Blue Jays Discussion: WAR! Huh! What is it good for? Quick looks at players' whole on-field contributions!

[Canada4Gold]

defense is important. If you hit a single, or a double, or even a homerun great. But if your range sucks and as a result didn't get to balls that a lot of players get to and as a result the other team got a single, or a double, or even a triple, and got 1, 2, maybe 3 runs. That matters.

You can't simply ignore defense or undervalue it. A run scored is just as good as a run given up. Your bat is 1/9th of the lineup, and you can use that to help score a bunch of runs, but your defense is 1/9th of the defense(or in the case of DH you're so bad at it, you can even get out there) and if people are hitting balls that most players get to but you don't then that's absolutely a bad thing for your value. It's resulting in more runs against

I don't really make a point to watch how good defensively other teams players are so I don't know how bad V. Martinez's range was last year, but UZR suggests it was really bad.

 

[Stats01]

The jays top 30 prospects are up on their website. I must say it's a less than impressive list "not surprising". AA is gonna need a homerun draft next year

AA doesn't agree with you, as fans we tend to just look at the top prospects and judge our system on that but take a guy like Greene for example, AA made a good point about him before all the trades nobody knew about this kid but the Jays knew about him AA knew about him, now that some of our other kids are gone he's getting some attention. The system is fine, the team knows a lot more about these kids then we do. Does AA "need" to have a homerun draft next year...not necessarily it would be nice however. There are drafts every single year so I don't think one draft is more important than the other.

 

[Radiohead]

The Raptors have it opposite to the Jays, they're in an easy division and should make the playoffs most years, but divisions are wrong, if 4 teams make the playoffs the top 4 should be there. No team with a lower record than a team with a higher record should be in the playoffs, that only makes sense.

The NBA is adopting this format starting this year. Teams will be seeded based on record only. A division winner might not even make the playoffs anymore.

But the Raptors had the 4th best record in the East last year and finished 4th anyways. Similar to the year before when they had the 3rd best record.

 

[King Mapes]

I couldn't make the revised thread title as long as I wanted to


It should read:


War! Huh! What is it good for? A quick look at players' whole on-field contributions across all possible categories and weighted against hypothetical freely available talent which could replace them, so as to provide an easy, summary number for comparing players across positions and eras with regards to the impact they have on the game in all potential fashions before necessitating longer statistical analysis in order to make more precise and categorically-relevant judgements!

That wouldn't fit? How much did you go over?

 

[King Mapes]

Bob Nightengale ‏@BNightengale 24m24 minutes ago
The #Pirates now 32-5 in one run games

Imagine the Jays record if they had that sort of luck...

Guessing Pirates will not be nearly as good next year.

EDIT:

Barry Davis ‏@SNBarryDavis 45m45 minutes ago
John Gibbons says he plans to use Martin behind the plate for Dickey as the season winds down, since he'd be doing it in post season.

Yes, thank you Gibby!

Good.

 

[hoglund]

The NBA is adopting this format starting this year. Teams will be seeded based on record only. A division winner might not even make the playoffs anymore.

But the Raptors had the 4th best record in the East last year and finished 4th anyways. Similar to the year before when they had the 3rd best record.

That's how it should be, why even have divisions, just have two conferences and the top 4 or whatever (depending on the number of teams in the league) make the playoffs.

 

[dredeye]

We still have an abundance of toolsy guys in short season ball who could come out of the gate and move us up the ranks to an upper mid tier system. Remember how when we traded Hechevarria, Marisnick, Syndergaard and D'Arnaud how we suddenly had Norris, Pompey, Osuna and Castro step up and establish themselves as top prospects the immediate season? I fully expect to see that again next year with Reid-Foley, Greene, Alford (arguably has) and Tellez types become top end prospects.

Those are our current top prospects that you mentioned. I'm not saying the cupboards are bare but they look lite. I'm also not as on top of the lower levels this year as I normally am so maybe that's my issue. I may have worded things a little heavily.

 

[Canada4Gold]

The top 10 is mostly filled with guys in High/Low A who will be like Norris, Osuna, Pompey did back then. SRF, Alford, Urena, Tellez, Greene, etc.

11-30 is filled with a lot of short season guys who'll probably be in a similar situation to those guys at the end of next year. Like Castro came on quick, guys like Hollon, Maese, Perdomo, Borucki, Espada, Bergen can do that next year. Lane Thomas, Pruitt are hitters who will come on the radar next year. Guerrero is already on the radar but he's down in a lower level or will be to start next year.

