Perception Issues: Career Year vs. Bad Free Agent Signing

Cubs fans are great.  But they're incredibly inept at judging a player's talent, as most fans can be.  We're going to compare two players.  One would have an approval rating around 20% and one would have an approval rating around 85%.

My favorite book in the world is entitled, "The Book" by Tom Tango.  Rather than go through the whole book, I'll go to my favorite part: wOBA. 

wOBA is a great stat because it adds value to OBP.  You see, OPS is an OK stat, but it equally weighs both OBP and SLG.  Getting on-base is more valuable, statistically and conceptually.  To see how wOBA is calculated, click here.

Player A: .248/.382/.385  7 HR, 23 RBI

Player B: .298/.353/.418  7 HR, 37 RBI

This would show most people that player B is more valuable, because he has a higher average and more RBI.  In fact, player B is having the best offensive season of his career.  He's definitely more valuable from an offensive standpoint... right?

Not so fast.  Here's player A's wOBA

This says, based on the MLB average, that player A has actually been above average throughout the year.  But, people think he's been trash.  Player A is Milton Bradley, Steve Stone's favorite.  Yes, this has been the worst stretch in Bradley's career.  Thus, even at Bradley's worst, he's still better than average.

Here's Player B's wOBA

This is Ryan Theriot.  Wow.  Who would have thought, right?  There's more to hitting than the average fan sees.  So, if everyone can get on Bradley for playing "like trash," then I can get on Theriot for barely being above average offensively.

If we didn't have access to these statistics, more fans would think that Theriot is having a great year while Bradley isn't worth a dime.  That's so far from the truth, and hopefully people stop getting on M.B. when the blame of the Cubs' poor start can be placed on more than just him.

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