Hitting approach and theory.

You mean like where I wrote, in the 2nd paragraph:

"All through youth ball, those years that I helped out with the my son's teams, we did a batting cage drill that helped develop plate discipline and strike zone judgment."

jefftso,

If all you do is look at pitchers during the game and don’t look at your own history, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. Just remember this. The hitters who learn as much as they can about themselves and the pitchers they face have to react and have a good swing too. Since they’re common items, who’s going to be in the better position to excel? The player who’s looked for possible areas he can improve, or the one who doesn’t do that?

Nowhere did I say I do not look at my own history. What approach do you take to the plate? And how was your success? As a player I'm always breaking down stuff looking to fix. In-game adjustments are huge from AB to AB. After the game I run through all of my at-bats, where the pitch was, how I saw it, and what kind of swing I felt I put on it. 

Originally Posted by Rob Kremer:

You don't think strikeout % and BB% are a partial measure of hitting effectiveness?

Choose between two players with the exact same batting average and power numbers, one has a 25% strikeout and 4% BB, the other has 10% strikeout and 10% walk. Which is a more effective hitter? I don't think that's a subjective question.

That’s not at all what I said, but you’ve proven my point. I said :”… I’m gonna guess it’s as good or better as any other metric for judging patience the only looks at 2 factors. …”

As soon as you threw in BA and power numbers you’ve introduce more than 2 factors, and I can tell you there are much better ways to judge “effectiveness” in my book than only looking at K:BB in relation to other things. Its one way bit IMHO not the “BEST” way. Remember BB’s and Ks are “hitting” the ball so they really don’t have a lot to do with effectiveness as a HITTER. Considering BIPs is considering hitting. Considering K and BB is considering NOT hitting.

But then again as I pointed out, its all in the perspective.

That is an interesting point. Looking at my two hypothetical players, the one with the higher strikeout ratio will of course have a higher BABIP, so you could say he is the better hitter.

But which player is more valuable to the team?

Originally Posted by Rob Kremer:

That is an interesting point. Looking at my two hypothetical players, the one with the higher strikeout ratio will of course have a higher BABIP, so you could say he is the better hitter.

But which player is more valuable to the team?

Why do you think the player with the higher K ration would have the higher BABIP?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’m afraid only the people running the team could answer it. I could answer who I believed was more valuable, but that would be from my perspective, not the team’s.

Look, I don’t pretend to be a baseball analyst. I leave that to the pundits and Sabers. I look at the players on the team I score for in as many ways as possible, trying to spot things we can use to improve the team performance. There’s no way I could do that for a team or players I don’t watch every single pitch of every single game. There’s just too many factors that go into it. FI, our coach has a very specific and unbending perspective about some things that make him unique. Using that same perspective on a team he didn’t put together wouldn’t produce the same results, and that’s why I shy away from trying to compare our team or players to others.

Imagine that.  Another interesting thread derailed by the Statish Inquisition.

CPNM, when you first posted "you can't walk off the island", I thought you meant you can't get away from Stats' highjacking of so many HSBBW threads to extract data for his master project.

cabbagedad,

Just because you don’t understand what I do and don’t like anyone who refuses to take everything anyone says at face value, it doesn’t mean I’m the bad guy here and you’re the almighty savior. If what I say bothers you so much, why don’t you simply put me on your ignore list. I’ve done that with someone who bothers me personally, and its stopped a whole lot of mindless bickering and personal attacks. Try it, It works.

I would just like to see you allow threads to stay on topic instead of re-directing all of them to statistical analysis.  That's all.  It's hard to ignore when you jump into so many general interest threads that I otherwise enjoy. 

I will ignore the usual "you don't understand what I do" comment. 

With you 100% Cabbage.

Stats, the reason this keeps coming up thread after thread is that you DO always seem to get into little bickering back and forth with people, ultimately talking about minute details far off from what the original post was about. 

I hope nobody puts you on ignore so that it can be continued to call out on a thread whenever this happens...and hopefully stops.

Stats, you wrote:

"Why do you think the player with the higher K ration would have the higher BABIP?"

and

"I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’m afraid only the people running the team could answer it. I could answer who I believed was more valuable, but that would be from my perspective, not the team’s."

I think you are paralyzed by analysis here. Some things are objectively better, and are not a matter of perspective.

Two players with the same batting average and power numbers, the one who strikes out far less and walks far more is objectively more valuable. And the player with fewer strikeouts will have a lower BABIP - that is a simple mathematical certainty.

I remember a story about Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams at a "All Star" game.

Ted asked Mickey "when you hit left handed is your top hand stronger or your bottom hand stronger"? "When you hit right handed is your top hand stronger or your bottom hand"?