There's a lot of talent there, it's just very little of it is at the AAA and AA level which is going to hurt the rankings because there's a lot of value in a guy being close to the majors. Basically Pompey, and Green was in NH for a handful of starts.

 

[Discoverer]

I agree with most of your post, but somewhat disagree on the quoted. I believe a lot of people use the WAR stat without understanding its limitations.

As far as there being an accurate balance on defense and offense...also dubious. It seems to me fWar rewards defenders at a few key positions too richly, and punishes others too harshly. For instance, Victor Martinez put up an OPS of 974 last year over 640 at-bats. Monster numbers. And yet he only put up an fWAR of 4.3. I don't care what position those numbers are coming from, they have to make more of an impact than 4 wins.

That disagreement is with the positional adjustment, then, not defensive value.

Do you think a SS who saves 5 runs defensively should be worth the same as a 1B who saves 5 runs defensively?

 

[Canada4Gold]

That disagreement is with the positional adjustment, then, not defensive value.

Do you think a SS who saves 5 runs defensively should be worth the same as a 1B who saves 5 runs defensively?

I don't, 1st base is an easier position to play, there are less players in the league and on your team specifically that can play shortstop. Thus the replacement level player at 1st will be better defensively than the replacement at SS so it makes sense the SS would be considered worth more.

 

[Tony Romo]

@JeffPassan 16m16 minutes ago
Thirteen Ks from Stephen Strasburg. Two bombs from Bryce Harper, bringing him to .338/.467/.667. Nights like this were supposed to matter.

Harper is a freak.

 

[Discoverer]

I don't, 1st base is an easier position to play, there are less players in the league and on your team specifically that can play shortstop. Thus the replacement level player at 1st will be better defensively than the replacement at SS so it makes sense the SS would be considered worth more.

Exactly, and that's the whole point... it's about comparing the player to a replacement level player. Your average replacement level player is going to be fine defensively at 1B and bad at SS, so a +5 SS has more defensively value above replacement level than a +5 1B.

 

[p.l.f.]

3 back of kc now

 

[GoodKiwi]

JP Arencibia!

 

[hockeywiz542]

 

[p.l.f.]

astros rangers on tsn2

 

[Bad News Benning]

Samardjiza is slowly watching a big contract slip away. 10 er against the A's tonight. Do the sox even qualify him at this point? Im not sure any team is going to hand him a big contract the way he has pitched this year.

 

[Mitchy]

@JeffPassan 16m16 minutes ago
Thirteen Ks from Stephen Strasburg. Two bombs from Bryce Harper, bringing him to .338/.467/.667. Nights like this were supposed to matter.

Harper is a freak.

198 wRC+, .464 wOBA...

 

[Kurtz]

That disagreement is with the positional adjustment, then, not defensive value.

Do you think a SS who saves 5 runs defensively should be worth the same as a 1B who saves 5 runs defensively?

Honestly...I don't know. I could see it from both perspectives.

Here's an example. Bourn circa 2012 for the Braves. 740 OPS, stole 42 bags (at only a 76% clip, which is right around break-even I believe). Finished the season with fwar of 6.2.

And I've already mentioned Victor Martinez and his gaudy 970 ops but merely 4.3 WAR.

Now, would you say that the 2012 Bourn was 50% more valuable than Victor Martinez 2014?

 

[AlienWorkShop]

Honestly...I don't know. I could see it from both perspectives.

Here's an example. Bourn circa 2012 for the Braves. 740 OPS, stole 42 bags (at only a 76% clip, which is right around break-even I believe). Finished the season with fwar of 6.2.

And I've already mentioned Victor Martinez and his gaudy 970 ops but merely 4.3 WAR.

Now, would you say that the 2012 Bourn was 50% more valuable than Victor Martinez 2014?

You're omitting Bourn's 23.3 UZR in 2012, which alone would bridge the difference. DRS also put Bourn at 24 runs, so perhaps he did save that many runs in CF. His career UZR/150 and DRS/150 are 5.7 and 10.1, so perhaps those are the defensive run numbers you'd want to take more "seriously"... I'm quite skeptical of one season defensive stats, but I generally think they should be taken into account over multiple seasons. Anyway.

Also, Bourn added 7.8 runs on the basepaths (IIRC, wOBA does take the 2.3 runs he added via SB into account, but he also added 5.5 runs via taking extra bases and avoiding double plays). Martinez cost the Tigers 7.5 runs on the basepaths. These things do add up...

WAR isn't really a 'scale', so you wouldn't say he's 50% better treating 0 WAR as the baseline given it goes negative... but you would say relative to a theoretical replacement player at their respective positions (which do 'exist': http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-recent-examples-of-a-replacement-level-player/), Bourn was 50% better than his replacement player than Martinez would be compared to his replacement player.

