mrbornac wrote:There must be a statistical solution that would say that a ground out is better than a strike out if and when a league range factor is below a certain level. Your own speed plays into this. If you can force a team to execute the defensive play to throw you out, does that not negate some of your "k is better" logic?
I'm just curious - not trolling 8)
Well, to be fair, you're now not talking about a groundOUT, but rather a groundBALL whose outcome can be dictated by defensive error or infield BABIP. The range of groundball out ratios can range from 50 to 85 depending (as you suggest) mostly on the player's speed; however, speaking in league averages (for MLB, anyway) there is roughly an average groundball out ratio of 75% (and, at an average speed of '5', I think it'd be safe to assume Goodwin would fall in this range). That includes both "seeing eye singles" and ones hit straight at a fielder - which would obviously have significantly different ratios attached individually.
I don't BELIEVE that OOTP captures GB%, LD% and FB% (if it does, and you can direct me to it, I'll love you forever, btw), but since Goodwin (as an example) is a gap hitter aficionado with good HR pop let's assume that his LD% and FB% are above average and his GB% is below average (to compensate)... so something like 28% LD rate, 42% FB rate and 30% GB rate.
Now, with a groundball out ratio of 75% and a 30% GB rate, that means that in 650 ABs there will be 195 balls put on the ground by the batter in a season, 147 of which will be recorded outs. That leaves 48 non-outs off groundballs over the course of a season (and recall that this includes both types of groundballs... those between fielders and right at them) for this player. In Goodwin's case last year, he hit with a runner on 1st 229 times last year which, by the ratios presented, means he would have hit a groundball in this situation roughly 69 times and ended with 8 GDIP (which is actually a considerably lower ratio than I was expecting, tbh). So of those 48 non-outs, we can subtract 8... so he now had 40 non-outs off groundballs.
So, obviously a groundBALL is better than a strikeOUT, but as a player gets slower and slower and, thus, more reliant on other types of batted balls for their BABIP, then just how much so continues to decrease. A '10' speed probably wants a higher AVK to take advantage of their GB% (since they would assuredly fall close to the 50% hit ratio on such a batted ball), but it more than likely behooves a '1' speed (whom would assuredly trend towards the 85% out ratio for such a batted ball) to have a lower AVK, imo, to decrease the affect of it - particularly as they are more likely to have their GIDP bloat as well (adding extra outs to the equation)*.
None of that speaks towards the affect of "trading outs", either. In Goodwin's case, he hit in a "force" situation 204 times last year which, by the ratios presented, he had a batted ground ball 61 times last year in that situation and recorded 46 outs. How many times was he replacing Yamaguchi, Holmes, Moore or Rodriguez vs. Petitjean or Rouse (the players whom most consistently hit "in front" of him at the 3-hole). Yamaguchi, our fastest player behind Moore, led the team in OBP and hit 2 spots in front - so I think its safe to assume that he has the yeoman's share of these situations - so what is the downgrade from a run production standpoint from trading him with Goodwin on the basepaths? I'm not real into SBs so I wouldn't even know where to begin quantifying that, but even someone as non-chalant about team speed as me recognizes there would be an affect there. Likewise, in the situation of the '1' speed, the affect would be even more hard felt... adding further credence that you probably would rather that guy just striking out in those situations (especially since he only converts 15% of his groundballs to non-outs... those definitely aren't pot odds!).
*Edit. Note that I'm talking about in REAL baseball and not OOTP baseball here (even though I'm using OOTP variables, haha)... the internal BABIP doesn't necessarily have a correlation with player speed (its merely an inverse relationship of AVK relative to CON) and, thus, this line of reasoning becomes moot in the context of the code.
bschr682 wrote:If his avoid K is falling further doesn't that mean his K's per season are going to pick up and the rest of his counting stats fall meaning those paces you threw up there are gonna be off?
Well, until his CON drops then his internal BABIP is remaining constant. 40 more Ks/year (not that I expect that pace to keep up, personally - nearly 200 Ks is impressive, haha) at his career BABIP will cost him about 12 hits/year. In his career he has a 17.7% chance for a hit to be a HR, so that drop in hits would cost him 2 HRs/year over his career pace. All of that would certainly affect RBIs and WAR as well, but that would be pretty difficult to attempt to quantify.
