Joe Mauer

Not many players go 1/3 and see their batting average drop, but when you’re batting up around .390 it's a cold truth After today’s game against the brewers, Joe mauer sits at a clip of .392 and has many baseball fans in awe batting average is watched over more than any other stat in the sport. numbers like .406 and .367 are known by just about anyone who is an enthusiast of the game. (The former referring to ted william's batting average memorable 1941 season and .367 being ty cobb's lifetime average) A hitters average is often the first thing you here from people when they describe a player. An average of .300 is a sort of watermark in the baseball world. Take two players player A is batting .310 with 100 rbi, 80 runs scored player B is batting .275 with 100 rbi, 80 runs scored When asked who they thought was the better player, many people would say, "player A" And if asked why they chose player A, their answer would no doubt be, "he has a higher average" Which is of course true The only thing separating these two theoretical players is a difference of 35 points in batting average. 35 is commonly seen as a large gap in BA, but lets put it into better perspective Say both player A and B had same number of at bats in the season. 600 at bats If you just multiply the players average and number of at bats.... you’ll get that player's total hits .310 * 600 = 186.......player A had 186 hits .275 * 600 = 165........B had 165 that’s a difference of 21 hits. what's that mean? that just means that player A had one more hit per week than player B just 1 extra hit a week that’s practically nothing yet people are basing their decisions off this player A might just get a few more bloop hits and player B might just have a chunk of his hits robbed by good defensive plays. the difference between just isn’t that significant what is significant is the types of hits these two players are getting according to batting average.....a homerun is worth the same as a single a double is just a hit one player can go 1/3 with a homerun another can also go 1/3 with a single according to this stat that many many people hold in such high regard....these two players are equal the difference between a single with no one on and a solo homer is that the homerun is a sure run while the single might be turned into a run considering this....it's obvious that a homerun is worth more than a single and therefore shouldn’t be looked at as equal a stat that was put together to fix this "problem" is Slugging Percentage SLG applies the following values to each hit a homerun = 4 total bases triple = 3 double = 2 single = 1 you just add up the total bases and divide by at bats so now we have a stat that gives us a betting look at a batter those two batters that went 1/3 the one who hit the homer has a SLG of 1.333 (4/3) and the other is at .333 (1/3) no longer are homeruns and singles equal this new stat basically tells us what kind of hits a batter is getting the higher a players SLG...the more extra base hits (doubles, triples, homeruns) he's getting another thing that BA leaves out the mix is the walk walks are completely ignored in the formula when a player walks...its not counted as an at bat or a hit but why should it be left out of a stat that people are basing important decision like MVP? a walk may not be as good as a single (a walk rarely brings a run in and advances any runners on base by one bag at most) but the player isn’t making an out at least the batter is keeping the inning alive, getting on base, giving his team a better chance to score....so why not count it maybe some people don't think taking a walk is a skill but numbers show that players who take few walks one season...will most likely stay that way. and also players who walk a lot will keep it up so this isn’t something randomly tossed out to players walking....taking pitches is a valuable skill that some major leaguers excel at more than others shouldn’t this skill be credited for in deciding which player is more skillful than the other? batting average doesn’t think so so, to make up for this another stat was made called on base percentage OBP this tells you the rate at which a player gets on base or doesn’t make an out a player going 0/2 with a walk and a hbp would have an OBP of .500 (2/4) since half the time a made a plate appearance....he succeeded in not making an out his batting average for the game would be a zero, but whets important is that he didn’t make an out two of those 4 plate appearances again....take two players one goes 2/5 with a single, a double, and a sacrifice fly other goes 1/3 with a single and two walks looking at batting average first batter hit .400, other hit .333 but using OBP first batter = .400 other = .600 batting average rewards the batter for the sacrifice fly by not counting that as an at bat batting average is saying that it’s ok that the player made that out if it were a flyout with no one on and no one advancing the batter would have gone 2/6 on the day a clip of .333 the out is very valuable in baseball each out is one step closer to the end of an inning and opportunity to score one step closer to end of the game yet the batter is getting some credit for this out because a runner happened to be on base while Joe mauer's .390+ is very very impressive don’t just go by that one number alone many of his hits come off singles and he only has 5 homers on the year using batting average to evaluate hitters really isn’t so bad batting average has no flaws in it it does what its supposed to do it tells you the rate at which a player gets a hit the flaw is in the people using it like it’s the greatest thing to compare players when it isn’t