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Failure to Develop or Sign OBP

Filmstudy

By Filmstudy
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Filmstudy Major Leaguer Cup of Coffee

Filmstudy

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The Orioles are once again being outwalked by their opponents, 105-102 on the season. That's someting the O's of my youth never allowed to happen as they outwalked their opponents in every one of their 18 consecutive winning seasons (1968-85).

One could argue that the failure to sign Fowler is the single reason why the O's don't have a hitter at the top of the lineup to magnify their power, but it's been going on for too long for that simple an answer.

I don't understand the reason, but the organization, be that scouting or development seems to undervalue walks and OBP.

I would hate to think the organization can't get past common tabulation of OPS, but given the collection of sluggers with modest walk totals, it's hard not to wonder.

Since the early 1980's, I'm going to briefly outline how I think such analysis has evolved:

Early 1980's: Bill James published the Baseball Abstract and within a few years it was understood that OBP and SLG were the 2 most important offensive statistics.

1990's: I'm not sure I have the time frame exact, but in this decade, OPS became more widely touted as a single number to represent offensive productivity. To people who grew up with both stats, this seemed ridiculous. The standards (league averages) are different, and they measure 2 very different things. At a minimum, "they" needed to account for the ballpark and the fact that it was harder to come by a point of OBP by a long shot.

Late 2000's: After period with OPS, Baseball-Reference.com made available an increasing table of statistics that pushed individual numbers well of the right side of the screen. Among those new statistics was OPS+, which purports to correct the problems with OPS by normalizing each figure to the league average and adding the percentages above or below league average on a park adjusted basis.

Problem solved, right? No, not really, because we still have the problem that OBP is much more closely tied than SLG to the scarce resource, namely the team's 27 outs.

SABRmetricians differ in terms of what the relative weighting should be, but I've seen those who say a 1.5 relative weighting to SLG is a good place to start with some saying 1.7 or 1.8 is a more appropriate weighting. Here's a piece which uses simple regression to develop relative weights and also has commentary on differences in weighting appropriate by lineup position;

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2006/2/12/133645/296

So both OPS and OPS+ are flawed, but how does that pertain to the 2016 Orioles?

The Orioles are far behind the curve in terms in producing players that generate solid OBP or walks. It's a problem that extends back to 2000 (at least) and since then, the Orioles ranks in the AL in team walks have been:

10, 8, 13, 13, 5, 9, 10, 11, 9, 11, 14, 10, 7, 14, 13, 13 (those last 4 years were good Orioles teams in a 15-team league, 14 prior to 2013)

So as the Orioles have improved significantly with Showalter, the bad walk totals have dropped to rock bottom.

How the hell did the walk lose its place in "the Orioles way"?

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Drifter Major Leaguer Cup of Coffee

Drifter

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Rickard has to be a little more selective as the lead-off guy. His pitch recognition should improve as he gets more AB's, which will bring up his BB's.

As for the rest of the team.. it's power-based. Lots of HR's are possible, and many K's are expected. I'd rather them go down swinging than looking.

About the only thing I see that I would love to tell them each at bat is.. don't expect a FB when your ahead in the count 3-1 or 2-0. Pitchers aren't afraid to throw off-speed (and out of the zone) in those counts anymore. We all hate seeing them swing out balls, but it's how they are built.

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weams Hangout Grand Counsel

weams

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They're 6th in obp...in all of baseball.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

Rickard has to be a little more selective as the lead-off guy. His pitch recognition should improve as he gets more AB's, which will bring up his BB's.

As for the rest of the team.. it's power-based. Lots of HR's are possible, and many K's are expected. I'd rather them go down swinging than looking.

About the only thing I see that I would love to tell them each at bat is.. don't expect a FB when your ahead in the count 3-1 or 2-0. Pitchers aren't afraid to throw off-speed (and out of the zone) in those counts anymore. We all hate seeing them swing out balls, but it's how they are built.

Ain't broke.

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Flash- bd Veteran All-Star

Flash- bd

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I'm a bit confused as to what Rickard has done, or what he brings to the table, to make himself a locked-in starter ahead of Kim and Reimold. Is it because Buck believes them to be worse defenders? Is Kim in fact a very poor defender?

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justice98 Major Leaguer Cup of Coffee

justice98

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Rickard has to be a little more selective as the lead-off guy. His pitch recognition should improve as he gets more AB's, which will bring up his BB's.

