Misinformation in the Strategy Forum!

[bleacher_creature]

In the strategy forum "Newbie Advice Thread", I believe it says OB is generally preferred over SLG.

This is "generally" wrong IMO.

[b:568f56b677]SLG should generally be given higher priority in Strat than OB. [/b:568f56b677]

Check you leagues team, stats page. Go down the list of teams that score the most, and the team SLG correlated almost perfectly. By no means should OB be ignored, that would be stupid.

I am writing this because (even before Moneyball) I have always given a lot of importance to OB when drafting a team, even before SOMO (CD ROM game or cards). However, you will notice that when drafting teams in auto draft on the ratings disk, HAL almost always leans toward the SLG. The Glen Head guys know from replay tests that a .260/.319/.462 left fielder is better than a .260/.362/.419 one.

Many times in the past I would take the .362 OB guy, and he will not contribute as much. Of course this is taking into consideration that defense and clutch are basically equal.

[pedakrla]

To predict a team's runs scored, the thumbrule

Runs = OBP x Total Bases or its equivalent

Runs = OBP x SLG x AB

works pretty well.

Corollary: maybe when evaluating individual players, OBP [b:9e49b62170][i:9e49b62170]times[/i:9e49b62170][/b:9e49b62170] SLG is the way to go.

[bleacher_creature]

[quote:4ba6ca13c7="dave3504"]To predict a team's runs scored, the thumbrule

Runs = OBP x Total Bases or its equivalent

Runs = OBP x SLG x AB

works pretty well.

Corollary: maybe when evaluating individual players, OBP [b:4ba6ca13c7][i:4ba6ca13c7]times[/i:4ba6ca13c7][/b:4ba6ca13c7] SLG is the way to go.[/quote:4ba6ca13c7]

Good stuff. So how do you back out a player's numbers and approximate his RC/27, then account for ballpark?

[LANCEBOUSLEY]

ops = obp+slg

.400 for each is .800 ops
.300 and .400 is .700 ops

or .875 of the first .700/.800


if you multiply it is .16 for the .400 obp and .400 slg

and it is .12 for the .300 and .400 that is .75 of the ifrst .12/.16....

fun with numbers after lunch.....

[geekor]

I don't know, I haven't checked my 06 teams yet, but in 03 and 05, the guy with the highest obp was usually 1 or 2 in runs scored.

Then again, a lot of team with high obp played in hitters parks, so they might have been up in SLG as well....

[pedakrla]

[quote:28fd2e3d57="bleacher_creature"][quote:28fd2e3d57="dave3504"]To predict a team's runs scored, the thumbrule

Runs = OBP x Total Bases or its equivalent

Runs = OBP x SLG x AB

works pretty well.

Corollary: maybe when evaluating individual players, OBP [b:28fd2e3d57][i:28fd2e3d57]times[/i:28fd2e3d57][/b:28fd2e3d57] SLG is the way to go.[/quote:28fd2e3d57]

Good stuff. So how do you back out a player's numbers and approximate his RC/27, then account for ballpark?[/quote:28fd2e3d57]

A wise man (on this board) once advised me, "You have to look at the cards." One way (which is beginning to pay off for me, now that I have a database built up) is to predict an expected OBP and SLG for each card. Set the spreadsheet up so BPHRs can be entered independently. I have ignored BP singles, because in the 1969 game virtually every card seems to have the same values.

[MARCPELLETIER]

I disagree with original post. On-base is most important.

Sure, if you go in a hitter stadium, you will take advantage of that by going with cheap hitters who have a lot of slugging. This is why some teams score high with lower on-base and higher slugging.

But the opposite is true. If you go with a pitching stadium, you can still finish first in offensive runs. But that will be through on-base, not slugging.

Overall, though, if your team is good enough to have on-base in the .370, runs will come easily, no matter what is the stadium.

[bleacher_creature]

[quote:ad68443281="marcus wilby"]I disagree with original post. On-base is most important.

Sure, if you go in a hitter stadium, you will take advantage of that by going with cheap hitters who have a lot of slugging. This is why some teams score high with lower on-base and higher slugging.

