Why WAR Is Awesome (The Good Kind)
by Erik Hahmann on Jul 14, 2010 1:00 PM EDT
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PrintWe love numbers here at DRaysBay. That's obvious. My favorite statistic we use is a little something called Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, and I'm here to tell you about it's exceedingly high level of awesomeness.
First, there's no other metric that acts as a unifier between many of the other advanced statistics. Things like FIP, xFIP, and wOBA, while great in their own right, are used on a micro level while WAR looks at a player's value on a more macro level. As Big League Stew's Alex Remington puts it:
WAR is a sum of the win value of a player's offense, defense, pitching, adjusted for that player's defensive position, playing time (thus keeping the replacement level players off the field) and year, park, and league context
You should never use just one statistic to judge a player's worth, but if you had to pick one WAR would likely be your be your best bet.
Secondly, WAR allows you to easily compare players' worth. Who doesn't love comparing players? WAR is expressed in wins, i.e. player X was worth 5.5 wins last year while player Y was only worth 3.0. It's quick, and at it's core very simple way to say one player is better than another while providing statistical evidence.
Lastly, WAR can shed light on just how good a player as been. Meaning that we all knew Ben Zobrist was having a fantastic season in 2009, but without WAR we wouldn't know just HOW fantastic it actually was. His amazing versitility and break out offensive season lead to a 8.3 WAR that ranked first among AL hitters. While WAR certainly helps showcase a lesser known player's talents, it can be used to accentuate a star's skills as well. Let's take the Rays most beloved player, Carl Crawford, as our example.
It's no secret that Crawford is having arguably the best season of his career. It's not until you dig a little deeper that you realize just how good his first half has been. Currently Crawford is ranked second in all of baseball in WAR with 4.8, just behind the 5.0 of leader Justin Morneau. These are his current figures:
Batting: +22.9 runs
Fielding: +15.2 runs
Replacement: +12.4 runs
Positional: -3.7 runs
As our own Steve Slowinski points out in the SaberLibrary, those numbers aren't based against the league average, but on "...replacement level (which...is the value a team would lose if they had to replace that player with a minor leaguer or someone from the waiver wire). Convert the run value you have to wins (10 runs = 1 win) and voila, finished!" Crawford excels with his bat and glove, but is penalized because of the relative ease of left field. If he played center field I have little doubt his WAR would be higher than Morneau's.
To recap, WAR is a fantastic, quick and easy tool to use when evaluating a player's worth that also gives you a solid base when comparing different players. WAR, as it turns out, is good for quite a lot.
*All data is from FanGraphs' WAR calculations. Baseball-Reference also has WAR but uses a different defensive measurement than UZR.
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HAHAHA OH WOW!
Original.
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 1:49 PM EDT up reply actions
it had to be the first comment.
if i hadn’t done it. someone else would have. its like at a traffic light that is red. once it turns green, the first car has to step on the gas first.
this is the same thing.
Oh, I know...it's bound to come up in every thread about WAR
But I couldn’t resist.
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 2:46 PM EDT up reply actions
It's just such an easy title for a post like this.
“WAR, what is it good for?” It begs to be written.
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 2:52 PM EDT up reply actions
So even if CC (or any defender) puts up high caliber numbers on defense, but plays at a weak position they are penalized?
I guess it just seems weird since his UZR/150 is 32.1 but he gets a negative value for positional adjustment. Do all LF’ers get the same positional adjustment?
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
His UZR would be less in CF, positional adjsutment helps account for that.
Follow Me on Twitter @FreeZorilla
-7.5, yes.
It’s based on playing time. If CC split time between DH and LF he’d have a bigger penalty.
If CC played CF he’d have a positive positional adjustment, but wouldn’t be as good defensively.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 14, 2010 2:09 PM EDT up reply actions
Positional Adjsutments
12.5 for C
+7.5 for SS
+2.5 for 2B/3B/CF
-7.5 for RF/LF
-12.5 for 1B
-17.5 for DH
Follow Me on Twitter @FreeZorilla
Why do LF and RF get the same adjustment? I thought based on a discussion we had on here that RF needed to have the better arm.
Would that make it a tougher position (longer throw) to play? Just curious how the adjustments were determined.
