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Old 09-10-2019, 10:34 AM   #61
dkgo
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No one is "made to feel inferior" by simply not knowing something. It's when that person digs in their heels and argues that whatever being discussed is "wrong" based on no evidence but just because they don't understand it that people are going to react negatively.

The same thing is happening in every other sport because it's how you derive useful information from a game instead of silly media narratives saying one team just wanted to win more. ESPN lists a player's PER right next to pts/reb/ast on the main profile. Every analysis of a soccer match starts with xG. Quarterbacks have a QBR and broadcasts will show metrics from Pro Football Focus. Those sports are still popular.
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Old 09-10-2019, 10:45 AM   #62
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Just look at the first page. Some guy claimed that the formula for WAR is a secret guarded like the recipe for coke which is a blatant lie and could have been easily checked with a five second google search of "baseball war formula." That person is clearly not looking to engage in good faith discussion, so the response from "defenders" is usually going to match that tone

Genuine questions however get met with genuine answers.
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Old 09-10-2019, 10:58 AM   #63
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And if you ever put your self in another person's shoes, you'd realize how intimidating it is when the conversation does turn to an area you aren't familiar with. Especially when they are made to feel inferior when they don't know it.
This is a fair point
As is the point made above about casual fans not understanding the new terms that are more and more making their way into stories, broadcasts and conversions

I was in that same boat about ten years ago.
I was having discussions about baseball and didn't understand what people were talking about. Then I realized that I didn't know what I was talking about. So, I decided to study up on the advanced stats.

I was much more than a casual fan at that time and was in a position to devote a lot more time to learning about baseball than most people probably are. Most casual fans aren't going to put in the time that I did to understand baseball in a different way.

And its probably true that the people who do understand the game on this level, or, the new stats, at least, on this level should do more to remember that not everyone does, or will, because it does require a significant investment.

I love the game, and the new stats, to me, are interesting and have made me love the game more and understand it better. So, when the opportunity, like this thread, comes to explain to someone who seems to have a genuine interest in learning about it, it's great to be able to share information about the game.

When people want to learn about the game, that's great. And if people don't, that's ok and is no cause for disrespect.

But

When people come in spewing absolute mistruths.

https://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boa...4&postcount=14

And think that their ignorance somehow trumps knowledge, there's no obligation to respect that.

One can absolutely enjoy, and discuss, the game without understanding "advanced" stats. But, if they attack those advanced stats, and claim that they don't work, they are absolutely, factually, incorrect.

Last edited by CBeisbol; 09-10-2019 at 12:07 PM. Reason: I remembered that word
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Old 09-10-2019, 12:21 PM   #64
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A lot of the times the arguments come when talking about someone the old metrics love and the new ones hate, or vice versa, because people tend to get set in their ways. So when a new metric comes out that shows that Jeter is a poor defender at SS, the old school people who see highlight reel play after highlight reel play have grown up thinking one thing so it's hard to just shrug and "accept" that everything you knew to that point was a lie. Nobody complains when WAR says that Babe Ruth was the greatest ever player, because WAR hasn't changed anyone's view on him.

In time, people will learn to accept this, until 5/10/20 years down the road when people come out with something else that shatters some of what we know about WAR right now. Maybe we'll rediscover that steals are actually more valuable because some third order derivative of pitch values factoring in the catcher having to throw to the bag, and suddenly we're all going to have to rethink what we know right now about player value. We're already getting lots of new data about the effects of pitch framing that I think is still not all that common knowledge. I mean, when I look and see that Rralmuto has like the 4th or 5th best WAR in the NL, or whether Grandal really did deserve more MVP votes in 2016, there's still a lot of debate even in the advanced stats community there.
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Old 09-10-2019, 12:57 PM   #65
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A lot of the times the arguments come when talking about someone the old metrics love and the new ones hate, or vice versa, because people tend to get set in their ways. So when a new metric comes out that shows that Jeter is a poor defender at SS, the old school people who see highlight reel play after highlight reel play have grown up thinking one thing so it's hard to just shrug and "accept" that everything you knew to that point was a lie. Nobody complains when WAR says that Babe Ruth was the greatest ever player, because WAR hasn't changed anyone's view on him.

