Dan, that’s all I see you doing right now. When you start using inefficient things like Runs Produced you’re introducing a relative stat (it includes RBI) into the equation.
Example: Who’s more valuable?
Player one hits .350 with 80 HR with no one on base.
Player 2 hits .250 with 10 HR with the bases loaded.
Using the Runs Produced formula (R+RBI-HR) their value would be:
Player 1: 0 (80+0-80)
Player 2: 40 (10+40-10)
Even though Player 2 is clearly less valuable. The fact that player one’s teammates sucked ass shouldn’t work against him.
VORP is real and scary in its ability to measure a player’s contribution to runs scored.
I don’t know if you guys can see the link but here’s the data for 2003:
This is just silly. Even just factoring in that a walk draws considerably more pitches out of a pitches (and increases pitcher fatigue thereby) demonstrates clearly that a walk has quite a bit of value.
Oh, and lest we forget, VORP also takes into account a ‘park neutralizing’ factor so a player in a hitters park (like in Houston) isn’t credited more than a player in a cavern (like…Pac Bell, for instance).
It is such a talent that I think it is a new unwritten rule that if Bonds doesn’t swing at a pitch the ump must cal it a ball!
Bonds gets my NL MVP vote running away, and I give it to Alex Rodriguez of Texas in the AL.
What about the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year Awards? Any comments about those? IMHO, I cast my Cy Young I vote for Pedro in the AL and Gagne in the NL. For ROY I vote for Willis in the NL and as a home-town prejudice vote for Jody Gerut of the Indians in the AL. He’s got all the tools and can speak in intelligent complete sentences as befits a Stanford man.
Not a bit. He set a new franchise record for doubles in a season, hit for average (.317) and power (21 HR, 49 doubles), scored 101 runs, drove in quite a bit for a #2 hitter, drew 58 walks against only 79 strikeouts and stole 14 bases. An OPS of .922. He has a tremendous bat, and he’s about as tall as Furcal. I think it was Bob Brenly of the D’backs, during a game against the Braves, who saw him crush a ball and remarked “If that guy were 6’2”, 220, he’d be hitting the ball 600 feet".
He hit very well and in an incredibly potent offense (4 with 100+ RBI and 4 more with 60+).
But then I’m also a diehard Braves fan and saw part or all of probably half their games (God bless TBS).
Let’s take a look at quality of competition, Rick.
Hudson’s average batter against:
.264/.335/.418
Loaiza:
.261/.328/.412
Halladay:
.265/.336/.430
It’s even closer than it first appears. The competition faced by Halladay (those numbers are the aggregate numbers put up by the batters they faced is ALL PA). was slightly tougher. But it’s well within the ‘statistically insignifcant’ range. If anything, Loaiza’s slightly weaker opposition should drop him down a notch.
Really. What about a single that comes on the sixth pitch? That could have much more value than a walk, because it could move runners ahead, which a walk can do only under the narrowest of conditions. (Not to mention that whenever a ball is put in play, the potential for error occurs; this is simply a moot point where walks are concerned.)
We can’t say that a walk will draw “considerably” more pitches out of a pitcher unless the average hit takes, say, theree pitches. How many times do you see a guy hit only the third pitch? (I honestly don’t know this, but it seems to me that the average hit-AB will be more like 4 or 5 pitches, not 3.)
Yeah, and a walk can come on the 83rd pitch of an at-bat or the 4th. And you can get a WP or a PB on the 4th ball (or 3rd, or 2nd…), which means runners can advance a base or two or even three if it’s badly played.
Here’s yet another thing to think about: you can get someone out on a single. On a walk, unless you have someone trying to take advantage of a lazy catcher, you don’t get an out (someone trying to go first to third on a single on hit-and-run, for example).
[sub]Someone really ought to start a new thread just for this…[/sub]
As you can see, while AVG drops after the first few pitches (until you get to the outliers…how many 11+ pitch PA does one truly see?) OBP continues to climb with further pitches. If the AVG goes down and the OBP goes up it can only be attributable to walks (barring a mightily increased incidence of HBP).
