history_of_the_woba_part_1/

***

Anything else?

(21) Comments • 2011/08/02
Page 1 of 1 pages

Latest...

COMMENTS

May 26 07:27
“Why Kickstarter works”

May 26 03:03
Pete Palmer’s new book: Basic Ball

May 26 01:11
Largest demonstration in Canadian history?

May 25 19:41
What sabermetrics is NOT

May 25 16:59
Howard Stern

May 25 15:12
Do pitcher’s reach back for velocity when needed?

May 25 12:51
Chad Curtis

May 25 11:26
Lack of hustle during a game

May 25 10:58
Rooting for laundry

May 25 02:38
NFLPA lawsuit against collusion

THREADS

May 09, 2011
Reader Mail of the minute: apparent vagaries in wOBA