Is the "Hold" the most useless stat ever?

[toopier]

I just watched Dan Kolb (my son has a nickname for him..."The Tee")
come in at the start of the bottom of the eighth with a 3 run lead, get one out , give up 4 runs, lose the game, and get a "hold".

That is a stupid stat!

[leecemark]

--Are you sure he got a hold? Earning a hold indicates you preserved the lead that existed when you came in. I don't think you can get a loss and a hold in the same game.

[toopier]

Yep..he left with the tying run an 3rd and the winner on 2nd

I didnt realize that the hold was that ridiculous till I saw the boxy

[ElHalo]

--Are you sure he got a hold? Earning a hold indicates you preserved the lead that existed when you came in. I don't think you can get a loss and a hold in the same game.

You can. You just need to come in in a save situation and not blow the save before handing it off to another guy. Following scenario:

You come in with a three run lead, no outs in the bottom of the ninth. It's a save situation. You promptly walk 5 consecutive batters, giving up two runs and loading the bases. You then throw three straight balls to the next batter. You get replaced by another guy. It's still a save situation for him; your team has a one run lead, so if he gets the next three outs, he'll get the save. Instead, he promptly gives up a game ending walkoff grand slam.

Now, since you entered in a save situation, and you exited in a save situation, you get credit for a hold. Since you're tagged for 7 runs, you get credited with the loss. It's entirely possible to get both in the same game.

[toopier]

Don't even need the made up scenario....
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=250602120
game just ended a few minutes ago....

[SABR Matt]

LOL!! wow...that is a REALLY poorly thought out stat...how the heck do you get a hold and a loss in the same game...

[LarrySC]

What exactly did Kolb "hold"? He entered the game with a three run lead, and through his pitching, gave up FOUR runs and LOST the game for the Braves! How can he get credit for a "HOLD" stat?

To me, that is similar to a relief pitcher who throws three innings (regardless of the lead) and gets a save. I mean, if your team has a 7 run lead, and the guy comes in and starts giving up runs left and right, are you going to leave him in there long enough to see if he can get three full innings and get a cheap "save"? Any reliever who comes in with more than a three run lead should NEVER get a SAVE under ANY circumstances, IMHO. I'm sure we can find examples of some guy pitched THREE innings with his team leading by 10 or more runs, and he STILL qualifies for a SAVE just because he pitched three innings. Right?

:noidea

[west coast orange and black]

Is the "Hold" the most useless stat ever?maybe it'll go the way of GWRBI

[It's Over The Wall!]

Wow useless but................... :lookitup maybe not hte most useless.....

well how about SF(sacrafice flies) WHO CARES!!!
(not me)


but I do agree getting a positive stat :) (hold) and a negative stat :mad: (lose)
is pretty strange

[Biggerin]

I say bring back GWRBI! Sure, it's useless, but so are ALL stats. At least GWRBIs are fun.

Most useless stat: Hitting streaks (except consecutive at-bat hitting streaks)

[toopier]

I know that the "hold" was made up cuz middle relievers had no stat of their own. We should be discussing percentage of inherited runners that score.
a hold in a loss is like getting a GWRBI...in a game that you lost.

[Double-J]

The difference between a Hold and it's cousin the Save is that a Save is nothing more than a game ending Hold. What extraordinary is the "experts" who firmly believe in the Save statistic don't take the Hold statistic seriously. You'd think they would. I do think both stats are junk stats because the worst pitcher can hold a three run lead successfully most of the time.

[flash143817]

maybe it'll go the way of GWRBI

The gwerbie is the greatest stat ever. Ever since I first saw it, I was hooked. Close MVP races should be decided with the GWRBI has the tiebreaker.

Honest question, does anybody know the single-season and career record holders for the GWRBI?

[Imapotato]

The difference between a Hold and it's cousin the Save is that a Save is nothing more than a game ending Hold. What extraordinary is the "experts" who firmly believe in the Save statistic don't take the Hold statistic seriously. You'd think they would. I do think both stats are junk stats because the worst pitcher can hold a three run lead successfully most of the time.


