Over the last couple of decades, intelligent baseball fans have moved away from the rudimentary statistics to more thought-provoking and useful numbers. The ideas of batting average and earned run average telling the whole story just isn’t true anymore and we moved ahead to more sophisticated methods of measuring performance.From the batting perspective, one commonly seen on television and heard on radio broadcasts is on-base percentage. Some may wonder how an on-base percentage is calculated.
You add together hits, walks and hit by pitch and divide that by at bats, walks, hit by pitch and sacrifice flies.
What we learn from on-base percentage is the hitting value of the player to the team. For example, Ted Williams hold the all-time record for OBP for career at .481. Second is Babe Ruth at .474 and others in the top 10 includes Lou Gehrig, Barry Bonds, Rogers Hornsby and Ty Cobb. In the top 15 all-time are a couple of modern day players, Todd Helton and Albert Pujols.
Why is OBP valuable to sports bettors?
Start with the fact the easiest way to score runs is having men on base. Former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver said the best offense play in the game was a three-run homer and while you can’t argue with his logic, two players had to get on base for that to occur. Many of the all-time great pitchers gave up 20 or more home runs a year, even into the 30’s, but they limited damage by having them be solo shots.
On-base percentage means players are willing to help the team. These hitters will take walks, adding to hurlers pitch counts, and play the game the right way, by hitting to opposite field if pitcher works the outside corner continually or with two strikes.
A quick review of the top five teams in Major League Baseball for OBP looks like this.
L.A. Dodgers .374
N.Y. Mets .369
Boston .366
Washington .361 (see pitching numbers)
Toronto .359
Three of these teams are in first place in their respective divisions and the Red Sox are right on the heels of the Blue Jays. Though Manny Ramirez is suspended, his work ethic and attention to detail has rubbed off on his Dodgers teammates. The Mets have been more patient at the dish and are 5th in walks. Boston is just being Boston and Toronto manager Cito Gaston has convinced his team to be more aggressive at the plate, yet be selective at what you swing at. After having doubts, maybe Nationals third-sacker Ryan Zimmerman is correct is saying “….we’re better than our record shows”, however allowing six runs per game puts a great deal of pressure on any offense.
Another aspect to think about is what a quality OBP does to opposing teams pitching staff. The pitch count aspect has already been mentioned for starting pitchers, which transcends into more innings for bullpens. This is an area that is a moving target for many teams from year to year, as teams feel compelled to pay everyday ball players more and will let go of effective reliever over cost concerns.
Drilling down, we find only 10 teams have a bullpen ERA of less than 3.80, suggesting batters going to the plate with an idea to execute could see tasty deliveries coming their way.
Reviewing the other end of the spectrum here are the five worst teams in OBP.
Seattle .307
Arizona .307
San Francisco .314
Oakland .314
San Diego .314
Two of the five clubs are in the bottom five for walks (Mariners and Giants). Only San Francisco has a record above .500, but that has been due to superior starting pitching, led by Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and the possible revitalization of Barry Zito. It would be rare to see Seattle, Oakland and San Diego at the top of this list anyways, since they play in parks conducive to pitching. Nevertheless, all these teams lack talented hitters and the ones on the active roster go up to the plate just hacking, making them easy fodder for pitchers that can hit the right spots.
Arizona is the biggest disgrace, since the core players on the team should be approaching best years. The Snakes have to tie their shoes extra tight, because they swing so hard trying to jack everything over the fence. To this point, the D-Backs hitters have shown no adaptability to wanting to improve and strike out or hit lazy pop-ups and fly balls.
Winning against those setting the line is never easy, but utilizing tools like on-base percentage can keep you in the black.
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