Why this stat?

90% of these splits are pretty worthless anyway e.g. remember when Ankiel was better against lefties than righties? People greatly underestimate the sample sizes in regressing these things back to average.

Interestingly enough one of the new splits that has proven itself to some degree is how hitters hit against groundball/flyball pitchers. For example Glaus for one has picked up .060 points of OPS on a groundballer vs. a flyballer on his career and he’s been miserable against flyballers this year.

One of the most intriguing things to me in all of baseball is that the Diamondbacks as a team pick up nearly .200 points of OPS vs. groundballers over flyballers. In 1300/2000 PAs so it’s definitely statistically significant and last year it was .070 points on the year. Seriously.

Cards are pretty even on a team scale but that’s one more piece of info that seems to be getting ignored.

the only thing I can think of, which might make a little difference, is that some teams as a whole pitch guys differently

for example, the Pirates might consistently pitch to Ludwick differently than the Braves, and they might have philosophical reasons for doings so; i.e., one pitching coach is convinced that Luddy can be pitched up and in to get outs, while the other may be convinced that pitching him low and away is the best approach. The reality may be that Luddy does better against one of those than the other. If so, then the BA against a team may have a little bit of relevance.

Okay, this was a stretch, but it’s the best I could come up with.

I think it’s an extremely meaningless stat. Another stat that I grow weary of hearing is how excellent A. Miles’ batting average is in interleague play… how is that a stat that you can count on translating over from year to year?

I have wondered lately if there is a stat that exists or could be created that would measure a player’s contributions against all of the players that are on that team at that time… Would be cumbersome to calculate, I’m sure… but I’d be more interested if it existed.

It’s a time-filler, something to say when you’re not really saying anything at all.

Though I have read a study (can’t find link) that found that English soccer teams that wore red did slightly better than teams than wore “less-aggressive” colors. So, in all honesty, rather than a broadcaster telling us that some guy “absolutely kills the Reds”, they should say, “This guy does slightly better against teams that aren’t wearing red.”

Why put this stat up? Especially in the era of free agency? It means next-to-nothing and is completely arbitrary.

aside from teams having team wide strategy there is no really great explanation. annoying piece of stats.

few teams are even that consistent, coaches change all the time. The only two pitching staffs that have been consistent over even the last three years (let alone for the times some of these splits cover) are probably the cardinals (pitch to contact), and the twins (stay ahead in the count at all times, keep the pitch count low).