Great Post JJ

I agree, the Closer is a thief, that makes 3 x as much as other relievers, but sucks just as much or else they'd be starting

Someone mentioned SF, I don't agree that Sac Flies are useless, it shows that a guy tries to make contact instead of K'ing and going for the fences, to help the team, it's not really hard to get wood on the bat to pop it up or to drive it into the ground, any MLB SHOULD be able to do that

[BoofBonser26]

Imagine this scenario...

The home team is losing, 1-0, going into the ninth inning. The home starter is pulled after 8 IP with 1 ER, replaced by a reliever who works the top half of the ninth, giving up four runs. Going into the bottom of the ninth, the home team trails 5-0. They pull off a six run inning and win the game. The reliever with an ERA of 32.00 gets the win.

My point is that pitching stats are a slippery subject. I don't think the hold is any better or worse than the win, loss, or save.

[Ubiquitous]

Great Post JJ

I agree, the Closer is a thief, that makes 3 x as much as other relievers, but sucks just as much or else they'd be starting

Someone mentioned SF, I don't agree that Sac Flies are useless, it shows that a guy tries to make contact instead of K'ing and going for the fences, to help the team, it's not really hard to get wood on the bat to pop it up or to drive it into the ground, any MLB SHOULD be able to do that


Someone at the SABR convention did some research and found that closers are unusually good at BABIP. More research needs to be done to find out if this is because pitching in the 9th somehow causes this or if it is because teams naturally select these types of players as closers. In otherwords it might be possible that there is something to the makeup necessary to be a closer, and that you can't just put anybody in that position.

[BristolBoy]

As useless as the Hold is, I still think Wins (for a pitcher) and Runs Scored (for a hitter) are far more useless.

[Cubsfan97]

The 3 most useless stats are OPS, HBP and IBB's. No one cares about your OPS. Its not a real stat. Its just two stats added up. It is useless. The average OPS i would have to guess is in the 800s. If a guy has a .100 OBP and a .700 SLG% then you see he can hit deep but he cant get on often. But coaches look at OPS and see the 800 and decide hes worth keeping.

Also the Hit-by-pitch is useless. Who cares how many times you get hit by a pitch. Im pretty sure Craig Biggio dosent like it. It just proves that you must be hated for some rason and your hated enough for people to want to hit you at 100 MPH.

Finally the Intentional Walk. No one cares if the pitcher intentionally walks you. Some people might say it has to do with the fear a batter puts in a pitcher but what if your a number 8 hitter in the NL. The only reason they walk you then is so they can face the pitcher. No one can say a number 8 hitter is good. If the number 8 hitter was good then he'd be batting at the top of the order.

[abolishthedh]

Getting back to the original question, I think the 'hold' could be improved. The 'save' was tweaked a few times before it became an accepted stat by most of us. MLB needs to set up some qualifications, such as allowing nobody into scoring position over 2 innings, or getting nine up and nine down over three innings. The latter idea would make it a tough accomplishment. And if this means that a reliever who enters in the 7th or 8th cannot qualify for the hold, then so be it.

[darkplague17]

The 3 most useless stats are OPS, HBP and IBB's.

Wow. Sure, OPS has no intuitive physical meaning. But it correlates higher with runs than OBP, slugging, or batting average.

a guy has a .100 OBP and a .700 SLG% then you see he can hit deep but he cant get on often.

That doesn't happen very much (his isolated power would be like 600+). How about a guy who bats 290 but never walks, making his obp 300? That happens a lot more. I'd go with batting average, since its so overrated.

[digglahhh]

Holds are a contrived statistic with little to no value. Much like the blown save, which is kind of its evil twin, the stat although deemed positive is not dependent upon a pitcher pitching well. The same with the blown save, it does not necessarily mean that he pitched poorly. Often it is accrued because the previous pitcher left a lot of runners on base- and probably got a hold for it...

Does any one know the origin of the stat? It was probably developed by agents with middle reliever clients who wanted a number they could point to to the boost the value of their clients in the hopes of landing them a lucrative contract.

On to other matters,

I don't think GWRBIs are a useless stat, although not all of them are equal. GWRBIs after the 7th inning might be somewhat revealing and interesting- at least rhetorically. As for the record, I think that Keith Hernandez had 24 of them in 85 or 86 and I think that was the record at that time. I may be wrong though.

