Why is it that a player with a good eye, i.e. a lot of walks, has a higher batting average than one who doesn’t?? Why do players that make contact generally have higher batting averages than those that don’t??

That the above two propositions are true should be evident; and not just by common sense. Ron Shandler’s BaseballHQ site and his book The Baseball Forecaster both have copious research, and in them he wrote about their analysis showing that contact rate and “eye ratio” (essentially walk strikeout ratio for hitters) are inexorably tied to batting average. Would you agree that a player with a higher batting average is a better hitter?? I think most people would. But they may well be wrong.

One way to understand this is to say, as most would, that a good eye allows a hitter to make better contact, and his better strike zone judgment leads to a higher batting average. This may well be true, but a full understanding of why the above two propositions are true also depends greatly on how batting average is calculated.

Batting average is H/AB. Simple enough. So lets look at two hypothetical players X and Y. Here are their numbers:

X: 200 hits, 600 AB 100 BB.
Y: 200 hits, 650 Ab, 50 BB.

Arguably both are equally skilled at “getting hits;” after all both had the same hit rate of 200 hits per 700 plate appearances. One may well conclude that both are equally skilled hitters. The key here of course is that the correct measure of a hitter’s skill should be measured by hits per plate appearance. But this is not what batting average measures. Player X will have a higher batting average because his ABs are less simply because the rules say that a walk does not count as an at-bat. So we can see that batting average is not necessarily a good measure of a hitter’s skill. Indeed, it is sometimes a fallacy that a player with a higher batting average is a better hitter; he may just be a better “walker.”

The interesting aspect of this analysis (which is probably second nature to true “experts” since they almost certainly know this already and one cannot be an expert without this basic knowledge) is that batting average may not measure any skill a player has aside from an ability to draw bases on balls.

Application to fantasy: In many leagues (including a high stakes league I am in) hits are a category, (we have the added wrinkle that BA is not its own category). So in a league like this one would be foolish to not look at the ratio of hits per plate appearance. One could safely ignore batting average in most analyses, especially trade analysis. But the full flower of this understanding cannot be grasped without looking at it in conjunction with contact rate.

So what about making contact?? According to Shandler’s research a fixed percentage of balls put into play will turn into hits, over the set of hitters. Of course this may not be 100% true for a particular hitter, but over the group of hitters the theory holds, and that is what we are after here. Lets again look at two hypothetical players:

X: 85% contact rate, 700 plate appearances, 50 walks.
Y: 75% contact rate, 700 plate appearances, 50 walks.

Having read this far it should now be clear that player X will most likely have a higher batting average. He “should” have a higher average for certain, whether he will is subject to the vagaries of chance. Player X will have more hits simply because more balls are put into play.

The application to fantasy: the astute General will realize that looking at batting average without its component skills is a fool’s errand if one is seeking to project into the future. Contact rate is just as important if not more so, and I will admit that I rarely (never?) look at a player’s batting average when trying to decide, for example whether to hold him or trade him. Applications of this principle each year are too numerous to mention.

True expertise lies not necessarily in looking at stats, but also at a players skills; the typical stats can often be either misleading to downright worthless at least in terms of deducing the future.