FG on FOX: Picking the Right Narrow Skill Set
There was once a statistical revolution that was supposedly about on-base percentage. Scott Hatteberg showed us the power of patience, right? In today’s league, though, it’s virtually impossible to make a living if the ability to walk is your only real skill.
The Twins just designated Chris Parmelee for assignment. He might not be a perfect comparable for Scott Hatteberg, but he’s close. Not a defensive asset anywhere but first, Parmelee also doesn’t have above-average power. So far so good.
Parmelee hasn’t shown great patience in the big leagues yet, but that’s complicated. He did have a 12.3% walk rate in the minors, and there have been grumbles in Minnesota that he was too passive as a hitter. Perhaps he’s been trying to be less patient in response to that pressure.
Parmelee himself admitted to me in May this year that he’s spent the last few years searching: “I was trying to find who I was as a hitter.” In the newest variant on his game, he’s been more aggressive. This year, he swung more than ever. He reached more than ever, too. “It might not be that perfect pitch that you were looking for, but it’s still a ball that you can put the barrel on and drive somewhere,” he said.
No matter. To date, Parmelee’s best skill to date has been his walk rate. He’s been just about league-average with the bat, but he’s been above-average with the patience. He *could* be a modern-day Hatteberg for the right team.
Except that it looks like, today, teams aren’t really interested in players that can walk but are having trouble adding value in any other way.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
You’ve linked to the wrong article. The actual article is here : http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/narrow-skill-sets-chris-parmelee-scott-hatteberg-moneyball-billy-beane-122814
Ack. Thank you. Duly edited.
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If a pitcher knows that a certain hitter is being highly selective early in the count, and if he knows what type of pitch that hitter is looking for, and he also knows that hitter is not likely to take him deep on any one pitch, wouldn’t that pitcher try to pound the strike zone with something other than the hitter’s favorite pitch thus jumping ahead in the pitch count?
Or just pound the strike zone in general and dare you to defy the BABIP gods. It’s hard to sustain a good walk rate without either at least average power or outstanding contact skills.
It’s obvious that you don’t want a walk-only first baseman, when guys like Justin Smoak, Ike Davis and Gaby Sanchez are replacement level. They are strictly superior, with above-average walk rates and at least near-average power, and they are available on the waiver wire for peanuts.
By the way, Chris Parmelee’s career ISO in the minors is .182 – he’s lasted this long because he’s shown some semblance of power at some point.
It is hard, which is what makes players like Eddie Yost (.240/.412/.346) and Eddie Stanky (.268/.410/.348) so remarkable. I thought that was what the statistical revolution about OBP was about: that players that get on base at a well above average rate are valuable, even with low batting averages and no power. I see nothing remarkable about Parmelee.
I agree, except it’s sort of remarkable that he’s one of four players on a current list, so maybe you could say he’s remarkable in his unremarkableness.
I’m not sure that the on-base percentage statistical revolution was ever about players with a slightly above average walk rate who only got on base at an average rate or below. At least, I hope it wasn’t.
I don’t think Moneyball was about OBP at all really.
No, it was about improperly valued assets. It just so happened at the time it was written that OBP was a very valuable skill that was undervalued.
I don’t think Chris Parmelee is undervalued. One has to actually have value to be undervalued.
Scott Hatteberg is also an odd posterboy for the moneyball strategy of finding an undervalued skill set.
Sure he was pretty good in 2002, but Oakland just lucked into him having a career year at the plate. Over the next 3 years, Oakland paid him $6.5M for only 0.5 WAR.
In his entire post-catching with Oakland and Cinci, Hatteberg put up a 105 wRC+ and was worth 6.8 WAR in 3368 PA’s. That should be a bench player or a AAAA guy, but he was a full-time player for 6 of those 7 seasons.
Daric Barton
All I can say, is that it has taken Fangraphs too many Joey Votto articles, and this article to finally realize it is wrong. In the past, this site lauds Joey Votto in ways that are completely undeserving, and this article finally realizes what I have been saying for years now – another name for offense is called HITTING, not walking. Joey Votto doesn’t steal bases, Votto doesn’t play a premium defensive position (1B), he does not hit for power, or at least he hasn’t since 2010 and 2011 his MVP years, and most of the time he cannot get himself to second base, and for all the “patience at the plate” he has, he still strikes out more than he walks, and those walks have cost him 200 hit seasons, and much needed production for his team, Runs and RBIs, plus it gives away plate appearances. The game of baseball, at least on the offensive side is about making consistent contact with the ball.
