I pulled out some posts from another thread, because I thought this would be a really interesting discussion. What is WAR? How does it work? Why is it useful? How is it figured? I know a lot of people take for granted that it is a purposeful stat, but some probably don't understand it. i think it is a facinating topic for those that really understand it to discuss with those that don't.
Slight tangent because I'm not too familiar with how WAR works. If you had team of all replacement-level players (ie, WAR of 0?), how many games would that team be expected to win? In other words, does anyone know the baseline of "wins OF replacement players" instead of above them?
I have no idea. We have a team WAR of 6.0. So in theory, our 37-79 record would be 31-85, which extrapolated over 162 games would be 43-119. Angels have a team WAR of 22.7, so they would go from 53-63 to 30-86. Mariners have a WAR of 19.9, going from 54-63 to 34-83. A's have a WAR of 28, going from 66-50 to 38-78. Rangers have a WAR of 35.2 going from 68-50 to 33-82 I'd guess expected W-L would show better correlation, but not really (obviously small sample size) Astros: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 35-81 Angels: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 33-83 Mariners: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 31-86 A's: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 37-79 Rangers: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 30-88
Does that mean that the 2003 Tigers set the bar for replacement players? It will also probably be one of the last times we someone have a 9-21 record like Mike Maroth.
Interesting, their WAR was was 4.3, and the expected W-L was 49-113. 1962 Mets had a WAR of 9.6, record of 40-120, and expected W-L of 50-110.
Interesting - thank you! So a replacement level team seems to be in the 35ish win range. I was curious in the sense that do the teams that make the playoffs (90-100 wins) have team WARs of around 50-60, or does WAR not really work like that? It's not a stat I've ever paid much attention to - I'll take a look with the best teams and see what they look like. Second WAR question - is it a cumulative stat, or does it project out for a 162 game season? ie, if a player has a WAR of 2 after 81 games and keeps performing the same, would they have a WAR of 2 or 4 by the end of the season?
35ish at this point, probably in the mid 40s for a full season. Last year most playoff teams were in the 40s. Cumulative stat.
The baseline replacement level is set to produce a winning percentage of .294 or ~48 wins over a 162 game season. See http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/unifying-replacement-level/ However, that's set over the entire majors leagues, so a roster full of replacement level players might be expected to win less than that in a tough American League east. Or vice versa may be expected to win more than that in, lets say, the NL West. See http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml War is cumulative, so producing 2 wins over half a season would put the player on pace for 4 wins if he continues the same production. If you want to be optimistic about carter, you can say that he performs poorly in WAR in large part due to his defense in LF. Put him at 1st or DH going forward and he won't give back as much of his offensive value.
To add further complexity, the two primary sources of WAR, fangraphs & Baseball Reference, have different methods of calculating the metric. Up until this year, the way they each defined replacement level differed as well, but they finally agreed upon a standard definition of RP.
Trivia question: There are 4 players in MLB with a negative WAR with over 400 PAs. Two are Astros, who are they?
Dominguez's WAR is a little off kilter because a lot of his value is defensive, and the traditional fielding metrics don't properly quantify him since we use so many heavy shifts (at least, that's my understanding).
The traditional stats make him look good, UZR is what makes him look bad. I hate UZR because it ignores shifts, and Fangraphs uses UZR as their defensive WAR metric, therefore Dominguez looks terrible. The fielding bible metrics, which I prefer, make Dominguez look good. Baseball reference doesn't use UZR, and therefore his defensive WAR looks good, and his overall WAR is 0.9, which still isn't good, but not negative. I look strictly at Carters offensive WAR, because he is an abysmal fielder. His sole value will be as a productive bat, which he really hasn't been overall, but he could ultimately be by years end. He's an offensive roller coaster, only at years end will i judge him.
