I know that the traditional stat of RBI is widely denounced as being fairly worthless among many baseball numbers people. If that's so, then the traditional "Runs Created" formula of RC = R + RBI - HR is also pretty worthless.
What other stats in baseball are overblown? Personally, even though I use it all the time, I think OPS is pretty overrated. It captures on-base plus slugging, but it equalizes the two, and I'm not at ALL sure that OBP and SLG should be similarly weighted. Which means that OPS+ is vastly overrated as well.
Good read here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mark-trumbo-and-the-relative-value-of-obp-and-slg/
"OBP is significantly more valuable than SLG — which is why we use wOBA/wRC+ and not OPS/OPS+ around here, since linear weights models correct that issue — but SLG does matter, and low-OBP sluggers can be effective offensive performers even while they make a lot of outs."
But everyone uses OPS and OPS+ because they're easy to look at, easy to calculate (well, it's easy to add OBP and SLG together; not so easy to calculate those things individually...as in, it takes a little time to do it), and easy to understand. But OPS really doesn't correctly weight those two things, so we knowingly use a pretty off-the-mark stat as regular currency in baseball metric conversations.
Are there other stats (traditional or sabermetric) that you all believe is overblown?
What other stats in baseball are overblown? Personally, even though I use it all the time, I think OPS is pretty overrated. It captures on-base plus slugging, but it equalizes the two, and I'm not at ALL sure that OBP and SLG should be similarly weighted. Which means that OPS+ is vastly overrated as well.
Good read here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mark-trumbo-and-the-relative-value-of-obp-and-slg/
"OBP is significantly more valuable than SLG — which is why we use wOBA/wRC+ and not OPS/OPS+ around here, since linear weights models correct that issue — but SLG does matter, and low-OBP sluggers can be effective offensive performers even while they make a lot of outs."
But everyone uses OPS and OPS+ because they're easy to look at, easy to calculate (well, it's easy to add OBP and SLG together; not so easy to calculate those things individually...as in, it takes a little time to do it), and easy to understand. But OPS really doesn't correctly weight those two things, so we knowingly use a pretty off-the-mark stat as regular currency in baseball metric conversations.
Are there other stats (traditional or sabermetric) that you all believe is overblown?