“Feasting against the Tigers, A’s, Mariners, et. al is fantastic, but I’d really like to see your guy come correct against Boston this weekend.”

One of the guys with a D has a 600 OPS vs Boston.
Two of them don’t have a plate appearance against Boston.
The guy with the F has a 743 OPS against Boston.

MarkP,

Feasting against the Tigers, A’s, Mariners, et. al is fantastic, but I’d really like to see your guy come correct against Boston this weekend.

On an unrelated note, how weird a year is Matsui having offensively? He’s on pace to hit fewer than 15 homers but drive in over…120?!

1] Thank you!

2] BB and HBP do not count toward SLG

3] You’re right, singles are more valuable than BB and HBB. But they are both more valuable than SB since all hits, BB, and HBP can advance runners (and therefore score) runners on base, while adding a new basebunner. SB only advances a runner already on base when there is no runner immediately ahead of him.

The guy with a 738 OPS gets a C.

The guy with a 531 OPS gets a D.

The guy with a 607 OPS gets a D.

The guy with a 628 OPS gets a D.

The guy with a 712 OPS gets an F.

I might be wrong, but my math shows the guy with the F has almost 200 more points than one of the guys with a D and 100 more points than the average of the other two guys with a D. A bit of subtraction shows that the guy with the F was only .026 lower than the guy with a C.

Before giving Giambi a grade (or writing anything about Arod), a caveat should precede it warning a first time reader that you really don’t like them no matter what they do.

I forgot who, but someone over at Baseball Primer did a list once of what’s more valuable, and clearly, singles are more valuables than BBs and HBP (doubles are more valuable than singles, triples are more valuables than doubles, etc.). However, OBP and SLG don’t really differentiate a single from a BB or a HBP.

I do agree with you that if we’re taking SB into account, then CS should also count SLG (though I don’t agree to count it against OBP).

BTW – I did not say that a SB specialist with a low OBP is particularly valuable. I said that Womack, because he is a fairly effective stealer, gets a little more mileage from his OB opportunities than other players do.

He still sucks, but he doesn’t such as much because he’s an effective base stealer.

Bob B, that horse is out of the barn.

The problem is that SB does not really equate to SLG%–that is, a double or triple will score a man from third, second, or (usually) first. or it will at least advance the runner. A SB does not advance anybody (except the base-stealer himself, of course). A team will score more runs with a player who hits a double every at bat than with aplayer who hits a single and steals 2B every at bat.

Also, a CS should count against OBP (and partially against SLG). And a CS at third should count extra, since in effect you are losing two bases.

I like to watch SB, but unless the game evolves differently, a SB expert with a low OPS just isn’t that valuable.

There are quite a few metrics that include SB/CS numbers-some go all the way back to the birth of sabermetrics. While I’m not a big fan of ESPN’s runs created formula, it has the advantage of being readily accessible and much better than nothing at all.
Plugging the numbers into one of the many formulas (especially Bill James prior to 1990) would give a much better picture, but I’m not that ambitious. Having seen a great many player’s numbers plugged in down through the years, a gestalt of the numbers not included in OPS gets one pretty close to actual value.

BTW a study showed that guys hitting behind basestealers tended to do worse than their career norms (probably from taking so many pitches and getting behind in the count.)

1. Giambi is being HBP at a record pace (7 HBP in 140+ plate appearances. His highest HBP total was 21 in 690 plate appearances in 2003).

That’s not what the Yankees are paying for, but hey, an HBP gets you on base as much as a walk…

2. Womack is actually stealing bases at a decent clip (15 out 18 attempts). That doesn’t compensate for his light hitting, but it does add bases to his total amount (I’ve always felt that an extra stat should be developed that adds the sum of (SB – CS) to Slugging, so as to better evaluate the contribution of speedster types).

Plus, the fact that Womack takes many pitches fits well with the Yankees’ historical philosophy of tiring out the starter to feast on middle relievers…. (again, that’s no consolation, but I try to see silver linings on every cloud).