I thought OBP was anything to get on base, be it a hit, BB, HBP, or reaching on an error. I would think a fielder's choice would not though.

The cycle to me is a decent accomplishment. You have to hit a triple, so the player likely has decent speed, and power for the HR, and its also 4 hits in a night.

7/29/2006 11:45:00 PM

The truth of the matter is any stat is "over-rated" (I hate that word by the way). A quarterback who completes 80% of his passes might just dump off to his running backs and/or tight ends. A quarterback who leads the league in touchdown passes might be throwing to a stud like Jerry Rice or Terrell Owens. A quarterback who has less interceptions than anyone else might be in an offense who rarely throws the ball. But when you combine those stats and see a quarterback that is consistently in the league leaders in all/most of these stats (ie Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, etc) then the stats begin to become meaningful.

Basically for any stat you show me, I can probably find you an awesome player who has a crappy number for that stat and a crappy player who has a great number for that stat.

7/30/2006 2:14:49 AM

this is actually a really good thread i think...i am trying to think of ANY really good overrated stats- first i thought of was YAC but thats a really good stat, and then i thought of broke tackles, but thats a pretty good stat, then i thought minutes played in basketball but thats important, then i thought baseball with the stat thats like "hits with players in scoring position", but thats a good stat to have also

i guess maybe interceptions...i use to always think that a quarterback shouldnt get an interception counted against him if like it was the recievers fault

7/30/2006 2:37:10 AM

^^^All of that is correct about OBP but on an error. Errors count as outs and against both the batter's BA and OBP. But yes hits, BBs, and HBPs count for OBP.

7/30/2006 7:24:57 AM

HBP don't count into OBP.

7/30/2006 3:16:54 PM

feeble makes a good point... all stats are subject to manipulation. Usually you cant just look at one stat and totally judge a player.... some guys might shoot low FG% because all they do is shoot threes...other guys might shoot high FG% because they only score on putbacks or when a PG creates them an easy layup.

"wins" can be flaky as evidenced by Roger Clemens last season....

but also remember that Roger Clemens is one of the winningest pitchers of all time. So they aren't that meaningless. Over the course of a career and usually a season, these things tend to even out. Sure some wins are cheap and sometimes you get screwed out of a win, but in general the good pitchers rack up a lot more wins than the bad ones.

If you win 20 games it means you probably dominated that season. If you win 15 games its likely that you had a really strong season.

Also, wins tends to mean a little more than some people give credit for. Sometimes a pitcher is good at keeping leads and winning tight 2-1 games and on days where he doesnt have his best stuff he still holds offenses to 3-4 runs and gives himself a chance to win....

Jason Marquis for instance has like 12 wins this year and his ERA is above 5.00 You could say he's gotten really lucky but in actuality he's had a lot of quality starts that deserved to be "wins". He's just got two MISERABLE starts (12 ER one game) where they couldnt take him out because the bullpen was used up from extra innning games the night before. When it comes down to it, Id rather have a pitcher who gives me a good start 6 times out of 7 and gets blown up on the 7th, than a guy who gives me 5 IP, 4 ER every other start...



[Edited on July 30, 2006 at 3:35 PM. Reason : a]

7/30/2006 3:33:22 PM

^ yeah I remember back before NBA Live got complex and differentiated "jump shooting" from "inside scoring,"
you could shot 18-footers with shaq

then again shaq didn't exactly look much like himself

Quote :

"A quarterback who leads the league in touchdown passes might be throwing to a stud like Jerry Rice or Terrell Owens."

or breaking the season record by throwing a bunch of < 5-yard TDs

7/30/2006 3:37:15 PM

I'd be tempted to argue for saves as being worthless at this point. They keep making them easier and easier to get which makes current save numbers completely impossible to compare to much of what Rollie Fingers, Bruce Sutter, and Dennis Eckersly did only 20-30 years back when the save was a relatively new statistic. Protecting a 3 run lead for one inning isn't really "saving" much when you come in with the bases empty. That's part of the reason that relievers are going to find it harder to get into Cooperstown because the rules on the save keep changing, which makes it harder to compare a players worth even to those who came just before or just after him.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying relief pitching is worthless. Its almost as important as starting pitching. But the save stat being clouded by constant rule changes is what I'm looking at.

7/31/2006 11:06:30 AM

Power-play percentages in hockey.

Tell me which team is better:

Team 1 - .800 kill rate and .100 success rate
Team 2 - .900 kill rate and .200 success rate

Common sense would say Team 2.

But if Team 1 had 10 power plays in a game, and Team 2 had 5 power plays in a game, the end-of-game stats would show each team got one goal, but on percentages Team 2 would look better even though the scoreboard says they're even.

So a team could have a high kill rate and high success rate, but if the team gives away too many power plays or does not have many power plays, the percentages aren't worth much.

A better stat, IMO, would be power play goals per game and power play goals against per game.

[Edited on July 31, 2006 at 11:27 AM. Reason : .]

7/31/2006 11:26:54 AM

I can't believe this one hadn't been brought up yet..

Basketball: Double-doubles!! Like 10 points and 10 rebounds is really some accomplishment...especially when you're already six foot ten.

Maybe I'd be impressed if Nate Robinson had 55 double doubles over the course of the season. A stupid stat.

7/31/2006 1:26:15 PM

Quote :

"HBP don't count into OBP."

Yes, they do.

Quote :

"On-base percentage (also known as on-base average) is the measure of the number of times a player gets on base via hit, walk, or hit by pitch, expressed as a percentage of his total number of plate appearances."

7/31/2006 2:11:01 PM

^^ points and assists? easy...

7/31/2006 5:47:26 PM

in football it has to be time of possession

ive watched countless games where the winning team scores at will, why the losing team gobbles up clock time

it should not even be mentioned

7/31/2006 7:19:17 PM

^ Yes but if you hold all other things equal (say two identical teams were playing each other) then time of posession does truly indicate how efficient a squad has been with clock management, since it is often referred to in terms of allowing the defense to rest.

[Edited on July 31, 2006 at 7:36 PM. Reason : .]

7/31/2006 7:36:05 PM

margin of victory in college bball at least

I'm sick of everyone making a huge deal when duke beats princeton by 40 points then the next week loses to a top 25 team by 5

7/31/2006 7:41:48 PM

no, it's meaningless

there are plenty of times where the score is tied and the TOP is lopsided too

or what about when a team wins by scoring all of its points off of turnovers or special teams?

football is too multidimensional for a stat like TOP to matter

7/31/2006 7:44:36 PM