NFBC Message Boards

I rant about bases on balls. Hell, I know right now that I am going to rant in this piece. I know tht I am mostly alone in this fight. But, in my mind, I have chnce. I mean, how tough are sabermetricians in a fight?
What are they gonna do, bring a calculator to a gunfight?
Sabermetricians are the ants at a baseball picnic. They've infested the game, so much so, that I heard this conversation on air the other day.

Announcer 1- "He has worked the pitcher to a 3-2 count."
(The batter had not swung at a pitch)

Announcer 2- "A lot of fans don't know that making the pitcher throw more pitches, results in the opposing team having to go to their bullpen faster."

Announcer 1- "Way out of the zone, and he takes ball four."

Announcer 2- "That is a beautiful at bat."

Have we really come this far?
That a batter can stand at the plate for six pitches.
Not move.
And be credited with "a beautiful at bat"?
My dead Mother, God rest her soul, literally, could have done the same with a little propping up to have a strike zone.

Sabr ants have made every walk a hitting accomplishment. The pitcher is almost totally left out of the equation.
To broadcasters and sabr-ants, the hitter somehow made the walk happen.
Back in the day, a fan felt fortunate that a mediocre hitter received a walk.
Now, it's not the pitcher that walked a mediocre hitter, it is a mediocre hitter 'working' a walk.
And he doesn't even have to swing!

Let's have some fun with numbers of our own...
Here are the top 15 'walkers in baseball.

1 Bryce Harper 48
2 Paul Goldschmidt 43
3 Jose Bautista 37
4 Brandon Belt 33
5 Matt Carpenter 32
6 Ben Zobrist 31
Odubel Herrera 31
8 Anthony Rizzo 29
9 Joey Votto 28
Dexter Fowler 28
Carlos Santana 28
12 Joe Mauer 27
13 David Wright 26
Nick Markakis 26
Mike Trout 26

Hardly any of these players are playing up to their expectations.
Harper got off to a great start. Then started 'working' walks. Since then, his April flowers have turned to May showers.
Goldy has not been the Goldy of last year.He has led the league in walks most of the year, till the Harper surge.
Since becoming a leadoff hitter four games ago, Bautista has only drawn, er 'worked' two walks.
Brandon Belt is being credited for base on balls when in reality, pitchers would rather face the below average right handed hitter behind him.
I will credit Carpenter, Zobrist, Herrera, Fowler, Mauer, Wright, and Markakis.
I have seen a lot of their at bats and they truly 'work' walks to their teams advantage.
These are, for the most part, earned walks. More on that later.
Votto and Santana do work walks. In doing so, it is to the detriment of their team. They pass the buck. Instead of knocking in a run or two with men in scoring position, they are more than happy to walk to first base, letting a teammate take the responsibility. This resulted in a 100 rbi campaign for Brandon Phillips one year.
But for the most part, Votto and Santana are lauded by sabr-ants for doing a secondary job in reaching base, instead of their primary job which is to make runs cross the plate.

Sabr-ants are known for breaking down every number. They do not with the walk.
Their motto is 'Strike out bad, walk good'.
They do not take into consideration in whether a walk really was good.
Did that walk come around to score?
Was it used to 'get rid' of the good hitter in wanting to face the bad?
Was the walk 'earned'.
Yes, we have earned runs, let's have earned walks.
A batter who does not swing in an at bat did not 'earn' a walk.
Same with an intentional walk.
I believe that an earned walk is one with an at bat of seven pitches or more.
Bryce Harper seldom has a seven pitch at bat resulting in a walk. Pitchers are avoiding him. If having a 3-1 count, we most likely are going to see ball four. Harper gets credited by sabr-ants, but the walk was not earned.
Unless considering the ramifications or Harper's reputation.

Let's talk about Harper.
Here is his April stats. .286/22/9/24/5 with 17 walks.
Most fantasy players were saying that he would be an easy number one pick the following year.
Then May happened.
.207/12/2/6/2 with 31 walks.
More walks have resulted in less runs scored and a lot less runs produced.
The walk is killing Harper, while sabr-ants revere his on base percentage.
In reality, Harper has to do something that no other batter in baseball has had to do since Barry Bonds.
He has to go to the plate looking for that one pitch to hit. Knowing that he'll probably only get that one pitch.
So far, he has not mastered that.
In nine games from May 5 to May 14, Harper walked an incredible 23 times.
Then took a game to serve a suspension.
In the eight games since, Harper has 'only' received eight walks.
But only has four hits and no homers.
With all the walks, Harper's .406 on base percentage in April has been dwarfed by his .478 May OBP.
Has Harper helped his team with the raise in OBP?
HELL NO!
And it can be blamed on the sabr-ants almighty walk.