In time, people will learn to accept this, until 5/10/20 years down the road when people come out with something else that shatters some of what we know about WAR right now. Maybe we'll rediscover that steals are actually more valuable because some third order derivative of pitch values factoring in the catcher having to throw to the bag, and suddenly we're all going to have to rethink what we know right now about player value. We're already getting lots of new data about the effects of pitch framing that I think is still not all that common knowledge. I mean, when I look and see that Rralmuto has like the 4th or 5th best WAR in the NL, or whether Grandal really did deserve more MVP votes in 2016, there's still a lot of debate even in the advanced stats community there.
Is not likely that anything will "shatter" what we already know

https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/20...ird-order-wins

Current versions of WAR already explain like 80-90 percent of the variation in wins. Sequencing (was it a walk then a home run or a home run then a walk) explains a significant portion of the unexplained part. If WAR correlated perfectly with actual wins, something would actually be wrong (unless we for to some next level brain [stuff] and we could know when a player was going to fail and succeed because of their clutchitude).

There will be advances, and tweaks, for sure. And WAR will get better. We'll learn more about how baseball works and how to measure it. But a real revolution in measuring players' performance is unlikely (in predicting or developing players is a whole nother story).

There's just not that much room left for shattering.
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Old 09-12-2019, 08:27 AM   #66
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Well, maybe I don't have any more questions for here. WAR is an equation pyramid. Each aspect of it is itself an answer to an underlying equation. And most of those equations have equations that need to be figured out in order to do them. If I keep digging more and doing the math I'll get a better grasp on it. I was hoping for an easy answer on how to understand WAR, but I don't think on exists. But I've enjoyed digging in though.
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Old 09-12-2019, 10:03 AM   #67
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It depends on what you mean by understand. Do you want to be able to calculate it yourself from scratch? That probably isn't happening soon. Do you want to be able to explain why Marcus Semien has been about 2 WAR better than Pete Alonso this season even though Alonso has 20 more homers? That isn't difficult.
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Old 09-12-2019, 12:25 PM   #68
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It depends on what you mean by understand. Do you want to be able to calculate it yourself from scratch? That probably isn't happening soon. Do you want to be able to explain why Marcus Semien has been about 2 WAR better than Pete Alonso this season even though Alonso has 20 more homers? That isn't difficult.
Both. But mainly the former so I can more quickly understand the latter.
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Old 09-12-2019, 12:41 PM   #69
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It depends on what you mean by understand. Do you want to be able to calculate it yourself from scratch? That probably isn't happening soon. Do you want to be able to explain why Marcus Semien has been about 2 WAR better than Pete Alonso this season even though Alonso has 20 more homers? That isn't difficult.
Okay, I'll bite. Why is Semien worth 2 WAR more than Alonso? Break it down for me and maybe it will help me understand things better.
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Old 09-12-2019, 12:43 PM   #70
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For myself, I am fairly satisfied with having a general idea of what it measures, even if I don't have the exact formula. I wouldn't be calculating it myself anyway, any more than I manually calculate any other MLB stat. I have the ability to calculate ob-base percentage, but am happy letting someone else do it for me.
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Old 09-12-2019, 01:27 PM   #71
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Well, maybe I don't have any more questions for here. WAR is an equation pyramid. Each aspect of it is itself an answer to an underlying equation. And most of those equations have equations that need to be figured out in order to do them. If I keep digging more and doing the math I'll get a better grasp on it. I was hoping for an easy answer on how to understand WAR, but I don't think on exists. But I've enjoyed digging in though.
It's easy
WAR is a measure of how many runs a player's offense and defense are worth.

