Thank You Mr. Wedge
“Batting average, unfortunately for a lot people, and it’s only been really noted in the last five or 10 years, that it is somewhat of an overrated stat. There are so many other numbers that are more important to a team winning a ballgame – that’s all that matters.” – Eric Wedge, Manager, Cleveland Indians
Thank you, Eric Wedge, for this response to the question of whether or not Grady Sizemore’s declining batting average over the last few seasons set off alarm bells. Sizemore hit .289-.290 in 2005-06, his first two full seasons, before dropping to .277 in 2007 and .268 last season. His wOBAs in that span: .359, .386, .376, .384. Grady’s proportion of hits to at-bats may have dropped a bit, but his overall offensive productivity is extremely high. His batting average may have been .268, but Sizemore hit 33 HR, 39 2B, stole 38 bases, and earned 98 free passes.
Oh, and Grady plays a mean centerfield, as well. His UZR marks since 2005: +3.7, +14.3, +2.6, +6.1. Averaged together, Sizemore has been a +6.7 runs/season fielder. He is also the model of durability, amassing 157+ games in each of his full big league seasons. As evidenced by his four consecutive 20/20+ seasons, Grady also runs the baseball very well. Our wOBA includes stolen bases, but if you subtract the EQSBR from the EQBRR at Baseball Prospectus, Grady looks worthy of an additional two or three runs per season on the basepaths.
Add everything together and we have win values of +5.3, +7.7, +6.0, +7.0 (his posted win values plus a couple additional baserunning runs). That is a grand sum of +26 wins in four big league seasons, and Sizemore is still just 26 yrs old, suggesting that continued improvement is not out of the question. Grady has made $4.2 mil in his young major league career while producing at levels valued around $102 mil, a mind-boggling number. Has anyone who previously did, stopped caring that he posted a .268 batting average last season?
I’m not here to bash the batting average statistic. I think it has uses, and it works well in a slash line, but it is not the barometer many make it out to be. In the case of Grady Sizemore, who adds to a team from so many different areas, batting average falls even further down the list of metrics of interest. I’m very glad that his manager understands this fact and realizes he has a very special player on his squad, not one who needs to fix his mechanics to hit for a higher batting average.
Eric is an accountant and statistical analyst from Philadelphia. He also covers the Phillies at Phillies Nation and can be found here on Twitter.
Now that we have major league managers out of the way, maybe we can work on the MLB Network guys 🙂
can you source the statement, so we can read the rest of the transcript or article?
Phil,
Google “Batting average, unfortunately for a lot people, and it’s only been really noted in the last five or 10 years” and makes sure to wrap it in quotes.
Wait a sec, you people can actually understand what Eric Wedge is saying? That quote looks like he started learning English six months ago.
It’s a verbatim transcript of an interview. They don’t follow written grammar rules…
Batting average is important, just now nearly as important as other things. Batting average for a leadoff hitter is zilch, whereas batting average for a 3 hitter is a little bit more important.
obviously given a guy with a .330 BA and no walks, and a guy with a .330 OBP who does walk, the extra hits are important.But that doesn’t happen an BA is still among the worst ways to assess a player.
If you take a hop, skip and a jump over to the Hardball there was a nice article about OPS and the GIDP. Turns out Grady is quite good at avoiding them, to the tune of about 3-4 runs per season.
Even in a slash line, though, BA can be very deceiving. Yuniesky Betancourt, for example, in 2007 hit .289, but his on base was only .308. It can be useful sometimes, but even something as simple as OBP can tell much more about what a hitter is actually worth. IMO, if you look at BA, you also have to look at the other slash stats.
the more managers and scouts embrace more precise stats, the more journalists will have to write about them regardless of whether they like or even understand the stats. I look forward to the day when WHIP and OBP and all the many other glorious stats are onscreen during the phillies games…. and I look forward to hearing announcers actually discuss them with some understanding (locally, as I know that ESPN sometimes posts those stats).
evan,
you dont have to use all sorts of advanced tiertiary stats to be able to tell if someone is good.
you should be able to look at basic stats like BA R RBI for a batter or W-L ERA for a pitcher, to know if someone is good or not.
I dont know about the rest of ppl here, but Ive never found myself watching a game and seeing the ‘standard’ stats for someone and thinking, man I wish I know their ISO (or K/BB) so I can tell if they are good.
Actually, Steve, those really don’t tell you if a player is good or not. Runs, RBI, Wins and Losses are some of the most worthless, team-dependent stats out there. BA ignores significant information and treats all hits equally. ERA isn’t as bad, but still doesn’t differentiate between what a pitcher is responsible for and what was on the defense.
“I dont know about the rest of ppl here, but Ive never found myself watching a game and seeing the ’standard’ stats for someone and thinking, man I wish I know their ISO (or K/BB) so I can tell if they are good.”
Actually, I find myself thinking things like that all the time. Not one of those stats are truely indicative of a player’s skill level – they’re each too dependent on outside factors.That’s why I’m so glad we have awesome sites like Fangraphs!