Joe Morgan on OBP

[cooper_gd]

A little OT, but it was a hot topic last week in re to OOTP and I think this a good article. . .

Putting on-base percentage in perspective

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By Joe Morgan
Special to ESPN.com


On-base percentage has become the statistic of choice these days. I've heard some say that OBP is the most important stat in baseball. But I disagree with that assessment.

While OBP is an important barometer, it isn't the most important. I remember when ESPN began listing OBP along with batting average in graphics on baseball telecasts, which is helpful for the viewer. No question, it's always been important.

But no one baseball statistic defines winning and losing. Each statistic measures one aspect of baseball proficiency. So excelling at a single stat won't enable a team to win a pennant. Instead, a healthy balance of key statistics can lead to a world championship.

Getting runners on base via walks is good, but you need someone to drive those runners in. No one can go from first to third on a walk (except, perhaps, Rickey Henderson in his prime). You need someone to get hits so you can utilize aggressive baserunning.

You can't win a championship only with a good OBP or home runs or stealing bases or solid defense or strong pitching. Each team will emphasize certain stats -- certain proficiencies -- depending on its makeup. But a team needs a combination to achieve ultimate success.

For example, the Atlanta Braves have won 11 straight division titles thanks mainly to their stellar pitching -- but they've won only one World Series in that time. That's because they don't hit consistently in the playoffs. And their pitchers haven't been able to dominate good teams in the playoffs the way they dominate inferior teams in the regular season.

Everyone talks about the importance of pitching -- and absolutely, you need good pitching to win championships. But pitching alone doesn't guarantee postseason success. Nor does hitting (just ask the Texas Rangers).

It's a similar story with individual players. I've always said that to be a good player you need to either drive in runs or score runs -- and to be a great player you need to do both. The best players are a blend of baseball's most essential skills, with statistics serving as the numerical barometer.


NL style has right stuff
The Oakland Athletics offer a good case study of why I believe the prototypical National League style of play is the perfect offensive philosophy.

The A's have relied on the walk and the home run, and they've reached the postseason the past three years. But they've lost in the first round each year, because walks and home runs tend to drop off in the playoffs. The A's offensive style hasn't been conducive to manufacturing runs. They don't steal bases or hit-and-run much.

The National League style of play is more aggressive and does seek to manufacture runs. Anaheim manager Mike Scioscia played in the National League for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and he brought an NL style of play to the Angels last season -- with championship results.

Likewise, Joe Torre brought an aggressive National League style of play to the New York Yankees in 1996, and they won four of five World Series. Granted, other factors contributed to the Yankees' success, but that NL style was essential. The Yankees weren't built on hitting the home run. No Yankee led the league or even challenged for the home-run crown in those four championship years.

Rather, they followed the philosophy of getting on base, moving runners along and getting them home while utilizing the hit-and-run and aggressive baserunning. To me, that's the best way to play. And this approach encompasses more than just OBP or batting average or RBI -- as a team, you must do all those things well.

The way baseball is played today, the stolen base seems to be an afterthought. But I see the use of it as a tremendous tool. It forces the opposition to play a different defense and it forces opposing pitchers to throw more fastballs.

The last three teams to win the World Series -- the Angels, Diamondbacks and Yankees -- all played an aggressive NL style. Some teams look for the walk and the home run. If that works, great. But recent history shows this approach doesn't win in the postseason.

[Antonin]

A fascinating article, but I should point out that for copyright reasons it's probably not a good idea to copy the whole thing here. Joe Morgan might not mind but ESPN will.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Joe Morgan was a great player. It's too bad he fails to recognize that the greatest strength of his own game was getting on-base.

[Rose14]

"It's too bad he fails to recognize that the greatest strength of his own game was getting on-base."

Uh, maybe a) what he did once he got on base, or b) the fact that he could hit well enough to get RBIs when needed instead of just waiting for a walk, or c) his incredible defensive skills, were strengths to his game, too.

[Gastric ReFlux]

I didn't say those weren't strengths of his game. I said his greatest strength was getting on-base.

[koohead]

omg...he didn't mention the Big Red Machine once in that entire article.

[Spielman]

Typical Morgan.

"The A's have relied on the walk and the home run, and they've reached the postseason the past three years. But they've lost in the first round each year, because walks and home runs tend to drop off in the playoffs."