But the opposite is true. If you go with a pitching stadium, you can still finish first in offensive runs. But that will be through on-base, not slugging.

Overall, though, if your team is good enough to have on-base in the .370, runs will come easily, no matter what is the stadium.[/quote:ad68443281]

I believe you in regard to the high OB in a pitchers' park. Feel free to lay an example or two on us though.

I have tried it, and it hasn't put me in the top in offense, so I must be doing something wrong. This is why I had to reasess my approach.

You can look through leagues and see the teams that score runs have high team SLG though, so what you are describing Marcus must take more than a rating disk/book to pull off.

[cummings2]

This is just my opinion, I have a tendency to oversimplify things but then again I am a tad slow so here goes:

IMO there are two things to keep in mind, in order to score runs I need to:
a) Have runners on base (if I wish to rely on something else other than the solo shot)
b) Find a way to get the runner(s) home, i.e. bunt, sqeeze, SLG 'em in, pray, scream, whatever...

So, regardless of what I [i:bcf06d35bb]do[/i:bcf06d35bb] with the runners, the fact remains that I do need runners to get on base in order to have some fun. Then I can play it safe and wait for the safe advancement of bases and/or the jimmy jack or I can roll the dice and try steals, bunts and the sorts to play for the one run.

The question of SLG and OBP is very important and I think that neither should be underestimated (neither should speed and average BTW)

I am not too crazy of posting links to leagues that are underway but here's are two cases to study. In order to get the data to frame properly I removed the team names.


1st. Kauffman (06) My team is T5 (5th in offense)

[code:1:bcf06d35bb]TMS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG
T1 4300 673 1161 251 40 149 647 448 779 43 9 .270 .343 .451
T2 4279 639 1162 225 18 170 603 420 830 43 16 .272 .343 .452
T3 4309 609 1149 218 35 147 584 378 936 49 25 .267 .330 .436
T4 4235 557 1078 244 16 143 543 411 749 51 10 .255 .324 .421
T5 4259 544 1148 205 37 66 516 388 703 116 42 .270 .334 .382
T6 4246 541 1094 196 19 135 508 342 725 46 7 .258 .318 .408
T7 4188 536 1079 175 15 107 514 397 721 90 30 .258 .327 .383
T8 4243 509 1071 191 27 158 491 299 797 56 23 .252 .305 .422
T9 4235 509 1061 202 29 118 486 336 733 49 12 .251 .316 .396
T10 4185 504 965 181 26 137 476 469 822 28 9 .231 .314 .385
T11 4199 488 980 173 30 131 465 434 868 29 13 .233 .307 .383
T12 4295 479 1088 197 36 102 457 380 714 75 21 .253 .318 .387[/code:1:bcf06d35bb]

Now, as you can see I have the lowest SLG in the entire league and the third highest OBP. Good enough for 5th overall in Runs scored, but check out the first and second places -want to guess the parks? Metrodome (7-7-10-10) and Rogers Centre (11-11-13-13) respectively. T1 is doing something (which I am not going to discuss here since it isn't my team) that T2 isn't, that, IMO is the difference in RS between those two teams (34 in 123 games).



2nd. Coors (06) My team is T1 (1st in offense)

[code:1:bcf06d35bb]TMS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG
T1 4450 664 1301 229 31 131 628 381 707 54 10 .292 .353 .446
T2 4267 603 1138 185 32 162 581 343 834 44 15 .267 .327 .439
T3 4307 580 1134 255 30 133 552 383 948 62 21 .263 .330 .429
T4 4248 572 1146 231 28 74 541 407 805 94 33 .270 .339 .390
T5 4217 564 1059 221 24 191 545 373 845 27 12 .251 .316 .451
T6 4270 563 1088 251 33 105 533 430 732 79 22 .255 .326 .403
T7 4253 548 1158 168 29 158 523 351 915 38 23 .272 .331 .437
T8 4165 529 1009 194 28 135 505 361 929 40 16 .242 .315 .400
T9 4185 520 1060 188 29 106 492 367 805 39 19 .253 .321 .388
T10 4256 511 1111 251 19 126 493 243 805 41 22 .261 .304 .418
T11 4253 505 1044 207 17 124 491 417 900 41 17 .246 .318 .390
T12 4232 495 1072 240 27 105 465 382 779 116 58 .253 .321 .397 [/code:1:bcf06d35bb]

