Tim Josephs: Can We Stop with the Silly Baseball Stats?
Special to Sports News Highlights
(SNH) — Of all the professional sports, baseball is generally considered to be the nerdiest. Even though statistics are prevalent in all games, baseball just has a special knack for really getting into the minutia. There now seems to be stats for everything, even things that have little bearing on outcomes.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with checking out the numbers to gauge a player’s ability and compare him with others. Looking at batting average or ERA, for example, can typically tell you a lot about someone’s prowess. The problem, however, is that – thanks in large part to sabermetrics – stats have gotten silly.
For instance, every time Shohei Ohtani hits a home run, almost certainly you’ll find out how far he hit it. While this may make for an exciting thing for a SportsCenter anchor to yell while showing the highlight, does anybody really care? What’s more important, that he hit the ball 450 feet or that he gave the Dodgers the lead?
An additional piece of information that you might get with that Ohtani hit is how hard the ball was struck. Apparently in Toronto, he smacked a single that was the hardest hit of his career. Again, this has no relevance on the game. He could have hit the ball just as hard into the glove of the second baseman instead of knocking it into right field for an RBI.
Barrel rate is another stat that gets mentioned these days. According to MLB.com, in order for a ball “to be Barreled, a batted ball requires an exit velocity of at least 98 mph. At that speed, balls struck with a launch angle between 26-30 degrees always garner Barreled classification. For every mph over 98, the range of launch angles expands.”
(Please, somebody, come up with a rhyme for “barrel rate” so we can create a new stanza for “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”)
Hitters aren’t the only ones subjected to worthless statistics. Now, it seems to matter how hard fielders throw. In a game against the San Diego Padres, Cincinnati Reds phenom Elly De La Cruz threw a ball to first that may have been the fastest thrown in MLB history. But did he get the runner out? Nope. The ball was thrown too hard in fact, and first baseman Jeimer Candelario didn’t have enough time to react. The broadcaster even suggested that De La Cruz took his time to show off his arm.
Pitchers also deal with data scrutiny that may not have any bearing on their success. Spin rate – which is the rate of spin after the ball is released – is often used to determine the quality of pitches thrown. The higher the spin rate, so the theory goes, the harder it will be for batters to get hits. However, this isn’t always the case. For instance, J.P. France of the Houston Astros is considered one of the top pitchers when it comes to spin. It’s not doing him so good this year, however, as he has a hefty ERA of nearly 7.50.
The focus on spinning the baseball – as opposed to just getting hitters out – can also have potentially serious consequences. Many players believe that it’s one of the contributing factors in why so many pitchers are sustaining major injuries, such as Eury Pérez of the Florida Marlins who recently underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery.
MLB has done a lot over the years to try to get people more interested in baseball. But, if the league isn’t careful, the focus on meaningless stats – as opposed to the beauty and excitement of the game – could drive casual fans away. And they might go faster than any fans have ever gone before.
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