Bourn was ~6 wins better than whatever AAAA CF scrub the Braves could have found in AAA, while Martinez was ~4 wins better than a AAAA DH/1B scrub the Tigers could have found in AAA. I don't think you'd disagree the latter is much easier to find than the former, hence the positional adjustment.

 

[Discoverer]

Honestly...I don't know. I could see it from both perspectives.

Here's an example. Bourn circa 2012 for the Braves. 740 OPS, stole 42 bags (at only a 76% clip, which is right around break-even I believe). Finished the season with fwar of 6.2.

And I've already mentioned Victor Martinez and his gaudy 970 ops but merely 4.3 WAR.

Now, would you say that the 2012 Bourn was 50% more valuable than Victor Martinez 2014?

Take a look at the inputs that WAR is comprised of.

Hitting
Bourn was slightly above average with a 104 wRC+. So there's some value there, but nothing special.

Martinez was amazing. Tied with Mike Trout for the second best wRC+ in baseball at 167, so that's a ton of offensive value.

Baserunning
Bourn was 7th in baseball in value added on the basepaths at 7.8 runs which includes his 42 SB/13 CS and taking extra bases on hits.

Martinez was 3rd WORST in baseball with -7.5 runs, which means he was a slightly worse baserunner than David Ortiz, but slightly better than Billy Butler.

Defense
Bourn was amazing. UZR has him at +23.3 runs. DRS has him at +24 runs. Inside Edge suggest he was spectacular. It was the third time in four years that he had outstanding defensive numbers.

Martinez played about 20% of the season at 1B, where he was worth negative a few runs. Otherwise he was a DH.

Positional Adjustment
Michael Bourn played CF. It's among the hardest defensive positions to play, so the number of "replacement" players who can successfully do it is fairly small.

Victor Martinez played a bit of time at the easiest defensive position and a lot of time at no defensive position. Literally any replacement player in baseball could fill in at DH, so replacement level for Martinez should be much higher.


I feel like the issue here is that you're undervaluing everything except hitting. Replacement value is real, but I can understand it being frustrating as a concept. But when one player is among the worst defenders/baserunners in the game and the other is among the best at those things, there should be a HUGE disparity in non-hitting value. And it's not like we're talking about Kevin Pillar, who can't hit but does other things well. Bourn was a good hitter that year.

 

[BertCorbeau]

Jays need to win tonight ... And hope the Yankees lose (they're facing Archer)

 

[Kurtz]

WAR isn't really a 'scale', so you wouldn't say he's 50% better treating 0 WAR as the baseline given it goes negative... but you would say relative to a theoretical replacement player at their respective positions (which do 'exist': http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-recent-examples-of-a-replacement-level-player/), Bourn was 50% better than his replacement player than Martinez would be compared to his replacement player.

Bourn was ~6 wins better than whatever AAAA CF scrub the Braves could have found in AAA, while Martinez was ~4 wins better than a AAAA DH/1B scrub the Tigers could have found in AAA. I don't think you'd disagree the latter is much easier to find than the former, hence the positional adjustment.

I don't believe that's true, and this would go back to my earlier point about people misusing the WAR stat.

The whole notion of positional adjustment is so you can compare WAR evenly between positions. In other words, WAR allows you to say that a 4 WAR 1B is equally valuable to a 4 WAR SS because the positional adjustment has been factored into their respective WAR calculations.

This is why the stat $/WAR exists, and why it's applicable across all positions.

Current $/WAR figure is around 7 mil. That puts Bourne's 2012 season at $42 mil value, vs Martinez's season of $28 mil value. So yes, WAR does state rather clearly that Bourne had 50% more value in 2012 than Martinez in 2014. Which is, surely, absurd.

 

[Discoverer]

So yes, WAR does state rather clearly that Bourne had 50% more value in 2012 than Martinez in 2014. Which is, surely, absurd.

Why is it absurd, though? You think it's easier to find a decent player to fill it for 2012 Bourn than 2014 Martinez?

 

[Swervin81]

198 wRC+, .464 wOBA...

Highest OPS since Barry Bonds in 2004 (1.422). Bonds' slash line was .362/.609/.812, wRC+ of 232, and wOBA of .537. Just to emphasize the riDQulousness of him, that slash line looks like I ****ed up, looked 1 column to the right on an above average player's Fangraphs and accidentally put his OBP/SLG/OPS as his slash. Like, what the actual ****.