THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Unfrozen caveman saberist: wOBA in the dugout

Phil Hartman:

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I’m just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: “Did little demons get inside and type it?” I don’t know!

My primitive mind can’t grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - when a man like my client slips and falls on a sidewalk in front of a public library, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages, and two million in punitive damages. Thank you.

***

Blogger says:

The reason that batting average was the predominant statistic in the first hundred years of baseball was that it involved such a simple calculation: it’s easy enough to go back to the dugout after a 2-for-5 day and say, “Hey, I’m batting .400!” On the other hand, could I ever sit in the dugout without pen or calculator and figure out my wOBA?

Instead of “1” for a walk or hit batter, think “0.7”. 
Instead of “1” for a single or reaching on error, think “0.9”.
Instead of “1” for a double or triple, think “1.3”.
Instead of “1” for a HR, think “2.0”.

(Notice how everything revolves around “1”, and the scale of it seems at least reasonable, and easy enough to remember?)

So, say you go 2 for 5, with a HR.  In the dugout, you are thinking “I’m 2 for 5, but with a HR!”.  Well, now you can think you are 2.9 for 5.  Is it really that hard?

What if you are 1 for 3, with a walk?  In the dugout, you are thinking “I’m 1 for 3, but with a walk too!”.  Well, now you can think you are 1.6 for 4.  Again, is it really that hard to do?

What if you went 0 for 4, but you got on base twice on error?(*) In the dugout, you are thinking “I may be 0 for 4, but I was really 0 for 2, and twice I got on base via error.” Well, now you can think that you were 1.8 for 4.  Again, that hard to do?

(*) And yes, who cares if you got on base via error.  If you got on base via a bloop single or a single off the wall, you don’t make the distinction in the dugout do you?

So, what is it that people want?  I’m giving you a very simple way to go from OBP to wOBA.  You can do the calculation in your head.  But it seems that people still want OTHER people to do the calculation, to figure out what is an official at bat and not.  To figure out if SF should appear in the denominator (OBP) or not (SLG, BA).  To figure out OBP and SLG.  Heck to even add OBP and SLG.  And they won’t be able to tell you all of the rules for how to calculate OBP, SLG, or BA anyway.

It sounds like some baseball fans want inertia in their rules and stats.  And they are “frightened and confused” when presented with something that is, at its heart, pretty straightforward, because it requires them to take a small tangent.