Any utilities out there that generate VORP, WARP?

[rcbuss]

Like what www.baseballprospectus.com has on their statistical page.

Rob

[kq76]

I'll take a look at those 2 later (not necessarily tonight) and see if I should maybe include them in the archive. Any others you'd like to see?

[matskralc]

You put Win Shares in there yet? I seem to recall you refusing 'cause you didn't like it.

[rcbuss]

Check out these two links from Baseball Prospectus for starters:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/cards/bondsba01.shtml

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/cards/glossary.shtml

[kq76]

Originally posted by matskralc
You put Win Shares in there yet? I seem to recall you refusing 'cause you didn't like it.

I listed several reasons and that was one. However, if it was easy to add, then I would.

[kq76]

Ok, I just received an email from someone ridiculing me for my stance on Win Shares. I'll explain why I take this stance, here, for hopefully the last time.

Bill James is a builder of houses on quicksand. Sure, it might be fine right now, but I'm positive that sooner or later it's going to sink. And no matter who is selling it to me, I'm not going to buy it. Even if it's from TLBOrioles (I don't recall his stance on WS), who I think is probably the smartest stathead we have here. (There are many others like Aadik and Skipaway, but TLBO always stands out for me.)

Tangotiger, who is apparently a highly respected member of the SABR community, explains most of my reasons better than I ever could here: http://www.geocities.com/tmasc/#Winshares (Part 3 is probably the best and most useful part.) And like he says, "Bill James is a great baseball mind, and is the inspiration for countless baseball analysts, including me. But sometimes, Bill James just doesn't get it.".

You can point me to #s till you're blue in the face, but like in financial statements, #s are often misleading and very easily cooked, especially if you make it difficult for anyone to really understand everything. Bill James cooks #s. Yes, many of his creations have been accurate for their times and I'm not saying he's an idiot about everything. I'm just saying that it's not surprising that his formulas are decently accurate if you start from where you want to get to and work back to the beginning. Ask him why he adds certain things here and subtracts things there. He won't tell you. You know what that is a sure sign of? Cooking the numbers. Don't believe me? Fine. Not everyone believed those who said Enron and Worldcom's statements were suspicious either.

[couriers]

Excellent.

[sixto]

To some degree Win Shares are a response to Pete Palmer's player ratings, which James takes a lot of time in Win Shares (the book) refuting the value of. You could suppose, then, that Win Shares are designed to do for James what he feels Palmer's ratings do not. In that way, it's possible that James manipulated his calculations to suit him.

However, among Total Average, and RC/27, and VORP, and EQA, and PECOTA, and Win Shares, and OPS, lies some sort of triangulation that yields the closest thing to the truth that we can find. Therefore I think it merits consideration that all of the top analysis tools would be worthy of inclusion into this sort of enterprise if for no other reason than to allow a comparison among the different approaches.

[Skipaway]

Originally posted by sixto

However, among Total Average, and RC/27, and VORP, and EQA, and PECOTA, and Win Shares, and OPS, lies some sort of triangulation that yields the closest thing to the truth that we can find. Therefore I think it merits consideration that all of the top analysis tools would be worthy of inclusion into this sort of enterprise if for no other reason than to allow a comparison among the different approaches.

Something like BCS?

[CommishJoe]

Interesting stuff to consider for BOSI v2. We'll look into it and keep posting ideas of what you want to see.

[CommishJoe]

Also, formulas are always helpful

[Incubus3000]

http://www.geocities.com/tmasc/#Winshares

That is, there is a LINEAR relationship between runs and wins, as long as you don't deviate too much from the .500 team.

Every function seems linear when examined only between a small change in the variable. And if a certain function is only linear under these circumstances, then it is implied that the function itself is NOT linear.

Calculus, people. It's valuable.

[Skipaway]

Originally posted by Incubus3000

Every function seems linear when examined only between a small change in the variable. And if a certain function is only linear under these circumstances, then it is implied that the function itself is NOT linear.

Calculus, people. It's valuable.

Your point is?

[Skipaway]

http://www.baseballstuff.com/btf/sch...ion_Method.htm

Somewhat helpful link.

[rcbuss]

Originally posted by CommishJoe
Also, formulas are always helpful

Here are some webpages linked to the baseballprospectus website that detail the following calculations:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/cards/glossary.shtml

This page details the following (be sure to read ALL the definitions in this section, as some of them (such as Win Adjustment), are used to calculate some of these, such as WARP) -- also, I don't think that park factors, and level of competition are accounted for here (i.e., not facing your own hitters/pitchers, or facing primarily AL Central teams as opposed to AL East or West teams):

