Baseball Update: Learning Sabermetrics, Part 1

(The Baseball Update takes a look at the happening around Major League Baseball.)

I hate math. That's an understatement. Math is vomit-inducing to me. I have a mental block when it comes to any forms of math. What kryptonite was to Superman, math is too me. When I was a sophomore in high school I earned a D in Algebra and had to take Summer school just to pass Algebra. During my first year of college, I had to see a tutor to pass Algebra II. You get the picture, math is not one of my best subjects.

So why do I bring this up? That's because math is involved with Sabermetrics and baseball. Sabermetrics has become a huge part of baseball. I've avoided Sabermetrics as long as I could. It involved math, so I avoided Sabermetrics like it was the plague. Sabermetrics can no longer be avoided.

After Bill Simmons wrote this column about how he's starting to embrace Sabermetrics, I figured it was time for me to start embracing Sabermetrics. It's a bigger part of baseball today and you can barely talk about baseball without bringing up stats like OBP and WHIP.

So this baseball season it's my goal to better understand Sabermetrics. The great thing about Sabermetrics today, is that I don't have to bust out a calculator and divide at-bats by hits. Great sites such as Baseball Prospectus and Fan Graphs does all the work for you.

So it's time to take my head out of the sand and embrace Sabermetrics. I don't have to use formulas to determine the stats, when sites have already done that for me. I just have to understand what I'm reading. That's my goal for this season. I want to better understand Sabermetrics.

So this Baseball Update is the first of a series of Sabermetric related posts. Today's post is a series of links that involve Sabermetric glossary's and posts that further explain each sabermetric statistic. I will also look at the two most simple Sabermetric stats OBP and WHIP. Tomorrow I'll start looking at more advanced Sabermetric posts.

Sabermetric Related Sites:
Baseball Reference
Fan Graphs
Baseball Prospectus
Beyond the Boxscore
Baseball Analysts
Joe Posnanski
Sweet Spot
Hardball Times

Sabermetric Related Posts:
Bill Simmons finally joins the Sabermetric revolution
Big League Stew featured a series of posts explaining various Sabermetrics
Beyond the Boxscore explains what Wins Above Replacement means
ESPN's Rob Neyer explains what Value Over Replacement Player means

Now it's time to understand On Base Percentage and Walks Hits Innings Pitched. These are the two most simple and basic Sabermetric stats. They are even featured in players statistics on major websites.

OBP (On-Base Percentage)
Goal: Capture a players ability to not make outs.

Translation: It’s the total number of times a guy gets on base without being responsible for making an out (except for reaching on errors), divided by his plate appearances -- which are simply times a guy comes up to the plate and tries not to make an out. (Plate appearances in this case are defined as At Bats + Walks + Sacrifice Flies.)

My Take: No surprise but Albert Pujols lead the league last year with a .443 on-base percentage. It's no surprise because Pujols is the best player in the Majors today. OBP is the best stat because it exemplifies how good a player is. Baseball is a lot more than Home Runs and RBI's. It's about how a player reaches base whether it's a hit or a walk. A player is more valuable when he reaches base no matter what the means.

WHIP (Walks Plus Hits Allowed per Innings Pitched)
Goal: Basically the OBP for pitchers. This stat captures how many baserunners a pitcher allows.

Translation: How is your pitcher at not giving up hits and walks. Much more effective stat for relief pitchers than ERA.

My Take: This is the best stat to measure how effective pitchers are, especially relief pitchers. Relievers are always going to have a high ERA. One bad day and a reliever is going to have a 5.76 ERA and because they don't pitch enough innings to drop their ERA it will stay that way for the entire season. So this stat is excellent to measure how effective a reliever is.

WHIP though also is an excellent stat to determine how effective a starting pitcher is. Today with pitch counts it's important for pitchers to not allow a lot of base runners. Base runners equal more pitches thrown. And in today's game, it's more important for a pitcher to chew up innings for the bullpen doesn't get overworked.

Last year Javier Vasquez had a better WHIP than both Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay. Is Vasquez a better pitcher than both Lincecum and Halladay? Of course not, but he does chew up innings and gives the bullpen some much needed rest.

Are stats or Sabermetrics perfect? Not at all, but they do determine how effective a player is even if you don't really know it.

Part II will drop tomorrow.