Rumor has it that nothing goes together like peanut butter and jelly. Reality check: baseball and stats are the ultimate power couple.
The game of baseball naturally lends itself to stat keeping because it is not played at a frenetic pace like other sports, such as hockey or basketball. Those sports require multiple sets of eyes watching multiple people, each recording statistical data.
In baseball, one set of eyes can watch and record the pitch-by-pitch performance of the pitcher while keeping track of how the batter at the plate is responding to the pitches. Without blinking, those eyes can also track what happens when the ball is put in play.
With the dawn of the internet came the explosion of fantasy baseball. While keeping stats for one game is easy, doing it for 162 becomes overwhelming. Researching the beginnings of fantasy baseball, here is the suggested list of original stat categories:
- team batting average (total hits divided by total at-bats)
- total home runs
- total runs batted in
- total stolen bases
- total wins
- total saves
- team earned run average (9 times total earned runs divided by total innings pitched, the lower the better)
- team WHIP (total number of hits and walks allowed by pitchers divided by total innings pitched, the lower the better)
Then this happened:
Running the word “sabermetrics” through Google, this is the definition you will find: the application of statistical analysis to baseball records, especially in order to evaluate and compare the performance of individual players.
No longer is the game as simple of the following Ted Williams quote implies:
- “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.” Source: The 2006 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia (Pete Palmer, Sterling Publishers, 02/25/2006, Page 5)
To illustrate the over-analysis of sabermetrics, let us peek at the website FanGraphs.com and gander at free agent Yoenis Cespedes. We will investigate the “regular” category of batting average and the “advanced” category of Batted Average on Balls in Play (BABIP).
| AVG .291 |
|---|
| BABIP .323 |
|---|
When it comes to regular batting average, the explanation of batting average is common sense. The formula is simply hits divided by the number of at-bats. If a batter is hitting .250, that translates to going 1 out of 4 at the plate during a “typical game”. According to MLB.com, there were 116 qualified players that hit .250 and only 20 of those managed to maintain a .300 clip.
Your formula for BABIP is –> (Hits minus homers) divided by (at-bats minus strikeouts and home runs plus sacrifice flys). There is a 499-word explanation of how to correctly use BABIP on FanGraphs. A .300 BABIP is considered the league norm.
Why is this over-analysis? If your favorite player is hitting .300, you are happy. If your favorite player is DJ LeMahieu, you already know you are getting a boatload of singles (138) and not much power (5 HR). At the same time, if your favorite player is Cespedes, then you know you are getting a power-hitter (35 HR) and you are hoping that there are runners on base when he jacks one out of the ballpark.
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Sabermetrics has also introduced us to many stand-alone stats, with Wins Above Replacement (WAR) being one of the most common. The WAR value of a given player is the perceived amount of wins his statistical output brings to the team as compared to if he were injured and needed to be replaced by a readily available player.
Last season, Cespedes’ WAR value was 6.7. Comparing that to a couple high-profile free agents still left on the market: Chris Davis‘s WAR value was 5.6 and Justin Upton‘s was 3.6.
As is the case with any stat, you cannot fairly judge a player by isolating them to one or two categories. There are intangibles that are out there that baseball statisticians have yet to create a formula for, such as clubhouse atmosphere.
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For example, Yasiel Puig of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Puig had a 4.0 WAR value last season but has been in the midst of trade rumors and off-field issues since his arrival in 2013.
The game of baseball, like any other sport, is a game of results. Managers know this and are using the over-analysis of baseball stats to slowly wreck the game. Exhibit A – – infield shifts.
How many times did you see a bases loaded, two-out situation turn up empty-handed for the team at-bat because the ball was hit right at the third baseman playing shallow right field? The following is an adapted chart from Fangraphs.com to show the most shifted players of 2014.
| Name | Bats | Hits vs Shift | Batted Balls into Shift |
| David Ortiz | L | 93 | 369 |
| Ryan Howard | L | 87 | 318 |
| Brian McCann | L | 67 | 311 |
| Albert Pujols | R | 79 | 271 |
| Brandon Moss | L | 70 | 255 |
| Lucas Duda | L | 62 | 245 |
| Mark Teixeira | B | 52 | 238 |
| Adam LaRoche | L | 65 | 232 |
| Mike Moustakas | L | 52 | 230 |
| Chris Davis | L | 53 | 230 |
Can you imagine the luxury of watching David Ortiz’s final season without seeing him lose hits to the accursed shift? With PED allegations and a counter defamation lawsuit going on in his personal life, a shift-free 2016 would be a blessing for Ryan Howard!
Sadly, those are only pipe dreams, much like when you hear your local baseball analyst on television muse that the batter should simply drop a bunt down the vacated third base line.
As the game evolves, do not feel inferior if your knowledge of statistics is “limited” to the breakdown of which base the hitter reached with his hit. Fear not, if the only statistic you truly care about is the final score. Sabermetrics is only here to over-inform the masses, and it is perfectly okay to have a baseball discussion without quoting a player’s BABIP or WAR.
The MLB’s evolution is now at the helm of Rob Manfred. On January 25th, it will be one year since Manfred became the Commissioner of the league. Manfred has already been asked about what to do regarding all the shifts and had suggested he is open to the idea of banning extreme shifts. That makes a person wonder what sabermetric categories could be invented to analyze a commissioner.