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
By looking at how players historically performed when moving from one position to another.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 14, 2010 2:18 PM EDT up reply actions
So if/when Victor Martinez or Mauer or any catcher moves to first base, (assuming they played both full time), they lose 2.5 wins? Ouch
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
They lose the positional adjustment.
They probably gain defensively, offensively, and playing time wise.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 14, 2010 2:23 PM EDT up reply actions
Cameron had a good bit about Harper back on draft day.
And why he supported them moving him to the outfield immediately.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 14, 2010 2:23 PM EDT up reply actions
Catcher throws a monkey wrench in the system.
Catching requires a totally different skill set, and affects offensive production.
But in general, the point is that if a guy moves from a tough defensive position to an easier defensive position, the penalty of the position adjustment exactly offsets the expected increase in UZR.
Two major reasons that’s often not the case: someone has a unique skill set that fits one position better than another, and putting someone at a tougher position also usually means more opportunities — more opportunities expose weaknesses more (and fewer opportunities hides talent).
- Opportunities aren’t just numbers of chances, but also accounts for the typical difficulty of those chances. Think about it as “opportunity to show off relative to the average player”.
To expand on that, the catcher positional adjustment is based significantly on observed offensive performance.
Catchers tend be 25 runs worse offensively than 1Bs. That’s generally not a good way to do position adjustments^, but it’s about as good as we can do for that position.
^ If you base your position adjustments on offensive differences you get some weird problems, like these:
- DHs often hit worse than 1Bs. Is DH a more important position than 1B? No way.
- In many historical seasons, center fielders outhit corner outfielders. Is center field less important than a corner spot? No way.
So the swing in difference between CF and LF is 10 runs.
And a player typically loses around 10 runs in UZR by moving from a corner spot to centerfield, right? Oh wow, that makes sense….
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 2:14 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
This may be a stupid question, but that hasn't stopped me before.
If we say (based on numbers above) that CC is 22.9 runs above replacement level at the plate, that’s based on replacement level. In the Rays case, DJ isnt projected to be replacement level, but he fits the description. How does that get reconciled? All replacement players aren’t equal.
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
Hitting/fielding is based on league average.
Replacement level is generally 20 runs below average, hence the playing time adjustment called “Replacement”.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 14, 2010 2:33 PM EDT up reply actions
But while CC might be 22.9 runs better than replacement level, if our replacement level is DJ, wouldn't that bring CC's numbers down?
I get that the formula isn’t tailored to every team and every prospect, just seems weird to say that if Player A got hurt and we had to replace them with Player B from AAA, that in theory we lose that production when Player B is better than league average.
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
It's a little weird at first, but essentially you want to measure how much a player is contributing above the bare bones
DJ would contribute above the bare bones too though
by benderbrodriguez on Jul 14, 2010 2:52 PM EDT up reply actions
You need to have some league-wide baseline so that you can compare players.
You could pick league average if you wanted, or something totally out of the air. Replacement level works in theory, even if not every Triple-A player isn’t technically “replacement level”.
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 2:54 PM EDT up reply actions
That's a different (but related) question, requirig a modified answer.
CC is a 5 WAR player over a full season (say). Jennings is a 2 WAR player (say). If the Rays make that change, they’d lose three wins. So you could say that CC’s value to the Rays is 3 wins. But to compare him to a 5 WAR player on another team that doesn’t have a Desmond Jennings isn’t fair — CC’s just as good and just as valuable as the other 5 WAR player. In other words, both would get the same amount in trade (assuming salaries were equal). But the Rays would have more motivation to make that trade.
by Sky Kalkman on Jul 14, 2010 3:39 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Right, I can see why displaying it as adjusted for organizational depth would be confusing and would bias the ratings.
Might be interesting to look at on a positional level or see which team has what kind of depth and can better afford to either make a move. In your example, the Rays would be better off moving CC than another team with a 5 WAR LF player and no clear cut replacement (a 0 WAR player).
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
As far as I know WAR doesn't account for different teams replacement options, as DJ would be in the Rays' case
It just relates to the mythical average replacement player that you could sign to a dirt cheap contract and bring up to the bigs. That would be interesting though, if someone tried to account for the difference in potential replacement by team, since some teams would have to sign a lifetime AAAA guy, while others, as in the Rays case, would have a stud prospect like Jennings to replace Crawford with
by Matt Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 2:34 PM EDT up reply actions
I'd be amused if someone tried doing this on a team level,
But the issue with doing it on a league-wide scale is that a) teams are constantly changing, b) it’s tough to accurately project how prospects will pan out, and c) if we want to compare players on different teams and years, it doesn’t seem fair to penalize players like Crawford for having a top prospect waiting behind them. For the sake of simplicity and comparison, all “replacement players” are considered equal.