What happened was Mickey went into a one week slump, thinking about the question.

Question: what is the role of the hitter?

When we travel to Australia, our 5 teams will play 60 games in 15 days. We do not keep records. Did the players learn and were we competitive and did we prepare the Aussies for their National Tournament. The answer is yes for 19 years.

Bob

<www.goodwillseries.org>

Thankfully I wasn't the only one seeing it. Stats, take your calculator and your spreadsheets up to the plate, and I'll be more then happy to put one on your chin. No need to crunch the numbers on that one. 100% chance.

Don't want to get involved here...but Rob- strikeouts have no effect on BABIP. BABIP takes into account only balls put in play. K% and BB% have nothing to do with a player's BABIP.

Not trying to sway anything either way, just wanted to point that out.

JH -

In the example I used, the strikeouts DO result in one player having a higher BABIP.

My example was two players of identical batting average and power numbers, and one has a higher strikeout ratio. That player will by definition have a higher BABIP. It is. a mathematical certainty

Just use a simple numerical example: Both have 300 at-bats, 10 home runs, and both have 90 singles. One struck out 50 times, one struck out 10 times.

The BABIP for the high strikeout guy is .375. The BABIP for the low strikeout guy is.321.

The low strikeout guy put the ball in play more, so his BABIP is lower. Capish?

Rob,

My answer to the question was what I sincerely believe. To take what you believe and apply it across the board would seem to me to be foolish because while the goal may always be to win, the pieces on the board are very different for each team. IOW, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat. How many times has a manager failed on one team and had tremendous success on another, or a player had great success in one organization but gone into a black hole someplace else?

The reason for that isn’t because those people change, its because what’s valued in an organization changes from place to place. In ne organization they may be looking for a guy who has a high OBP but can’t hit his way out of a paper bag, because that’s the hole they need to fill. But in another they may have 5 guys like that but need someone who can get hits. So, the two teams value the same players differently, and that’s what I mean by perspective.

Your correct and I acknowledged that when you consider more than two factors it changed the perspective. But originally you only considered Ks and BBs and claimed: “both of which are important, although certainly not comprehensive, measures of hitting effectiveness”. All I’ve done is dispute their value without consideration of other factors.

So, agreeing that what you say is mathematically correct in that all other things being equal, the player with the fewer Ks will have the lower BABIP, what is the likelihood that there will be 2 players equal in all things except striking out? So in the end there’s almost always going to have to be other factors taken into consideration, rather than saying player “A” is more valuable because he strikes out less and walks more than player “B”.

Because of that, each player’s “VALUE” is totally dependent on the team he’s playing with because of the players surrounding him and the philosophes of those making decisions. If it was as simple as you make it out to be, the MVPs wouldn’t be nearly as hard to figure out each year, trades would be simple to make, and player salaries would be a snap to compute.

I’m having some difficulty arguing because as I’ve already said, to me Ks are the worst kind of failure, but I’m trying to look at the question from more than just my point of view. In the ML there are situations where as bad as they are, Ks are overlooked for one reason or another, and that reasoning needs to be considered too.

I guess I’m just more loathe to accept off the cuff remarks as being true than most people because for so long I’ve read things similar to this on boards like this where two very different views have very similar success. To me its fun to look a bit deeper than assuming something was right or wrong because one person said it as opposed to another.

Originally Posted by jefftso:

Thankfully I wasn't the only one seeing it. Stats, take your calculator and your spreadsheets up to the plate, and I'll be more then happy to put one on your chin. No need to crunch the numbers on that one. 100% chance.

Now you’re showing your immaturity. All I did was challenge something you believe is gospel, and now you’re ready to hurt me. When you’re playing and someone challenges you, do you throw at their head too because you’re frustrated? That seems a lot like a little kid holding his breath until he gets his way. I suppose if you’re batting and the pitcher’s behind in the count and he throws you a hook and you swing and look foolish because you’re geared up for a FB, you’ll charge the mound.

Good grief! What’s with you people that you can’t be challenged and handle it with dignity?

Haha, immature. You continue to twist my words. Nowhere did I say my theory is the ONLY way to go about hitting. There is no ONE concrete way to go about hitting. I think it's upon the player to put together an approach that works for him or her. Now if a pitcher throws a 2-0 curve. Hats off to him, but I'm taking that pitch. I don't mind being challenged. I dislike when people twist words in the most minuscule way to push their point across that leads to this topic getting so off base. We're sitting here throwing out different approaches in hopes that players can hopefully find some help on this site and you want to sit here and question every last detail. And you're calling me immature, you're the one that has hijacked this thread taking it off topic and coming on and questioning everyone for every little detail.