Tango brings up an interesting point. Why show the number of RBI when a player comes to bat when there’s nobody on base? I’ve always wondered why they show the same damn thing each time the batter comes up, but he makes a better point. The stats they show when the batter comes to bat can be much improved. Here are my suggestions for just a few situations, and I’m going to leave off batting average because it tells us little about what we really want to know. I’m sticking to three statistics as some networks still show only 3.
Leadoff batter each inning: OBP, Pitches Per Plate Appearance, HR
All three statistics tell us something important about and useful to batters leading off. We want the first batter each inning to get on base. Getting on base is king to begin the inning. Is the player patient or a hacker? Pitches per plate appearances doesn’t necessarily answer that question as contact hitters will see fewer P/PA than a high strikeout guy, but we get an idea how much he may work the pitcher. Home runs tells us how many times he drives himself in.
Runner on base: OBP, RBI%, HR
I want to see OBP all the time. It tells us something very important: the percentage of times the batter reaches base safely, which is what batters try to do. Let’s forget RBI. If a guy has 27 RBI while another has 30, what exactly does that tell us? Without knowing the number of plate appearances, the number of runners and where they were located, it tells us nothing of importance. RBI% tells us the percentage of runners driven in (show us the average too). If they want to get fancy, show us the RBI% when there’s a runner at 1st, 2nd and 3rd and of course the league average. A singles hitter with a man on first base is going to drive runners in less frequently than someone who hits doubles, triples and home runs.
Other situations may make it necessary to show other stats. A runner on 3rd with less than 2 outs we might want to see OBP, RBI% and K%. Strikeouts are most costly in that situation so if you want to show us strikeouts, show them in that situation.
There are 24 base/out situations in baseball. Some of them are similar enough we could use the same stats, but many of them are quite different and we should be seeing different stats. There’s also no reason to keep telling us the same information with the exception being OBP. One other thing: the tv crews that put these stats together need to keep sample size in mind. I don’t really care what a better has done with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs if he’s come to the plate only 92 times in that situation. Tell me what he’s done over his career in that situation.
Comments
I recovered the rest of the post that I had initially lost when I published it. Not all that important if you’ve already read it.
mb21Quote Reply
That would actually require the producers to think. And would require a play-by-play and color guy who actually thought in terms of base/out situations rather than their precious R+RBI (dying laughing)
But I really like this idea.
Also:
http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/06/feeling-heat.html
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Ummmm, you spelled “R+RBI” incorrectly.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
I’d think with as much work as the announcers put in before each game that they’d like something like this. Some of them would anyway.
mb21Quote Reply
[quote name=mb21]I’d think with as much work as the announcers put in before each game that they’d like something like this. Some of them would anyway.[/quote]One would hope. It would certainly give them more to talk about during each AB, instead of constantly trotting out the same hobby horses every single time a guy comes up.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
[quote name=mb21]I’d think with as much work as the announcers put in before each game that they’d like something like this. Some of them would anyway.[/quote]
That’d be nice. And they could also tell us who’s in the bullpen and how the defense is set up too.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
[quote name=Rice Cube]That’d be nice. And they could also tell us who’s in the bullpen and how the defense is set up too.[/quote]But then how would Len and Bob ever find time to tell us about how Bob never picks up a check and who Len played a round of golf with yesterday?
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
[quote name=Rice Cube]That’d be nice. And they could also tell us who’s in the bullpen and how the defense is set up too.[/quote]That really bothers me about Len and Bob. Another thing I’ve noticed is that they rarely tell us the pitch count or how frequently a reliever has been used in recent days.
mb21Quote Reply
[quote name=mb21]That really bothers me about Len and Bob. Another thing I’ve noticed is that they rarely tell us the pitch count or how frequently a reliever has been used in recent days.[/quote]
Sometimes Pat and Keith also forget to mention the pitch count when they’re in the middle of their random discussion. The TV guys have an easier job because the relevant information (balls, strikes, outs, baserunners) are already in that graphic in the corner.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
[quote name=mb21]That really bothers me about Len and Bob. Another thing I’ve noticed is that they rarely tell us the pitch count or how frequently a reliever has been used in recent days.[/quote]Len and Bob don’t really tell the view much of anything in that respect.
[quote name=Rice Cube]Sometimes Pat and Keith also forget to mention the pitch count when they’re in the middle of their random discussion. The TV guys have an easier job because the relevant information (balls, strikes, outs, baserunners) are already in that graphic in the corner.[/quote]Pat’s usually pretty good at giving pitch counts, especially when the pitches are piling up. He’s also really good at giving in-inning pitch counts.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
Nice thing about Pat is that you always know what the players are wearing (dying laughing)
I think he’s also good about defensive positioning, particularly in the outfield.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
I don’t think people realize how little the Cubs announcers tell us until they spend a lot of time listening to other announcers. I have MLB Extra Innings and this the 5th or 6th year I’ve had it. I had MLB.TV for two years in between and whenever I watch the games I generally watch the home team’s broadcast. This is partly because MLB Extra Innings used to offer only that. They now offer both broadcasts, but I’ve enjoyed listening to the different broadcasts. It adds a unique perspective that we don’t get on WGN or CSN. It’s also a better way to learn more about the team the Cubs are playing.
I never really noticed what the Cubs announcers don’t tell us until the last few years. It’s just so obvious. Listen to almost any other broadcast and they’ll generally tell you where the fielders are positioned, the pitch count, who is up in the bullpen and who is likely to be used or avoided because of recent work. Sometimes you get that stuff on WGN, but if I want to know the pitch count I almost always have to go to the box score because they’re not going to tell me.
