Waltz, Hutton, and FishStripes: Broadcaster Quality Update

I sat in and watched about eight innings of tonight's ugly 8-3 loss to the Red Sox. I've got some opinions on the Marlins' play tonight, but I'll save that for Blogservations.

No, this part is designed to drop an update on my opinion of tonight's broadcast and what went down on it.

- There were about 10-15 mentions of how patient the Red Sox hitters are as a group. The majority, if not all of them, referenced OBP. I was especially happy to see Hutton pound on how high the top-of-the-lineup guys are in terms of OBP. A good chunk of me thinks he honestly gets that OBP is a big part of being useful at the top of the lineup; after all, the man's very smart to have worked this long in the business. Maybe he was emphasizing it because the Marlins don't do it.

Still, when you hear him talk about Bonifacio like he still has a shot as a leadoff man, you wonder. When you hear him advise Bonifacio to talk to Juan Pierre about the finer points of bunting, you raise your eyebrows. He needs help making contact and drawing walks, not bunting. JP can help the contact, but he's never had an eye for the zone.

By the way, still no mention of slugging percentage. I'm glad that they chose the better one of the OPS parts, but come on. Power is very well measured by SLG, everyone does it, and it's even the cooler, bigger number! Come on guys!

- Waltz made a long mention of Bill James on the broadcast as the two Marlins broadcasters discussed the balanced excellence of the Red Sox front office and scouting. As you know, the immortal Mr. James works for the Sox now, and Waltz expounded upon what James has done for the sabermetric community and the evolution of advanced statistics. There was about a ten second pause after Waltz finished where nothing was said during the broadcast. Waltz then went back to play-by-play. You kind of get the feeling Tommy Hutton wasn't a fan of Bill James.

- Here's what I found the most interesting. Our friends at FishStripes got a TV shoutout on Email Tuesday when dan 2.0 got his question aired and "answered" by the guys. The question asked about maybe moving Chris Coghlan/Dan Uggla into a combination of 2B/3B and playing Brett Carroll's weak bat and plus glove in the outfield. When I heard it, it got me all riled up, because I had the suggested idea too.

...If the club wanted to play players with nothing in the way of bats, why not move Brett Carroll to LF, where his superior glove could help out the struggling outfield defense. At least in this situation, Fredi wouldn't be tempted to give Brett Carroll a leadoff spot because of his "speed," and Carroll would bring more than lip service to the team's defense. They could try Coghlan at third, where he might have more success, and see if he's worth a long-term look, especially with Dan Uggla's ever-growing arbitration salary.

I know, tooting my own horn, but I liked the idea and I was glad to see that someone else had come up with it too. But I guess it was a little much to ask for a decent answer. Waltz froze for a second before proclaiming that it was a "good question," while Hutton went into a diversion about how he was sure Larry Beinfest, Fredi Gonzalez, and the rest of the brain trust thought of the idea. Then, without giving too much reasoning, Waltz waved it off by saying Bonifacio would be better than either of those guys at third, while Hutton claimed that management thought Coghlan profiled as an outfielder anyway.

These are the same two guys that claim Uggla's reputation is mostly based on the All-Star game and not the obvious lack of range and the statistical backup (career Range Runs at -11.3, though the numbers have been wildly incosistent). Do they think Uggla doesn't have the arm for the hot corner? If so, they should at least go out and say it. Coghlan seems to have a decent enough arm, certainly enough to handle left field. Why not try him at 3B before moving him to a completely foreign position? If the team's scouts honestly felt that he profiled more as an outfielder, why wouldn't they ask the minor league coaches to play him a bit in left field?

I enjoy Waltz's voice and work as a play-by-play guy, and he seems to keep himself informed of at least the people and players we go up against. Hutton clearly knows a lot about the game, but I feel as if he's one of those old timers who is well set in his ways and not looking to change the way he thinks about the game. That's fine for him as a fellow Marlins fan, but it certainly takes away from my enjoyment of the game when he mentions the old cliches of insider baseball instead of updating with the new knowledge now available.

In short, those two still have a ways to go to get a thumbs up from me.

Rich Waltz and Tommy Hutton: Please update your stats!

This really isn't an embittered cry for just Mr. Waltz and Mr. Hutton, but rather for all sportscasters really. It's just that I hear Waltz and Hutton the most as I sit and watch Marlins games over telecasts by ESPN and Fox.

A couple of nights ago, on the first game of what would be a three-game sweep of the Jays, Tommy Hutton was mentioning that most Marlins fans probably don't know the Toronto players all that well. He mentioned in particular two guys at the top of the lineup, Marco Scutaro and Aaron Hill, both having tremendous seasons at the plate. In talking about these two players, both Waltz and Hutton mentioned the ability for these guys to "set the table" and get on base for the heart of the lineup.