Between walks, contact outs, and hits, walks are worth the least. Why? Well you most certainly can score a run with a walk, but you cannot drive them in. 291 runs were driven in via a walk with the bases loaded, out of 19,271 runs scored in 2014, that is around 1.6% or so. Contact outs move other runners over and can give you RBIs, but you don’t score a run yourself since you got out. Only hits allow you to be able to BOTH drive in runs and score them, while moving other runners around the bases and NOT getting out. Even the lowly forgotten single is worth more than any walk. Sometimes a single drives in two runs, other times it helps a teammate move from first to third, rather than station to station. In Votto’s most recent full season, 2013, he had 273 plate appearances that were a walk or strikeout. It used to be there were baseball players who in their WHOLE CAREER would not strikeout 100 times a season, rather they would strikeout and walk around 50-75 times each. Even at 75 apiece that is 125 plate appearances saved for more potential hits, and at Votto’s rate that would be 30-35 extra hits a year PLUS all that production. He gives away his at bats. Just like Hatteburg, Votto is pretty one dimensional too. The goal should be to lower your strikeouts AND your walks, in lieu of contact outs and hits. And that Joey Votto, requires SWINGING MORE, NOT LESS, as you have been lauded for on this site. An outside corner pitch can be taken the opposite way for a double down the line, or in an alley, and its still a strike. When most hits in MLB or any league are singles, even given mistake pitches down the middle, no need to be TOO PATIENT. A strike is a strike is a strike, drill it. Votto has better contact skills than the rest of his team, so he should use them to the fullest rather than walk, as he is doing the Reds a disservice by walking all the time. Most walks aren’t 4 pitched balls, there is at least one strike in there he can drill.
That’s what I’ve always said Eric. Except that I used about 10,000 words less.
If you look at Votto’s splits then you’ll see that the more often he swings, the more outs he makes. His batting average and ISO both positively correlate with his walk rate, so the more patient he is the more damage he does when he chooses to swing. The idea that Votto can magically drive a single the other way every time the pitcher throws one strike rather ignores the entire history of the sport and it being known as a game of more failure than success.
It is true that the relative value of a walk is inversely proportional to the batter’s slugging percentage, so you’d be happier about your pitcher getting a walk than Giancarlo Stanton doing the same. It is also true that the relative value of a walk is inversely proportional to the slugging percentage of the following batters, which is why many teams walk the eighth hitter to get to the pitcher. Yet the most important thing that you need to realize is that walks are never a bad thing. They aren’t the optimal potential outcome, but they always have positive value. Sometimes people get so caught up in chasing the “best” possibility that they don’t properly appreciate the “solid” ones. Maybe Votto could be a more productive hitter by being more aggressive and swinging at more pitches, but the splits do not suggest that and actually argue against it.
Because Votto isn’t as good as Fangraphs thinks he is. There are articles on this site that say Votto is as good as Miguel Cabrera or Mike Trout in terms of wRC or or wOBA since 2008, which is just BS. And Votto does not have as good of contact skills as his batting average and contact out percentage would state. Votto is too picky and his runs and rbis and hits all suffer for it. And I didn’t say he would be able to drive a pitch on the outside half of the plate the other way all the time, I said he could do so AT HIS CURRENT RATES. He gives up 30-50 hits per year due to throwing away about 120-150 PA’s a year due to all those walks and K’s.
I have my doubts anyone has “argued” that Votto is as good as Cabrera or Trout in terms of wRC+; you’d merely need to pull up each player’s page and see that it isn’t true. Though if you mean regular wRC, his 735 since 2008 sure has Trout beat…
I went through a similar exercise last week in my quest to find a favorable outcome for Robbie Grossman. It was pretty bleak. But there is one encouraging comparison if you loosen your ISO filter: Freddie Freeman; he of consecutive 4 win seasons despite unremarkable power and a middling contact rate.
That ~.180 ISO may be out of reach for a player like Grossman, but I do think that a strong enough LD/IFFB profile can compensate for power (as long as it’s not Ben Revere-ish) and contact rate to a certain extent.
It’s like you read my FG+ cap for Grossman haha.