Originally Posted by CBeisbol
First, awesome for having an open mind to this stuff
Second, good advice so far
For hitters,
I look at OBP/ISO/wRC+
wRC+ tells me how good the hitter was compared to their league. Better than 100 is good.
OBP and ISO tell me how that player produced that. By avoiding getting out, or by hitting for power. Preferably both.
BABIP is also important. It can help you figure out if a player is more likely to get getter, worse or stay the same next year.
With all of these stats, you need to compare to ratings to see if a player should be better or worse than their performance. If a player had a high ISO, but has low power and gap power, don't expect that same ISO next year.
Same with OBP and Avoid K,,Contact and Eye.
For pitchers
FIP- and ERA+ (ERA- exists and is better than ERA+ but OOTP doesn't use it for whatever reason).
These tell you how well a pitcher pitched (sort of) compared to the league. ERA+ is heavily influenced by defense. The same pitcher on a bad defensive team will have a worse ERA+. FIP isolates the pitcher performance more, but misses some things.
But, again, you'll want to look at Stuff and compare to strike outs, Movement to compare to home runs, and control to compare to walks to see how those things should be expected to change going forward.
For defense, it's really all about UZR or ZR, whatever OOTP calls it. One thing with UZR that's different than the other stats I've listed is that the other stats are rate stats. It doesn't matter if a hitter hit (or a pitcher pitched) 100 times or 1000 times. UZR does matter. It accumulates. For that reason it's often more useful to make it a rate stat by putting it over 1000 (or whatever) innings. If one player has 5 UZR in 1000 innings and another has 5 in 500 innings, there's a good chance the guy with 5 was better (imagine that's more like 10/1000 innings).
Like with pitching and hitting, make sure the ratings support the performance. If a player with excellent defensive ratings has a poor UZR for a season, expect it to improve. And vice-versa.
The important differentiation I've alluded to is knowing what stats tell you what a player did and which ones help you figure out what a player is likely to do.
If a hitter has a .320 wOBA. That's what that player produced in that time frame.
But if that .320 wOBA comes with a .200 BABIP, you can (in most cases) expect an even higher wOBA going forward. Likewise, if it's a .440 BABIP attached to that wOBA, expect it to get worse.
Same for pitchers, but in the opposite direction.
BABIP is important, is what I'm saying.
Also, have to mention WAR. Use it. It's good. Take some time to understand it. Understand what it is, and what it isn't, then use it for what it is intended.
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