OBP Instead of AVE? Read this!

[Barnie]

I came across this article over at Fan Graphs and it was exactly what I was looking for as our 5X5 league uses OBP instead of AVE. Sound reasoning and tables with calculated rankings. Here's a sample:

Because the standard roto format uses batting average, most analysis, rankings, and projections are based on that and the other standard roto categories. If your league uses additional categories or replaces traditional categories with new ones like average being replaced by OBP, you’re can’t just rely on the normal analysis and cheat sheets provided by fantasy sites. You’re going to have to do a little bit of extra work. The purpose of this post is to aid those playing in leagues in which OBP has replaced average as a category...

As you can see on the “good” list, there are a lot of high profile hitters with great OBPs not listed. Guys like Adrian Gonzalez, Buster Posey, Ryan Braun and many others aren’t on the “good” list because they already have good batting averages and thus don’t get a bump in an OBP format...

Just to give this a little perspective, any player going after the first few rounds would go up or down about a round for each two points gained or lost. For the guys going in the first two rounds, the changes in value are a little smaller. On the good side of things, Jason Heyward probably becomes a no-doubt second round pick if he wasn’t already there for you, Prince Fielder and Jose Bautista become sure-fire first rounders, and Joey Votto is the clear #4 pick behind the big three and might even be worth drafting ahead of some of the big three depending on how high you were on Votto to being with...

How to Handle Different Categories: OBP

http://http://www.fangraphs.com/fant...ategories-obp/

[Judge Jude]

There IS an exploitable edge here, of course, but I don't know why leagues use OBP. It cuts into the league's ability to speak the same language as millions of other players, which seems like half the fun. And if you have a savvy league, what is gained?

ok, OBP is a better measure of how good a baseball player is. I guess I'd put it this way - if a league has OBP but doesn't dump steals, I am very confused as to why.

[Davros]

Prince Fielder and Jose Bautista become sure-fire first rounders

Which is why I was thrilled to get both of them with the #10 and #11 picks in the 10 team OBP league draft I was in last night. Votto went #7 (and that owner hesitated to take him then). I realized about a decade ago that you need to do extra work if you don't have a standard 5x5 scoring situation. I just can't fathom why it seems like most other owners still just don't realize that yet. Yeah, it takes some effort to find a simple cheat sheet generator that uses non-standard stats, but they usually are out there. Ziguana's site was very helpful for me this year in that regard to give me a decent starting point for initial rankings.

And I just love having walks, doubles, and triples mean something in fantasy. Without using them, mediocre players like Carlos Gomez seem to be highly valuable. That is why I tend to play in leagues that replace HR and AVG with TB and OBP. The SB effect can be offset by using SB-CS if that stat bothers you a bit.

[Judge Jude]

"I just can't fathom why it seems like most other owners still just don't realize that yet."

I give you credit as a smart owner. I just don't get why leagues do it...

[Hornsby]

"I just can't fathom why it seems like most other owners still just don't realize that yet."

I give you credit as a smart owner. I just don't get why leagues do it...

Because it's simply a better way to evaluate the worth of a player. Why wouldn't you use the best tools available to you? As far as speaking to the millions of other players out there, OBP is pretty well universally understood, it's not like WAR where there are still many, many who are clueless about how it works.

[Judge Jude]

No, I mean that most people still play 4x4 or 5x5 standard rules, so the further off you venture from that, the less you can 'speak the same language.'

If my league switched to 10 new metrics, all of our owners would adjust accordingly, and bid on those stats. Nothing changes, beyond speaking a new language that few others speak. Seems a little isolating.

AVG is a much better tool than SB in evaluating the worth of a player, obviously, which is why I asked how anyone can go from AVG to OBP and keep SB.

If you want to go all-geek stats, I get that, in spite of the loss of community.

[swampdragon]

I played in an NL only league for Chipper Jones's entire career.

We made up our own 5x5 categories.

we used
hits
runs
rbis
OBA
and power - which was total extra bases + steals - caught steals

and
wins
saves
era
ratio
innings - this probably should have been ks - but it was interesting in that you needed 5th starters to pile up innings and not kill the other stats

I think that the hitting categories were solid measures of players hitting abilities
we didnt count home runs or steals but rather xtra bases - all of them impact the game

[Judge Jude]

"So if you prefer OBP as a category you must, therefore, get rid of steals. That doesn't make sense to me."

OBP is a better predictor of overall skill than AVG, I thinkwe all agree on that.
SB is a worse predictor of overall skill than either - does anyone dispute that?

Once a league gets rid of original categories, why wouldn't SBs be the first to go (and SV 2nd)?

[Davros]

I'm not under the impression that many leagues use OBP just to get rid of old stat categories or to fully measure overall skill value of players. I know that I just want to get points for as many positive contributions that my players provide as possible (sans defensive stuff, since there just are not good enough objective stats out there IMHO).

SBs are positive contributions to my eyes. Are they as important as a walk, or a triple? Probably not, but they still are positive contributions. If a league was wanting to offset the effect level of SBs on overall player value, it can be done many ways without ditching the stat altogether (use SB-CS, make SB ranking only count at half value in roto points, or just have 7-8 offensive stat categories).

Saves are positive contributions too, but are probably identical in value as holds, which is why I prefer to use Saves + Holds as a category so that all quality relievers have value.

