MLB Chatter Thread

Cotton said:
Can you explain to me why you think this way? You may have said before, but if you did, I don't remember.
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Batting average takes all the plate appearances of a hitter in which he walks and completely throws them out. For a guy like Schwarber for example, that's about 100 plate appearances or about 15% of his times up to bat.

Do we think 15% of Schwarber's plate appearances don't matter? That's absurd.
 
Genghis Khan said:
even though Y is a very useful thing to know.
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HRs and XBHs are a very important thing to know, as well. That's why you have OBPS. You are thoroughly confusing me with your logic right now.
 
Genghis Khan said:
Batting average should be completely ignored. Just because we've done things wrong for 100 years doesn't mean we should keep being wrong.

Kyle Schwarber is a perfect example of why batting average doesn't matter.

Schwarber is hitting .236. Traditionally that looks like a poor hitter.

But Schwarber also has 95 walks and a .351 OBP. That tells a way more complete story, because avoiding outs is generally the most important thing for a hitter so it's silly to ignore the fact that Schwarber is 6th in the league in walks. Add in that he leads the league in HRs and his batting average is completely irrelevant.
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That’s great for Schwarber. Now explain the other 200+ guys that are hitting low .200
 
Genghis Khan said:
Batting average takes all the plate appearances of a hitter in which he walks and completely throws them out. For a guy like Schwarber for example, that's about 100 plate appearances or about 15% of his times up to bat.

Do we think 15% of Schwarber's plate appearances don't matter? That's absurd.
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Correct, and that's why OBP exists. Any fan worth his salt knows that BA isn't the tell all stat, but it's certainly not as absurd as you are making out.
 
Cotton said:
HRs and XBHs are a very important thing to know, as well. That's why you have OBPS. You are thoroughly confusing me with your logic right now.
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Yes.

OPS is better than OBP (OPS includes the information that OBP tells you, although they measure different things).

OBP is infinitely better than BA (OBP includes the information that BA tells you, and they measure essentially the same thing, how effective a hitter is at getting on base).
 
Genghis Khan said:
Yes.

OPS is better than OBP (OPS includes the information that OBP tells you, although they measure different things).

OBP is infinitely better than BA (OBP includes the information that BA tells you, and they measure essentially the same thing, how effective a hitter is at getting on base).
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My point is, OBP excludes an important part of batting statistics that OPS includes. The same way BA excludes the importance of walks. I'm trying to follow your logic.
 
Cotton said:
Correct, and that's why OBP exists. Any fan worth his salt knows that BA isn't the tell all stat, but it's certainly not as absurd as you are making out.
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It's completely absurd because it tells an incomplete story.

Batting average tells you Schwarber gets a hit 23.6% of the time he has an "official at bat" (which doesn't include the times he walked). Which seems very bad.

On base percentage tells you that Schwarber gets on base 35.1% of the time he has a plate appearance (which doesn't ignore anything). Which is very good.

In other words batting average can be a very deceptive stat which makes it a bad stat.

The worst crime is that tons of people look at it and treat it as gospel and think it tells you whether a hitter is good or not. It does not.
 
Cotton said:
My point is, OBP excludes an important part of batting statistics that OPS includes. The same way BA excludes the importance of walks. I'm trying to follow your logic.
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Yes, I agree OPS is better than OBP.

On base percentage tells you something useful though, and isn't deceptive like batting average is.

On base percentage tells you how often a hitter avoids making an out, which is the most important thing he can do.

Slugging percentage tells you how well a hitter hits for extra bases, which is the best thing a hitter can do.

Both are useful.

OPS tells you both how often a hitter avoids making an out, and how well he hits for extra bases. This is the best stat because it combines the two best things a hitter can do.

Nowhere in there does batting average help in this. It's a useless stat.
 
Genghis Khan said:
(which doesn't ignore anything)
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It does ignore XBHs and HRs, though. Those are both a very important part of the story of a hitter. So (by your own logic) OBP is an incomplete stat, too.
 