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 2:50 PM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, exactly
It’d be kind of cool, but yet also largely useless for all the reasons you just said. Though, even then, it wouldn’t really be penalizing Crawford, you would just have to look into the reasons why his WAR wouldn’t be so high, which in this case would be fairly obvious (DJ). It would just be telling you something different from normal WAR, whether or not it would be useful at all.
by Matt Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 3:17 PM EDT up reply actions
Might provide some organizational insight. Which teams are better able to handle injuries in such (in theory)
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
Very true, though there would probably be a much simpler way to show such data, as opposed to adjusting every player on every team
In theory, you could have a stat for showing how many WAR you could get from a team’s most likely replacement players, whether it be 0, for a true replacement, or some sort of projection if a team has a prospect available. I guess it’d be the same information either way, but it could probably be condensed in a better way than by adjusting each player, is my point
by Matt Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 3:32 PM EDT up reply actions
If DJ is projected to already be above replacement player status couldn't you just figure out his WAR, and subtract it from CC's WAR.
WAR is one of my favorite new values that I have learned on this site. The value to me is evaluating players across teams but I guess it can be helpful within the same organization as well.
How did they determine that 10 runs = 1 win
As opposed to 9.3 or 10.2 or 9.975? How is it that the relationship is so . . . mathematically easy?
by Not Whole View Gang survivor on Jul 14, 2010 3:11 PM EDT reply actions
It's an estimate. And it's merely a coincidence that it's so close to 10.
I think it’s been as high as 10.6 during the offensive outburst and might be a bit below 10 now.
One way to calculate it with math trickery is to compare a team that wins 100 games to a team that wins 50 games and compare the difference in runs scored/allowed. Repeat for many many teams.
It's also pullable from pythagorean expectancy
by benderbrodriguez on Jul 14, 2010 4:24 PM EDT up reply actions
Good call.
Add in a run scored to the equation and see how the winning percentage changes. Use the league-average RS and RA numbers to get an average runs per win number, or use anything else to see the runs per win number for that run scoring environment.
I like to break WAR down a little at a time.
Position players can produce on offense and defense. Duh.
Offense consists of things you do at the plate (hitting) and things you do on the bases (baserunning). Hitting can be broken down into avoiding outs, advancing yourself with hits and advancing others with hits. And so on. Baserunning can be broken down into SB/CS, advancing on groundout, advancing on hits, advancing on fly outs, advancing on passed balls, etc.
Defense can be broken down to the position you play and how well you play it. How well you play your position can be broken down into turning batted balls into outs, turning double-plays, throwing arm, avoiding errors, etc.
In as much as you can measure all the little things, then you add them back up into the larger pieces. It’s all measured relative to the average player. And then since you know (well, you figure it out) how much better the average player is than a scrub, you add in that difference to get a player’s total value.
Personally, I wish UZR numbers were more often combined with the position adjustment to produce one “defense” number. Easier to compare players across positions. Do people find that more intuitive or less?
Baserunning.
How are adjustments made on extra bases taken? I’m not sure I understand the rating or methodology when comparing player A and B at baserunning.
As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.
Same method for outfielder arm ratings, too, actually.
Generally, you take each base-out situation and see how often a runner advances/doesn’t advance/get thrown out. That’s your baseline. For an individual, see what he does in each situation and compare the change in run expectancy (you familiar with run expectancy) with the baseline change in run expectancy. More advanced methods will account for location of the batted ball, speed of the batted ball, handedness of the pitcher, whatever they can.
I find it more intuitive to combine the UZR numbers with the adjustment
It definitely would be easier to just say someone has been a +5 defender the last year, rather than saying he had a +15 UZR, but then oh wait he also has a -10 positional adjustment. That way, it’s easier to think of the person as a +5 defender, compared to seeing the +15 number and getting all excited. Plus, it would definitely be easier to compare between positions that way
by Matt Slowinski on Jul 14, 2010 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions
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