Baseball stats

[Tank]

saw this question posed on twitter by someone i follow, and thought it might be interesting to ask here . . .

Which MLB stat do you think is useless?

[mmc]

Batting average and pitcher wins

[Halo in Chicago]

I like numbers so it's hard for me to call them useless, but I think wins can certainly be a misleading stat.

[Jeremiah]

RBI and pitcher wins are pretty useless at telling us anything of value.

[jsnpritchett]

Blown saves for middle relievers.

[greginpsca]

Defensive metrics

[Jeremiah]

1 hour ago, jsnpritchett said:

Blown saves for middle relievers.

Or even saves for that matter…

[jsnpritchett]

Just now, Jeremiah said:

Or even saves for that matter…

Yeah, I'm not crazy about saves in general, but looking at blown saves for middle relievers has always struck me as stupid.  They're not going to stay in the game long enough to actually GET a save, so why should they be charged for blowing one?

[Hubs]

6 minutes ago, jsnpritchett said:

Yeah, I'm not crazy about saves in general, but looking at blown saves for middle relievers has always struck me as stupid.  They're not going to stay in the game long enough to actually GET a save, so why should they be charged for blowing one?

I think blowing the lead is blowing the save, so its valuable to know when that happens and how much to a certain guy.

The stat that literally makes zero sense is pitcher wins, especially for relievers. 

[Angelsfan1984]

As an angels fan I would say team wins. The most important being World Series wins In exactly the last 35 years…that gives the angels the same amount as the dodgers. Clearly 2 very well run organizations. 

[Inside Pitch]

40 minutes ago, greginpsca said:

Defensive metrics

Easily the most flawed but definitely not useless. Then again my biggest problem with defensive metrics is that you have to balance so many of them against each other and then dismiss the outlier data so often that it gets to be not too far removed from just looking at a guy and saying -- yeah, he can pick it.  So hard to blame anyone for thinking they are in fact useless.

Honestly, they seem to be better at helping us identify the guys who are awful defenders despite being surehanded.

[Inside Pitch]

1 minute ago, Angelsfan1984 said:

As an angels fan I would say team wins. The most important being World Series wins In exactly the last 35 years…that gives the angels the same amount as the dodgers. Clearly 2 very well run organizations. 

Thats some high grade spin. 

Yo Arte, if you're looking for PR help our guy at AW.com is your man.

[Erstad Grit]

Wins (for pitchers, not teams)

[Angelsfan1984]

7 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Thats some high grade spin. 

Yo Arte, if you're looking for PR help our guy at AW.com is your man.

I’ll even send him my signed ohoppe bowman 1st cards as proof of fanaticism! 
 

speaking of spin…is spin rate a dumb stat because I know a lot of shitty pitchers with high spin rates lol

[Tank]

a lot of people in the twitter thread listed WAR as a the most useless stat.

[jsnpritchett]

19 minutes ago, Hubs said:

I think blowing the lead is blowing the save, so its valuable to know when that happens and how much to a certain guy.

 

But how valuable is it if a middle reliever comes in with a 4-3 lead in the 6th inning, pitches 3 innings and gives up 1 run, then gets charged with a blown save?  Doesn't really tell you much about how effectively he pitched.

[jsnpritchett]

3 minutes ago, Tank said:

a lot of people in the twitter thread listed WAR as a the most useless stat.

I almost said that myself, mainly because there are multiple ways to calculate it, which means it's not even a clearly defined metric.  It's also not something that the average fan--or even a well-educated, stats-savvy fan--can calculate.

[Erstad Grit]

9 minutes ago, jsnpritchett said:

But how valuable is it if a middle reliever comes in with a 4-3 lead in the 6th inning, pitches 3 innings and gives up 1 run, then gets charged with a blown save?  Doesn't really tell you much about how effectively he pitched.

How about when a closer comes in the top of 9th with a 3 run lead, gives up 3, his team walks off in the bottom, and he gets a win? 

[SlappyUtilityMIF]

2 hours ago, jsnpritchett said:

Blown saves for middle relievers.

I'd call that a Blown Hold...

[Angelsfan1984]

32 minutes ago, Tank said:

a lot of people in the twitter thread listed WAR as a the most useless stat.

They never had Matt Duffy on their team. 

[jsnpritchett]

21 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

How about when a closer comes in the top of 9th with a 3 run lead, gives up 3, his team walks off in the bottom, and he gets a win? 

I think that sucks, too. Ha. 

[m0nkey]

4 hours ago, jsnpritchett said:

Yeah, I'm not crazy about saves in general, but looking at blown saves for middle relievers has always struck me as stupid.  They're not going to stay in the game long enough to actually GET a save, so why should they be charged for blowing one?

Yeah, wish holds got more attention.  Maybe come up with a "blown leads" to show actual usefulness, instead of seeing a guy 1/6 in "save opportunities" but has 28 holds.

[Angel Oracle]

ERA for relievers 

[Jeff Fletcher]

5 hours ago, jsnpritchett said:

But how valuable is it if a middle reliever comes in with a 4-3 lead in the 6th inning, pitches 3 innings and gives up 1 run, then gets charged with a blown save?  Doesn't really tell you much about how effectively he pitched.

Or if he comes in with a 4-3 lead in the 6th and a runner at 3rd and no outs. He gets out all three hitters but the run scores on a fly ball. Blown save.

[Angelsfan1984]

What’s the stat for performance value based on contract? Rendon would probably not have good numbers on that one.