Stat question. Re: Moneyball

[prohornblower]

Just finished reading Moneyball, and in it there is mention that (at the time at least) OBP was rendered about 3x more valuable in the marker than was SLG. OPS treats them equally (OBP+SLG), but is there a stat out there that is the product of (3)OBP+SLG?

[PokerFink]

Not that I know of.

Also, I think the more accurate number is now considered 1.8, eg 1.8xOBP + SLG.

[mosdef]

[ QUOTE ]
Just finished reading Moneyball, and in it there is mention that (at the time at least) OBP was rendered about 3x more valuable in the marker than was SLG. OPS treats them equally (OBP+SLG), but is there a stat out there that is the product of (3)OBP+SLG?

[/ QUOTE ]

GPA is Gross Production Average and equals (1.8 x OPS + SLG)/4 and has a higher relationship to run creation. The "/4" part is just a normalization factor that makes the stat line up with traditional notions of Batting Average: i.e. .200 is terrible, .265 is average, and .300 is good.

[prohornblower]

[ QUOTE ]
Not that I know of.

Also, I think the more accurate number is now considered 1.8, eg 1.8xOBP + SLG.

[/ QUOTE ]

So if I understand correctly, the value of OBP fluctuates with the perceived value (comparative to SLG) from the 30 GM's?

In other words, back in '02 or whatever, OBP was so undervalued by the 29 other GM's, that Beane and his cronies had it* as high as 3 times as valuable (per $ spent) than SLG?

As I understand it, the value has to do with all the GM's and where they are throwing their $ around.

EDIT: *by "it", I should say "the players who have a high OBP"

[Jack of Arcades]

The value correlates with runs scored. IE, 1.8xOBP+SLG is a better predictor of runs scored than OBP+SLG.

The 3 OBP+SLG thing was in reference, I believe, to the fact that the weighting was most accurate for the AL in the past few years before the book was written. 1.8 is the "historical" coefficient but 3 applied to those seasons.

[kyleb]

Well, it was more like in the late 90's that Beane figured all of this out, because by 2000-2001, all of his guys were in the big leagues.

Cashman also has publicly said that the goal of the Yankees during their dynasty run was to acquire guys with high OBPs.

[RacersEdge]

It just came from a regression model with X1 = OBP and X2 = SLG, and the coefficients came out to be 3 and 1. I believe that's exactly what I got when ran the numbers like 4 years ago when I read the book.