Posted by MikeT23 on 11/10/2010 12:25:00 PM (view original):

Baseball is about getting people on base and moving them around.    OBP and SLG accomplish those things.    I don't really buy "OBP is undervalued and SLG is overvalued" for one simple reason:  A walk is one base, a double is two bases.   One of them gets you halfway to a run, the other gets you a quarter of the way to a run. 

Seasons are played one game at a time.    Statheads don't really like that but they are.   A run every 4 games isn't significant in the grand scheme of things.   As far as "driving run production", I suppose we could argue which one is more importants but I'll refer back to my first point in this post.  A walk, in and of itself, isn't producing a run.   A homerun is.

If you don't think a .800+ OPS guys is valuable, I'd be happy to take that pesky fellow off your hands.  .500 SLG is pretty valuable.

I played college baseball and also understand (to some degree, anyway) statistical effects of things like OBP and SLG.  I alwasy find it funny when the seeming assumption is that "statheads don't understand the real game."

You don't have to "buy" anything.  .800 OPS guys are valuable.  But one .800 OPS guys isn't necessarily as valuable offensively as another.

And this is why I made the "OBP isn't just walks" for those who decided to take offense yesterday.  Just because a guy has a higher OBP, that doesn't necessarily mean he isn't also hitting the ball.  Yes, a double is more valuable than a walk.  Just like a homerun is more valuable than a walk.  But you act like it's a 1:1 ratio of walks to doubles.  Give me a .400 OBP/.450 SLG over a .300/.550 all day.