[bryanbutler]

"So if you prefer OBP as a category you must, therefore, get rid of steals. That doesn't make sense to me."

OBP is a better predictor of overall skill than AVG, I thinkwe all agree on that.
SB is a worse predictor of overall skill than either - does anyone dispute that?

Once a league gets rid of original categories, why wouldn't SBs be the first to go (and SV 2nd)?

i couldn't agree more. in my long-time league we only played with BA for 2 years. OBA was the first switch, then to net steals (SB-CS). actually, we tried the more accurate SB-2*CS (SABR-metrically it's the more accurate one anyway), but none of us liked that much a penalty. then to 5X5. then the switch from HR to SLG. our last was the hardest - the switch from straight saves. we first tried SV-2*BS. then SV-BS. then rewarding setup/mid-relief with SV-BS+Ho/2.

i've been angling for a change to QS from W for a few years now - it usually takes about 5 years to overcome inertia. i think i'll get it in the next couple of years.

so, yeah, convert to all of them (the proper stats that indicate productivity).

20 years ago it was hard as hell to track categories that were any different than the "standard" 4x4. in the modern days of information availability, i see no reason to cling to these outdated measures of productivity.

as i referred to in one of my other threads - branch rickey knew almost 60 years ago that BA is a bad indicator of productivity.

If you want to go all-geek stats, I get that, in spite of the loss of community.

i'm not sure what "community" you're referring to here. the mix of categories that is used any more is so broad that i'd hazard to guess that straight 4x4 is now in the minority. is it that community you mean? or a 5x5 with simple added runs and Ks?

i embrace the changes to more accurate statistics. i'm not a huge fan of, say, a *single* statistic (we could, after all, just use RC for batters), but going to more realistic predictors of "value" is a good thing.

if there were any truly accepted defensive statistics (i know, we could use UZR, but i've seen some arguments against its utility) i'd *love* to include those as well.

[fuhrdog]

Good points by all but I think I will still stick to the good ole' fashioned 5 x 5 cats.

[Judge Jude]

"If you want to go all-geek stats, I get that, in spite of the loss of community.
i'm not sure what "community" you're referring to here."

I mean the guy at work by the water cooler who wants to bounce a trade rumor off you. Every office has those guys, and if you have unique categories, it makes it more difficult to contribute an answer or even more difficult, probably, to have him help you...

[Hornsby]

"If you want to go all-geek stats, I get that, in spite of the loss of community.
i'm not sure what "community" you're referring to here."

I mean the guy at work by the water cooler who wants to bounce a trade rumor off you. Every office has those guys, and if you have unique categories, it makes it more difficult to contribute an answer or even more difficult, probably, to have him help you...

This is where you lose me...do you really think that the average baseball fan doesn't understand OBP? Or even OPS? If he/she doesn't, it's about a 30 second explanation before they get the concept and can make a contribution to any conversation that you want.

You could get rid of steals if you want, and saves as well...I really dislike the one trick pony cats, but not nearly as much as I hate negative categories. I'd prefer to keep those out of our roto world altogether. Now replacing wins, and Bryan suggested, I would embrace wholeheartedly. At least you can predict steals and saves, wins you simply can't count on. QS are OK until a better, easy, metric is found, but I tried to get the RJEL to embrace it a year or two ago and it was shot down. Luddites...

[Judge Jude]

"do you really think that the average baseball fan doesn't understand OBP?"

No. he understands it, but if you are talking about the merits of a trade proposal, you will have to enlighten him on any extreme differences in values of a player in the deal because your league speaks a foreign language.

That one is not always difficult, but because steals are far more irrelevant to winning baseball games than AVG, it's not logical to "upgrade" to OBP while keeping a relatively silly category like SB. And SB - CS makes more sense, but it still doesn't correlate well to actually winning baseball games, as the other stats do.

So why bother? We have a language, with some flawed words, but we can all speak it. If the owners are simply going to bid on the value of the actual categories anyway, why lose the communication with the outside world?

[Hornsby]

"do you really think that the average baseball fan doesn't understand OBP?"

No. he understands it, but if you are talking about the merits of a trade proposal, you will have to enlighten him on any extreme differences in values of a player in the deal because your league speaks a foreign language.

That one is not always difficult, but because steals are far more irrelevant to winning baseball games than AVG, it's not logical to "upgrade" to OBP while keeping a relatively silly category like SB. And SB - CS makes more sense, but it still doesn't correlate well to actually winning baseball games, as the other stats do.

So why bother? We have a language, with some flawed words, but we can all speak it. If the owners are simply going to bid on the value of the actual categories anyway, why lose the communication with the outside world?

I think for the same reason that anything evolves...to become better, smarter, faster, stronger, etc. It's simply a matter of the games evolution from the old days of 2 catchers (which you support, IIRC) and 4x4 stats, to today's multi-faceted games that can embrace any stats that you can find 10 people or more to accept as good barometers to measure their respective teams.

And let's face it, most of us don't communicate about our fantasy world with people outside it, they generally look at us like we're a little crazy, but in a benign way. They don't understand it, and they don't want to, for the most part. The best communication that I can hope for with most people is a surface conversation about the Twins, and don't go beyond the 25 man roster, because they CERTAINLY don't know the minor leagues lie we do.

And while I don't pretend to understand some of the more esoteric sabermetric stats, it doesn't prevent me from reading, and occasionally learning from those conversations. Just my take on things...