Even if Dusty isn’t a good fit, he’s still a better manager than we’re used to. Lets enjoy it.

I’ll go a little extreme here, but lets say whoever doesn’t get the AB in your scenario is going to bat after him. Guy A has a .500 OBP and a .000 AVG. Guy B has a .250 OBP and AVG. Who are you going with?

“Your job in the middle is to either score them or drive them in. The name of the game is scoring runs. Sometimes, you get so caught up in on-base percentage that you’re clogging up the bases.”

I get the first part. Don’t agree, but I understand what he’s saying.

But that “clogging” comment just can’t be ignored. Not twice. Baker is explicitly saying that he’d prefer an out to a walk, at least in some circumstances. There’s really no other interpretation to the sentence.

I understand that he’d rather have a hit (really an extra-base hit) than a walk. I get that part. But the “clogging” comment says that there’s something wrong simply with being on base, at least for (presumably slow) sluggers, and in some sort of circumstances.

He’s saying that he’d rather not have those baserunners, which is just a crazy thing to say, since the only alternative to “being on base” is “being out.”

There is simply no circumstance where this is true. Imagine the slowest batter ever, with Sean Casey up next – yeah, there’s a good chance of a double-play, but there’s also some chance of a two-run jack. Slowest player ever, with Ty Cobb up next – yeah, there’s a chance that Cobb has to stop at 2nd on a sure triple, but is “2nd & 3rd, 0 outs” somehow worse than “man on 3rd, 1 out”?

I actually don’t think Baker truly believes the clogging statement, but he’s said it twice now, and frankly, just saying it is dumb enough.

Yeah. He plays on a team with low OBP (which accounts for his lower RBIs) and hit almost exactly 100 more homeruns in your sample.

“Maybe if they weren’t so one dimensional and increased their OBP skills, they could have scored runs at the same rate as Adam Dunn, who already knocks in nearly as many runs as them, and helped the team score runs even more.”

This is a function of Adam Dunn’s power and nothing else. Sure, he’s a genius because he’s put genuine effort in to getting on base more often. But (1) what else is a guy in his position (ya know — already hitting tons of homeruns) going to do? And (2) he’s given a whole lot of walks that most people can’t hope for.

I’ll go on record now as saying people just don’t want to like Dusty. I don’t either, but listen to what he’s saying. He’s saying people are placing too much value on the OBP stat, to which people reply with more stats.

If you’ve got a guy on first and no one will swing the bat, not too many guys are gonna score.

All ’stats nerds’ are trying to do is find more correct ways to identify how and why a team/player does how it does. Why did they win? Why did they lose? Why did they score this many or allow this many runs? Is there a way to correct that flaw with the current team at hand?

Thats all us ’stats nerds’ are trying to do. I always enjoy my excel spreadsheets when I learn something new, or find something that explains why a player/team may have a much better season this time around. Nerd… I can deal with that. At least someone didn’t call me stupid, at that point it at least would have been insulting.

In one set of games the opponent just pitched to Babe as usual. In the other set, they intentionally walked him every single at bat.

He found that the Babe’s team scored more runs when he was walked every time — and that was true (by far) when he was surrounded by a lineup of real 1927 Yankee teammates, and it was even true when he was surrounded by a pretty lame lineup. (I don’t remember the exact details here.)

It’s a totally weird, extreme comparison, of course, but it illustrates a point.

The goal isn’t just walks. It’s runs. And getting baserunners and NOT making outs leads to a lot of runs.

I’m convinced. Everything Dusty Baker says is the gospel. It’s impossible that he might be incorrect about anything. After all, he’s a 30 year veteran and proven winner.

I’ll be shutting down the blog later tonight, or tomorrow. Clearly, we can’t discuss anything about baseball because we are “STATS nerds” who couldn’t possibly be correct about anything unless we agree 100% with everything Reds management tells us to believe.

I’ll be back in my parents’ basement. Somebody yell when the season starts — not the games themselves, because I don’t watch those — just let me know when the stats show up online, cause that’s all I care about.