BA versus OBP

[GibandLou]

What are the merits? We've used BA in our 5x5 h2h league for 4 years. Some are asking to go to OBP instead.

Anyone have experience leading your league through this change?

[Galvisfan13]

It depends on your league. I am currently in a similar situation but mine involves a dynasty league. When we started the league, we used batting average. In doing my own research I have been effectively converted to believing batting average is not a good measure of a players ability. The problem with my league is since we have drafted and given contracts to players under the assumption we are using batting average, we feel it would be unfair to change now. If you are able to change I would definitely recommend it. I would also look into slugging or OPS

[Kimbos Beard]

I think its a preference deal.

I would say this, if its a keeper or dynasty situation, it would probably unfair to change it unless every single manager agreed. Using OBP instead of AVG will throw off the value and rankings of players.

Off the top of my head, Ichiro has a .320 career AVG but only a .365 career OBP. So in an OBP league Ichiro's value was far far less, since you have guys like Nick Swisher with career .360 OBP.

On the other hand as a Carlos Santana owner last year, (a guy who's avg was .247 but OBP was .363) There would be plenty of times when he would be drawing those walks and I would just be frustrated because I knew it did nothing for me and his .247 wasn't really an accurate measure of his worth on that team.

[GRIN]

We use Runs, Runs Batted In, On-base Percentage and Slugging Percentage. We removed Home Runs because they are already well incorporated into all four of those categories.

[fsbarren]

There's a little more to it, but basically walks become a stat that can skew the difference between a player's batting average and their obp up to 100 points. It can definitely schange the landscape where a power hitter who avg is .250 but draws a ton of walks all of a sudden .360 obp! In some other cases, solid .300 hitters who don't take many walks are only at .330 obp.

Another example with 2012 stats:
Prince Fielder: 30hr/.313 avg/ .412 obp
Adrian Beltre: 36hr/ .321 avg/ .359 obp
Adam Dunn: 41hr/ .204 avg/ .333 obp

Especially Dunn vs. Beltre: over 115 points difference in average; only 26 points difference in obp

It definitely tweeks the game a bit. Just depends on what your league is looking for

Hope this helps.

[RotoValue]

Kimbos Beard is spot on - it does change valuation, so it's unfair to change in a keeper/dynasty format unless all owners agree. OBP is a better measure of offensive skill than BA alone. Pairing wOBA and SLG is okay, but I don't like having too many rate stats. So you might want to consider OPS or (even better from the perspective of matching baseball skill) Tom Tango's wOBA.