It wasn’t that long ago that Billy Beane kickstarted what was then called the “sabermetric revolution” by searching for market inefficiencies and making do with his limited payroll.
The first such inefficiency was on-base percentage. Beane found this skill to be undervalued and went about stacking a lineup full of hitters who managed to consistently get on base.
For years, on-base percentage was all the rage, rewarding previously undervalued players for their skill in this department.
Fifteen or so years later, that approach seems almost quaint. Analytics has grown by leaps and bounds, and there are seemingly countless ways for teams to measure a player’s value. And because much of the information is no longer proprietary, teams tend to all value players in the same way, resulting in a cautious — if not outright stagnant — free-agent market.
Now that the revolution has evolved, do teams still place a value on on-base ability? Given the current trends in the game — with a big emphasis on hitting the ball out of the ballpark — it would seem not. With strikeouts at an all-time high, most organizations appear comfortable trading off the need to reach base in exchange for the ability to trot around the bases.
In 2019, baseball’s last full season, the average OBP was .323 — down sharply from a dozen years prior, when the MLB average was .336. Meanwhile, in 2019, the homer-per-hit-allowed ratio hit an all-time high was 1.39, a marked increase from 1.02 in 2007.
Need more evidence of the shift in emphasis when it comes to getting on base? Over the winter, the Red Sox either signed or traded for four position players. Here are their career OBP figures:
Franchy Cordero: .304
Marwin Gonzalez: .317
Hunter Renfroe: .290
Kiké Hernández; .313
So, is the love affair on OBP officially over?
“I can’t speak for the entire industry,” said Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, “but I do think, generally speaking, it’s something that everybody still values quite a bit. When I got in the game, I think it was still underappreciated at that point in time. Then, as time went on, it became very much appreciated.
“But now, I think, we have more ability to understand and appreciate all the ways that players can contribute to winning baseball — whether that’s through on-base, whether that’s through power, or whether it’s through foot speed or defense or versatility. So I think as we’ve become more able to value many different players can do to contribute, I think, in comparison, it’s probably reduced the emphasis on on-base percentage.”
That would seem particularly true with this quartet of players