Here I do have an OK SLG (it would be suicidal not to in Coors), 2nd in the league but I also have the highest OBP, interestingly enough the team with the highest SLG (T5) has the third lowest OBP, he has outhit me by 60 HRs (the team plays Great American BP (4-4-13-13)) yet my team has managed to score 100 more runs. Now, check out T4, tied for the second lowest SLG (by far the lowest # of HRs) but the second highest OBP, good enough for 4th highest runs scored -and though out hit by 117 HRs still has manged to score 8 more runs than T5



To some extent, and this is what I was refering to earlier, IMO the thing that I have to keep in mind is that unless I want to muscle my way through in a barbaric way, it doesn't matter how high (or low) my SLG and OBP is...what matters is [i:bcf06d35bb]how I use [/i:bcf06d35bb]my SLG and my OBP.

Essentially, and to state the obvious, make sure that I place the OBP before the SLG.

I think you bring up a good point Bleacher, a team full of walkers with weak bats is bound to be fairly inneficient, but in my experience so will be a team full of beefed up muscle dudes that bang out solo shots and nothing else.

Now, as a final thought, because I am more interested in what you guys have to say than in my rants:

In a situation like SOM-OL where you "pay" for the OBP and the SLG, why would I pay for extra OBP in a spot in the lineup where it is likely to go to waste?

For example, let's say I pay some dough for a card with OBP of around .380, but because of poor speed, gbAs, poor clutch and mediocre SLG I am forced to bat the dude in a spot where he's more likely to be a stranded runner than a run across. In this case my OBP would be higher...not necessarily my runs scored.

I think that in a strange way, that what this (very valid) point you bring up bleach is more related to is the makeup of lineups as opposed to the preference of SLG over OBP.

Just a thought though, interested to hear what you have to say, you always bring up good points.

[MARCPELLETIER]

Bleacher,

Actually, I never tried an all on-base, all offensive, Kauffman team. My Kauffman (or Petco) teams always had either some good pitching, or some good defensive, along with good offense.

My best example from last year comes from the championship league during last year's Tour. My Kauffman team had Santana, Rolen, and Walker, and cheapie ss-1 Adam Everett. Other than that, though, I went with players with good on-base, no slugging cards. Here is the stats page:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/league/stats.html?user_id=47543

My Kauffman team finished 4th offensively, only a couple of runs behind a Coors team (22), and 100 runs behind a Amquest (HR=16,16) team. Both team hit almost 200 more homeruns than my team did, doubles and triples were roughly combined. On the other hand, my team had, roughly 300 more singles and/or walks than the 2 power teams. 200 hr on one hand, 300 walks/singles on the other hand: you might conclude that 200 HRs are much more better. Yet, the two teams scored on average 65 runs better than my team.

In all honesty, I should mention that I also exploited the running game better than my opponents.

But to me, this shows the importance of on-base. Because I had an on-base of .360, which was only slightly better than the two power teams (average .350), I could concede 200 homeruns and yet trail them by only 60 runs or so.

My team finished with a 88-74, but it was an injury-prone team, in which I overspent to cover my player with good back-ups. I would have been confident to see this team over 90, 95 wins had it relied on regular players.

Perhaps a better example came two years ago, from a PacBell team:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2003/league/stats.html?user_id=79257

My team is the Peasoup. Again, a team that finished fourth, behind Coors teams and the like. Again, I conceded almost .100 of slugging, and I got about 0.030-0.040 better on-base. Still, I only trailed them by a dozen of runs or so. Notice the gap between my team and the Hey! team and Five team: approximately the same OPS, but the edge my team had in on-base gave them an edge of 75-100 runs over them. This team was highly succesful (105-57), but this was an era that had Eric Dubose.

To summarize in one sentence: if you have a look around, for similar OPS, the team with higher on-base will often have better run production. You need a lot more of slugging to compensate the loss of on-base that you are suffering.