And in case you’re wondering: here’s the tale (from BP) of the 19 and 20 pitch PA:
I’d speculate that those with a very good eye see more pitches … someone who is very selective might be able to foul off a few pitches (or take a close pitch), hoping for one he could hit cleanly. And the further you get into a pitchcount in an at-bat, the less likely you are to be able to foul off a sixth pitch, or a tenth, or whatever. That (along with walks) might account for why the OPB is higher when you get into 8 and 9 pitch at-bats than it is with 2 and 3-pitch at-bats. Anyone can swing 3 times and miss, but to swing 3 times with an 0-2 count and hit three foul balls requires slightly more skill.
dantheman, I don’t think anybody is arguing that a single isn’t better than a walk. As a matter of fact, based on past threads, I would guess that nobody you’re arguing with thinks that is so. The point is that walks are valuable, not that they’re the most valuable stat.
You have to take into account the types of walks Bonds draws. He basically gets pitched to only with nobody on base- here’s his stats:
It’s pretty obvious what’s happening here. The more important the situation, the less likely Bonds is to get a pitch to hit. You don’t really think that’s just because pitchers are wild nowadays, do you? He must be walked, or he will hurt you. He’s got a free ticket to first, just so he doesn’t bring everyone home.
Bonds saw 3.97 pitches per plate appearance. Considering that each of his walks was, at minimum, 4 pitches long, it must be that he saw fewer than 4 pitches per non-walk plate appearance. Further, he put the first or second pitch in play 122 times. By walking instead of swinging, he does make the pitcher throw more pitches, on average.
Obviously, Bonds would have better numbers, and the team would score more runs, if he was pitched to more often. Then he would have more HR, more RBI, etc. The fact is, he’s the only player who changes the pitcher’s mindset so much that he can’t be pitched to in an important situation, because he will very likely hit a home run. He’s not less valuable because he keeps getting walked- he’s so valuable that there’s nothing to do but walk him.
Jimmy, the point is he’d be more valuable if he got a hit, not if he merely didn’t get walked. And he’s a good hitter, ergo it stands to reason he’d get a hit. Ergo it stands to reason that he’s not as valuable as he should be.
Ah, you say, but so what? He’s not compared with his potential, he’s compared with how others did. But those others do get the hits, and those hits prove to be more valuable than walks in that they create runs, that hallmark of productivity.
And my point remains that anyone who misses a month of action - unless he’s crushed 70 HR and driven in 150 - is less valuable than someone who played that month and had comparable numbers.
[N]Jon Chance,** yes, I had studied the issue of quality of opposition. Loaiza faced weak opposition, much weaker than Halladay, mainly because he faced the Tigers three more times while Halladay faced the Red Sox and Yankees more often. Halladay’s opponents scored something like 60-70 runs more on the season than Loaiza’s (if you weight them by number of times faced.) Win Shares deosn’t account for that, nor does VORP, but it’s important to consider with starting pithcers because the quality of their opponents can vary a lot. Overall I believe Halladay was definitely the superior pitcher; he should win the Cy Young and probably will.
Well, the analytical stats have all been provided. I would point out that he hit 45 homers, batted .341, and did a bunch of other cool stuff. Between the traditional and the analytical stats they’ve all been provided. What else did you want to know?
[QUOTE] (I’m certainly not saying he was worthless, because of course he was quite valuable. The most valuable? Uh-uh. Not possible to be so if you miss 29 games.)[/QUIOTE]
Why not? Why, exactly, is it impossible? What’s the exact number of games you can miss before you can’t win an MVP Award? Are you suggesting it’s impossible to be a more valuable player than someone who played more games? Tony Batista played 161 games this year; was his sizzling .235 average and complete ignorance of the strike zone that much more valuable than Bonds?
If you’d be willing to concede that Bonds was more valuable than the immortal Batista, then it’s theoretically possible he could be more valuable than anyone else. Now, it’s certainly possible that someone like Pujols who played more games could be more valuable, because his playing more games makes up for a small difference in effectiveness. But it’s possible he doesn’t.
Absolutely true. Their running away with the title part isn’t relevant, but certainly he would have been more valuable had he played more games. On the other hand, Sammy Sosa would have been more valuable if he’d hit more homers and Jim Thome would have been more valuable if he could play second base like Bill Mazeroski. You can’t point to one weakness in Bonds’s portfolio and say “This eliminates him.” You have to look at the total package of his contributions to the team, weighing his strengths and weaknesses against other players’.
But that’s true of all winning teams. ALL championship teams, every one that has ever played, are team efforts. In baseball one player alone can’t turn a team of bozos into a champion. Babe Ruth wasn’t that good.