In my study for fantasy baseball, I have almost gone directly the opposite of sabrs.
I invite the strike out and I do not like my players walking a lot, unless they have speed.
I really don't care about contact rate. What I want is good contact, when making contact.
Contact is grounding out to second base. Why is that better than striking out?
In real baseball, a grounder to second may move a runner to third.
In fantasy, they're both an out.
I believe that sabr-ants are better for real baseball than for fantasy.
"A walk is as good as a hit" was always said to poor hitters on my little league team.
Never to the great hitters.
We want our great hitters hit.
If they do, we'll take our one in four chances during a game, that they'll do something wonderful.
Walks narrow those chances from one in three to one in two or less.
Walks have become a defense for the pitcher. And the sabr-ant hasn't recognized this.
We fantasy players have.
Owners of Harper and Goldy, and others are hoping for strikes.
They were drafted knowing they can beat a pitcher's best stuff.
But too many times, that pitcher's best stuff is to walk our batter.
In order to be relevant, sabr-ants need to delve into walks.
Some walks are offensive. Some are defensive.
And until these walks are separated, they become more and more of a meaningless statistic.
Or even a detrimental stat as in the case of Harper.
The more his OBP soars, the less he is producing.
Sabr-ants can start there.

Pro Football Focus does research on situational stats... for example they adjust their rankings in such a way that a RB with a 3.0 yard avg can rate higher than a RB that averages 5.0 yds/carry. If the first is running mostly on 3rd and short, 3 yards may suggest a high success rate. Whereas if the second RB's carries are mostly on draw plays in 3rd and long situations, 5 yards per may not be very successful.

The baseball guys haven't yet caught on to the "situational" value of a walk. You're ahead of the curve Dan.

Stat guys can be enamored with data they have because its easier to use that to explain everything rather than think about shortcomings. They'll figure it out eventually. Sooner than later if reading your rants.

KJ Duke wrote: The baseball guys haven't yet caught on to the "situational" value of a walk. You're ahead of the curve Dan.

Stat guys can be enamored with data they have because its easier to use that to explain everything rather than think about shortcomings. They'll figure it out eventually. Sooner than later if reading your rants.

Baseball figured it out a long time ago with wOBA and wRC+. Just because some people are slow to accept (or don't do research) doesn't mean it's not out there.

wOBA and RC only lump in the bb with other stats. Then use a formula to extract how they all did TOGETHER.
The BB is not a hit. A hit is never planned for by a pitcher. It cannot be used as a weapon by a pitcher.
The wOBA takes away the intentional walk. That's a start.
But by no means does that indicate how a walk was related from pitcher to batter.

We really do need an earned walk stat.
A walk that both a pitcher did not 'give' AND in which a batter 'earned'.
As of now, a walk can be used as a strategic defensive stat as well as an offensive statistic.

ToddZ wrote:

KJ Duke wrote: The baseball guys haven't yet caught on to the "situational" value of a walk. You're ahead of the curve Dan.

Stat guys can be enamored with data they have because its easier to use that to explain everything rather than think about shortcomings. They'll figure it out eventually. Sooner than later if reading your rants.

Baseball figured it out a long time ago with wOBA and wRC+. Just because some people are slow to accept (or don't do research) doesn't mean it's not out there.

I don't believe those stats look at game situation to distinguish between the value of a walk in one situation vs another, as is done by PFF.

Personally, I don't care why a player is walked. I want to know how walks feed into a player's fantasy potential. Both wOBA and wRC+ capture that pretty well.

For those unaware, wOBA is weighted on base average with coefficients for each component of standard OBP. These coefficients are derived from the run matrix where the influence each component has on producing a run is determined. The impact of a walk is minimized since all it does it put a guy on first base. For example, a double contributes by putting a guy on second base as well as advancing base runners.

The difference between the two is wOBA is a straight, non-park adjusted, percentage calculation while wRC+ is a park-adjusted index of wOBA with 100 being average.

As an example, a 0.330 wOBA from a San DIego player is better than a 0.330 from a Colorado hitter since Coors inflates the components relative to Petco.

On the other hand, two players with a 110 wRC+ own similar skills, but the 110 wRC+ hitter on the Rockies would have better numbers than the 110 guy on the Padres.

Two other key points. There isn't a speed component so the potential of stolen base guys isn't captured and there's no team context. So a .350 woBA from a Boston Red Sox hitter would generate more runs and RBI than the same from an Atlanta Braves batter.

To demonstrate the utility of wOBA vs. OBP for fantasy, here's the top 50 in wOBA so far, using 150 PA as the cutoff since we really only care about the guys most likely to be on a fantasy roster.

