We owe Theriot some praise!

[Amazing_Grace]

Why is this OBP viewed as more important than SLG? By virtue of definition if you have a high slugging you are going to score runs. Unless you assume everyone gets thrown out at the plate. You can have a high OBP and not score runs. Obviously if you have a high OBP your slugging will be more effective.

 

The current Blue Jays are a perfect example of this: Essentialy tied for 5th in OBP (as high as 2nd earlier in the year) 12th in SLG and 11th in runs scored (3 out of 13th). This seems logical to me; especially if your OBP is weighted heavily with walks. The Sox and the Yanks are always touted for their high OBP but their slugging is always good as well.

 

The flip side of the 08 BJ's last year Texas was 6th in SLG, 5th in Runs and 11th in OBP.

 

I am asking out of a ligitimate interest. I always heard OBP was viewed as more important but when looking at the BJ's struggles this year noticed their relatively good OBP really wasn't helping them out. Hence my question. Any insightful comments would be appreciated.

 

The value of OBP is more significant than the value of SLG, simply because of the difference in the numbers. A perfect OBP is 1.000, while a perfect SLG is 4.000. In the same vein, a .450 OBP is much more impressive than a .450 SLG. Of course, teams need both to win, and power and discipline are both important factors. The fall-back argument on why the equivalent OBP is more impressive: would you rather have a team OBP of 1.000, or a team SLG of 1.000? Easy, the team OBP of 1.000 means you're never out.

 

Granted, the value of SLG is not 4 times more inflated than the value of OBP, either. Different people assign a different factor to equate the two, but I'm personally fond of a simple 1.5 factor right now (Recent years, it was inflated a bit by a league-wide power surge, but the gap has closed a bit). That is, OBP * 1.5 will be about the equivalent number of SLG. It's not technically that simple, but it'll find values that are essentially close enough:

 

.400 OBP = .600 SLG

.380 OBP = .570 SLG

.360 OBP = .540 SLG

.340 OBP = .510 SLG

.320 OBP = .480 SLG

 

This is why I said "point for point". It takes more than one point of SLG to equal one point of OBP. Mathematically, it takes 4. In terms of evaluating individual players, 1.5 is as good an estimate as any.

 

OBP is more valuable as a team statistic because the number of outs in a season is fixed, but the number of TPA is not fixed. I have 3 outs x the number of innings, which because of extra inning games and not batting in the bottom of the 9th at home, varies slightly, but either way, there's no way for me to get more outs than 3xInnings batted. I can, however, get more TPA by increasing my OBP because TPA=Outs+"Not Outs" (yes I made that word up), and "Not Outs"=TPA*OBP. I'll spare you the math, but moving the numbers around, you get TPA=Outs/(1-OBP). As you can see, as OBP goes up, TPA goes up as well. It then becomes obvious why this is so important. OBP increases the number of opportunities for something good to happen over a season, while simultaneously increasing the chance something good will happen in any particular AB. That's without even considering arguably more important effects like forcing a starter to throw a lot of pitches and getting into the pen sooner. SLG doesn't have the same sort of effect. It simply measures how affective a particular player is likely to be given a single AB. It is an excellent tool for comparing individual players, but does not have as profound a significance on the team level.

 

 

But does your TPAs not go up with slugging as well? You have to have gotten on base to have a slugging percentage. In addition you have to have gotten on base via a hit and a high SLG means you are getting exta base hits. In addition many of the anciliary effects, because again you are still getting on base, would be the same, I think, and players are more likely to be in scoring position (or in case of a HR already scored) putting even greater pressure on the pitcher.

 

No, your TPA does not go up with SLG. TPA doesn't equate with SLG. SLG does not count walks, only hits. If walks were counted as singles and added into the SLG formula, then you would be partially correct. You would have a stat that included the effect I mentioned. Then you could cobble some formula together (I tried but it was way more complicated than I wanted to deal with), but either way you'd just be deriving back to OBP somewhere in your formula.

 

Ultimately, the problem is that SLG treats every individual base in the double, triple, and HR as equally valuable to the first. Intuitively, we know very well that this is not correct, and mathematically, the odds of an individual getting a second base or third or fourth go way up if you simply take as a given that the runner reached first base, whether they advance because of xbh, SB, another player getting a hit, or whatever There are many ways to advance, but only 2 ways to get on base in the first place (walk or hit).

 

The first base is, thus, the most valuable, and I would argue, the fourth base has the next greatest value (HR vs. triple). The third base is probably not as valuable as the second (triple vs. double) because the 2nd base makes a double play unlikely and puts the runner into scoring position. Obviously, you're going to end up with pretty subjective numbers if you try to figure all that up. Measuring the value of various bases is simply too complex because baseball has so many variables and possibilities. We can deduce enough from simple logic and statistics to understand that getting on base, the "first" base, is the most important, but by what degree is arguable, and the 1.5xOBP=SLG is a pretty good estimate if you're talking about the contribution of an individual player, IMHO.

 

This isn't to say that SLG is not useful, or that a team need not be concerned about having good SLG. SLG is the second most important offensive stat. OBP is the first. You worry about lack of OBP more than lack of SLG, even though lack of either makes a player and a team less productive, because poor OBP will make your team worse than poor SLG, all other things being equal.

[SouthSideRyan]

 

The Colorado Rockies last year had this happen. They sucked and then all of a sudden it clicked and they were always one step ahead of their opponents. Although in baseball because it is very much an individual sport this probably doesn't happen except in very very rare cases like the Rockies last year.

 

And then after they beat the D-Backs, Kaz Matsui slept with Matt Holliday's wife, and things went to crap again.

[SouthSideRyan]

I think I read that last sentence 20 times before I figured out it.

 

Regardless, I've played on many a team, teams with friends, teams with guys I didn't particularly like. When you're doing well, there's no issues. When you're doing poorly, regardless of how tight the group was, there was some strife. Most people have the causation wrong when it comes to winning and "chemistry".

 

People also love comparing utterly non-analogous situations like a team full of 16 year olds or an office full of cubicles when relating how chemistry affects a baseball team.