We have a much more complex system with my slow pitch softball team.   We watch how the guy is hitting.  If he's hitting screamers, he hitting well.  If he's hitting dinks and bloops, not so much.  Of course, we don't have that option in HBD.

Posted by deandg on 9/7/2010 2:35:00 AM (view original):

Rc27 is in my opinion the most important offensive stat in baseball. It values a player based on how he hits and puts no value on runs and RBI that come as a result of his placement in the lineup or his teammates performance. I have my own slowpitch softball team in real life. We are pretty good for a bunch of wannabe MLB hacks. We have fun and play a competitive schedule. 150 games, 10 months per year with some minor travel. This is the stat we use. We only look at OBP and Rc27. (We use Rc21 because of the 7 inning games)

Here is why Rc27 is important. Slugging percentage is not an accurate measure of the value of each hit. In other words, a homerun is not 4 times as valuable as a single, and this has been proven by statistical analysis by guys much smarter than me, like Bill James. Now the system we use was adapted for slow pitch softball but basically I value a single at 0.47 runs and a homerun at 1.40 runs. I tested on several tournaments and it would always be +/- 5% of the runs we actually scored. In other words we might score 79 runs and the formula predicted we would score 81 (for example).

It makes it much easier to see what lineup changes need to be made. Because a guy hitting 9th in baseball doesn't get as many chances to drive in runs as a guy batting 4th. A guy hitting 7th won't get as many chances to score runs as a guy hitting leadoff. Few would disagree with that. So that's why I look at RC stats instead of RBI and runs scored. RC will give a true value to a good hitter that plays for a bad offensive team. Runs and RBI never will.

RISP may be a more popular and more easily understood stat, but I don't want in included at the expense of removing RC stats.

[quote]Here is why Rc27 is important. Slugging percentage is not an accurate measure of the value of each hit.[/quote]

Not trying to be an ***, but you know that RC is basically just (SLG*OBP)*AB... right? The reason there can be a +/- 5% difference (instead of a +/- 1% difference for something like linear weights, as you hinted with single = 0.47, etc.) is because RC basically uses slugging percentage in it's formula. It's still a good stat though; generally speaking, guys who have a higher RC27 are better offensive players than guys with lower RC.

I would argue that anything so highly dependent on batting average (and any stat that contains SLG is highly dependent on batting average) can't be a great predictive stat. It's great for estimating a player's overall offensive value, but not as great for describing ability.

Interestingly enough, even though I think BA w/ RISP is a dumb stat, I would probably look at it more than RC27. I can look at OBP and SLG and see who's having a good year. It would amuse me more to be able to see RISP stats and know which one of my fake players to rip on imaginary talk radio for being unclutch and to see who the gritty grinders who come through with pretend clutch singles are.

Posted by MikeT23 on 9/7/2010 6:55:00 AM (view original):
We have a much more complex system with my slow pitch softball team.   We watch how the guy is hitting.  If he's hitting screamers, he hitting well.  If he's hitting dinks and bloops, not so much.  Of course, we don't have that option in HBD.

What's interesting is that this is basically what the newest sabermetric stats are coming to. Most statistically inclined baseball evaluators are looking at stuff like line drive %, infield fly %, out-of-zone swing %, "no doubt" home runs, etc., as they seem to be more predictive than even the "advanced" sabermetric stuff. With technology like HitFX starting to be perfected, I think we will start seeing "batted ball velocity" become a much more common term.

Basically figuring out ways to quantify the "scouting" side...

My point was that what you see if often more important than the end result.   Of course, in baseball, things tend to "even out" over the course of a season.  And, without question, they "even out" over a career.    But, if I'm in game 6 of a softball tourney, I know who's hitting and who isn't by what I've seen in the first 5 games of the day.   Softball is a lot different than baseball for the most obvious reasons(anyone can put a bat on a ball and you can play 10 games in a day, to name a couple).   Because of those two things, the worst player can carry you thru a tourney just because he's "hot".   A year's worth of data has no worth.

The "problem" with baseball scouting, and the reason stats became the overriding factor, is because some second-rate OF who had his cup of coffee in the bigs will watch a kid for a week and say "This kid can play" without looking at his other 31 games or his previous two years. 

Does anybody know if hardball dynasty use (SLG*OBP)*AB or one of the more advanced rc calculations (that include sb,cs,gidb,sf,sh etc) . When i do the above formula its not equaling the rc number.