IBBs can be meaningful but the don't have to be. With that said, over time you know when a guys gets 20 intentional passes in a season, its not to set-up double play situations, its because he can freakin' hit. Although I don't need to know how many times Vlad is intentionally walked to know that he can hit. A lot of IBBs though are products of situations and line-ups. If there was no Ortiz behind Manny, or vice versa, either one of them would get walked all the time.

I don't agree with overusing sabermetric stats. I think it is somewhat dehumanizing. The entire game is not one huge math equation. I think that when we break things down to point of saying that a stolen base is worth x% of a run and x amount of runs are worth a win in an average park with an average pitcher on the mound etc., we may be losing a part of the actual game. Just like the avg height of the class includes that of the tallest and shortest student. Avg pitcher includes the Pedros as well as the Anthony Youngs, the game is very different when those two guys take/took the hill. If this was all it took to evaluate player perfomance there is no need for HOF or MVP voting or anything at all and unscripted human action is no longer subjective. These numbers offer estimates that hold true over time, and are not necessarily less flawed than simple raw stats, they are just differently flawed. All I know is that if two knowledgable fans are arguing about which one of two guys was better and one is equipped with advanced statistical knowledge and the other actually saw the two guys play regularly, I'd give more weight to the guy who saw the players. This is why a lot of people on this site don't believe that Jeter is a surefire HOFer. I'm not a Yankee fan, but I live in NY and watch him play all the time and he trancends numbers, like many great players do. He belongs in Cooperstown.

While the values of sabr stats are plentiful, they don't render conventional stats like Runs, RBIs or Wins meaningless. They merely offer explanations for the totals, establish perspective and create mathematical evidence for what we already know. Sure Mike Sweeney would drive in more runs if he hit in the Red Sox line-up- theoretically. But in reality he probably wouldn't because he wouldn't hit third.

Runs and wins are important. Runs win games and wins are the overall goal of the sport. The formulas are wonderful for discussions and debates but if the Ranger lose a squeaker, Mark Texeria takes no salvation in the fact that his accomplishments during the game may have helped his Win Shares. Let's not forget the basics here.

Furthermore, I'm sure that people who rely on the simple, raw stats are aware of their relationship to how good a team is, ballpark etc. We don't necessaeily need to compute these disparities to the nearest hundreth to be aware of them, we only need to be active and intelligent fans of the game.

Avg w/ RISP is a pretty meaningless stat b/c it over time doesn't much differ from a player's overall Avg.

[Steve Jeltz]

Honest question, does anybody know the single-season and career record holders for the GWRBI?

The single season record for GWRBI, I believe, is Kevin McReynolds for the Mets in 1988 with 24.

Someone stated that holds were created because middle relievers didn't have a stat for themselves. What about the regular pitching stats like W/L record, ERA, K's, etc.? :confused:

[Chisox]

Someone stated that holds were created because middle relievers didn't have a stat for themselves. What about the regular pitching stats like W/L record, ERA, K's, etc.? :confused:

That's the point. Releivers aren't measured by wins and losses. Starters have Wins, closers Saves, and middle relief now Holds. They're basically the same. I, personally see point in any of them for the reasons mentioned, but obviously management and the players (fueled by agents) do. I measure a guy by ERA, IP, and K's with WHIP as well, anyway.

[redlegsfan21]

i don't like the fact that a reliever can give up more runs than the starter and the starter gets the loss.
Last night, Ramon Ortiz pitched 6 innings and gave up 2 ER. It was 2-1 in the 7th and Jason Standridge gave up 3 ER in 1 IP.

[west coast orange and black]

The single season record for GWRBI, I believe, is Kevin McReynolds for the Mets in 1988 with 24.keith hernandez had 24 for the mets in 1985.

[west coast orange and black]

...anybody know the single-season and career record holders for the GWRBI?career: keith hernandez

[AutographCollector]

Saw this today online... but it didn't give any explanation.
What does the statistic "hold" mean? Is it offensive? Defensive? Pitchers
Thanks,
Tony

[Tango Tiger]

Reliever comes in with the lead, gets at least 1 out, and when he leaves, the lead is still in tact.