He missed 32 games, actually. And my position is that he helped the Giants more in the 129 games he played than Sosa did in the 137 games he played. Sosa’s playing eight more games did not make as much a difference as Bonds’s superior quality of play.
Whoops, got my cites mixed up. (Actually, the Giants were 100-61, IIRC)
Because they had a better year, winning 100 games to Chicago’s 88 - 12 games is a pretty big difference. They were a superior team. By definition, their players as a whole must have had more value than Chicago’s. If it was 96 wins to 95, well, that doesn’t mean much, but 12 is a lot. The difference between Bonds and Sosa cannot possibly account for a spread that large; even the great Bonds can’t make a team win 12 more games than they would with Sammy Sosa in his place. So even if I think Bonds was more valuable than Sosa, it is quite obvious to me that Bonds’s teammates were a bit better than Sosa’s teammates.
Sure, and they put George Kelly in the Hall of Fame, too. They do make mistakes. They don’t consider pitchers enough, they undervalue defensive ability, and they WAY overrate guys who drive in RBI but don’t do much of anything else. They gave Andre Dawson an MVP Award over Ozzie Smith in 1987, when Dawson wasn’t worth half of Smith. We’re talking about who will win, not who should (my predictions for who will win: Delgado and Pujols.)
Well, you don’t see me calling for Jim Thome to win it. I agree that team success must be considered, if for no other reason that we cannot totally quantify individual value. I DON’T think Alex Rodriguez should win the MVP Award. I think he should have won it last year, but this year he ain’t getting my vote, and part of the reason is that his team stank, and incidentally, he slumped right around the time they went into the pits for good. But when you start deconstruction things into saying “this guy shouldn’t win because his team was too good” we’re entering the realm of the absurd.
Not at all, but don’t pretend Bonds being walked just eliminates the problem. His drawing all those walks really does help his team. If it didn’t, the opposition would walk him every single time up. They did not remove him from the equation; it is false to claim that.
Well, no, that’s wrong, too. Today’s rate of walks is not historically high. The average team in the NL this year drew about 3.3 walks per game, an unremarkable total. In the past it’s been much higher than that… in 1949 it was almost 4.5 walks per game. I don’t notice that walks are up in general. Certainly there are as many great control pitchers around as there ever have been, and there isn’t even anyone I can think of right now who walks a huge number of guys like Nolan Ryan used to.
Except above you said they don’t have value - that walking Bonds “takes him out of the equation.” Well, do they or don’t they? Personally, I’d rather pitch to him. Apparently, so would the major leaguers, who choose to offer him hittable pitches most of the time. His walks have value. As much as a single? No. But 148 walks is a LOT of times on base all the same, and it means he’s not soaking up outs, so don’t imply it’s some sort of non-event or that it has nothing to do with Barry Bonds’s value and abilities - obviously it has everything to do with Bonds’s value, or else other players would do it too. It has value, and it has to be considered as part of his package.
He drove in 89 runs, so he wound up driving in himself almost as much as he drove in his teammates. How come you don’t mention that stat?
I agree. I do take it as a debit, though; additionally, I just plain don’t think his numbers or his so-called worth to his team are substantially better than any of the other candidates, especially Thome and Sosa.
I agree with that, too. But look at Thome. He hit 47 HR and drove in 131 - huge totals, better than Bonds in each category - and was no slouch in the walk department, either. Granted, he lags quite a bit in the OBP category, but Bonds’ interminable walks (many of them intentional) play into that more than the more-productive hits. Additionally, there’s the runs-produced category, and Thome wins that easily (195-153).
Okay, so perhaps Bonds was more productive in a smaller amount of time. That’s fine. But this is an award for the player who is the most valuable over the entire season, and for my money Thome was more valuable to the Phillies. Without him, they would have sunk at the All-Star break; with him, they nearly made it to the postseason.
I don’t think so. It shouldn’t be the main reason, or even a terribly important reason, but for my money the success of a team must factor into the logic somehow. How did the player make his team better and by how much?
Well, maybe I’m wrong here, but isn’t ERA up? If so, then pitching overall is worse, and if the walks aren’t also up that’s a bit surprising. Where did you find your info?
