MLB Newbie and Theory Thread: Rick and Tony take your calls

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > MLB Newbie and Theory Thread: Rick and Tony take your calls

ego symphonic: Feb 23, 2010

Ice To Meet You posted:

There are mathematical reasons why it turns out this way, even if practically it doesn't make a lot of sense.

The wOBA constants are determined by linear weights. Meaning, how much the average instance of that event increases your team's probability of scoring (totally ignoring the batter and pitcher skills).

I looked it up and it turns out pitchers are significantly more likely to hit batters when there are already runners on base. This increases your chances of scoring by a higher margin than with the bases empty.

In 2016, unintentional walks happened 7.51% of the time with the bases empty, and 7.97% of the time with runners on. But a HBP happened 0.82% of the time with the bases empty, and 1.00% of the time with runners on. Proportionally, the difference was much bigger than it was for walks, so the average HBP turned out to be more impactful.

This is the actual answer. wRC+ is context neutral but the weights are still based on the actual outcomes of various batting events so you'll see small but meaningful differences between ostensibly identical events.

ego symphonic fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Mar 24, 2017

# ¿ Mar 24, 2017 13:56

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ego symphonic: Feb 23, 2010

Charles 2 of Spain posted:

Bear with me since I only started really understanding baseball a few years ago, but I've never understood why people like the idea of a designated hitter. It hides a guy in the field and protects a pitcher who can't bat. Why would you want to discourage all-round skills?

Because pitching and hitting are two completely distinct skills and the probability of a single person being good enough at both of them to excel at the major league level is vanishingly small. It's not that pitchers could be better at hitting if they just practiced more.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2018 15:08

ego symphonic: Feb 23, 2010

The Berzerker posted:

I like the idea of pitchers batting because it would be like making an NHL goalie be one of your shooters in a shootout.

My home team has the DH and my only real beef with it is they usually suck rear end. I think it's weird when people get super mad about the existence of the DH though.

I think most people are just taking the piss because it's fun to pretend to have a super strident opinion about something trivial.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2018 20:03

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