Rocky Colavito: Stick it up their ***

[Peter_Spaeth]

Bill James did an interesting experiment where he compared the effect on an average team over a full season of adding a guy who just walked in every at bat versus Babe Ruth in his best season. The team was better with the walking guy. Williams drawing a walk was, I suspect, more valuable than Williams swinging at pitches he did not feel he could hit that were out of the strike zone. Anyhow it's just wild speculation on your part.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Bill James did an interesting experiment where he compared the effect on an average team over a full season of adding a guy who just walked in every at bat versus Babe Ruth in his best season. The team was better with the walking guy. Williams drawing a walk was, I suspect, more valuable than Williams swinging at pitches he did not feel he could hit that were out of the strike zone. Anyhow it's just wild speculation on your part.

No, it is my opinion from playing the game most of my life. No one is going to walk every at bat, but I do know that you rarely score a run by walking. It is a poor team concept when your best player is trying to walk instead of driving in runs.

We are never going to agree on this, but to me zero rings is evidence that this walk first approach wins at fantasy baseball, but doesn't produce real championships. It's not like Williams didn't play on some good teams. You can give him a pass, I won't.

[nat]

Historically, walks correlate very nicely with scoring runs. Take a look at this table. This is a run expectancy table. Basically, it's a calculation of how many runs teams score, on average, given a particular combination of base runners and outs. From 2010-2015, the no-one-on, no-one-out state, led, on average, to a team scoring .481 runs. A runner on first, no one out, led, on average, to a team scoring .859 runs. There's nothing fantasy baseball about this, it's just a record of what happened over a five-year stretch in MLB. Getting a runner at the start of an inning almost doubles the number of runs you can expect to score.

Other base-out states may be less dramatic, but a walk is still really good. Consider runners on 1st and 2nd, no one out. On average, that leads to 1.437 runs. Now look at bases loaded no one out. On average, that leads to 2.292 runs. The number of runs you can expect to score goes up, even though you didn't drive in those runners, because now there are more runners on base who can be driven in. (Even by a walk, in this case!)

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by rats60

No, it is my opinion from playing the game most of my life. No one is going to walk every at bat, but I do know that you rarely score a run by walking. It is a poor team concept when your best player is trying to walk instead of driving in runs.

We are never going to agree on this, but to me zero rings is evidence that this walk first approach wins at fantasy baseball, but doesn't produce real championships. It's not like Williams didn't play on some good teams. You can give him a pass, I won't.

Ted did not try to walk first. He took walks when he did not get a good pitch to hit. It's absurd to say someone with his hitting stats, arguably the best of all time, was trying to walk first. What's the basis for your assumption that on balls outside the strike zone it would have been better for his team for him to swing anyway?

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by rats60

No, it is my opinion from playing the game most of my life. No one is going to walk every at bat, but I do know that you rarely score a run by walking. It is a poor team concept when your best player is trying to walk instead of driving in runs.

We are never going to agree on this, but to me zero rings is evidence that this walk first approach wins at fantasy baseball, but doesn't produce real championships. It's not like Williams didn't play on some good teams. You can give him a pass, I won't.

appeal to authority logical fallacy. FACTS ARE FACTS and your amusing anecdotal, based on nothing, made up bunch of silly nonsense claims only tell us one thing. ex players are generally the worst people to ask about the game.

anyone who would dismiss Ted Williams' frankly AMAZING career because they walked too much and didn't win a ring is so amazingly obtuse that their opinion on everything from soup to nuts should be called into question as well as their sanity.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

appeal to authority logical fallacy. FACTS ARE FACTS and your amusing anecdotal, based on nothing, made up bunch of silly nonsense claims only tell us one thing. ex players are generally the worst people to ask about the game.

anyone who would dismiss Ted Williams' frankly AMAZING career because they walked too much and didn't win a ring is so amazingly fucking stupid that their opinion on everything from soup to nuts should be called into question as well as their sanity.

Maybe he thinks Bonds sucked too.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Nick probably knows this, but I bet there are graphs and charts showing that even the best hitters fall way off in terms of hitting stats on balls outside the strike zone.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Nick probably knows this, but I bet there are graphs and charts showing that even the best hitters fall way off in terms of hitting stats on balls outside the strike zone.

indeed, unless you are a real freak like Vlad Guerrero (who somehow kept good stats even with a high swing rate on balls out of the zone), a batter should attempt to swing at strikes and not at balls. Better contact, better quality of contact and, .....................wait for it...................... better launch angles and exit velocities!

[packs]

There is a saying in the Dominican: you can't walk off the island. Young hitters there hate walking because it takes away from their ability to showcase their power, which they know is key to playing in America.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by rats60

No, it is my opinion from playing the game most of my life. No one is going to walk every at bat, but I do know that you rarely score a run by walking. It is a poor team concept when your best player is trying to walk instead of driving in runs.

We are never going to agree on this, but to me zero rings is evidence that this walk first approach wins at fantasy baseball, but doesn't produce real championships. It's not like Williams didn't play on some good teams. You can give him a pass, I won't.

Regarding this dismissal of Ted Williams based on his lack of championships, I recall watching an episode of "Sports Reporters" in the late '80s. Dick Schaap was interviewing a group of reporters who covered baseball in the '40s and '50s. I'm sorry, but I can't recall their names. One question that he asked was "Who was better, Dimaggio or Williams?" One of the men replied "You want to know the difference between Dimaggio and Williams? I'll tell you the difference. Lefty Gomez, Red Ruffing, Spud Chandler, Whitey Ford, Allie Reynolds, Eddie Lopat and Vic Raschi."

My point (and the sportswriter's) is that you can't judge a ballplayer's ability solely on championships. Williams was a great hitter, and if the Red Sox didn't have enough pitching to match the Yankees this shouldn't diminish his reputation.

[Peter_Spaeth]

DiMaggio also had Gehrig at the beginning, Berra at the end, and Dickey, Gordon, Keller, Henrich, Rizzuto, and others I am forgetting in between.

[egri]

Originally Posted by Sean

Regarding this dismissal of Ted Williams based on his lack of championships, I recall watching an episode of "Sports Reporters" in the late '80s. Dick Schaap was interviewing a group of reporters who covered baseball in the '40s and '50s. I'm sorry, but I can't recall their names. One question that he asked was "Who was better, Dimaggio or Williams?" One of the men replied "You want to know the difference between Dimaggio and Williams? I'll tell you the difference. Lefty Gomez, Red Ruffing, Spud Chandler, Whitey Ford, Allie Reynolds, Eddie Lopat and Vic Raschi."

My point (and the sportswriter's) is that you can't judge a ballplayer's ability solely on championships. Williams was a great hitter, and if the Red Sox didn't have enough pitching to match the Yankees this shouldn't diminish his reputation.

And, DiMaggio had the advantage of not having to face those pitchers. The only HOF pitcher the Red Sox had during DiMaggio's career was Lefty Grove, who was washed up by the time Williams debuted.