Ok, I’ll take a crack at this. The SABR nerds’ explanation is that stats like ERA, BA, etc. are great explanatory stats- they describe what actually happened- but they are not good evaluative stats- they don’t accurately reflect a player’s actual skill set and thus should not be used when determining who is good and who isn’t. That’s not my stance, but it’s the one I read over and over from that side of the table. My stance is that these stats aren’t all in the same boat. Wins are absolutely useless- a function of luck and almost nothing else. ERA is not worth much in and of itself, and neither is batting average. However, couple ERA with something like BABIP and strikeout/walk totals, and it helps paint a much better picture of a pitcher (the SABR rebuttal is that that is a true statement, but that something like FIP is even better in that scenario than ERA because it “takes defense out of the equation.” I remain unconvinced as of yet to how fully these numbers can actually take out a human factor and still be reliable, which is why I’m only semi-sold on sabermetrics in general). Likewise, BA coupled with OBP, SLG, walk rate, line drive rate, etc. paints a great picture, but the average alone doesn’t really reveal much about a skill set ( See: Francoeur, Jeff, 2005-2007).

Hope that helps.

But is the guy who got lucky with the blooper a better hitter than the guy that got out on the screaming LD? No. And that is what we are trying to point out.

No, because his OBP would be at least .400 – which is a very valuable thing. However, nobody has hit .400 in 50-some odd years, and it is doubtful if anyone will ever do it again.

Let’s look at this is a more realistic way – take someone like Jeff Francoeur whose batting average will be very close to his OBP. For his career, Jeff is a .271 hitter – fairly respectable, right? However, his OBP is only .311 – not good at all. In other words, he makes an out in 69% of his plate appearances.

Contrast that with someone else of similar power and batting average – Melky Cabrera (who actually has much less power). Melky is a career .269 hitter, but his OBP is .331 – still not very good. However, he still makes an out in only 67% of his plate appearances. That may seem like a statistically insignificant percentage compared to Frenchy’s, but it really does make a big difference – especially when stretched out over the course of 500 or 600 plate appearances.

There is probably a much better comparisson than Melky, but I am currently too lazy to spend 40 seconds looking one up. I think it is good enough to make my point though.

While batting average is not meaningless, when it is produced as the only argument in any presentation it loses its punch. Batting average can be very useful, and luck really isn’t the key on the negative side of it. It is using BA exclusively.

The same is true for any stat out there, whether it be one of the traditional stats or one of the new stats. We have to take them all in context, because we all know that 68% of the time statistics can say anything we want them to.