What I am saying is that it has negligible value. Of all of the ways to get on base, walking is less productive than most. Putting the ball in play is more valuable because of things that can go wrong. A walk is not as good as a hit, because in theory the hit could produce runs (i.e., players already on base could score), whereas a walk could produce runs only if the bases were already loaded.
148 is plenty of times on base. But while he’s not soaking up outs, he’s also not driving in runs. Which is, last I checked, the ultimate raison d’etre of the batter.
90 runs. Well, if I absolutely must repeat every stat, dan, he played in 129 games, had 399 at bats, hitting 65 singles, 22 doubles, 1 triple, 45 homers, stole 7 bases and was not caught stealing, struck out 58 times, drew 148 walks, had a batting average of .341, a slugging percentage of .749, and on base percentage of .529, hit 2 sacrifice flies, was hit by a pitch 10 times, grounded into 7 double plays, and in the outfield handled 243 chances while making 2 errors, a .992 fielding percentage, and had five assists and participated in two double plays.
If you want it summed up, his numbers were outstanding, by any analysis. He helped the Giants score a lot of runs while using an amazingly small number of outs.
Thome simply wasn’t as good a player. Yes, he hit two more homers and drove in 41 more runs. He also used up 443 outs, though, while Bonds used only 236 - a monstrous difference. Bonds used 207 fewer outs; that’s 207 at bats his teammates get because of his ability to reach base. 207 at bats is as many outs as a team will use in almost eight whole games. It’s worth like 35, 40 runs right there. And Thome plays in a home park where more runs are scored to boot.
Bonds’s marginal value is way, way higher.
And the walks do help a lot. Today he walked three times - two of which led directly to runs in a 2-0 win. That’s been happening all year.
Offense today is quite high, but it’s not the highest it’s ever been or anything, and walks are not up much. Control pitching today is pretty good, actually.
The increase in runs scored is 90% due to a huge increase in home runs. If you look at the National League today - well, I’ll cheat and use 2002 numbers because baseballreference has league totals for 2002 and I’d have to add up this year’s numbers - and, say, 25 years ago in 1978, walks are up only slightly, from 3.23 a game to 3.44 a game, and that only because plate appearances are up. (Curiously, it’s low in the American League, 3.23 a game, even though they have the DH.) 25 years before that, in 1953, NL walks were 3.43 a game. Just five years before that, 3.58 a game. In 1965 it was down to 2.92 a game. I think, without doing a really exhaustive study, that NL walk totals are a little higher than usual, but not particularly so. Bonds’s walk totals are truly of historically amazing proportions; it is NOT just the pitching.
But home runs have shot up. That’s why scoring’s up. Look at it going back by decades, just for the NL:
Homers Per Team By Year, National League
2002 - 162 homers per team
1992 - 105
1982 - 107
Fifty or more homers per team is a lot of runs. But if you go back to, say, the early 1960s, teams hit almost as many homers as they do today, and they scored a lot of runs then too. Scoring today is high, but again, not as high as it’s been at times in the past.
Walks are not “negligible,” as you can tell by watching what happens when a pitcher walks a lot of guys and what happens when he doesn’t. I mean, there’s a reason the guys who don’t walk many batters tend not to get lit up as bad as the ones that do. There’s a direct correlation between drawing walks and scoring runs. Arguing that a walk is negligible because it’s not as good as a single is silly; it’s like saying hitting singles is unimportant because they aren’t as good as home runs, so Dave Kingman should be in the Hall of Fame. Nobody here has tried to convince you walks are as good as singles.
Look, it’s not as if Bonds doesn’t put the ball into play. On top of the 148 walks he did bat .341 and hit 45 home runs. If walking has a “negligible effect,” explain why they don’t walk him every single time up. Or, for that matter, why they don’t walk Jim Thome every time up. Or Sammy Sosa. If it’s negligible, why not just IW them every time? It must not be negligible, because it would be an amazingly easy thing to do if it was. Every top slugger in the game would be walked 700 times a year.
Uhh… no, no it isn’t. The raison d’etre of the batter is to do things that help his team score runs. Driving them in helps. Scoring them helps too. Giving your teammates more opportunities to driev them in, that helps too.
