What are the pillars of modern baseball statistics?

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Really just pitcher wins and batting average. Oh, and fielding percentage.

Not GWRBI?

[e16bball]

I like the ones Fangraphs has chosen to be on the far right in their default dashboard on the player pages. 

For hitters, that’s wOBA, xWOBA, and wRC+. Then a section for WAR (offense and defense). For pitchers, that’s ERA, xERA, FIP, and xFIP. Then a section for WAR.

 

I think when I’m looking to size up a player quickly, that gives me what I want:

 

1. What is he actually doing stat-wise? What’s the actual performance on the field? You can’t go wrong with wOBA or OPS for hitters, and ERA pretty much sums it up for pitchers. 

2. How does that performance compare to the league? I think getting an OPS+ or wRC+ for quick comparison purposes is pretty helpful.

3. What do the important underlying factors say he should be doing stat-wise? Is there a big difference between actual and expected performance? Probably the most controversial, but I like to see whether the advanced data suggests that present performance is better or worse than the models would expect. This helps to shape expectations moving forward. I find xWOBA and xERA to be useful shorthands for this purpose.

4. How does it all come together to constitute “value”? For hitters, this is mostly about combining their batting and fielding exploits. For pitchers, it’s a little more straightforward (performance plus innings), although I prefer the Baseball-Reference version for pitchers, as it’s based on actual performance and not expected.

Edited July 24, 2023 by e16bball

[jabba72]

Im mostly an OPS fan but in my fantasy baseball playing days wOBA was the stat the best captured a hitters value. But I've seldom looked at it since then because BBref doesn't use it.

[DirtyBird]

Dongs

[ArtVanDelay]

wRC+ for hitters, FIP and WHIP for pitchers are normally the first stats I look at.  And fWAR. 

[Alasdaire]

One of the most interesting discrepancies for me between the analytical community and players/athletes/coaches is RISP. You'll hear the latter reference is quite frequently as a way to gauge a player's "clutch gene," but the nerds seem to have thrown it out as a happenstance figure.

Maybe stats like a batter's RBIs or pitcher's wins are too much affected by external factors to be used as a barometer by which to compare players, but I do think there's a general trend that underrates the ability of an athlete to rise to the occasion even if they don't produce at that level consistently.

[waroriole]

39 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Really just pitcher wins and batting average. Oh, and fielding percentage.

GWRBI so you know who’s clutch. 

[DrungoHazewood]

31 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Not GWRBI?

Yes! If you use that, and then on the other side Pitcher's Allowed GWRBI you're pretty much covered for every conceivable case by just two numbers.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 minute ago, waroriole said:

GWRBI so you know who’s clutch. 

When it comes down to gut check time, you gotta know who's clutch. You never see clutch in a spreadsheet.

[Malike]

CHGASFIAHLS is my favorite metric. If he can't get a sac fly in a high-leverage situation I want nothing to do with him.

[Alasdaire]

Do you guys not think it's a skill/ability to perform well in high-pressure situations that some players can reproduce and others can't? I feel like almost everyone who players/coaches the game would disagree with that.

[Malike]

Just now, Alasdaire said:

Do you guys not think it's a skill/ability to perform well in high-pressure situations that some players can reproduce and others can't? I feel like almost everyone who players/coaches the game would disagree with that.

I don't know if I'd say it's a skill. I do believe some players fold under pressure, I also believe that most "clutch" hits are just 1st inning RBI singles in the 8th or 9th inning, or whatever.

[clapdiddy]

Personally, I like OPS for hitters and  WHIP, K/9, BB/9, HR/9 for pitchers and WAR for both.  I'm a simple kind of guy.   Or...am I a simpleton?  

[Mooreisbetter27]

4 minutes ago, Alasdaire said:

Do you guys not think it's a skill/ability to perform well in high-pressure situations that some players can reproduce and others can't? I feel like almost everyone who players/coaches the game would disagree with that.

Being clutch isn't a repeatable skill </C_o_C>

[25 Nuggets]

One stat, speaking of "clutchiness", that I like is Win Probability Added (WPA).  That's a stat that naturally reflects how a player does when it matters most.

But like most, this stat tells you what a player has done, and is not all that predictive.  If you want to know how a player will do, the "pillar" stats are the really raw ones, like line drive rate, exit velocity, etc.  The ones that teams actually use to determine who to draft or sign.