Posted by tecwrg on 8/26/2013 11:08:00 AM (view original):
OBP also doesn't account for the difference between a walk and a single.
Walks only advance runners if they are forced. A single can score a guy from second or third, and can advance a runner from first to third.
Since BL has never actually watched a baseball game, I can see how he wouldn't know or understand that.
No one is saying that OBP and SLG are flawless. They both have issues. OBP, as you point out, treats walks the same as home runs. Slugging uses AB in the denominator and we know that a home run isn't four times as valuable as a single, etc.
But, with their flaws, 1 point of OBP is worth about 2 points of SLG.