You needed to see today’s game; it was instruction in why walks are important. Bonds today helped the Giants score a run by walking, without driving in or scoring a run. With nobody out, Aurilia walked. Bonds walked (on a very close pitch.) Alfonzo reached on an error, scoring Aurilia. Santiago grounded out and the rally was quickly quelled. Bonds gets no run and no RBI there, but without his walk they don’t score in that inning at all; if he makes an out there, Aurilia would have been stranded at third. Later he walked, stole a base, and scored on a double by Alfonzo (he would have scored even if he hadn’t stolen second) so twice his walks led to runs. Final score, 2-0. Neither run scores without Bonds walking. Do ya think that was the first time all year that had happened?
I can see you’re getting a little bent out of shape, so I should note that I am not pulling numbers out of thin air. These are all from MLB Players Rosters - Major League Baseball - ESPN. If you want to argue about 90 versus 89 RBI, you have serious issues.
I had mentioned earlier he had missed 33 games because I was ignorant of the fact that they played only 161 this year.
According to the ESPN link, which is updated through the end of the season, he has 387 AB, with 64 singles, 21 doubles, 1 triple, 45 HR, and 89 RBI. He had 148 BB and 57 K, hitting .339 with an OBP of .528.
Someone stats may be wrong, but please chill out. You’re acting as if the numbers I’m citing are ludicrous.
And he did it for a lesser period of time than anyone else. Why can’t you admit this makes him less valuable than someone who had comparable numbers AND played the entire season?
Oh good grief. Of course he used up more outs! He played 29 more games!
You simply cannot say Bonds had the better season based on what he might have done had he played 150+ games. Thome did out homer him and did out-RBI him and DID outscore him. Bonds had a better average and better OBP, and probably would have also if he’d played an extra month. But he did not, and we cannot assume he would have done so.
Now, look. I am not saying singles are unimportant. I am saying singles are far more important than walks. Granted, if you get 10 walks in a game and only 5 singles, then the walks will inordinately be more important in that game. However, that’s not a common happenstance.
I’ll try to reword what I’ve been saying. If a player hits a line drive to left field with a man on first, there’s a chance that player will score. If a player draws a walk with a man on first, that runner will advance only to second, barring some act of stupidity on the part of the defense. Therefore the single is much more valuable.
Try to stay with me here, RickJay. The batter can only do two things: make an out or get on base. A batter cannot score a run; only a runner can score a run. I’m splitting hairs here, but when the batter stands in the box, his ultimate goal is to knock in whoever’s on base. If no one is on base, his goal is to get ON base - or hit a home run.
You needed to see today’s game; it was instruction in why walks are important. Bonds today helped the Giants score a run by walking, without driving in or scoring a run. With nobody out, Aurilia walked. Bonds walked (on a very close pitch.) Alfonzo reached on an error, scoring Aurilia. Santiago grounded out and the rally was quickly quelled. Bonds gets no run and no RBI there, but without his walk they don’t score in that inning at all; if he makes an out there, Aurilia would have been stranded at third. Later he walked, stole a base, and scored on a double by Alfonzo (he would have scored even if he hadn’t stolen second) so twice his walks led to runs. Final score, 2-0. Neither run scores without Bonds walking. Do ya think that was the first time all year that had happened? **
[/QUOTE]
Without the error, Aurillia wouldn’t have scored. Again, I am not saying walks are unimportant. I am saying singles are more important.
Bonds would get those hits if he was pitched to. When he is pitched to, he hits home runs. But he’s not getting those hits because the pitcher is conceding that he WILL hit a home run, and putting him on intentionally. It’s not that Bonds goes out of his way to avoid swinging. If anything, he occasionally expands his strike zone out of sheer boredom at never being given a pitch. Bonds would be more valuable if he was getting singles in place of all those walks, yes, but the fact is that he isn’t being given the opportunity to. You’re treating these walks as though Bonds is just taking more pitches than other players.
Well all right, we agree. And Bonds walks almost twice as much as most guys get singles. So he’s more important, right?
RickJay has brought up a really good point several different times- if by walking Bonds, you take him out of the equation, why don’t Bonds, Guerrero, Thome, Tejada, et al, guys without too much talent around them in the lineup, walk every time they’re up? The answer, obviously, is that sometimes, teams are willing to risk giving up a tater as opposed to putting a guy on first, because putting men on base willy-nilly can lead to five- and six-run innings on just a couple of hits.
