[AtomicDumpling]

Originally Posted by _Sir_Charles_

The problem I have with this is that it's looking at ONE PLAYER instead of the group of a TEAM. The .200/.330/.450 guy may not be producing more or less than the .300/.330/.450 guy on his own, but the additional hits are increasing the odds for those following players on the team to contribute. Moving defenders, creating holes, etc. Sometimes the sabermetric guys make it seem like a walk and a single are basically the same thing..."he's avoiding an out"...but for me there's a VAST difference in the two. A hitter who has good contact skills does more than just have a higher BA. He fouls off more pitches and works the pitchers pitch count higher, he's less likely to strike out, he's more likely to advance runners with sacs, hit & runs, etc. It's not just ONE guy and his ONE stat line. It's the interaction between all the pieces of the puzzle that sabermetrics seems to overlook quite a bit. I think KC is spot on here. Overall, the team has pretty good slugging, but VERY poor contact skills. Filling those missing skills in the team overall is only going to help.

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

Saber guys don't consider a walk and a single as basically the same thing. The run value of a single is .47 runs for his team. The run value of a walk is .33 runs for his team. So you can see that sabermetrically, a single is quite a bit more valuable than a walk. The run value of a home run is 1.41 runs, so a home run is a lot more valuable than either a single or a walk. Sabermetrics captures all this at exactly the ratios they exhibit themselves in real MLB games. Batting average would have counted those singles and home runs exactly the same as each other and would have totally ignored the walks.

Originally Posted by Superdude

What's the buzzword around here, straw man? No is arguing this point, and once again, I think you're making the false assumption that because batting average doesn't tell everything, it has no value at all.

There is an example of someone arguing precisely that point just a couple posts ago and that is the post I was replying to at the time.