[AutographCollector]

Reliever comes in with the lead, gets at least 1 out, and when he leaves, the lead is still in tact.

Excellent! So let me ask you this:
if a relievers "hold" stat is 1.25.
What does that mean? That he has held 1.25 batters for every time he hurls?

[Tango Tiger]

I don't know what 1.25 is. A Hold is a counting stat, like Saves or Wins.

[Chisox]

Excellent! So let me ask you this:
if a relievers "hold" stat is 1.25.
What does that mean? That he has held 1.25 batters for every time he hurls?

From Wikpedia:
A hold is awarded to a relief pitcher who:

enters the game in a save situation; that is, one of the following three conditions applies:
his team has a lead of no more than three runs (and he pitches at least one inning)
the potential tying run is either on base, at bat, or on deck
he pitches for at least three innings after entering the game
records at least one out;
and leaves the game without his team having relinquished the lead at any point.
Note that since the hold is not an official MLB statistic, the definition above can vary. One noticeable difference is that while STATS Inc. requires the pitcher to record at least one out for a hold, SportsTicker does not have this requirement. This can result in discrepancies in hold totals between different sources.

From Major League Baseball's official site:
A relief pitcher is credited with a hold any time he enters a game in a save situation, records at least one out and leaves the game never having relinquished the lead. A pitcher cannot finish the game and receive credit for a hold, nor can he earn a hold and a save in the same game

I have no idea what 1.25 holds is, either. Where on earth did you see that?
BTW, the hold stat is garbage.

[SamtheBravesFan]

From Wikpedia:
A hold is awarded to a relief pitcher who:

enters the game in a save situation; that is, one of the following three conditions applies:
his team has a lead of no more than three runs (and he pitches at least one inning)
the potential tying run is either on base, at bat, or on deck
he pitches for at least three innings after entering the game
records at least one out;
and leaves the game without his team having relinquished the lead at any point.
Note that since the hold is not an official MLB statistic, the definition above can vary. One noticeable difference is that while STATS Inc. requires the pitcher to record at least one out for a hold, SportsTicker does not have this requirement. This can result in discrepancies in hold totals between different sources.

From Major League Baseball's official site:
A relief pitcher is credited with a hold any time he enters a game in a save situation, records at least one out and leaves the game never having relinquished the lead. A pitcher cannot finish the game and receive credit for a hold, nor can he earn a hold and a save in the same game

I have no idea what 1.25 holds is, either. Where on earth did you see that?
BTW, the hold stat is garbage.

It's a mini-save. ;)

[rdonahue]

What's extra fun about holds is you can get a hold and a loss in the same game:

Enter with say a 1 run lead, get an out then let 2 guys on base and be removed. The next pitcher lets them both score and your team never regains the lead.

[SamtheBravesFan]

What's extra fun about holds is you can get a hold and a loss in the same game:

Enter with say a 1 run lead, get an out then let 2 guys on base and be removed. The next pitcher lets them both score and your team never regains the lead.

That happened to Derrick Turnbow against the Braves. I thought that was so strange. Maybe there needs to be an amendment to the rule:

No hold can be awarded to a pitcher who is placed with the loss.

[AutographCollector]

No hold can be awarded to a pitcher who is placed with the loss.

Yeah, I don't get that at all. Isn't the point to NOT allow them to score, hence it being called a "hold"?

[Chisox]

It's a mini-save. ;)
more or less
a.k.a. worthless

[Colin]

Contrary to what I thought, I actually think you don't even need to make an out to get a hold.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore;_ylt=Ag7dPwDyhL0vGJIAI_6NSiCFCLcF?gid=270 508109

Mike Macdougal, 0.0 IP, 3 H, 3 ER.

Yet awarded with his 9th hold of the season.

[Tango Tiger]

In the link above, it shows that since Hold is not an MLB stat, STATS and SportsTicker use different definitions.

Baseball-reference uses the STATS definition, apparently:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN200705080.shtml

(Note to CBS: put the darn date of the game. If it's there, it's not prominent)