OPS and WHIP

In our league, in evaluating hitters, the first thing I look at is OPS.  If OPS is marginal, then I'll consider other stats, like SB/CS.  When I look at OPS, I look to see what influence their batting average has on the #.  I tend to discount high OPS, if it is as a result of a very high batting average (unless the guy has a history of very high batting averages).  If someone has a very low OPS as a result of a very low batting average, I tend to discount (i.e give them more credit) that as well (again, unless of course they have a history of low batting averages).  

I also have rules of thumb that I apply by position.  For example, I look for different OPS #s when evaluating OFs versus MI.

For pitchers, the most important stat I look at is WHIP.  Even though ERA is what "scores" for us, I am not a big fan of simply looking at ERA.  It tends to be volatile (i.e has a high variance).  I would like to lobby our league to incorporate WHIP as a scoring mechanism in future years. ERA for pitchers is a little bit like RBI for hitters (i.e. not an ideal measure of how good they are).  Also, when I look at WHIP, I take into consideration BAA.  I have since modified WHIP to create a statistic called K-WHIP, which takes into account their strikeouts.  To me, this stat tells me how "dominant" a pitcher is.

In my next blog, we'll take a more in-depth look at these two metrics, and how I use it to evaluate players.