Which Batting Stats Mean the Most?

[brewcrew4you]

ISO and OBP.

[looptid]

K/BB as people have already mentioned is important, so is walk rate (walks/plate appearance). Guys without good ratios and rates can succeed, but it should raise warning flags that most of these types of players are not going to make adjustments at the plate as well as others to improve or sustain their performance.

Watching the career arch of 2B/HR is valuable. Young players developing power tend to convert doubles into homeruns in progressive seasons, and older players losing pop trend back in the other direction. If you have your eye on a veteran who's 2B/HR ratio was significantly larger last season than it has been in the past, you might want to bump them down in your rankings.

BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is a good measure of luck against pitchers and for hitters (be sure to only compare against a player's own track record).

I too like ISO. Gives a clear picture of how much pop a player has outside of their ability to make contact.

[Cyard]

Until you all mentioned it, I had never heard of ISO. Having checked it out, I am intrigued.

So what would a good ISO be? I exported the 3-year averages of all AL batters to Excel (deleting the ones with fewer than 50 AB), calculated their ISOs, and determined that the average ISO among them was 0.1459. Does that sound about right for an average ISO? Should that be my cut-off point when assessing a batter?

I guess I should also sort by OBP, highlight the above-average batters in that stat, and focus on getting the guys that are highlighted in both categories. Using the same list as before, I determined the average OBP is .324, which seems reasonable for an average.

Am I on the right track?

Incidentally, here are the 3-year average ISO/OBP for the 4 keeper batters I currently have on my team:

Justin Morneau .212/.313
Victor Martinez .171/.365
Derek Jeter .148/.377
Johnny Damon .142/.364

[noseeum]

For speed, don't just look at the number of SBs he's had per year, but look at the percentage: SB/SB attempts. You can get wind that a stud speed guy is declining before he ends up hurting your team when you draft him.