Figuring that out, yes, is a bit harder than adding or multiplying a few numbers.
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Old 09-12-2019, 01:29 PM   #72
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For myself, I am fairly satisfied with having a general idea of what it measures, even if I don't have the exact formula. I wouldn't be calculating it myself anyway, any more than I manually calculate any other MLB stat. I have the ability to calculate ob-base percentage, but am happy letting someone else do it for me.
Right like the....ummm...individual who thought they were calculating OPS because they were adding OBP and SLG
LMAO
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Old 09-12-2019, 01:31 PM   #73
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Okay, I'll bite. Why is Semien worth 2 WAR more than Alonso? Break it down for me and maybe it will help me understand things better.
Well start by thinking about how many more runs the A's would allow if Alonso were playing SS.
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Old 09-12-2019, 01:56 PM   #74
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Well start by thinking about how many more runs the A's would allow if Alonso were playing SS.
Didn't realize Semien's fielding had improved.
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Old 09-12-2019, 02:10 PM   #75
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Didn't realize Semien's fielding had improved.
Oh, yea. He's gotten significantly better over the years. He was really bad as a youngster, now he's at least above average. -He might even be good to very good.
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Old 09-12-2019, 03:02 PM   #76
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Didn't realize Semien's fielding had improved.
You don't have to
You just have to realize that Semien is a SS and Alonzo is a 1Bman.
And no matter how bad you thought Semien was, if Alonso wasn't **way**
worse, they would have him playing SS.


Here's FGs WAR (broken down) for them both
Alonso 39 batting runs, -1 base running, 0 fielding, -10 positional, 1 league, 20 replacement
Semien 28 batting runs, 1 base running, 6 fielding, 7 positional, 3 league, 22 replacement.
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.as...ate=2019-12-31

So, starting with defense, since, it's already been referenced.
Defense is the player's defense relative to the average player at that position, plus the positional adjustment. People largely nonunderstand the positional adjustment. It's what I was getting at with Alonso playing SS. Since the defense measurement compares the player to the average at the position it's necessary to adjust for positions-the average SS is a better defender than the average 1Bman. That's been calculated at about 20 runs over the course of a full season (this may be something that needs to be updated. With more K's and more HR's, defense is becoming less important).

So, so far on the season, the average SS has been worth about 17 more runs than the average 1Bman (7 minus -10).

Then, Alonso has been about equal to the average 1Bman, while Semien has saved 6 runs compared to an average SS.

Semien has been worth (6-0) + (7 minus - 10) 23 more runs than Alonso on defense.

Now, offense.
Alonso, shockingly, I know, has been the better hitter. But, it's probably not as big a gap as one may think.
Their OBPs are pretty close (.362 to .366). With Alonso about a 90 point lead in ISO. When adjusting for park and league, Alonso has been 16% better than a league average hitter and Semien 11% better than a league average hitter. A pretty small gap. Why? Yes, Alonso has 20 more HRs but Semien has 10 more doubles and 5 more triples. Alonso is better, but Semien is close. Semien also has also 60 more PA's which narrow the gap.

Anywho, FG calculates that Alonso's hitting has been worth about 11 more runs than Semien's. Sounds about right, no? 19 more homers, but 15 less doubles and triples.


Another part of offense is baserunning.
Neither guy has been a great base runner. +1 and - 1, basically. But, unsurprisingly, the SS has been a bit better than the 1Bman. Semien leads in steals (10-1). But, also CS (8-0). There's also non-SB baserunning, which isn't separated out.

Again, Semien's base running has been worth about 2 more runs than Alonso's (all the CS are killing him).

Offensively, Semien has been worth 9 less runs than Alonso (11 less batting runs, and 2 more base running runs).

Add that to the Semien's 23 run lead on defense, and Semien still leads by 14 runs.

That's, really, the majority of it.

A few small adjustments more.

First, the adjustment for replacement level.
All the above (hitting, baserunning, defense) are compared to average. That's not a great baseline. Why?
Because below average players still have value. A team with all average players would still win about 81 games a year. Lots of teams don't win 81 games a year.

Also, think about a player who gets called up and sits on the bench. He'd have a value of 0, because he hasn't done anything, good, or bad. Then think about a player who is a bit worse than average but plays all year for the Marlins. Say, Miguel Rojas. Rojas has been worth 1.6 WAR so far this year. Pretend he did that over a full season. If we compared to average he'd be -0.4. It would look like he provided less value than the guy who did nothing. That's just no true. That's why we adjust for replacement level. When we adjust for replacement level, the guy who didn't play would still be at 0. But, Rojas, just below average goes up to 1.6. More realistic.

