MLB: Five Myths Busted By Brian Kenny’s New Book

Myth #1: Batting average is an indication of a great hitter.

Sabermetric writers like James have known for decades, and Moneyball brought it to light to mass audiences about five years ago, that the statistic that has carried perhaps more weight than any other in establishing the success or lack thereof of a hitter is inherently flawed. Batting average, as opposed to on-base percentage, slugging percentage, or any of a number of other advanced stats, was, is, and seemingly always will be the first number that pops up in any conversation about a hitter.

“In batting average, a single is as good as a home run, and walks don’t exist,” Kenny writes in the chapter entitled, “The Tyranny of the Batting Average. “Yet the very first stat cited in most baseball conversations for 120 years— was the batting average.”

While every organization in MLB pretty much no longer puts the emphasis on batting average, and even most fans understand that it is only a piece of the puzzle, Kenny is correct in observing the reverence still paid to what is a flawed stat. It is telling that mere days ago during the pregame ceremonies of the All-Star Game, MLB announced the newly-renamed awards for each league’s batting champion, an award that for all intents and purposes honors something meaningless.

OPS+, one of many examples, is an advanced statistic that adjusts a hitter’s OPS (on-base plus slugging) for certain external factors, like effects of the ballparks he’s hitting in, and puts it on an easy to understand scale with 100 being league average. This takes into account walks, extra-base hits, and whether a player did it at Coors Field or Kauffman Stadium, and paints a much more complete picture of the hitter’s success.

As Kenny shows, since 1960 no more than 2 percent of the “batting champions” in any decade actually led the league in OPS+ in the same year they led the league in batting average. Thus, the “best hitter,” as recognized by MLB, was more often not the best hitter at all.

Of course, the author points out that batting average used to mean something, back in the dead ball era when baseball was a station-to-station game predicated on slapping the ball, bunting, and baserunning. But in the modern game, with so many advanced metrics that better measure the effectiveness of a hitter, why is so much emphasis still put on his average?

Next: Small ball beatdown.