quote:
I disagree. When a player sacrifices, the game is still in doubt. It is an attempt to score runs, not run the clock out on a game that is already won. I'd analogize it closer to spiking the football to stop the clock. Which, honestly, I don't know if it counts as an incompletion.

That said, lousy hitters tend to sacrifice more. It says something about the hitter. Nola has 5 sac hits in 80 PA. The only player close to that rate is Hanover: 4 in 205. Think about it: it's why the pitcher always bunts in the NL. Even good hitters will bunt occassionally, but that will balance out. Players with an extreme number of bunts look like a much better hitter than they really are by deleting sacrifices.

#1, I think it's ridiculous for you to argue against to way OBP is calculated to make a poinn about NOLA. It's only been calculated that way forever.

#2, Your math on this is wrong. The sacrifice bunts do not make a hitter look better than they are. If a player never sacrifices and has an OBP of .350, then sacrifices 10 times in a row, his OBP will be .350. And if Nola never sacrificed his OBP, why would his OBP go down? I would expect that he'd get a hit, BB, or HBP at a VERY similar rate than he does in every other at bat. His OBP would be very similar.

quote:
And fielder's choice and errors are still plate appearances. The ssacrifice hit simply evaporates into vapor. He appeared at the plate. It should be a plate appearance. Sure, it's a manager's decision, but a manger's decision usually which comments on the hitter's a bility if it is called for the same hitter over and over.

Fielders' choice and errors are considered plate appearances but they are not considered in the numerator of the equation even though the player reached base safely. The reason for that is because it goes against what OBP is trying to illustrate...the value of a batter at getting on base. It wouldn't make sense to give credit for errors, or fielders' choice any more than it would make sense to penalize for sacrifice bunts.

I think your stance on Nola is reasonable. I think the reasoning behind your stance is ridiculously poor.

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Posted by Baloo

Formerly MDGeaux

Member since Sep 2003

49645 posts

Posted on 5/23/09 at 9:48 am to moneyg

Well, the OBP discussion I thought was fairly disconnected from Nola. We're on a tangent and I'm not really talking about Nola. This isn't a point about him, really. This is a point about getting on base.

My math is right from the post you cited. Nola does sacrific 5 times in 80 PA's. That's an absurd rate. I don't know what's wrong about that. Well, actually, since they don't count as PA's, he 5 sacs in 75 PA's. an even more absurd rate.

Exactly - OBP measures the value of getting on base. Deleting a sacrifice gives value to failing to get on base. If Hanover had swung away instead of the 4 times he bunted, maybe he would have gotten on base 4 times. Maybe he would have gotten out 4 times. Maybe he would have gotten on at .343 rate like in his other PA's. the thing is: I don't care what MIGHT have ahppened. I care what did. He got out four times. He didn't get on base.

Look at some of our starters who don't have a sac hit all season: Mahtook, Ochinko, Dean, Landry, and Gibbs. LeMaheiu only has one (Mitchell, strangely enough, has 3, that's a lot for a hitter of his caliber). Our top hitters don't really sacrifice. The sac hit IS a commentary on the quality of a hitter, and we're missing a picture of a hitter if we simply ignore them. It's not a positive. Getting out is bad.

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