Key in on the words get on base here.

Those sound very familiar.

Those are the words in a particular stat.

Really now? Speak up, which statistic would this be?

Ahem, it's...

Ahem! That would be on-base percentage.

Marvelous, on-base percentage, or as it's often referred to, OBP. It's a measure of a player's ability not to make outs, more or less. It's the easiest measure for, well, the ability to get on base, that I know of. It's readily available and typically a part of every website's "numbers that quickly highlight a player's performance." You know, what the Triple Crown stats used to exclusively be.

In any case, Hutton mentions this, and following a graphic that shows that Scutaro leads all American League leadoff men in hits and walks, he references how Scutaro has a .300 batting average.

Here, the focus should be on the words hits and batting average.

But here's where perhaps I was most ticked. Scutaro walks and Hill steps to the plate, where Waltz and Hutton once again deservedly mention his excellent season so far. They again mention his on-base ability and go on to say that he is tied for the league lead in hits and is high on the list in batting average.

Again, hits and batting average.

Ahem...

Why is that, when we have a statistic that is a stand-in for a player's ability to get on base, a statistic which is named directly for such an ability, a readily available and totally transparent statistic, why do we still use batting average and counting stats to display on-base ability? Can someone mention to Waltz and Hutton that it's been six years since Moneyball was published, and OBP is mainstream? It took another 30-40 minutes before I saw anything in the way of on-base percentage showing up in the telecast of the game, and that was as a part of a "runners on vs. bases empty" split graphic, a situation where analyzing OBP is marginally important.

Look, I get that many viewers might not fully understand the non-Triple Crown stats, but I think it's about time someone indoctrinate them on OBP, slugging percentage, and OPS at least. I'm not clamoring for Hutton to quote WAR or even OPS+ values for every player; that type of work simply isn't feasible for a television sportscaster. An understanding of WAR on the side of the listener is necessary for you to even consider saying something remarkably radical-sounding such "Player X was worth about 3 wins last year." For a fan who knew nothing of things like Runs Created, Batting Runs Above Average, or wOBA, this "wins" concept attached to a player would make no sense. "How arbitrary, a win value for a player. Only pitchers get wins, and they're mentioned right there!" an unknowing fan would say.

Such statistics are problematic because they simply aren't transparent enough. Though most places that due to put WAR-like values up on their stat sheets for players do explain how they come to their conclusions, these sites are the farthest thing from the mind of a fan who only knows the Triple Crown stats. It takes knowledge of park factors and other statistics and factors not easily accessible to the average fan to measure even OPS+. We haven't even gone into the possibility of having to explain what replacement level means to the average baseball fan watching a broadcast; people get confused just reading it.

What I'm suggesting is simply putting a slash line, maybe OPS as well, on the graphics broadcasts show, alongside the traditional HR and RBI. I know no one will ever get rid of RBI's in the mainstream media. It's too ingrained in the minds of people who watch the game, even though the stat doesn't reveal anything about a player's true capability, and it's too important currently for fantasy baseball to take off the graphics and stop mentioning. But if the big scoreboards in parks now provide a player's slash lines, shouldn't TV broadcasts do the same? And shouldn't the broadcasters, one of whom (the color man) is supposed to be an expert on baseball, know enough about the statistics that are better performance indicators to make mention of said statistics more consistently?

This extends into defense as well. Waltz and Hutton had John Dewan over for an interview down in South Florida while he was pimping The Fielding Bible II. Of course, Dewan is the pioneer of +/-, which has proven to be a good defensive metric, on par with Mitchel Lichtman's UZR, which I reference here. While I certainly don't expect Waltz and Hutton to start rattling off +/- values for Marlins players, even if +/- is very intuitively easy to understand, I certainly expect them to stop utilizing inferior statistics such as errors and fielding percentage as a measure of excellent defense. Just recently, Waltz and Hutton were discussing the best defenses in the NL and AL, using fielding percentage to determine their answer. Now, the NL team was probably correct (the Phillies came out on top), but just because the results are right doesn't mean the methodology is wrong. Fielding percentage doesn't take range into account, but it's always quoted as gospel for defense, years after it's become a meaningless statistic.

This is more of a rant than an organized piece certainly. I can't help but get angry when I have to continuously hear that a player is having a great season because of his .300 batting average or his 100 RBI's. Please, free OPS from its bondage and let it loose upon the TV viewership. They'll get it, I swear.