(BRAR) Batting Runs Above Replacement
(BRARP) Batting runs above a replacement at the same position
(EqA) Equivalent Average (see the EQA How-To page)
(EqR) Equivalent Runs
(OBA) On-base average
(OWP) Offensive Winning Percentage
(Pythagenport) A modified form of Bill James' pythagorean formula
(REqA) Raw equivalent average -- the first step towards EqA
(RAA) (Pitching) Runs above average
(UEqR) Unadjusted Equivalent Runs -- analogous to runs created
(WARP-1) Wins Above Replacement Player, level 1
(WARP-2) Wins Above Replacement Player, difficulty adjusted
(WARP-3) WARP-2 to compensate for shortened seasons

and mentions others without going into too much depth:

(FRAA) Fielding Runs Above Average
(FRAR) Fielding Runs Above Replacement
(PRAA) Pitcher-only runs above average
(PRAR) Pitcher-only runs above replacement
(RAA, RAA2 (Fielding)) Runs above average at this position
(RAR, RAR2) Runs above replacement. A fielding statistic

The Pitching/Fielding Breakdown is described more completely in the 2002 Baseball Prospectus. The breakdown is a sequence of calculations designed to separate the pitching and fielding components of defense from each other. Certain events (walks, strikeouts, home runs) are considered to be entirely the responsibility of the pitcher. Errors and double plays are assumed to be entirely the domain of the fielders. Other hits and outs are assumed to be 75% fielding, 25% pitching.

If you're interested, I can get you that information from the 2002 Prospectus on calculating these. I don't know what the best split would be for pitching/defense. %BABIP rates (Voros) have been averaging about 29% over the last few years (71/29 vs 75/25?).

From this page, you can get these other equations
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/cards/eqahow.html:

The run prediction formulas used here assume BB=BB+HBP:

Equivalent runs, EqR: (Davenport)
let REQA = (H + TB + 1.5*BB + SB)/(AB + CS + SB/3 + BB)
EqR = (2*REQA/LgREQA * (AB + BB) * Lg(R/PA)

Linear weights, LW: (Palmer)
LW=(.46H+.34DB+.56TP+.94HR+.33BB+.3SB-.6CS-(AB-H)*.1)*(LgR/LgLW)

Extrapolated runs, XR: (Furtado)
XR=(.5H+.22DB+.54TP+.94HR+.34BB+.18SB-.32CS-(AB-H)*.096)*(LgR/LgXR)

Runs created, RC: (James)
RC=(H+BB-CS)*(TB+.55SB)/(AB+BB) * (LgR/LgRC)

Batting average, BA (normalized for league):
BA=(1.9*(BA/LgBA)-.9) * PA * Lg(R/PA)

Slugging average, SA (normalized for league):
SA=(1.4*SA/LgSA-0.4) * PA * Lg(R/PA)

Onbase average, OBA (normalized for league):
OBA=(2.1*OBA/LgOBA-1.1) * PA * Lg(R/PA)

Onbase+slug, OPS (normalized for league):
OPS= (OBA/LgOBA+SA/LgSA-1) * PA * Lg(R/PA)

Total average, TA: (Boswell)
TA= (TB+BB+SB-CS)/(AB-H+CS)
TAR = (1.25*TA/LgTA-.25) * PA * Lg(R/PA)

Absolute league average, AVE:
AVE= PA * Lg(R/PA)

Other worthwhile webpages:

VORP: Measuring the Value of a Baseball Player's performance
http://www.stathead.com/articles/woolner/vorp.htm

Statistics Glossary by Keith Woolner
http://www.stathead.com/bbeng/woolner/statglossary.htm

Introduction to VORP: Value Over Replacement Player
http://www.stathead.com/bbeng/woolner/vorpdescnew.htm

Marginal Lineup Value
http://www.stathead.com/bbeng/woolner/mlvdesc.htm

Rob

[CommishJoe]

We'll take a look. Note that this will be in v2.something .. not v2.0 However, both Jack and I are firm believers that more information is better, so as long as we have the info necessary to perform the necessary function, we'll try to get it into a later version.

[kq76]

Originally posted by Skipaway
Your point is?

I think his point was that it is silly to label it as being a linear relationship when it is only linear in a very small set of circumstances. If I recall correctly, TT was making fun of Bill James.

[Slant]

Just curious, is there any formula based on linear weights which reduces a player's statistics to one value, similar to Win Shares?
That is one of WS's few advantages - it gives a quick number for players to quickly get a sense of which players are better. The accuracy of Win Shares is relatively low, but the scope is large, as opposed to most other stats with a high accuracy but a small scope.

[Skipaway]

Originally posted by kq76
I think his point was that it is silly to label it as being a linear relationship when it is only linear in a very small set of circumstances. If I recall correctly, TT was making fun of Bill James.

It is not really a silly way to deal with a problem if the scope is correct.

That's why I asked what his point exactly is.

[kq76]

Originally posted by Skipaway
It is not really a silly way to deal with a problem if the scope is correct.

But really, how often is that limited scope of .500 (or at least pretty close) applicable?