Name wOBA OBP OBP Rank
1 David Ortiz 0.451 0.408 13
2 Yoenis Cespedes 0.442 0.384 22
3 Daniel Murphy 0.434 0.422 6
4 Jackie Bradley Jr. 0.432 0.413 9
5 Ryan Braun 0.422 0.424 5
6 Jose Altuve 0.420 0.413 9
7 Miguel Cabrera 0.419 0.401 15
8 Mike Trout 0.416 0.413 9
9 Dexter Fowler 0.416 0.435 4
10 Ben Zobrist 0.415 0.448 1
11 Nick Castellanos 0.415 0.375 33
12 Nolan Arenado 0.414 0.374 34
13 Manny Machado 0.410 0.367 44
14 Michael Saunders 0.410 0.388 21
15 Christian Yelich 0.408 0.420 7
16 Bryce Harper 0.402 0.441 3
17 Aledmys Diaz 0.402 0.376 30
18 Marcell Ozuna 0.400 0.364 49
19 Stephen Piscotty 0.396 0.402 14
20 Odubel Herrera 0.395 0.445 2
21 Victor Martinez 0.394 0.393 18
22 Mark Trumbo 0.392 0.345 71
23 Trevor Story 0.388 0.333 87
24 Xander Bogaerts 0.387 0.397 16
25 Travis Shaw 0.387 0.374 34
26 Michael Conforto 0.386 0.358 53
27 Gregory Polanco 0.383 0.389 20
28 Robinson Cano 0.381 0.340 75
29 Matt Carpenter 0.380 0.382 25
30 Nelson Cruz 0.379 0.383 24
31 Anthony Rizzo 0.378 0.374 34
32 Brandon Belt 0.378 0.414 8
33 Eric Hosmer 0.376 0.363 50
34 Ian Kinsler 0.375 0.354 56
35 Hunter Pence 0.374 0.380 28
36 Paul Goldschmidt 0.374 0.412 12
37 Jose Bautista 0.374 0.373 37
38 Josh Donaldson 0.371 0.348 66
39 Jake Lamb 0.370 0.353 58
40 Chris Carter 0.369 0.306 122
41 Brandon Drury 0.368 0.335 81
42 Kris Bryant 0.367 0.358 53
43 Josh Reddick 0.366 0.394 17
44 Todd Frazier 0.365 0.335 81
45 Starling Marte 0.363 0.366 45
46 Steven Souza Jr. 0.363 0.333 87
47 Jean Segura 0.360 0.348 66
48 Chris Davis 0.360 0.352 60
49 John Jaso 0.359 0.370 41
50 Jonathan Lucroy 0.358 0.352 60

KJ Duke wrote:
I don't believe those stats look at game situation to distinguish between the value of a walk in one situation vs another, as is done by PFF.

Not directly - but it's accounted for indirectly.

ToddZ wrote:

KJ Duke wrote:
I don't believe those stats look at game situation to distinguish between the value of a walk in one situation vs another, as is done by PFF.

Not directly - but it's accounted for indirectly.

I wouldn't even call it indirect. Action A leads to Action B (run production) x% of the time accounts only for the averaging of every situation. That wholly misses accounting for the "actual" game situation at the time of the event.

There needs to be a distinction not only for intentional BB or not, but for situations that make them more or less desirable such as game score, number of outs, lineup situation, "is the pitcher wild", how many pitches were seen, pitcher intent (pitch around), etc.

KJ Duke wrote:
I wouldn't even call it indirect. Action A leads to Action B (run production) x% of the time accounts only for the averaging of every situation. That wholly misses accounting for the "actual" game situation at the time of the event.

There needs to be a distinction not only for intentional BB or not, but for situations that make them more or less desirable such as game score, number of outs, lineup situation, "is the pitcher wild", how many pitches were seen, pitcher intent (pitch around), etc.

Maybe for water cooler talk (or forum rants) but for fantasy evaluation purposes, I don't think it matters. I do think some consideration needs to be given what is likely to happen going forward as compared to the sample from which the wOBA is generated.

That is, will Player X be walked more or fewer times relative to the past and adjust expectations accordingly.

I do care why a player walks. Situational walks can be misleading if all coming under the heading of BB's.
Bryan Kenny is rejoicing in how many times Bryce Harper reaches first base. For him and some others, the game stops there as far as Harper's at bat.
He reached first base. He did his job.
For Kenny and others, a 100% chance of Harper being on first base is better than the seven in ten chance of making an out.
This is a little like taking four yards from a breakaway running back instead of the chances that he'll lose yardage or gain fewer.
Forgetting that a breakaway back can also score a touchdown or make a huge gain. Big plays, like home runs or 60 yard touchdowns are game changers. The defense tries to prevent game changers.

With so many walks occurring in baseball, especially to the better hitters, I would like to know which are defensive walks and which are offensive walks.
Which are earned walks and which are unearned walks?
We track hits by mph off the bat, the location of the hit, and the distance of the hit.
But as of now, a walk is a walk is a walk.
No matter that it is used on both offense and defense.

I've been pleading for data to be collected with a pitcher working from the wind-up v stretch for years - to no avail - so we shouldn'thold our breath on this one.

While I agree grading a walk would be interesting and informative, so long as what happens to a player is consistent from year to year, it's a pre-existing condition and gets baked into my evaluation.

What happens to a player in the future can change and we need to adjust. Just as we would if a running back's O-line got better or worse, or if their QB became to a threat to run or throw at a different rate in the red zone, etc.

I won't hold my breath.

If I were retired, I'd probably take on the project myself.
I think it would be very interesting and enlightening indeed.