[DougOzzzz]

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It's likely that the stats don't give enough credit for Soriano's base stealing prowess. It's also very unlikely that they give Soriano any credit for his baserunning speed. 25 points in average and 25 K/162 for guys with the exact same OPS+ is going to make a big difference as well. To have Soriano and Wilkerson that close, the stats are lending too much value to the walk.

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Please, just shut up. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Batting average is meaningless. The reason? OPS takes into account batting average. BA is a large component of both OBP and SLG. If you weight it any more than that, you are giving it a larger weight than it deserves.

For instance, take two players:

One has a BA/OBP/SLG line of .330/.400/.500 - The other has a BA/OBP/SLG line of .260/.400/.500.

You would argue that the first guy is vastly superior. He's not. And going forward, the second guy is a much better pick. Not only does he get more walks, but he also hits for a whole lot more power. That makes up for the batting average difference. People sometimes confuse SLG for "power." But SLG is really BA + power. Power is SLG-BA or ISO.

So, the real numbers for these guys are:
BA/IsoD/IsoP
.330/.070/.170
.260/.140/.240

That's batting average, Isolated Discipline (OBP-BA), and Isolated Power(SLG-BA). As you can see, BA is already given a pretty hefty weight. It's valued as twice as important as either walk rate or power rate.

Second, you just sound stupid when you say stuff like "the stats lend too much value to this, too little value to that." Do you have any idea how much smarter the people who came up with these stats are than you? Or me? Do you know how much analysis has gone into determining the value of the SB? The value of baserunning? The value of the strikeout (which by the way, is basically just another out because it rules out the DP)?

They've done all this. They've come up with a number to show how good these players are - and Soriano is just not that much better. The numbers don't describe what type of player each is. They are not perfect. But to suggest something like "this guy is twice as good as that guy" when the numbers are nearly identical, is just dumb.