I can see the action. I don’t need a play by play telling me, “ground ball to SS, throw to 1st and he’s out.” I can fucking see that. On the radio, I get it, but on television I can see that shit happening.
mb21Quote Reply
[quote name=mb21]I don’t think people realize how little the Cubs announcers tell us until they spend a lot of time listening to other announcers. I have MLB Extra Innings and this the 5th or 6th year I’ve had it. I had MLB.TV for two years in between and whenever I watch the games I generally watch the home team’s broadcast. This is partly because MLB Extra Innings used to offer only that. They now offer both broadcasts, but I’ve enjoyed listening to the different broadcasts. It adds a unique perspective that we don’t get on WGN or CSN. It’s also a better way to learn more about the team the Cubs are playing.
I never really noticed what the Cubs announcers don’t tell us until the last few years. It’s just so obvious. Listen to almost any other broadcast and they’ll generally tell you where the fielders are positioned, the pitch count, who is up in the bullpen and who is likely to be used or avoided because of recent work. Sometimes you get that stuff on WGN, but if I want to know the pitch count I almost always have to go to the box score because they’re not going to tell me.
I can see the action. I don’t need a play by play telling me, “ground ball to SS, throw to 1st and he’s out.” I can fucking see that. On the radio, I get it, but on television I can see that shit happening.[/quote]
I’ve always gotten a decent visual from Pat on the radio from his descriptions. He’ll usually mention if the fielders are shaded heavily one way or the other. He’ll usually make a big deal if it’s something unusual like the infield shifted to pull, but the outfield shifted to the opposite field. He doesn’t do it pitch to pitch, but in the big situations where that stuff is really important, I feel like he does a good job.
I agree that Len & Bob don’t do much of that at all.
Aisle424Quote Reply
I don’t know, it’s kind of weird when the announcers are talking and something is happening on field. Maybe I’m just used to the narration aspect of broadcasting.
I think the Cubs radio is better than the TV. I usually listen to the MLB radio broadcasts (or, if I’m in my car, the actual radio, since I live close enough to Chicago to pick it up), but though Pat seems to know more than he lets on, he also seems to be talking to an audience of roughly Ron Santo level of knowledge of stats. I hear Judd occasionally reference fangraphs, so I think he’s a guy who could go into more detail, if they let him.
joshQuote Reply
You know Judd Sirott is annoying when even Pat Hughes has started to make jokes about the volume of his voice.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
[quote name=Aisle424]I’ve always gotten a decent visual from Pat on the radio from his descriptions. He’ll usually mention if the fielders are shaded heavily one way or the other. He’ll usually make a big deal if it’s something unusual like the infield shifted to pull, but the outfield shifted to the opposite field. He doesn’t do it pitch to pitch, but in the big situations where that stuff is really important, I feel like he does a good job.
I agree that Len & Bob don’t do much of that at all.[/quote]I rarely listen to the radio broadcast so I’ll take your word for it. Len and Bob just irritate me. There’s a lot of little things they do that makes them rather bad announcers in my opinion.
mb21Quote Reply
Judd’s kind of annoying, true. He actually is a really good hockey play by play announcer though.
joshQuote Reply
[quote name=Josh]I don’t know, it’s kind of weird when the announcers are talking and something is happening on field. Maybe I’m just used to the narration aspect of broadcasting.
I think the Cubs radio is better than the TV. I usually listen to the MLB radio broadcasts (or, if I’m in my car, the actual radio, since I live close enough to Chicago to pick it up), but though Pat seems to know more than he lets on, he also seems to be talking to an audience of roughly Ron Santo level of knowledge of stats. I hear Judd occasionally reference fangraphs, so I think he’s a guy who could go into more detail, if they let him.[/quote]I actually think Len and Bob could do a much better job if they talked less, but told us more relevant stuff when they do talk.
mb21Quote Reply
Len and Bob kind of phone it in. Maybe they both hate their job. I heard Len give a play by play during spring training on the radio. It was horrible because he kept forgetting to explain what was going on.
joshQuote Reply
The league average of these stats is the most important part of the story and few announcers will tell us that. I mentioned on The Book Blog, but I don’t have any idea what is a good RBI total or not. Obviously if someone has 100 RBI then you don’t have to think too much though they may not have driven in as many runs as others would have given the same base/out situation, but I can figure it out. But with a leadoff hitter, I have no clue. This early in the season I have no clue. Offense is down, but I don’t want to look on Bref to figure out what a good total is right now and then never tell us.
mb21Quote Reply
[quote name=mb21]I actually think Len and Bob could do a much better job if they talked less, but told us more relevant stuff when they do talk.[/quote]There are some good aspects to play by play. We get a narrow view of the field, so it can be hard to tell if a ball is hit fast or slow, potential homerun or not. I think it’s wierd if there’s a game going on and the announcers are discussing Roman history or something. Sometimes other announcers will gab about whatever and I’m trying to follow the game.
joshQuote Reply
[quote name=mb21]The league average of these stats is the most important part of the story and few announcers will tell us that. I mentioned on The Book Blog, but I don’t have any idea what is a good RBI total or not. Obviously if someone has 100 RBI then you don’t have to think too much though they may not have driven in as many runs as others would have given the same base/out situation, but I can figure it out. But with a leadoff hitter, I have no clue. This early in the season I have no clue. Offense is down, but I don’t want to look on Bref to figure out what a good total is right now and then never tell us.[/quote]There are more relevant stats. I think that they are afraid of scaring off audience members. A lot of times if they talk about something other than RBIs or BA, they explain in detail what ite means, which means they’re worried half the audience won’t get it if they say on-base percentage, or RBI percentage.
joshQuote Reply
New post that you’ll think I am making up, but I’m not: http://obstructedview.net/chicago-cubs/articles/those-six-pack-plans-apparently-didnt-sell-very-well.html
Aisle424Quote Reply