Monday, May 06, 2013
Get to know a stat: wOBA, wRC
Nothing new for the regular readers here, but I like to point out to blogs who take the time to spread the word. Plus, I like their logo.
In the past, when ?I described wOBA, I usually went with these weights:
0.7 BB, HB
0.9 1B, ROE
1.3 2B, 3B
2.0 HR
I like things to one decimal place, I like to group things, I prefer to keep the coefficients stable, and I prefer to treat the speed portion of the 3B separately from the 2B.
Given that you are talking to people who are aware of SLG (and the 1,2,3,4 weights of the 4 types of hits), and those same people are aware of OBP (and how a walk is as good as a hit), and they realize that both metrics have something that just doesn't feel quite right, though they never thought too much about it, taking the next step to wOBA just seems like a very small step. I think it should be an easy sell, if they've already decided that SLG and OBP can be improved upon.
***
My favorite part of wOBA is that it really is identical to Linear Weights (per PA) from Pete Palmer, but never (and I mean never ever) have I had the problem that Pete had with negative numbers and 0 being league average. It just doesn't come up. I think centering the scale around OBP, rather than around 0=league average, is what resonates the most with the fan.
(Yes, yes, I know some of you want batting average. Too bad. Batting average is so overused relative to OBP that I'd never do anything to give it even more visibility. Batting average is a periphery stat, like BABIP or something like that. Actually, it's worse than BABIP. OBP is a paradigm shift from batting average, and the less we use batting average as a reference, the better. If OBP had never existed, we'd have to invent it. If batting average never existed, it would be inventing and lie down in the dustbin of history, a cute little metric to be used on occasion. But one where we'd never consider removing SF from the denominator.)
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