Jeff Francouer, he of the career .312 OBP, has a question for all you basement-dwelling, sunshine-hating, girl-never-talking-to, sex-never-having, fuckhead stat nerds:
"If on-base percentage is so important, then why don't they put it up on the scoreboard?"
Hmmmmmmm. Your own answers to this surely non-rhetorical question inthe comments, please.
Dammit Larry, you beat me to this one. I don't even have a good topic that can beat that insanely stupid comment.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to point out that wins and losses for each team are not on the scoreboard. Those are pretty important to a team.
Apparently he's never played in Kauffman stadium. They have an enormous scoreboard (about 8900 square feet), and when each batter is up, they show many of his stats, including batting average, OBP, and OPS.
ReplyDeleteAnon, I am not sure he has ever played there, even if Frenchy did play in Kauffman Stadium he would be too busy looking down and swinging at pitches in the dirt to notice the scoreboard. The only adjustment he has ever made on the baseball field is when he shifts his cup around.
ReplyDeleteThe Braves spent $3.5 million on him in RF and $2.5 million on the Human Mannequin, Garrett "25 AB's, 0RBI's" Anderson, but would not pay $10 million per year to get Adam Dunn to play LF.
He has more and newer excuses every year.
It's actually on the Braves scoreboard, too: http://tinyurl.com/d6dzys
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, Anonymous. You'd think a team that cared enough about those stats to display them on its scoreboard would know better than to acquire Mike Jacobs and his poor on-base skills.
ReplyDeleteI guess hitting the cutoff man isn't important either. After all, the scoreboard doesn't tell us how many times you succeeded or failed at doing that.
Monty, I figured it probably was, though I don't remember it the last time I was there. I guess that helps prove my point that Francouer sucks. He doesn't even know what is up on the scoreboard.
ReplyDeleteFrancouer is so right. Being on base is overrated.
ReplyDeleteWait, you can score from the dugout, right?
Someone explain to Jeff that more and more teams are displaying OBP on their scoreboards during the game.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is that some teams prefer not to display it when someone with a truly embarrassing OBP (say, .312 for example) is at the plate.
I mean, for fuck's sake, his comment is in an article where JERRY CRASNIK talks about how important plate discipline is. That's right, Jerry "Jeter's steeley determination account for 5 wins a year" Crasnik.
Do we have a "Connoisseurs of Cluelessness" tag, by any chance?
I am also afraid the simplicity of Chipper Jones' advice, "I decide what pitch I want to hit and then try to hit that pitch" will be lost on Franceour because he wants to hit every pitch thrown by the pitcher.
ReplyDeleteHe's like a fat kid at Golden Corral who wants to eat everything, he can't decide which pitch to swing at, so he swings at them all, smiles really big and hope no one notices he could be replaced by nearly every single RF in MLB and 50% of the ones currently in AAA.
He's right. A high OBP just leads to people clogging the base paths. Duh
ReplyDeleteDamn right, Frenchy! It's too simplistic a stat!
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I purchase the Montgomery Biscuits (estimated time of occurrence: 2017), the only stats that I am going to allow on their scoreboard are EqA, VORP, RC27, DIPS, WARP, RZR, EqBRR, SNLVAR, and WXRL. The people of Montgomery will initially be confused, but soon they will be lured in by the nerdiness, they won't be able to resist, and I'll have spawned an entire city of baseball dorkazoids, who will spread across America like a virus, infecting stadiums nationwide and dropping useless statistics on innocent drunkard baseball fans who will be thereby brainwashed into understanding that Ryan Howard is about 72.4% as good as everyone thinks he is.....MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
....I'm glad Jeff Francouer and I finally agree on something.
If hustle is so important, why don't they put it up on the scoreboard?
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I like how Reader Participation Friday fell on a Tuesday this week.
ReplyDeleteWe all know Reader Extra Participation Friday (TM) doesn't exist anymore.
ReplyDeleteI think at the end of the day anyone with half a dick can agree that OBP is THE MOST IMPORTANT offensive stat in baseball.
ReplyDeleteGlad Francouer's got half a clue.
I would have responded to Jeff:
ReplyDelete"Okay, that makes no sense, but playing by your rules for a second: Batting Average is one of the three most prominently shown stats, and you hit .239 last year with 11 homers. Pretty fucking shitty for a 25 year old corner outfielder. What's up with that? Also, this year you're hitting .282 but only getting on base 1% more often than last year, when you hit a terrible .239."
Then he would have said: "You're way smarter than me, so I'm not going to argue anymore"
I've noticed some baseball telecasts show BA/RBI/HR/OBP as the line now when a batter comes to the plate, even on ESPN!
ReplyDelete+1 for pnoles referencing the Biscuits.
ReplyDeleteYeah, ESPN even displays OPS now. We've come so far.
ReplyDelete