Wins Above Replacement
Wins Above Replacement or Wins Above Replacement Player, commonly abbreviated to WAR or WARP, is a non-standardized
Individual WAR values are calculated from the number and success rate of on-field actions by a player (in
Overview
The basis for a WAR value is the estimated number of
Additional runs contributed to a team lead to additional wins, with 10 runs estimated to be equal to roughly one win.
For an individual player, WAR values may be calculated for single seasons or parts of seasons, for several seasons, or across the whole career of the player. Collective WAR values for multiple players may also be estimated, for example to determine the contribution a team receives from its outfielders, its relief pitchers or from specific positions such as catcher.[5][6] It is also possible to extrapolate a future WAR value from a player's past performance data.[7]
Calculation
No clearly established formula exists for WAR. Sources that provide the statistic calculate it differently. These include
WAR values are scaled equally for pitchers and batters; that is, pitchers and position players will have roughly the same WAR if their contribution to their team is deemed similar. However, the values are calculated differently for pitchers and position players: position players are evaluated using statistics for fielding, base running, and hitting, while pitchers are evaluated using statistics related to the opposing batters' hits, walks, and strikeouts in FanGraphs' version and runs allowed per 9 innings with a team defense adjustment for Baseball-Reference's version. Because the independent WAR frameworks are calculated differently, they do not have the same scale[12] and cannot be used interchangeably in an analytical context.
Position players
Baseball-Reference
Baseball-Reference uses six components to calculate WAR for position players:[13] The components are batting runs, baserunning runs, runs added or lost due to grounding into double plays in double play situations, fielding runs, positional adjustment runs, and replacement level runs (based on playing time). The first five factors are compared to league average, so a value of 0 represents an average player.
The term may be calculated from the first five factors, and the other term from the remaining factor.[13]
Batting runs depends on weighted Runs Above Average (wRAA), weighted to the offense of the league, and is calculated from wOBA.[14]
where
Here, "AB" is the number of
The positional adjustment is a value dependent on the player's position: +10.0 for a catcher, −10 for a first baseman, +3.0 for a second baseman, +2.0 for a third baseman, +7.5 for a shortstop, −7.5 for a left fielder, +2.5 for a center fielder, −7.5 for a right fielder, and −15.0 for a designated hitter.[14] These values are set assuming 1,350 innings played (150 games of 9 innings).[14] A player's positional adjustment is the sum of the positional adjustment for each position played by the player scaled to the number of games played by the player at that position, normalized to 1,350 innings.[14]
FanGraphs
The FanGraphs formula for position players involves offense, defense, and base running.
The positional adjustment is a value dependent on the players position: +12.5 for a catcher, −12.5 for a first baseman, +2.5 for a second or third baseman, +7.5 for a shortstop, −7.5 for a left fielder, +2.5 for a center fielder, −7.5 for a right fielder, and −17.5 for a designated hitter.[16] These values are scaled to the number of games played by the player at each position.[16]
Pitchers
Baseball-Reference
Baseball-Reference uses two components to calculate WAR for pitchers: runs allowed (both earned and unearned) and innings pitched. These statistics are then used in a number of further calculations to better contextualize the numbers.[17]
FanGraphs
Rather than focus on actual runs allowed, Fangraphs uses fielding independent pitching (FIP) as their main component to calculate WAR as they feel it better reflects the contributions of the pitcher.[18]
Analysis
In 2009,
In 2012, Glenn DuPaul conducted a regression analysis comparing the cumulative rWAR of five randomly selected teams per season (from 1996 to 2011) against those teams' realized win totals for those seasons. He found that the two were highly correlated, with a correlation coefficient of 0.91, and that 83% of the variance in wins was explained by fWAR (R2=0.83).[20] The standard deviation was 2.91 wins. The regression equation was:
which was close to the expected equation:
in which a team of replacement-level players is expected to have a .320 winning percentage, or 52 wins in a 162-game season.
To test fWAR as a predictive tool, DuPaul executed a regression between a team's cumulative player WAR from the previous year to the team's realized wins for that year. The resultant regression equation was:[20]
which has a statistically significant correlation of 0.59, meaning that 35% (the square of 0.59) of the variance in team wins could be accounted for by the cumulative fWAR of its players from the previous season.[20]
Usage
WAR is recognized as an official stat by Major League Baseball and by the Elias Sports Bureau, and ESPN publishes the Baseball-Reference version of WAR on its own statistics pages for position players and pitchers.[2]
The importance of WAR compared to typical statistical categories has been the subject of ongoing debate.
