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THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

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Friday, December 11, 2009

wOBA Primer

By Tangotiger, 03:30 PM

Well, just a fantastic job by Alex Remington.

The only (possibly questionable) issue is when he says:

and is therefore superior to non-weighted stats like OPS and OPS+.

It is superior to OPS, no question about it.  But, with OPS+, it’s more tricky.  See, OPS+ also starts off with a bad weighting (approx 1.2 for OBP and 1 for SLG, when it should be 1.7 or 1.8 to 1.  But, OPS+ redeems itself that it also adjusts for the park.  To the extent that parks matter (Coors, PETCO, etc), then OPS+ *might* be better than wOBA.  I don’t blame Alex for not getting into it, and his one line statement is mostly correct.  It would be totally correct with OPS, and usually correct with OPS+.

***

By the way, since Sean Forman is in charge of OPS+, any reason we can’t get him to change it to: 1.2*OBP/lgOBP + 0.8*SLG/lgSLG - 1, for OPS+?  If he did that, then OPS+ would be (almost always) superior to wOBA.  It gets the weights very close to wOBA, plus the added advantage of the park/league factors.  Such a simple change.  Listen, I have limited pull with Sean (indeed, in some cases, I have negative pull).  But, if you guys speak up, he’ll listen.  Write to him.

(16) Comments • 2012/03/03 • SabermetricsLinear_Weights
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December 11, 2009
wOBA Primer