hay guys wut r ur favorite metrics~~

Which ones doesn't BP explain?

I find VORP and WARP3 pretty easy to understand and explain (even if the measurements themselves are obviously somewhat more complicated) so I use those most frequently.

there is a glossary on BP.

where are there in-season WARP3 stats?

ba, w/l%

nigga i've looked at the glossary they dont give the formulas for that shit

Are you gonna do the math?

the concept of vorp is explained but not how they determine it. also this isnt just an "explain shit 2 me thread," i want to know what shit u like!

well if i don't know what the numbers mean then what's the fucking point of it?

I like win shares (actually measures defense unlike VORP) and runs created.

I like VORP a lot.

OF assists, SFs, style points.

The trouble with Win Shares is that nobody really understands how they're calculated, which makes it very hard to "critique" the resulting number. We could talk about, for example, Juan Pierre's batting average and why it's a misleading number that doesn't reflect his true value, but if I told you that Eric Byrnes is 2nd in the NL in Win Shares then I simply don't know what the hell we're supposed to think about that.

At least I can look at someone's season stats on ESPN and have a fairly good idea how it will translate to a VORP for his league and position.

Put another way: if anyone other than Bill James had come up with it, then the baseball community wouldn't have so willing to call upon the Win Shares oracle so quickly.

yeah, I don't understand Win Shares even a little bit, and neither do some people who've read James' book (purportedly) explaining it.

xpost

I like the third order W-L record because it helps me understand that the 2004 Cubs were really a pretty good team despite missing the playoffs (much better than the 2003 team at least).

Furthermore, this statistic allowed me to focus my rage on things like Moises Alou's baserunning and Dusty Baker's bullpen usage.

"where are there in-season WARP3 stats?"

They are on the players' DT cards (usually--there was some error this morning so some of them weren't displayed) under Advanced Batting. WARP3 (and WARP1 and WARP2) accounts for defense btw.

"nigga i've looked at the glossary they dont give the formulas for that shit"

The formulas are absolutely MASSIVE that's why, because there are a bunch of adjustments. However if you look here this gives you some understanding of the methodology.

the adjustments are what interest me the most, because you will see players with seemingly similar rate stats but different vorp or whatever, what accounts for that kind of thing? is it all strength of schedule/park factors type adjustments? why is hanley's so high when there are players with higher avg, obp and slugging? is it just because he's a SS, making his production relative to the position's 'replacement level' more notable?

It's just because he's a shortstop. The league average shortstop is much much much much worse than the league average first baseman.

Worse offensively that is.

I mean basically all the replacement player statistics work the same way on offense anyway (I have no idea how the DTs work on defense.) Using park-adjusted EQA (and raw EQA is calculateable by normals like you or me) or something similar-ish they calculate how many batting runs that a player is worth. Then they establish a replacement player value for the same position (that player is worse for WARP than for VORP) and calculate his batting runs and subtract those from the other players batting runs and voila VORP and offensive WARP.

Actually it's because Hanley's a shortstop who plays in an offensive death zone.

Rough replacement level from a couple of years ago by position.

BA OBP SLG OPS
C 0.238 0.303 0.373 0.676
1B 0.251 0.328 0.416 0.744
2B 0.253 0.317 0.373 0.690
3B 0.249 0.315 0.391 0.706
SS 0.244 0.301 0.352 0.653
LF 0.252 0.321 0.396 0.717
CF 0.250 0.319 0.375 0.694
RF 0.254 0.322 0.409 0.731
DH 0.268 0.335 0.446 0.781

for offense, Equivalent Average is handy, esp for "translating" other eras.

I don't really trust any one metric, but instead am looking for consensus among them. I have no means of proving this, but my assumption is that a lot of the stats are rather arbitrary in terms of what constants they use, and what proportions they value. On the other hand, they are trying to give a full picture of a player's individual contributions in a vacuum, and that's really important.

On the other hand, I don't bristle automatically when I hear a baseball player say "chemistry". I prefer watching a guy like David Eckstein over a guy like Matt Stairs because, for me, raw power and plate discipline aren't as exciting as hustle and effort, even if they're less valuable in the W/L columns on the whole.

omg you are Brian Sabean lol.