As for the rest of the team.. it's power-based. Lots of HR's are possible, and many K's are expected. I'd rather them go down swinging than looking.

About the only thing I see that I would love to tell them each at bat is.. don't expect a FB when your ahead in the count 3-1 or 2-0. Pitchers aren't afraid to throw off-speed (and out of the zone) in those counts anymore. We all hate seeing them swing out balls, but it's how they are built.

I hate when Rickard goes up there swinging and has 2-3 pitch at bats. Early in the season, he was seeing more pitches, working the count.

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JKOriole AAA

JKOriole

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I'm a bit confused as to what Rickard has done, or what he brings to the table, to make himself a locked-in starter ahead of Kim and Reimold. Is it because Buck believes them to be worse defenders? Is Kim in fact a very poor defender?

I'd be surprised if he wasn't in the lineup today - but I've been surprised before

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weams Hangout Grand Counsel

weams

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Yikes. It just feels like he's going to figure it out soon. At least, I hope so because we have no other options.

He has great stuff. Tony thinks he is a bullpen arm. I am hoping he adds a wrinkle and figures out starting. A good umpire today would be a help.

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Drifter Major Leaguer Cup of Coffee

Drifter

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I hate when Rickard goes up there swinging and has 2-3 pitch at bats. Early in the season, he was seeing more pitches, working the count.
I'm sure the view from the dugout is one of optimism and patience.

So far (AND as a rookie), I think Rickard has done a good job leading off. He is young, he is going up against the best starters in the game.. and he's never faced them before. The .273 BA / .321 OBP is acceptable at this point IMO.

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Tx Oriole Hangout Grand Counsel

Tx Oriole

Posted
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The Orioles are once again being outwalked by their opponents, 105-102 on the season. That's someting the O's of my youth never allowed to happen as they outwalked their opponents in every one of their 18 consecutive winning seasons (1968-85).

One could argue that the failure to sign Fowler is the single reason why the O's don't have a hitter at the top of the lineup to magnify their power, but it's been going on for too long for that simple an answer.

I don't understand the reason, but the organization, be that scouting or development seems to undervalue walks and OBP.

I would hate to think the organization can't get past common tabulation of OPS, but given the collection of sluggers with modest walk totals, it's hard not to wonder.

Since the early 1980's, I'm going to briefly outline how I think such analysis has evolved:

Early 1980's: Bill James published the Baseball Abstract and within a few years it was understood that OBP and SLG were the 2 most important offensive statistics.

1990's: I'm not sure I have the time frame exact, but in this decade, OPS became more widely touted as a single number to represent offensive productivity. To people who grew up with both stats, this seemed ridiculous. The standards (league averages) are different, and they measure 2 very different things. At a minimum, "they" needed to account for the ballpark and the fact that it was harder to come by a point of OBP by a long shot.

Late 2000's: After period with OPS, Baseball-Reference.com made available an increasing table of statistics that pushed individual numbers well of the right side of the screen. Among those new statistics was OPS+, which purports to correct the problems with OPS by normalizing each figure to the league average and adding the percentages above or below league average on a park adjusted basis.

Problem solved, right? No, not really, because we still have the problem that OBP is much more closely tied than SLG to the scarce resource, namely the team's 27 outs.

SABRmetricians differ in terms of what the relative weighting should be, but I've seen those who say a 1.5 relative weighting to SLG is a good place to start with some saying 1.7 or 1.8 is a more appropriate weighting. Here's a piece which uses simple regression to develop relative weights and also has commentary on differences in weighting appropriate by lineup position;

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2006/2/12/133645/296

So both OPS and OPS+ are flawed, but how does that pertain to the 2016 Orioles?

The Orioles are far behind the curve in terms in producing players that generate solid OBP or walks. It's a problem that extends back to 2000 (at least) and since then, the Orioles ranks in the AL in team walks have been:

10, 8, 13, 13, 5, 9, 10, 11, 9, 11, 14, 10, 7, 14, 13, 13 (those last 4 years were good Orioles teams in a 15-team league, 14 prior to 2013)

So as the Orioles have improved significantly with Showalter, the bad walk totals have dropped to rock bottom.

How the hell did the walk lose its place in "the Orioles way"?

I don't know much about OBP. I really don't keep up with thing like that. All I

care about is the team is winning. As for the walks being own are they down in

most of baseball?

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