Posted by: J () on Sat Jun 21 15:45:28 2003

From my experience, a coach would rather have a player batting .400 hitting line drives and getting on base, than a hitter that bats .200 but can hit the occassional home run. Go for the batting average, not the glory and feel good moment of a home run. If it happens, GREAT! If not, dont worry about it.
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> > > > > BA doesn't win games. It's merely a means to an end. Runs win games. Someone has to be on base to drive in so let's pay attention to OBP (OBP because runs are scored one per runner who crosses home safely regardless of how they reached base). The people who drive those runs in end up with the high rbi totals and these people are...the hitters with high slugging percentages. I find high rbi hitters are often not the highest BA on the team. But runs/rbi's are the name of the game. Home runs and triples are even better than doubles, but doubles change everything. Singles move runners. Doubles etc. drive them in. OBP and SLG-that's the way to measure hitters.
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> > > > Your last sentence hit the nail on the head, (whoever you are). Joy, I don't want to make assumptions, but I'm assuming you are involved with fast pitch. This is the biggest problem in fast pitch, no attention paid to SLG%. High OBP doesn't mean a hill of dung without SLG%.
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> > > If you are speaking of a lineup, then I agree. But I'm happy to have a few fast high opb hitters in the lineup assuming they are great defensive players as well. But someone has to drive the ball sooner or later.
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> > Amen.
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> If you want to know who is a productive hitter, add up their runs and rbi and divide them into their AB's. 3.00 and under and you have a productive hitter. Go get the baseball encyclopedia and you will find out that the leaders are Ruth, Williams etc. All the great hitters with power.
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> Doug
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> Reggie Jackson hit a lot of homeruns & rarely, if ever hit .300. Rod Carew had little power but was always in the top ten, or higher in batting average. Both are in the Hall of Fame.