JJ Hardy optioned to AAA- Latest: Per McCalvy, JJ will be left at AAA and add another year before free agency

[Invader3K]

The thing that gets me is flat out saying "JJ was worth $22.2 million last year." That is just flat out wrong from a real world standpoint, because there isn't a team out there that would pay him that much on an annual basis, as has been pointed out and gone unrefuted. Maybe instead of saying "worth X dollars", you could say "worth X fantasy baseball currency points" and it might have some merit.

[endaround]

It is apples to apples. Average is got the exact same way, seeing what percentage of balls in an area is gotten to and then looking at each individual comapred to that average.

 

And no Hardy isn't the best. I said Wilson is the only player significantly better, and he's better but a whole bunch. . Hardy is among a group that includes him, Andrus from Texas, and Scutaro and if you want to include Furcal or Rollins go ahead.

[DougJones43]

Imo as long as people understand that the point isn't necessarily to determine what players should or will be paid, I think WAR is a good metric to use.

If it's not for determining what a player should or will be paid (due to the overinflation, differerential from the real MLB market place, etc) then it really shouldn't be used at all as a reference point to actual salaries. Ennder's post, IMO, clearly tried to do exactly what you said not to do, which was use the WAR$ to justify Hardy's actual salary. If what you say above is true, then the stat should only be used to compare players to one another, which basically means the "monetary" attachtment to the stat is meaningless in regard to real-life payscales.

 

Doesn't make it a bad or useless stat, just a misleading one that could probably do without the inaccuracies of the included dollar values.

[Diskono]

Waiting that extra year for free agency might also be very profitable for JJ. It could turn out to be a GREAT thing for him, money-wise. I'm not saying that it will, but it definitely could. Has anyone else thought of that?

That's very true (or at least, it could be). You could also say that we're doing him a favor by delaying his free agency now, instead of keeping him in the minors for a month at the *beginning* of his career like most teams do with big-name prospects. This way, he gets an extra arby year instead of an extra league-minimum year.

[sheethead]

Average is got the exact same way

 

This I can agree with, but it is not made up of the average of the players that are being compared to it. It is a pre-determined average, fictional characters. Which is why it is a valuable tool to compare certain players, but not the whole lot of players as the whole lot is not represented. The benchmark is not set by ALL players. It is set by a ideally average player.

[Thurston Fluff]

When did people start believing defensive metrics really defined the true value of defense? From what I've seen it is an incomplete science at best.

[Invader3K]

That is fair, I think. I would safely say, from watching the games, Hardy is probably above average defensively, though I think he may have slipped a bit this season (not saying he's horrible here). Escobar could be the superior defensive player, but it's too soon to tell. I mean, it's unfair to compare a 22 year old player to one who's 27 or so (too lazy to look up their exact ages).

[TooLiveBrew]

If what you say above is true, then the stat should only be used to compare players to one another, which basically means the "monetary" attachtment to the stat is meaningless in regard to real-life payscales.

 

The stat uses real-world data, including what the average payment for a win is by MLB teams. If you don't like it, that's fine, but there seems to be a fundamental disconnect here. To me, it's pretty clear that just because someone is worth $X but gets $Y, that doesn't make the contribution that led to the amount of $X any less valuable... nor does it make the dollar value placed on X any less relevant. As best as I can brain this, the statement 'Player A was worth $X' is a shortened way of stating, 'Based upon the way MLB clubs spend their money, along with the statistical representation that 10 runs scored/saved is equivalent to 1 win, Player A's production was worth $X'.

 

That's how I understand WAR, but I kinda get the feeling that what little I know about it isn't going to make its critics relent, and that others could probably provide more persuasive arguments. Not that that will change anyone's mind either...

 

This link is the Fangraphs explanation of the dollar value:

In general, we can say that the market price of a win is the mean of the dollars per win handed out to free agents in any given year. If you approached CC Sabathia this winter and offered him $12.65 million because he was a 5.5 win pitcher and the league average cost per win is $2.3 million, you wouldn't have gotten very far. If you want to compete in the market for available wins, you have to know what the going rate for a win is, and the easiest way to calculate that is to look at the free agent market.

I hope anyone frustrated with the dollar values will take the time to read the article in full, and not just this snippet.

 

 

Ennder's post, IMO, clearly tried to do exactly what you said not to do, which was use the WAR$ to justify Hardy's actual salary

 

What I took it to mean was that $4.65M was not a rip-off. I think that is likely true.

[Thurston Fluff]

In general, we can say that the market price of a win is the mean of the dollars per win handed out to free agents in any given year.

 

But that is the problem. Free agency is the most expensive way to calculate wages. Does it use salaries accepted by teams whose player like Braun who signs a long term contract? Does it add the salaries of players who accept arby. If you want to use only the most expensive way of calculating fro comparisons sake fine but then use the same system in calculating otehr players like Hardy to see if Hardy is paid more or less than that not base it off the most expensively priced players.