As I said earlier, Semien played a bit more than Alonso, so he gets a few run advantage over him in replacement level; 22 runs to 20.

Add those 2 runs to his 14 run lead in offense and defense and he's up to 16 runs.

Then there's the league adjustment. This is at attempt to compare between leagues and across seasons. Fangraphs thinks that the AL is a bit tougher than the NL this year, so Semien gets a 2 run bump over Alonso.

Add those 2 runs to Semien's 16 run lead, and he's up to 18 runs.

And that's it.

Just need to convert runs to wins. The easy method is to divide by 10. 18/10 = 1.8. Basically the 2 wins. Why ten runs? Because, over the course of a season, a team that scores 10 more runs than it allows, wins one more game than it loses. A team that scores 20 more runs than it allows wins 2 more games than it loses. And so on.


And, that's why Semien has been worth 2 more wins than Alonso even though Alonso has 20 more home runs.

His defense provides much more value than Alonso's
His doubles and triples and extra PA's close the gap on Alonso's HRs
He runs the bases just a little bit better
He plays in the tougher league
He's played a little bit more.

Simple concepts.
More difficult, but not super difficult math.
A lot of factors to consider.
That's WAR

Last edited by CBeisbol; 09-12-2019 at 03:06 PM. Reason: added the link, typos
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Old 09-22-2019, 01:43 AM   #77
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Oh, yea. He's gotten significantly better over the years. He was really bad as a youngster, now he's at least above average. -He might even be good to very good.
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Below is a list of players in Major League history with at least 116 runs, 173 hits, 38 doubles, 7 triples, 30 home runs, 85 RBI, 78 walks and 10 stolen bases in a season:

Babe Ruth (1921 and 1923)
Lou Gehrig (1927 and 1930)
Marcus Semien (2019)
Marcus Semien is having a great year. 40 doubles, 30 HR, batting lead off, and playing an above average SS.
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Old 10-03-2019, 11:26 AM   #78
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Here's a wierd--to me--extreme.

I started off my third PT franchise, again using only packs. I was dealt a hugely good offensive team with horrible defense and ordinary pitching. So I'm first across the board in nearly every offensive category and dead last in most pitching--with exception of the bullpen where I recently picked up 96 Yates.

What I don't get is how can the Tank Engines possibly be 3rd in pitching WAR? Everyone of the pitchers has at least 0.2 WAR on this 42-41 team, yet the other metrics show they are crap. Is it simply the old 'Participation' awards, where being on the mound assumes the pitcher contributed SOMETHING to the victory, even if the batters were the actual reason for the win?

This truly puzzles me.
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Old 10-03-2019, 02:47 PM   #79
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Simple answer: It's your defence that makes them look so bad. They are good in the FIP categories (HR & BB allowed, K's) which will produce good WAR.
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Old 10-19-2019, 11:31 AM   #80
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Here's a wierd--to me--extreme.

I started off my third PT franchise, again using only packs. I was dealt a hugely good offensive team with horrible defense and ordinary pitching. So I'm first across the board in nearly every offensive category and dead last in most pitching--with exception of the bullpen where I recently picked up 96 Yates.

What I don't get is how can the Tank Engines possibly be 3rd in pitching WAR? Everyone of the pitchers has at least 0.2 WAR on this 42-41 team, yet the other metrics show they are crap. Is it simply the old 'Participation' awards, where being on the mound assumes the pitcher contributed SOMETHING to the victory, even if the batters were the actual reason for the win?

This truly puzzles me.
To expand on what Gruber posted

Your pitchers are first in strikeouts. That's not crap. That's very, very good
Your pitchers are 6th in walks given up. That's not crap, it's average or better.
Your pitchers are 7th in home runs allowed. That's not crap, it's average-ish.

Your team is bad in BABIP, average, efficiency and zone rating

Strikeouts, walks and home runs are more pitcher and less defense
BABIP, average , efficiency, and zone rating are more defense and less pitcher

Your pitchers are doing fine
Your defense isn't

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