When watching baseball on TV 10 years from now, I better not see batting average and RBIs or wins and losses as statistics when a player comes to bat or a pitcher takes the mound. Statistics that most baseball fans think are important are all misleading. Most fans will tell you that batting average is how you tell if a player is good or not. Ask them if they've ever heard of OPS and you'll probably get a blank stare. OPS is on-base percentage plus slugging percentage. On-base percentage is exactly what it sounds like. It measures how often a player is on base, while slugging percentage measures a player's power.
The problem with batting average is that it doesn't take those things into account. That's why Ichiro Suzuki is seen as a better hitter than he really is. While he consistently hits around .330 every year, his career high in home runs is 15. His career on-base percentage is high, but his slugging is league average for a corner outfielder. While he is a very good hitter, he's not in the top five of his generation like a lot make him out to be.
Everybody looks at RBIs as a sign of great hitters as well. If you think about it, that statistic is totally dependent on other people. Look at the case of Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira. Hitting in front of him in the lineup are Derek Jeter, a player with a career .388 on-base percentage, and Nick Johnson, who has a career on-base percentage of .401, meaning those two guys are on base all the time. Now, say instead of having Jeter and Nicky J in front of him he had you and me. I don't know about how you'd do, but my on base in a 162 game season would be around .000. It's ridiculous, I know, but the point is RBIs are just as much an indication of the strength of a player's lineup as it is an indication of how good a hitter is.
The case is the same when it comes to wins and losses. If a pitcher's offense isn't scoring runs, it is not his fault if he doesn't get a win. Say he pitches eight innings, gives up one run, strikes out 10 and doesn't walk anyone. Is he a bad pitcher because his offense stinks? This happened a few years ago when Roger Clemens pitched for the Houston Astros. In 2005, Clemens pitched 211.1 innings, struck out 185 batters, and walked only 62 with a 1.87 ERA, the best of his career. With that amazing stat line, he only had 13 wins on the season because the Astros' offense was terrible.
Networks showing baseball games should start displaying statistics that actually tell how good a player is. Hopefully, soon when looking at the screen we will no longer see batting average because it's been replaced by OPS. Instead of showing wins and losses, strikeout-to-walk ratio should be there. Maybe eventually baseball writers will stop basing Gold Gloves on fielding percentage and Web Gems and will start looking at statistics that factor in a player's range.
Until then, baseball fans must educate themselves on the good stats, because apparently the networks haven't heard about them yet.
You can reach this columnist at sports@theeagleonline.com
