I remember having a conversation about OBP with one of the posters in this conversation in the spring of 2013. Most everyone on this board was really down on Jonny Gomes. At the time Gomes was hitting about the Mendoza line. I pointed out to this poster ( who knows quite a bit about baseball stats ) that Gomes was second on the team in walks and because of it his OBP was about .330 ( not great, but much better than "hitting" only .200 ).
The old guard is slow to change. OBP is not yet widely used by many fans or the electronic media. Never the less, it is a far better way of quickly assessing a player's offensive value than BA.
The same with WHIP (a great quick measure of a pitcher's effectiveness ). I wish more game broadcasts would show WHIP instead of ERA, too.