Willie Mays said it best. Baseball is a simple game. They throw the ball I hit it. They hit the ball I catch it. Worked pretty well for Willie I would say!!
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Nothing new in any of this. People were arguing about which baseball statistics were most significant over a century ago.
We have more statistics now but the same arguments.
My rule of thumb is that whatever obscure statistic you can dream up (e.g., infield singles percentage or triples to grounded-into-double-plays ratio), Mike Trout is close to the best in baseball at it.
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"I don't look at anything, said C.C. Sabathia..." But you can be quite sure that his agent does. In today's game, agents track every possible statistic that would help support their clients.
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For statistics to be meaningful, sufficient relevant data must be available and processed correctly. The issue of hitting or bunting against the shift does not have such sufficient data because it is so rarely done. Nor is it thought about or prepared for correctly.
The purpose of hitting/bunting against the shift is not to compel a slugger to hit singles to the opposite field more often than he could possibly get extra bases by swinging away, it is to force the defense to abandon the shift so that the slugger will have a much better chance of getting extra bases when he does swing away.
When his team is losing by two runs or more in the last inning with bases empty ,and a slugger comes up against the radical shift -- no infielders in the opposite infield -- and the slugger swings away instead of pushing a bunt down the empty-side foul line, he and his manager should be fined $25, 000.00. Then sufficient relevant data would quickly appear and the statisticians can tell everyone why hitting/bunting against the shift is a statistical must.
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Common wisdom in hitting analytics is to hit the ball in the air not on the ground. And countless hitters are adjusting the angle of their swing and working at increasing the ball’s exit velocity. The result is more home runs and extra base hits and fewer singles. Batting averages drop while slugging percentages rise and strikeouts go through the roof.
As a team, the Yankees stats make it clear that they buy into conventional analytics. They lead baseball in home runs and are up there in strikeouts. Judge is the poster boy for these kinds of stats and Stanton is his sidekick.
I suspect that the analytics will be modified this year. The Red Sox hit lots of
ground ball singles last year and won it all. That suggests superior analytics. And statisticians tend to blow with the wind. When the Royals beat the Mets they changed everybody’s bullpen strategy.
Today, relievers are pitching more innings than ever, and the Yankee bullpen is designed to do just that. It sure seems like the Yankees tend to follow common analytic wisdom in both hitting and pitching. And in the off season they made some great moves. So they should be a good deal better than last year.
Whether it’s the analytics or the roster, lots of pundits predict that this will be the Yankees’ year.
At the end of the day ( or season) the goal is to make ( and win) in the playoffs and Wirld Series.
The only stat that matters then is winning the most games.
Too many players have great analytics, but their teams don’t win. It’s silly when pitchers with .500 winning percentages get the Cy Young Award. Or when guys win MVP when their team fails to make the playoffs.
It’s all about winning games,
Someone tell Chapman that every pitcher does better when they retire the first batter of an inning.
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Analytics has taken over baseball,and while some i’m sure Are helpful,to me(an old goat)some seem silly and overrated.baseball is a simple game ,but now watch a game and fans are bombarded with exit velocity,launch angles,and pitch counts.i personally try to focus on the stats I grew up with as important,but it is increasingly hard.deciding whether the pitchers bat eight or nine,and some of the other things they now try seem trivial to me.
The stats are the stats regardless of the changing lingo.
WHIP represents the epiphany that a pitcher will do much better by limiting hits and walks. A concept readily apparent to Abner Doubleday and anyone else familiar with the game in its infancy.
What will change the game is the idiocy of a few of the new proposed rules changes being tested in the minor leagues this year.
One such rule moves the mound and the pitching rubber back two feet to 62' 6".
A baseball diamond has been proven over the years to be geometrically perfect. The suggested change would alter that.
If it ain't broke……...
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I'm in agreement that the mound should not be moved back. However, I can't say that baseball isn't broke... Last year there were more strikeouts than hits for the first time ever.
As exciting as homeruns are, I'd trade some for more singles, doubles and triples. The current brand of all or nothing baseball is tiresome.
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@Sneeral Agreed. Thank you. The game is much less nuanced in this all-or-nothing age. I love a Yankee homerun as much as the next guy, but they don't have any contact hitters who can be counted on not to strike out. Makes the games less fun, I think.
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@Teddymonds and Sneeral: Agree. Not making contact is boring, i.e. walks and strikeouts. By the way, if players want to take luck out of the game, then they should play it on a billiard table surface. All ballparks should be the same size and shape. There should be robotic umpires. What the article implies is that most players have figured out some statistic their agents can use to present them as positively as possible in contract negotiations. Nothing wrong with that, but since the fans are not involved in those negotiations, not sure we need to hear all about them. The argument could be clearer if, however, we knew whether managers who emphasize the new analytics help their teams reach the playoffs more often than those who don't. Since managers have so little flexibility to manage, keeping 13 pitchers on their rosters, though some of them are "not available" every day, thus making the pitching changes predictable, and only three or four hitters are on the bench, limiting changes and making them predictable, exactly how many choices based on analytics can the manager make? One other reason for continuing to look at the traditional statistics is to be able to compare current players to those of other eras. That is something of interest to fans, explaining Mantle vs Judge to their children, for example.
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I'm delighted to see mention by Judge of my favorite offensive stat, namely RBI + Runs scored. I've been tracking it for years. At the end of an inning, your at bat has been wasted if you haven't scored or helped somebody else score. Sure, it's related to quality of your teams, but folks like Ralph Kiner playing for often last place Pittsburgh managed to have over 100 in both stats many years in a row. Some surprises emerge. Eddie Stanky was weak in RBIs but managed to average over 100 runs per full season, despite mediocre talent. The RBI+Runs is closely related to other stats, but it is meaningful in and of itself. Judge is smart to concentrate on that and his base running. He'll continue to impress.
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@Joel
You have to deduct home runs from RBIs + runs scored to get the relevant figure.
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@Joel. As far as i’m concerned, Judge is the most exciting hitter in baseball. He hits to go yard or at least get a double but because of that he strikes out more than anyone in baseball, and gets very few singles.
Judge is so exciting because of all his extra base his. But if he learns to make contact more often, he will advance more runners. You don’t get an RBI or a run for advancing runners, but sometimes it’s the difference between winning and losing.
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