Batting stats that matter: OOTP Tutorial for Beginners

[@stanleyrosella1712]

That opened my eyes. For oldtimers like me the "old" stats have been a crazy guideline and since Bill James stepped in it has been an avalanche of new stats. These + stats really turns the table IMHO on looking at players. Back in the days when I had the pleasure of watching the great Hank Aaron a couple of times that old boxscore was it to measure them all. One knew there just had to be a lot more in this game of stats. I do hope you dig into pitching extreemstats too. A deep visit to Fangraph might help too for me. Big thanks. Another GREAT "tutorial" that will help not only in OOTP.

[@pfholden]

Glad it helped, Stanley. I still like a lot of the old stats too because it’s what I grew up following, but yeah, those + stats are so handy.

[@bv6377]

love that this applies to real life as well as ootp. thanks again for the fire content!! hope you have had a pleasent holiday season

[@pfholden]

True, you can apply this stuff to real baseball too. Hope you had a good holiday too!

[@GrantSweatshirt]

HR only stat that matters No but on a real note, MLB did a short bit on the CHI SOX and how they set their lineup, and how maldanado ((**Grandal**)) ( their C i think? ) was batting like 150 but had the highest OBP on the team because of his walk %. Glad to see these kinda stats hit mainstream instead of just the boxscore stats

[@whimsofmim]

Agree with your point about wOBA and wRC+. Here is a snippet from fangraphs' write up on wRC and wRC+: "If you’re thinking about using OPS+, use wRC+ instead. wRC+ is based off of wOBA and is regarded as a more accurate depiction of a player’s offensive value. They will typically offer similar conclusions, but wRC+ is superior and no more difficult to interpret or find." library.fangraphs.com/offense/wrc/ While I include OPS+ alongside wRC+, I like to also put wOBA next to OBP and cluster all four stats together so I have a general sense of whether a guy might simply be useful for getting on base or if they have a good chance to also drive in runs. I might be misunderstanding how to use the stats, but I consider those 4 stats as core stats, and also like to look at BABIP, SO% and BB%. I find WAR gives a good sense of a player's overall value including their defensive value given the adjustment for their position, which sort of accounts for their fielding (as long as their ZR and EFF are solid), which is useful for evaluating players who don't hit well but are amazing defensive players at key positions (SS, 2B, CF, Catcher, perhaps 3B). Having not followed baseball for decades (and being unfamiliar with WAR), I found the "rule of thumb" chart found on fangraphs useful when looking at how a player was performing: library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/ Lastly, you might want to cover "Batting Order Strategy" in a future video now that you've laid out these batting stats. I have found trying to build lineups according to the sabremetric batting (and favoring splits) seemed to yield better than expected results for my offense. Very small sample sizes though, so I'm not sure if I'm really building the lineups correctly, but still a useful thing to consider. Use the second table (the first table is a summary of the "traditional" way batting lineups used to be set up): www.sportsbettingdime.com/guides/strategy/batting-order-sabermetrics/ I thought of doing some similar videos to your video (and others you might put out), deep diving into useful stats and how to use them when determining batting order, but I am simply not concise enough for it to be useful to others (ty for linking my video btw and sorry I made it unlisted, but I mostly made it for that guy who works with the OOTP team and only mentioned it to you and your brother since the topic of coaching came up a few times in your live streams... glad you still found it useful and appreciate that you still encouraged me to keep it public... but I'm not thick-skinned enough to stumble upon criticisms like that guy's, even if they are fair). Anyway, happy New Year and gratz on overcoming all the injuries and making the playoffs. Hope the O's have a great postseason (if it's not already over at the time of this comment).

[@pfholden]

The rule of thumb charts on fangraphs are great! I think some needs updating with K and HR rates changing so much, but they are really good. And if you want to make videos, do it!

[@whimsofmim]

@@pfholden yeah, I play historical (late 80's, early 90's) and had to go into the actual tables provided by Fan Graphs to get a better sense of what league BABIP, wOBA, SO% and BB% were for that era and make updated charts for my sims since the numbers back then are different enough compared to modern numbers. As you have pointed out, that's one of the really nice things about stats like wRC+, OPS+, ERA+, and so on... The fact that they are weighted relative to the rest of the current league means they are always useful, where some of the other stuff like wOBA, BABIP, SO% and BB% can vary a fair amount depending on the era.

[@pfholden]

Yeah, Fangraphs is such a great resource. Baseball reference is also super handy for comparing different seasons with charts like this: www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/bat.shtml

[@whimsofmim]

@@pfholden awesome. I had seen that site referenced on the "History of the Seattle Mariners" by Secret Base, but never actually looked at it. Thanks for sharing it. Very cool.

[@pfholden]

Yeah, to be honest I use Fangraphs 95% of the time but BR definitely had some really handy features too.

[@pfholden]

One important context stat I didn't mention is BABIP. I get into that more here in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZ61nnWCjJaVZ7M

[@mikemantia1287]

Pitching stats video please!

[@pfholden]

Planning on it!

[@jonsparkes2550]

Another great video, thanks! I'm TOTALLY new to OOTP. I'm pretty new to baseball; living in England and having been inspired to buy the game having read the Moneyball book. You mentioned in another video that you can change the selection and appearance of selected, preferred stats. Please can you explain how? I don't have the wRC stat showing. How can I add it to my display? Sorry for the rookie question but thanks for all your videos which are really helpful.

[@pfholden]

Glad the videos have been helpful. Moneyball is a great way to launch baseball fandom. And there are so many great baseball books out there! For the stat rows, have a good at it with this video and let me know if you still have questions: kzbin.info/www/bejne/opSzpIJqoraHldE

[@jonsparkes2550]

@@pfholden Awesome, all sorted, thanks!

[@danbabic1598]

Thanks, great content! I subed

[@pfholden]

Thanks!

[@JP-gn4fg]

Great video, what do you consider a meaningful sample of PAs when evaluating a player? Also for the below average WRC+ guys, who are in the lineup for their gloves, how do you determine if their defensive contribution is worth their bad bat?

[@pfholden]

Just overall player evaluation (not sample size needed for individual stats to stabilize), it really depends on the player and how they've performed so far. For example, if it's a fringe prospect who my scout doesn't like, and he gets 10 starts in my rotation and is bad, I may be done with him. But a top prospect who has the same performance, I'll give more time to. Most guys who make it onto my 40-man are there at least until they are out of options years, but not necessarily on the 26-man. For defense, ZR and WAR are the two best to determine if the bad (bat) outweighs the good (glove) or vice versa.

[@stanleyrosella1712]

@@pfholden Those defense wizards in the past that didn't even made the Mendoza-line never gets many AB, so they are hard to spot. Coming in 8th or 9th inning and also gets very few balls to handle in the field makes the samples few in classic Error-stat. Guess ZR and maybe that EFF helps. Rafael Belliard comes to mind. Think he got 1 HR for each decade he played, but got out in the field almost every day. LOL.

[@neugey]

You've convinced me to look at WRC+ a lot more. Especially when looking at minor league players. I would presume that the league average and park factors are respective to each minor league environment ... that is true in and outside of OOTP, correct?

[@pfholden]

Right, if a player has a 100 wRC+ in the Eastern League, then that player is a league average player in the Eastern League. So, in general, top prospects should be well above that if they are ready to move to the next level. I manage all of my minor league teams and wRC+ and WAR are basically all I need to know (that's a slight exaggeration) when deciding who gets promoted.