For example, nearing the end of the
Cabrera led the American League in batting average, home runs, and RBIs, but Trout was considered a more complete player by some.[23] Relative to the average player, Cabrera contributed an extra 53.1 runs through batting, but −8.2 through defense and −2.9 through baserunning,[24] while Trout contributed 50.1 batting runs, 13.0 defensive runs, and 12.0 baserunning runs.[25] Cabrera, the only one of the two players whose team entered the postseason, won the award in a landslide, with 22 of 28 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He and Trout posted similar seasons in 2013; Cabrera again won the MVP.[26][27] Dave Cameron disagreed, in a FanGraphs article:
Over the last two years, we have seen two of the very best seasons in baseball history, and they've gone essentially unrecognized by the organization that has been tasked with recording history. We have been lucky enough to see an in-his-prime Mickey Mantle in modern times, and instead of celebrating that, we’ve spent Novembers explaining why his teammates' inferiority should keep him from winning an individual award.[28]
Criticisms
Bill James states that there is a bias favoring players from earlier eras because there was greater variance in skill levels at the time, so "the best players were further from the average than they are now".[2] That is, in modern baseball, it is more difficult for a player to exceed the abilities of his peers than it was in the 1800s and the dead-ball and live-ball eras of the 1900s.[2] James's criticism originates from the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould who, in 1996, published the book Full House which argued the same point with respect to batting averages.[29] The bias mentioned by Gould and James was confirmed in a statistical study which showed that ranking lists based on WAR do in fact include too many players from the earlier eras.[30] This study challenges the stance that WAR properly adjusts for era differences.[31]
James's criticism has also stemmed from the application and usage of WAR in recent years. In the 2017 Major League Baseball season, there was debate similar to 2012 regarding who should be the recipient of the American League Most Valuable Player Award: Jose Altuve or Aaron Judge. Judge outranked Altuve in FanGraphs' calculation of WAR that season, finishing first with a WAR of 8.2, to Altuve's 7.5. Based on Baseball-Reference's calculation, Altuve had the edge, 8.3 to 8.1. However, in James's words, the usage of WAR in this particular MVP argument was "...nonsense. Aaron Judge was nowhere near as valuable as Jose Altuve…. It is not close. The belief that it is close is fueled by bad statistical analysis.” He goes on to say that WAR,“...is dead wrong because the creators of that statistic have severed the connection between performance statistics and wins, thus undermining their analysis.” He goes on to point out that Judge performed worse than Altuve in critical situations, such as the late innings of close games, and that WAR does not properly take this into account.[32] Other advanced statistics such as RE24 suggest the opposite, with Judge at 50.91 and Altuve at 38.76. [33]
Alternatives to WAR
Some sabermetricians "have been distancing themselves from the importance of single-season WAR values"
Jay Jaffe, a writer for
For example, as of November 30, 2021, retired third baseman Adrián Beltré has accumulated 93.5 career WAR, and 48.7 WAR from his best seven seasons combined. Averaged together, these numbers give Beltré a JAWS of 71.1.[38]
See also
- Value over replacement player – another metric for measuring player contribution
- List of Major League Baseball career Wins Above Replacement leaders
Citations
- ^ FanGraphs: WAR
- ^ a b c d e f g Schoenfield: 2012
- ^ "Win Values Explained: Part Five". December 31, 2008.
- ^ "WAR for Position Players".
- ^ "Mike Trout: Top-Ten Outfield". January 7, 2014.
- ^ "2013 Positional Power Rankings: Catcher". March 14, 2013.
- ^ "Projection Systems".
- ^ "Episode 13: Wins Above Replacement discussion with Sean Forman (bWAR), David Cameron (fWAR), Greg Matthews (openWAR), Rob McQuown and Jonathan Judge (WARP)". Stolen Signs (Podcast). Baseball Prospectus. November 17, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2021.
- ^ Kaufman and Tan: 2012. Page XIV.
- ^ Baseball-Reference.com: WAR Comparison Chart
- ^ Fangraphs: What is WAR?