This is the first time I have had a decent amount of time to be on the board while at work, and I end up debating baseball statistics and their usefulness. :lol
 
Cotton said:
It does ignore XBHs and HRs, though. Those are both a very important part of the story of a hitter. So (by your own logic) OBP is an incomplete stat, too.
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It's not incomplete for what it measures, which is getting on base. But I do agree that it doesn't tell the whole story of a hitter.

If you are talking about the overall effectiveness of a hitter OPS is the way to go.

If you want to know which batter is better at getting on base, OBP is the way to go.

OPS (or OPS+) is the best hitting stat in baseball as far as I'm concerned.
 
In other words, BA is a "getting on base" stat. It measures singles, doubles, triples, and home runs exactly the same.

Which is fine, but it completely ignores walks, which is an enormous omission.

OBP is also a "getting on base" stat. It measures singles, doubles, triples, home runs and walks exactly the same. It doesn't ignore any aspect of getting on base, unlike batting average.

That's the issue.

OPS is not a "getting on base" stat, although that's part of it. But it also weighs extra base hits accordingly. It's definitely a superior stat, but it's designed to tell you a different thing than OBP / BA.
 
Genghis Khan said:
In other words, BA is a "getting on base" stat. It measures singles, doubles, triples, and home runs exactly the same.

Which is fine, but it completely ignores walks, which is an enormous omission.

OBP is also a "getting on base" stat. It measures singles, doubles, triples, home runs and walks exactly the same. It doesn't ignore any aspect of getting on base, unlike batting average.

That's the issue.

OPS is not a "getting on base" stat, although that's part of it. But it also weighs extra base hits accordingly. It's definitely a superior stat, but it's designed to tell you a different thing than OBP / BA.
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Did you walk a lot in Little League? You have to have something in your past for hating BA so much you would argue this vehemently against it. I mean, your opinion is your opinion and you are obviously entitled to it, but I do not and will never agree that BA is a useless stat.
 
Let me know when I get to jump in.

Oh now?

Ok.

Josh Allen at Firebaugh High School batted .352 and had a .421 OBP for his high school career.
 
Cotton said:
Did you walk a lot in Little League? You have to have something in your past for hating BA so much you would argue this vehemently against it. I mean, your opinion is your opinion and you are obviously entitled to it, but I do not and will never agree that BA is a useless stat.
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It's just common sense.
 
NoDak said:
That’s great for Schwarber. Now explain the other 200+ guys that are hitting low .200
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Right, exactly.... That's what I want to know too.

Is Schwarber proof that the formula for determining a batting average in need of updating?

Or is he simply an anomaly that should be taken with a grain of salt?

@Genghis Khan
 
@Genghis Khan @Cotton @Chocolate Lab @NoDak

Gerry has spoken:

Genghis Khan— I looked into the actual league-wide numbers instead of just comparing a few cherry-picked players.

The short version: the ’90s/2000s hitters weren’t just posting prettier batting averages. They were also getting on base more, slugging more, getting more extra-base hits, and scoring more runs than hitters are in 2026.

From roughly 1995–2009, MLB averaged about .266 BA / .336 OBP / .424 SLG / .760 OPS. In 2026, it’s around .244 / .319 / .401 / .720. Walks are basically unchanged, so modern hitters are not making up for the lost hits by walking significantly more. Strikeouts, meanwhile, are way up — roughly 28% higher per team per game.

So yes, your point that batting average alone is incomplete is fair. A guy hitting .240 with a .360 OBP and big power can still be very valuable.

But the broader claim that old-school batting average is meaningless doesn’t really hold up. The older .300 hitters were often also posting better OBPs and better slugging percentages, not just more singles.

So the TL;DR is:

Today’s hitters aren’t simply trading batting average for walks and power. As a group, they’re hitting for lower average, reaching base less often, slugging less, and striking out a lot more than the hitters from the ’90s/2000s.

That doesn’t automatically prove today’s hitters are less talented, because modern pitching is nastier and more specialized. But statistically, the older era absolutely produced better offensive results across the board.
 
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