Are most of the constants/coefficients arbitrary? I know some are reverse-engineered from historical stats, e.g. Pythagorean win projections.

i like seeing guys work the count, it's cooler to me than some dude just hacking away. but yeah i kinda see it all as another piece of the picture, something to make u go "hmmmm ¯\(°_o)/¯"

CLUTCH HUSTLIN'

I was so stoned when I wrote that.

i like seeing guys work the count, it's cooler to me than some dude just hacking away. but yeah i kinda see it all as another piece of the picture, something to make u go "hmmmm ¯\(°_o)/¯"

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting?split=0&league=mlb&season=2007&seasonType=2&sort=pitchesPerPlateAppearance&type=exp&ageMin=17&ageMax=51&state=0&college=0&country=0&hand=a&pos=all

look at kelly johnson!!!!!! he is the perfect example to me. i remember watching the first game of the season and being all "who the fuck is this dude," and he was so shrewd at the plate it was awesome. i dunno, it's really badass to me cuz it's like they are just facing off with the pitcher and beatin dat nigga DOWN. chipper, renteria, kj, tex and mccann are all rilly good at this, which is my favorite thing abt the lineup... it's like running the gauntlet~~

nigga-ism: the cankles metric.

i almost forgot, there were some ancillary questions i had for this thread too;

1) what are yr fav PITCHING metrics?

2) DEFENSIVE metrics - what are they, and are any of them worthwhile at all? steve shasta, wakeboarding phenomenon, asserts 2 me that they are all pretty unreliable except for the stuff tracked by STATS inc, which isn't available to the public.

ahahahaha okay morbs that is killing, i love you man

*killing me

favorite pitching metrics:

whip, ops-allowed, k/bb, k/9

Yeah WHIP, K/BB, K/9, HR/9 are all good. I'll use the VORP stuff on BP for shorthand.

For fielding, I tend to just rely on FRAR and FRAA because I can understand them. The Zone rating stuff is a little kooky to me (UZR vs. OOZ vs. BLAHBLAHBLAH), but I haven't really investigated it either.

i've dedided FRAR/FRAA are worthless after flipping thru the last BP annual and seeing a million player comments along the lines of 'well our system really likes/hates this guy but it doesnt really match up with scouting impressions/other systems so just ignore it' - RZR and OOZ are where it's at baby

would like to investigate the bill james +/- shit but apparently it is all pay? so idk

jeez guy, defensive stuff is so amorphous... plus many metrics aren't sposed to be the Word from Sinai, just a guide

iirc KLaw pwned FRAA in a chat once

he has SECRET stats!

FRAA/FRAR has some real problems (lack of play-by-play data is apparently the biggest) but at least it's easy to see how it contributes to a players total value (either on it's own or via WARP.) RZR and OOZ are almost impossible to translate (even if they are better for evaluating actual defensive skills.)

haha OK now you're into stats I've never had truck with

(either on it's own or via WARP.)

this is what led me to write off WARP btw

Haha reading about these thing on Hardball Times is seriously like entering another world of SCIENCE. As I said I don't quite understand how everything relates though. Like some players have great RZR (revised zone ratings) and low OOZ (out of zone) #s. What does that mean? That they are good at getting jumps on stuff around them, but they have poor speed so they can't get to much outside of their immediate defensive area? How much is just positioning? How do assists/double plays play into it? How much weight should everything get? Even if it's imperfect at least FRAA/FRAR are easily digestible.

yeah, i was wondering about that just yesterday - i came to the conclusion that a guy with a high RZR and low OOZ is a guy who makes a lot of plays in his "zone" but not a lot of range? i wasn't sure what the inverse (crappy RZR, high OOZ) (ie. stephen drew) meant though. zone ranking has its pecularities but at least it doesnt try to tell you that dan uggla is the second best 2nd basement in the game.

also i'm just throwing this out there cuz it's funny:

Ian (Philly): Klaw! You've been somewhat critical of Morneau winning the MVP this year. Yet he was second in the AL in Win Shares (to Mauer, who passed him w/2wks left in the season). My understanding is that win shares take everything into account. So while I understand not voting for him, why would voting for him by a mistake or a bad choice?

SportsNation Keith Law: Win Shares are a waste of time. I have never used them to analyze any player, award, team - nothing. Among the system's many flaws is its outdated way of evaluating defense. Morneau was 12th in VORP, to choose but one superior metric.

Everyone know he's the first best 2nd basement.

haha >:[

The only clear thing to me from RZR is that Mark Ellis is the fucking bomb.