WAR + Defensive stats change significantly after season?

nhcubsfan · 06-23-2020, 01:55 AM

Hi all, apologies if this has been discussed before, but I've recently noticed that my player's WAR totals from the previous season update after each season in a pretty significant positive way.

For example, on Sunday night before the season ended I had a Rico Petrocelli season where he had about 1.7 WAR, and then today (Monday) it was up to 4.7 for last week's season. Similar thing happened with a Willie Mays card, a Javy Baez card, and my Ichiro card. Each hopped up by several WAR. I'm assuming that this is due to defensive stats being added into the WAR total for the previous season because these are excellent defensive players, and therefore also assuming that the WAR I see during the week is just the offensive wins above replacement. Is that assumption correct?

I'm also curious (if I'm correct about the reason for this) to confirm if my team is actually getting credit for those big defensive values while the current season is actually going. Ie: if my Petrocelli card is sitting at 1.7 WAR for the season on Sunday night when all the games have already been played, was he still actually "worth" 4.7 WAR that week, and I only really can confirm that on Monday? Curious because I have a lot of players who don't seem to be performing great during the week... but then when you end up looking at their past seasons suddenly they are 4-5 WAR players, so I want to make sure that I'm actually getting value for all of that if I keep them.

Hope this makes sense and thanks for any help clarifying!

dkgo · 06-23-2020, 02:31 AM

Previous defensive metrics always change with the new season because historical stats re-baseline to an "average" league.

Almost everyone uses better defensive players, but when you have 15 Ichiros in a league they can't all be in the top five so the comparison during the season is to other elite defenders. However once they are no longer compared to each other the raw inputs suddenly become much higher "above replacement"

nhcubsfan · 06-23-2020, 12:16 PM

Makes sense, thanks. So seems like the stats you see during the week are probably more reflective of "above replacement" for the league than what you see after the league has wrapped up.

06-23-2020, 01:55 AM	#1
nhcubsfan Bat Boy Join Date: Jun 2020 Posts: 2	WAR + Defensive stats change significantly after season? Hi all, apologies if this has been discussed before, but I've recently noticed that my player's WAR totals from the previous season update after each season in a pretty significant positive way. For example, on Sunday night before the season ended I had a Rico Petrocelli season where he had about 1.7 WAR, and then today (Monday) it was up to 4.7 for last week's season. Similar thing happened with a Willie Mays card, a Javy Baez card, and my Ichiro card. Each hopped up by several WAR. I'm assuming that this is due to defensive stats being added into the WAR total for the previous season because these are excellent defensive players, and therefore also assuming that the WAR I see during the week is just the offensive wins above replacement. Is that assumption correct? I'm also curious (if I'm correct about the reason for this) to confirm if my team is actually getting credit for those big defensive values while the current season is actually going. Ie: if my Petrocelli card is sitting at 1.7 WAR for the season on Sunday night when all the games have already been played, was he still actually "worth" 4.7 WAR that week, and I only really can confirm that on Monday? Curious because I have a lot of players who don't seem to be performing great during the week... but then when you end up looking at their past seasons suddenly they are 4-5 WAR players, so I want to make sure that I'm actually getting value for all of that if I keep them. Hope this makes sense and thanks for any help clarifying!

06-23-2020, 02:31 AM	#2
dkgo Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 2,152	Previous defensive metrics always change with the new season because historical stats re-baseline to an "average" league. Almost everyone uses better defensive players, but when you have 15 Ichiros in a league they can't all be in the top five so the comparison during the season is to other elite defenders. However once they are no longer compared to each other the raw inputs suddenly become much higher "above replacement"

06-23-2020, 12:16 PM	#3
nhcubsfan Bat Boy Join Date: Jun 2020 Posts: 2	Makes sense, thanks. So seems like the stats you see during the week are probably more reflective of "above replacement" for the league than what you see after the league has wrapped up.