Locked on Mariners and their war with OPS
Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2024 5:30 am
The most recent LO Mariners Podcast called out baseball fans as "casual" if they use OPS as a stat to compare players.
Colby states that Harvard found that every point of on base % is worth 4x that of a single point of slugging %. He says that makes OPS not a quality stat as it treats these stats as equal.
I on the other hand, say that's a largely BS claim because major league teams CLEARLY value slug more than the 4:1 ratio thrown out there by Harvard.
Take a player like Javier Baez... he is making $25 million a year, making him the 25th highest paid position player in baseball. Before getting paid by Detroit, Baez's highest OBP he ever recorded in a full season was .326 and he mostly averaged out to .315 which is pretty abysmal. However, he slugged anywhere from .480 to .530 over that stretch which is elite.
Now lets find a player who flips those stats... meaning high OBP, low slug. Luis Arraez is probably a good example. Arraez has a career OBP of .378 but a career slug of .424.
https://www.fishstripes.com/2023/1/27/2 ... uis-arraez <- this article does a good job laying out a potential Luis Arraez extension that pays him $17 million a year or so, comparing it to Jeff McNeil's extension. In any event, Arraez will likely not come near the $25 million a year that Baez makes. Yes, I realize Baez plays a more premium position but there were serious questions about Baez during free agency and he still got that massive contract.
If OBP is as important as Colby claims, Arraez should be one of the higher paid players in the league when his time comes, no? Certainly he should be projected to make far more than Baez given his OBP being worth WAY more than Baez's slug.
The answer is as stated above... teams value the ability to slug more because it's a rarer commodity than a player who can hit a bunch of singles. The 4:1 value is bullshit... that's what the math says but that's not how the game is played.
Colby states that Harvard found that every point of on base % is worth 4x that of a single point of slugging %. He says that makes OPS not a quality stat as it treats these stats as equal.
I on the other hand, say that's a largely BS claim because major league teams CLEARLY value slug more than the 4:1 ratio thrown out there by Harvard.
Take a player like Javier Baez... he is making $25 million a year, making him the 25th highest paid position player in baseball. Before getting paid by Detroit, Baez's highest OBP he ever recorded in a full season was .326 and he mostly averaged out to .315 which is pretty abysmal. However, he slugged anywhere from .480 to .530 over that stretch which is elite.
Now lets find a player who flips those stats... meaning high OBP, low slug. Luis Arraez is probably a good example. Arraez has a career OBP of .378 but a career slug of .424.
https://www.fishstripes.com/2023/1/27/2 ... uis-arraez <- this article does a good job laying out a potential Luis Arraez extension that pays him $17 million a year or so, comparing it to Jeff McNeil's extension. In any event, Arraez will likely not come near the $25 million a year that Baez makes. Yes, I realize Baez plays a more premium position but there were serious questions about Baez during free agency and he still got that massive contract.
If OBP is as important as Colby claims, Arraez should be one of the higher paid players in the league when his time comes, no? Certainly he should be projected to make far more than Baez given his OBP being worth WAY more than Baez's slug.
The answer is as stated above... teams value the ability to slug more because it's a rarer commodity than a player who can hit a bunch of singles. The 4:1 value is bullshit... that's what the math says but that's not how the game is played.