Last year the AL averaged 6.44 walks per game, and the NL averaged 6.89 walks per game. True, during the postseason, those numbers dropped, and the postseason average was 6.24 walks per game. Home Runs, on the other hand, went from an AL average of 2.17 per game and an NL average of 2.01 per game, to an average of 2.59 per game in the postseason. Sure, it's a small sample size, but if Morgan's gonna base his whole argument on a small sample size of postseason games where the A's haven't advanced, I'm not about to avoid a small size in rebutting him.

And Joe... not that you're ever going to read this of course, but nobody's saying that balance isn't important. That's a straw man you've created. Nobody's saying that OBP is the only thing you need to win. (Well, someone might be, but that person is crazy.) The statement is that among all the telling and important statistics in baseball, OBP is the single heaviest and most important. It's like saying that I outweigh everyone at my family reunion. It doesn't mean that I'm heavier than everyone else in my family combined. It doesn't mean that two of my cousins don't outweigh me when combined. It just means that I'm heavier than any of them as individuals. Same thing with OBP. Creating a straw man to whomp on is just bad style, and poor writing.

-The Mindless

[Altec]

I'll sure be happy when we no longer have to listen to Joe Morgan on the ESPN broadcasts... maybe someday it will come true.

[Hammer755]

Five years from now, Joe Morgan will pen a 'groundbreaking' article extolling the virtues of this 'new' stat, OPS.

[obaslg]

I think JM is right on here. He was such a great player that I love hearing his analysis. He's the biological barometer of the importance of various aspects of the game.

I don't care what ANYONE says; I stand by Joe that neither pitching nor hitting can guarantee postseason success. I might go a step further and and say that nothing can guarantee postseason success, but I'd want to hear JM's thoughts on that first.

As Joe says, excelling in only one stat could never get you a pennant, even if that stat were, say, ERA. If you rely on your pitchers, you will always have to deal with the fact that stronger offenses may score more runs off them than weaker ones.

We can learn a lot from the great baseball of Joe's era. Would Earl Weaver be in the Hall of Fame if all he relied on was the 2-run homer?

Ultimately - and I think Joe would back me on this - the secret to winning is scoring more runs than your opponent. But that just goes to show what a funny game baseball is.

[Gastric ReFlux]

I've always been a fan of scoring more runs than the opponent strategy. I've had excellent results with it, much better than when I tested scoring fewer runs than my opponent.

[obaslg]

There will always be those who prefer tests to theory, historical fact to plain and simple common sense.

If your tests back what I'm saying, that's a happy coincidence, but I wouldn't want to rely on tests, statistics, or science when it comes to more in-depth analysis.

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by obaslg
I wouldn't want to rely on tests, statistics, or science when it comes to more in-depth analysis.

This should be a bumper sticker.

^^^ Agreed ^^^

[fhomess]

Even if you outscore your opponent, you're not guaranteed to win! Sure, you might win one game 14-3 but lose the next game 7-6 and the game after that 3-2. In the end you've scored 22 and your opponent has scored only 13. The only way to measure who's better is how many wins they've got.

[Gastric ReFlux]

I'm not sure where you're coming from, fhomess.

When I did my study, I came up with a scale I called the GRiNdex. A good GRiNdex scores highly, resulting in lots of smiles and grins.

In the sample data you posted, that would be a GRiNdex of 33%. The 14-3 score would be converted to a 1, and the other two would be converted to 0. So you would have a positive GRiN factor of 1 out of 3 GRiNportunities.

(GRiNfactor/GRiNportunities)*100 = GRiNdex

[obaslg]

This should be a bumper sticker.

Actually, I have it as a tatoo. You don't have to ask where, stubby.

[Crapshoot]

Morgan amazes me; someone once put it this way
Morgan was a 270BA/ 360 OBP hitter, but he would prefer a 300BA/310 hitter... Its too bad; I used to think he was one of the most intelligent players in baseball, but I think something fell of the wagon, so to speak.

[pallison14]

I think Morgan can be entertaining to listen to, but when he starts airing his dislike on what's proven to be pretty indicitave stats it can become quite irritating.

IIRC, didn't he once mention ERA as (and I'm paraphrasing) "A useless statistic that's only value is in arbitration hearings"?

-p

[Rose14]

Not that anything an ex-player says is golden, but when it comes to knowledge of the game of baseball, if I had to choose between a Hall of Famer and someone who plays computer baseball sims (including myself), I think I'd go with the former.