Email a copy of 'The Stats MLBTR Readers Need To Know' to a friend
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By Ben Nicholson-Smith | at
Email a copy of 'The Stats MLBTR Readers Need To Know' to a friend
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coldgoldenfalstaff
Good deal skipping on OPS, as that’s heavily weighted towards power hitters, and shouldn’t be used as a comparison tool over a wide range of players with different skills, unless you’re looking for a specific power category in fantasy league play.
A non-power hitter would need to get on base at vastly higher rate over average to come close to equaling the OPS of a power hitter with a far below average OBP.
strikethree
OPS is a good indicator of a player’s talent and value in terms of wins. Obviously, for fantasy purposes, you would need to evaluate your team’s situation and draft towards the category you need. (Plus factor in position and stuff like that) However, the top OPS leaders are the guys you want to draft anyway.
It’s a fast way for ranking overall hitting performance.
satchelprice
Actually, it’s not really a good way. As the other guy noted, it skews towards power hitters because it doesn’t equally weigh on-base percentage and slugging percentage, even though statistically, OBP is more valuable. The two denominators on the statistics aren’t even equal, as OBP is out of 1.000 and SLG is out of 2.000, so you’re combining two unequal fractions.
I’m sorry, but OPS is just not a very good statistic, and we’ve already done better. If you want to analyze how good a hitter is, just use linear weights. Weighted on-base average (known as wOBA) is a significantly better way to analyze a player’s true talent level.
strikethree
Take a look at the wOBA and OPS rankings. Then look at OBP rankings.
Top 5 wOBA: Albert Pujols, Joe Mauer, Prince Fielder, Joey Votto, Kevin Youkilis
Top 5 OPS: Albert Pujols, Joe Mauer, Prince Fielder, Joey Votto, Derrek Lee (Youk is 6th)
Top 5 OBP: Joe Mauer, Albert Pujols, Nick Johnson, Todd Helton, Joey Votto
Obviously I only used top 5 for ease of time.
Which of these are closest to each other?
Truitalian9
slugging is out of 4.000
bobbybaseball
Flawed.
bobbybaseball
Yeah, OPS is flawed.
jb226 2
Thanks for this. I knew what all of the stats WERE, but knowing what the averages around baseball are for them is certainly helpful.
the_show
Any details on 2010 total team payrolls yet?
SolidarityInSF
Ahem. It’s best to look at multiple FULL seasons – I’d say 100+ games, or 80 at the very least – when using UZR/150. Career numbers for UZR/150 aggregate by season, not by number of plays, so a small sample size (for a September callup, or injury shortened season) in one year can completely skew a players career line for this statistic.
UZR/150 is fine for comparing players on a season by season basis; straight-up UZR is better for assessing a player’s defensive ability (provided they have a suitably large sample size, 2 or 3 full seasons). Zone Rating stats are very temperamental, and they get bandied around pretty irresponsibly.
dire straits
I love MLBTR!
Piccamo
The Sabermetrics Library (saberlibrary.com/) has a very good description of these various stats (and more!) and references to where people can find more background for the statistics. I recommend it for anyone interested in sabermetrics.
matt_little
WHIP is one of the best to measure a pitchers worth.
Just have to add how much I love MLBTR.
We get no real baseball news here in the Australian media.
I must check this site at least 5 times a day to keep informed.
bobbybaseball
No, WHIP is not a good way to judge a pitcher. The best way to determine a player’s ERA for the coming season is not to look at his previous year’s ERA but to look at FIP.
Yankees420
Why is WHIP not a good measure of a pitcher? The guy didn’t say anything about trying to predict a pitchers ERA, and you gave no supporting evidence to your claim about WHIP.
Robert 29
What is ERA+?
bobbybaseball
Think of it as the difference between a pitcher starting in Petco vs. White Sox park. His ERA at Petco needs to be discounted for how good of a pitcher’s park it is while Sox park (US Cellular Field) is more of a hitters park. That’s why I wasn’t thrilled when the Sox acquired Peavy. Sure, he’s very good but he’s pitched in Petco all these years.