The Stat That Will Revolutionize Baseball: Introducing UVI
Interesting concept, but I think the premise is based on an assumption that’s not always true. It certainly measures what you purport to measure, the number of bases a player gets per plate appearance. That’s fine. But I think you start to run into a problem when you tie a player’s “ultimate value” to the number of bases they get without appropriately weighting the methods by which they do so.
For example, all other factors being equal, a guy who has one single and zero walks will have an equal UVI to a guy with one walk and zero singles, right? Well, I would argue that they aren’t equally valuable; given any random pattern of men on base, I would always prefer to have a single rather than a walk…assuming someone’s on, you always have a chance to bat a runner in on a single, rather than on a walk, which only drives in a run if the bases are loaded. Isn’t the guy who hits the single in that situation more valuable?
Now, I realize that a guy who’s swinging for the base hit instead of walking WILL get himself out sometimes too, when a walk obviously would not. Even so, while I don’t know for sure, I’m skeptical if the risk/return on swinging for the single evens out in comparison to taking the walk, which your theory implies. I mean, you can get called out on strikes looking for a walk too. Maybe it does all even out, I’m all ears if you have an explanation.