Fun with Sabermetrics! Or, WARrior in Woolworths
by YoDaddyWags on Aug 19, 2010 9:46 AM EDT
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PrintSo, since it's been so long we've all probably forgotten, what does it take to compete for a playoff spot? How much talent does one need to amass? Using WAR as a handy means of assessment, here are the 1995-2009 averages for AL playoff teams, in Batters WAR/Pitchers WAR/Total WAR:
AL EAST 26/20 46
AL CENT 22/19 41
AL WEST 26/18 44
AL WC 28/18 46
AL Central WAR is about 90% that of the AL East.
Here are Cleveland's splits in Batter's WAR/Pitcher's WAR since 2002:
2002 14.6 7.4
2003 16.5 9.7
2004 26.7 6.6
2005 29.8 16.0
2006 24.0 15.6
2007 18.5 25.5
2008 20.2 13.6
2009 21.3 -2.3
2010 14.2 1.2
Cleveland has had better batter WAR totals than the ALC champs in every year since 2003, until this year, but hasn't, save for 2007, been able to keep pace with pitching talent; 5 of the last 6 ALC champs have amassed 20+ pitching WAR, and Minnesota could get there again this year. Cleveland, meanwhile, fell off a Cliff.
How has the Tribe done in the last, post-glory days decade? Let's express Cleveland's total WAR as a percentage of the Central Division Champs' (or runner-up's) WAR, and as a percentage of the New York WAR, just for fun:
2002 59 40
2003 78 53
2004 100 76
2005 104 110
2006 103 88
2007 107 91
2008 84 88
2009 47 39
2010 42 40
Ave 72 63
Cleveland ought to have been in the thick of things in the Central a lot, if you believe WAR. Whatever. At any rate, climbing back up this mountain is probably 10-15% easier against the ALC competition than if they had to deal with the East. Even if the Tigers have Jhonny. Or because they do.
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The team should try swearing off beans.
by VA tribe fan on Aug 19, 2010 2:06 PM EDT up reply actions
Either that or I thought Jay’s wife was a seal.
by Logodaedalus on Aug 20, 2010 11:26 AM EDT up reply actions
Cutestory!
"I spoil a lot of people with my play."
"But I mean, even my family gets spoiled at times watching me doing things that I do, on and off the court." -Lebron James
by Roger Dorn on Aug 20, 2010 5:24 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
You know of course that there’s another possibility. Could be that this WAR business is just a load of BS.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
by mauichuck on Aug 19, 2010 2:16 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Yep. But it’s just another method of rating a team’s talent, in complicated ways that I can’t duplicate. So, instead of just dismissing it, why not play with it and see if it tells us something? It doesn’t hurt, doesn’t cause dry mouth, urinary retention, blurred vision, sleep disruption, or loss of libido, except in summer when Pythagoras frowns on that sort of activity anyway.
These things are just tools in the toolbox, and as my old man always said, it’s a poor workman who blames his tools.
Just because it’s complicated doesn’t mean it’s valid. It’s a horrible workman that uses a hammer to install a screw.
We could – oh, I dunno – use the average OPS+ and ERA+ and compare our performance vs. the ALCentral and see how we rank. Could use a whole host of other “metrics” for comparative purposes.
Don’t mean to piss in your oatmeal, cuz clearly you’ve put some thought into this. But – to me at least – given this one example, it looks like WAR is a pretty poor analytical metric.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
I remain very skeptical of WAR as well because of my belief that any stat that gives similar weighting to hitting and fielding metrics cannot be that reliable at this point in time.
"I spoil a lot of people with my play."
"But I mean, even my family gets spoiled at times watching me doing things that I do, on and off the court." -Lebron James
It’s the Year of the Pitcher—ERAs are deceiving. Talbot and Carmona are both below average, despite superficially serviceable ERAs. (Laffey used to get carpet-bombed around here for ERA+’s around 100, and they’re at 93 and 95, respectively.)
It also, obviously, influences our perception of the hitting.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Aug 20, 2010 9:03 AM EDT up reply actions
Digressing, but I’m going to put a personal moratorium on “Year of the Pitcher.” 1968 was the Year of the Pitcher. It’s as egregious as if someone stole Carlton Fisk or Lawrence Taylor’s nickname.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Aug 20, 2010 9:10 AM EDT up reply actions
Our problems are, of course, everything. But that’s a fair criticism of WAR: how the heck does this team rack up 14 BWAR? Choo’s at 4.8, Santana 2.1, and then you go to 1.5 and less, individually. If this team is on pace to amass soome 20 BWAR, it ought to have comparable numbers to other low-BWAR ALC champs. There were 6 sub<20 BWAR ALC champs in the last decade; collectively, they scored 4.876 RPG and OPSed something like 767. If you depreciate those averages with the 2010 YOSP—Year of the Semi-Pitcher—multiplier, you’d still get 4.4 RPG and a 740 or so OPS. Cleveland is at 4.1 and 707: not even close.
Despite having been outscored by every other team in the division, only Minnesota has more Batter WAR.
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