The difference is that managers are much, much less willing to risk it with Bonds, because he’s that good. There’s a danger in giving up free passes, and that danger is what makes walks valuable. It works like this- a .300 hitter batting behind Jim Thome will drive in alot of runs, because Thome gets on base at a good clip. If that guy has any power whatsoever, and can get balls in the gaps and homer occasionally, he should drive in 100 runs with no problem, because Thome will be on base for a bunch of those doubles and homers. That same batter, hitting behind Bonds, will drive in significantly more runs, because A) Bonds’ OBP is through the roof, even compared to Thome, and B) Bonds doesn’t strike out or make outs in general very frequently, while Thome strikes out all the time and hits under .280. Bonds will bring that next batter to the plate much more frequently than Thome, even if it is just by walking.
If we were to go ahead and assume that, because of Bonds’ propensity to walk, Thome would hit more home runs than Bonds in an equal number of at bats (a mighty leap to be sure,) Bonds would still do more for his team. Say Thome hits 10% more home runs, but Bonds gets on base 33% more often. As long as there is a major league hitter behind Bonds, all those at bats with Bonds on base will lead to more run production than the 5-10 home runs Thome “would have” hit.
This is all true, and a good point. What if, in the games he did play, Bonds was worth 1 extra win out of 10 games, as compared to his team without him? And what if Thome, over the course of more games, was worth 1 out of 15? Just because he would have been more valuable over 160 games, that’s not to say that his 130 odd games played weren’t more valuable than anyone else’s 150. This is all very hypothetical, to be sure, but isn’t it possible to play so well over a shortened season as to be more valuable than somebody else was over a longer stretch?
Using 207 outs in 29 games takes either a feat of extreme mediocrity in several consecutive 20-inning games … or he isn’t being as productive at the plate (and by being productive, I use your definition: getting on base) as the other fellow. At the un-MVP rate of 3.5 outs per game (wanna come up with an MVP who averaged one hit per 4 ABs, assuming an average of 4 AB/game? Be my guest), we arrive at 101.5 outs, leaving us with 105.5 non-out plate appearances. Assuming a non-MVP rate of play, we can assume, say, 5 HR (one every ~19 ABs) and 25 RBI (one every ~4 AB), thus giving him 50 HR and 100-something RBI. And that’s being deliberately ungenerous.
A man can also get tagged out trying to get to third on said line-drive, or be out at home. The same scenario does not arise with a walk.
Yes, you can get further on a line-drive base hit. You can also get out.
MHO? A single is better than a walk, but not by much (though if someone ::cough Jonathan Chance cough:: has raw data to suggest otherwise I’m all ears. Er, eyes.)
Nobody had comparable numbers to Bonds. Babe Ruth in his prime is the only one who compares to Bonds’ last three years. Dan, even you can admit that a player who puts up stellar numbrs over 161 games is better than one who puts up mediocre numbers over 162. In fact, the first player is better even if he plays only 160, 159, or perhaps–gasp!–only 150 games. So what’s the limit? The answer is that it depends on how much better the first player is. In Bonds’ case, he is so much better than anyone else this year that even missing 32 games, he’s better than anyone else. By far.
Dan, lets try a little thought experiment:
Player A plays 125 games, reaching base 200 times in 500 plate appearances (PA).
Player B does the same.
In fact, through 125 games, players A and B have nearly identical stats all the way through.
In game 126, stops playing and is replaced by Joe Schmo for the rest of the season, who puts up mediocre stats (say, 100 PA, 30 times reaching base).
Player B continues playing the rest of the season and goes 0 for 100.
Who was more valuable?
This is essentially what Bonds and Thome did. Bonds reached base 291 times this season in 548 PA; Thome only 266 in 693 PA. So, in the 548 at bats they had “in common,” Bonds reached base 25 more times than Thome, already pretty valuable. Thome then used his “extra” 145 at bats to make 145 outs. Real valuable.
Admittedly, Bonds would have helped the Giants even more had they had him for another 150 at bats instead of Joe Schmo. But “hypothetical perfect attendance Barry Bonds” is not on the MVP ballot. And the real Barry Bonds that did play this season was the best in the league, hands down.
The batter can only do two things: make an out or get on base. A batter cannot score a run; only a runner can score a run. I’m splitting hairs here, but when the batter stands in the box, his ultimate goal is to knock in whoever’s on base. If no one is on base, his goal is to get ON base - or hit a home run.