- ^ Darowski: 2010
- ^ a b Baseball-Reference.com: Position Player WAR Calculation and Details
- ^ a b c d e f Baseball-Reference.com: wRAA For Position Player WAR Explained
- ^ a b Fangraphs: Calculating WAR for Position Players
- ^ a b Cameron: 2008
- ^ Baseball-Reference.com: Pitcher WAR Calculations and Details
- ^ "WAR for Pitchers".
- ^ a b Cameron: 2009
- ^ a b c d DuPaul: 2012
- ^ a b Rosenberg: 2012
- ^ Brookover: 2012
- ^ Sporting News: 2012
- ^ "Miguel Cabrera; Value". FanGraphs. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
- ^ "Mike Trout; Value". FanGraphs. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
- ^ Baseball Writers' Association of America: 2012
- ^ Baseball Writers' Association of America: 2013
- ^ Cameron, Dave (November 14, 2013). "The Diminishing Value of Valuable". FanGraphs.
- ISBN 9780674061613.
- S2CID 88523685.
- ^ Eck, Daniel J (November 20, 2020). "Challenging WAR and Other Statistics as Era-Adjustment Tools". FanGraphs.
- ^ Kopf, Dan (November 30, 2017). "Baseball statisticians are fighting over what makes a player valuable". Quartz. Retrieved November 7, 2020.
- ^ "American League Batting Leaders". Baseball-Reference.com. 2017. Archived from the original on January 31, 2023. Retrieved August 7, 2023.
- ^ Myers: 2012
- ^ Jedlovec: 2012
- ^ a b Lott:2012
- ^ Jaffe, Jay (November 19, 2012). "Jaffe WAR Score system (JAWS)". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved August 6, 2013.
- ^ "Third Base JAWS Leaders". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved August 6, 2013.
General references
- Brookover, Bob (November 16, 2012). "Mike Trout or Miguel Cabrera for MVP: It's a close call". philly.com. Interstate General Media. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- Cameron, Dave (December 30, 2008). "Win Values Explained: Part Three". Fangraphs. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
- Cameron, Dave (October 7, 2009). "WAR: It Works". Fangraphs. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
- Darowski, A. (November 29, 2010). "Are fWAR and rWAR on Different Scales?". Beyond the Box Score. Vox Media. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- DuPaul, Glenn (August 8, 2012). "What is WAR good for?". Hardball Times. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
- Eck, Daniel J. (2020). "Challenging Nostalgia and Performance Metrics in Baseball". Chance. Retrieved February 13, 2021.
- Eck, Daniel J. (November 20, 2020). "Challenging WAR and Other Statistics as Era-Adjustment Tools". Fangraphs. Retrieved February 13, 2021.
- Hartnett, Sean (October 4, 2012). "Cabrera Vs. Trout — Sorting Through The Great 2012 AL MVP Debate". CBS Local Media. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- Jedlovec, Ben (July 29, 2012). "How Brett Lawrie beat the numbers". ESPN Internet Ventures. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- Kaufman, King; Tan, Cecilia M., eds. (2012). Baseball Prospectus 2012 (3 ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781118197691.
- Lott, John (May 5, 2012). "Blue Jays, Brett Lawrie lead the majors in 'saving' runs". National Post. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- MacAree, Graham. "What is Replacement Level?". Fangraphs. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- Wyers, Colin (May 30, 2012). "Manufactured Runs". Baseball Prospectus. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- Rosenberg, Michael (November 15, 2012). "The case for Miguel Cabrera over Mike Trout for AL MVP". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- Schoenfield, David (July 19, 2012). "What we talk about when we talk about WAR". SweetSpot. ESPN.com. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- "WAR Comparison Chart". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- "Baseball-Reference.com WAR Explained". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
- "Pitcher WAR Calculations and Details". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
- "Position Player WAR Calculation and Details". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
- "wRAA For Position Player WAR Explained". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
- "Triple Crown Winner Miguel Cabrera Takes Award". Baseball Writers' Association of America. November 15, 2012. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- "Miguel Cabrera Goes Back-to-Back". Baseball Writers' Association of America. November 15, 2013. Retrieved March 12, 2014.
- "Calculating WAR for Position Players". Fangraphs. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
- "WAR". Fangraphs. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- "What is WAR?". Fangraphs. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- "MLB MVP Awards 2012: Miguel Cabrera vs. Mike Trout debate to be settled". Sporting News. November 15, 2012. Retrieved March 26, 2013.