So after reading all of Decoding Symbols blog posts I was scrambling to find which comms related to MLB, because we already got the Gold Standard return comms with the GOLDEN NUGGETS and the GOLDEN KNIGHTS, and then it hit me..
The Arizona Diamondbacks are never talked about as really anything, nor are they considered to be in the playoffs or a contender for 20+ years. Suddenly, they are in the World Series, which made me think of Trump's statement:** "They cheated, and you know when people cheat, I always say, ‘If Tiffany gets robbed of its diamonds when they catch the robber, you have to give the diamonds back,'” Trump stated, seemingly implying that President Biden should simply hand him back the presidency. ** This thing was all over the MSM talking about how odd and ridiculous it was.
So before Game 7 last night this dawned on me, I actually went to the Phillies forums on the web to see what the fans were saying...a good 60% of them were noticing the Phillies play calling made no sense, left runners on base almost every inning, and also baseloaded one or two times with no runs. Arizona was also down 2-1 I believe and then EASILY scored another two the next inning...
I think we 'have' something here.
It's more than just his homers, mate, although the homers do help to put him in the middle of the top 1/3rd of the league in xSLG.
Something you entirely miss by honing in on BA is that he is literally a 1%er in walk rate, which helps to put him in the middle of the top 1/6th of the league in xwOBA.
Because the game is about scoring, and that means +to homers and +to walks [the former isn't weighted well by BA and the latter isn't considered at all by BA] there is a lot to offensive production that BA misses. It's not a terrible stat to look at most of the time, but when you're looking at a player that has great power and a great walk rate, you get a very misleading answer if you're trying to figure out his offensive production by looking at BA alone. [bottom 10% in BA, but top 15% in offensive production]
And +to seven fielders standing around doing fuck-all because nothing's put in play.
And the bread-and-circuses masses fucking love it.
Ball go far.
This is all easily fixed, by the way:
Soften the baseball. The actual round white ball that's thrown.
They won't do that, because people are stupid and easily placated.
And because people are stupid and easily placated, the cabal continues to rule.
The only way is the military.
Oh, I thought your issue was with the factual correctness of low BA but high xwOBA being good for offensive production.
Is it really just that you're upset that it's effective? Because yeah, someone can recognize that homers and walks are offensive production and yet be unhappy that baseball played optimally might be more boring than the old style.
How does softening the baseball help, if you're considering homers to be boring, by the way? I don't get that. Also, would that drop pitching velocity, or increase it? I've never heard this proposal, so I'm not aware of what exactly it would cause.
"If the home run overtakes the double, we need to replace the ball with a wad of Play-Doh."
Jon Bois
So do you not actually know the answer to any of the questions I posed, or did you just want to hit me with some Jon Bois before getting on with it?