Sure, but if the result isn't a run scored, he may as well have made an out. Take Podsednik in 2005. Perhaps the most overrated season a player ever had. He scored about 80 runs and drove in 25. That isn't really good. He got MVP votes.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

And everyone knows about 300 Wins. So can I put you down on the JORR side of that debate?

Slugging percentage is probably what you should use for what youre trying to measure.

Same can be said of a hit, right?

Just because there is a ton of posts in this thread and some understandably missed it. I have changed my opinion. Abreu has been better and I didnt look deep enough into the stats at first. I was wrong.

IMO, its still very close.

There's certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that's the case, but it isn't really something that can be proven one way or another.

I know it's a small sample, but do you think Marcus Semien is somehow mentally stepping up his game with men on base? That may or may not be the case. I don't know. But I wouldn't discount the possibility. The SABR/bernstein dismissal would be to snidely say, "Oh sure, he doesn't want to get a hit when no one is on base." That type of response isn't really productive to the discussion.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Yes.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Actually I disagree. Raising a pitchers pitch count (whether it ends in a hit, a walk, or an out) is valuable in today's game.

Frank doesn't like context for pitchers.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

OK. I'm back in the office today. What are we arguing about? What Quixotic stance has JORR taken today?

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

80 runs in 129 games is pretty good for a leadoff guy, but yeah he was not an MVP.

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The value of OBP in relation to slugging. The value of OPB in general and the value of RBI as a stat.

It's always been valuable. I had to laugh at bernstein yesterday when he said something like "Teams have realized that the more pitches per at-bat the better it is for an offense." As if back in the dark ages of the 50s or the 70s people were too dumb to know that.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Not really

I know its always been valuable, but its become even more valuable with the LaRussafication of bullpens

Yes really. Over 160 games that is on pace for about 110 runs.

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I'm not sure that's true. In the past relievers were guys that weren't good enough to be starters. If you knocked the starter out, you got to tee off on some bum. Now you have specialty relievers that may well be nastier than the starter. The best approach may be to score enough runs to win the game, but don't score them so fast you knock out the guy you know you can hit.

Seriously, one of the biggest changes I've seen in the game is that there is no longer shame in striking out.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

No, its not. It works out to 100 (did you just add 10 for good measure?) which would have been behind about 9 other leadoff hitters.

Even with that, and I agree on how relievers have changed, I still think its always a good idea to get the starters pitch count up

oRAR, another nice metric:

Abreu 10
Rizzo 11

And is already documented, Rizzo still leads in OPS+.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/homeruns/_/sort/ ... ghHomeRuns

Interesting. Both players haven't exactly murdered most of their homers.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

right now Rizzo has a tiny edge in Sabrmetric stats, but his BABIP is 40 points above career avg. while Abreu's is 20 points below league average.

In short, a tight race thus far. the BABIP numbers are kind of shaky for Rizzo.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Bernsie's big thing yesterday which made some sense to me was the WOBP. If you can give more value to a homer or double etc than a walk or bloop single that helps me more to see a picture.

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Elections have consequences.

Formula for weighted OBA:

The wOBA formula for the 2012 season was:

wOBA = (0.691×uBB + 0.722×HBP + 0.884×1B + 1.257×2B + 1.593×3B + 2.058×HR) / (AB + BB – IBB + SF + HBP)

Sooo, a single is roughly 28% more valuable than a walk (.884/.691 = 1.28)

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Fly balls vs line drives.

Abreu is swinging for the fences...Rizzo is learning to hit while using shifts against him to HIS advantage.

The BABIP can be explained.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

There are some pretty absurd lengths that people are going to here.

Why doesn't Rizzo have a perfect BABIP then?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I would just once again like to thank Brick for pointing out how close Rizzo and Abreu have been stats wise, so far proving Steve Stone wrong.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Pretty much everyone thinks that Abreu has been better.

Your Cubs fan bretheren are abandoning you. You are stuck on an island with Kirkwood and IMU and it's obvious Kirkwood is just doing a bit.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

In time probably means more than 35 games, biggie.

Stone will be proven correct "in time"

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I think he has been better, in terms of more of an impact, but as you noted he isnt "far superior" to rizzo at this point.

Maybe Steve Stone can go back to focusing on Edwin Jacksons contract as his new sticking point.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

As I said, we'll talk in a little while. Right now, Rizzo may be able to hang with Abreu.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!