Rox Talk

WAR - What is it good for? - Part 1

There has been a big seismic shift in the world of baseball this week. With Greinke and Lincecum's Cy Young award wins this past week, the world of statistics has firmly kicked the old baseball school purist in the groin. To think that a 15 game winner would lose out to a 19 game winner back in the day would be pure heresy. As the NY Times put it, the pool of voters are changing which is causing a shift away from traditional voters to a different and more statistical attuned group. This is probably similar to the front offices in baseball that are getting away from the scout centric view and moving more into a numbers only view of players. First there was Moneyball and Billy Beane and then the Red Sox hiring of Bill James a number of years ago with Epstein bringing with him a new look front office which may (or not) have been the reason for the Red Sox burying the curse in 2004. However you cut it baseball is moving in a new direction.

So what about this WAR? It stands for Wins Above Replacement. It is a complex formula (to say the least) that attempts to quantify a player's worth in comparison to that cheap triple A call up. In addition the WAR is calculated different for offensive players and pitchers (see Part 2). For offensive players it is calculated by providing a "number" for batting (using wOBA, wRAA, and then a park adjustment factor), fielding (using UZR with no factor involving outfield arm skills and all catchers are rated at 0), a positional adjustment (good shortstop is harder to find then a good left fielder), and a replacement factor (that deals with how many plate appearances and awards players who play everyday). These four factors are then added which provides a runs above replacement value. This number basically gives the runs a player would provide over a replacement player. Remember a replacement player is that AAAA player who is playing for the league minimum. Once this number is determined it is then divided by 10 (again a determined number which indicates a 10 run change in a team's runs scored/runs against suggests that one win is 10 runs). Thus the player's runs above replacement level is divided by 10 to provide the almighty WAR.

Now if you want to get even more advance you can factor in how much teams payed for free agents last year and by determining their WAR over the years you can determine a going rate for a win. Therefore one can valve what a player with a 5 WAR is in comparison to a 2 WAR player. Again this ain't your father's statistics. These numbers are becoming so esoteric that one wonders if we lose sight of the diamond? One can view this page to see 2009 wOBA for our Rox as well as WAR.

Basically Tulo led the team with 0.393 (over 0.400 is considered a superstar and over 0.370 is all star caliber). He was followed by Helton, Hawpe, CarGo, and Smith (and why wasn't Smith an everyday starter?). The spreadsheet below provides the top 50 wOBA in Rox history. Larry Walker was superman...wonder if he will even get a look see with the Hall of Fame?

Also in the spreadsheet above is the top 50 WAR in Rox history (note: data only exists back to 2002). As you may recall I am not a huge fan of Matt Holliday but boy for two years he was worth every penny and more for what he did on the field for the Rox. It will be interesting what he does this off season.