 

What I took it to mean was that $4.65M was not a rip-off. I think that is likely true.

 

It is if you can get the same production or better for less. It is very odd to just take the highest possible way of setting salaries and apply it to all circumstances and say look we got a bargain because if we had to pay free agent prices for this guy we would be paying more. That ignores all the teams, in this case the majority of them, who actually paid less for their shortstop than what they would in FA.

[MJLiverock]

Looking at those fangraphs calculations shows that pretty much every single SS is underpaid and in many cases by 10's of millions of dollars. This doesn't add a lot of credibility to the stat, maybe as a comparison between guys but certainly not by any real world measure. Even Cesar Izturis is listed as an $8.1MM SS last year.

 

I've never put a lot of stock in the WAR calculations. Pujols is only 6.8 WAR and is the best player in the game. Jason Kendall is 1.0 WAR, how he is even positive is amazing.

 

But pitching is where the stat really seems to lose all context or meaning. The best pitchers in the game are barely over 3 or 4 while guys like Mike Burns are right around 0. There is just no way I am buying that a whole season of starts from Adam Wainwright or Matt Cain will only get a team 3 or 4 more wins than a season's worth of Mike Burns.

 

Maybe that's Melvin's problem with pitching - - he actually believes having a guy like a Wainwright or a Cain only adds 3 or 4 wins over Burns.

 

Over 32 starts by a Wainwright I would realistically expect the team to win 65% of the time - - basically 21 wins. A guy like Burns? Maybe 35% of the time or 11 wins, that is 9 more wins without getting crazy on either side of the coin. It doesn't even consider the effects on the bullpen either.

[TooLiveBrew]

Does it use salaries accepted by teams whose player like Braun who signs a long term contract?

 

However, a huge share of those wins were created by players whose salaries were not determined by a free market system. Every player with zero to six years of service time had an artificially depressed salary due to not being able to qualify for free agency. As well, most players who signed long term contracts that bought out some of their arbitration and free agent years had salaries below market value as well - they had traded some potential cash for the security of a deal several years ago. The amount of money that teams are paying per win for their cost controlled players is far less than the $2.31 million league average.

 

So, the market of wins available for purchase doesn't total 1,000. A significant batch of MLB players simply aren't available for acquisition at any given time. The Cardinals aren't trading Albert Pujols. The Mariners aren't trading Felix Hernandez. The Rays aren't trading Evan Longoria. The wins that these players generate are not for sale.

 

Who is available? Obviously, players who qualify for free agency in a given season are available. Also, there are players traded from one club to another, so those players are also available for the right price. But what is the right price?

Those are the three paragraphs that precede what I quoted initially. Please read the article.

[Invader3K]

I think the thing to remember with all these stats, like others have pointed out, is it's OK to use them as a guidelines or reference. I think when you start using them as hard and fast rules, and dismiss anyone who thinks otherwise, is when the issues come in.

[sheethead]

It appears as though they are treating dollars as being equal in all markets for all teams, and then taking the mean. This could explain the extremely high $ values placed on players when compared to what they actually fetch on the open market. There are only so many huge market teams to go around, and the rest of the players are left to fight for mid to small market $$. Depending on the net income figures (not available and private for every MLB club), dollars are cheaper for some teams compared to others. Texiera, Sabathia, A-Rod type contracts are only affordable for certain teams, and the dollars spent on those players is not representative of the dollars spent for a win overall in free agency. This is where I see one flaw in the WAR $ computation. It should be weighted, but by not knowing each teams cost of cash through their finacial statements it is impossible to decipher. But... we still need a metric!

 

I still find it interesting that Hardy's abysmal 2009 production would shoot his WAR $$ anywhere near his actual salary, much less 1/3 more than what he is making. But like others have said, it must be his plus defense driving up the value. The other flaw I see in WAR is how his defense has been quantified by Fangraphs. He is not compared to an actual average player, but instead an ideally average player. He could be +5 and another player +2. Or is he +3 and the other player Even? The starting point is subjective and ideal, not actual and measured by everyone else.

[dadofandrew]

I think that dollar amunt is absurd, since only FA's see it...pre-arby and even arby eligible guys get far less. The truth is, it's a worthless number, because half the teams have a payroll far less than what it would cost to put together a playoff team.

 

It's like win shares, people use it a couple years, then move on to something else. If it can't be calculated easily, it's worthless anyway.

[MJLiverock]

If you want to see crazy fluctuations in WAR, and defensive metrics look at

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=766&position=SS#value

 

 

Apparently Orlando Cabrera fluctates from being the best defensive shortstop to the one of the worst defensive shortstops fairly often. I just can't buy into a metric that has something like defensive ability fluctating that much year to year.

[sheethead]

Dave Cameron wrote:

However, a huge share of those wins were created by players whose salaries were not determined by a free market system. Every player with zero to six years of service time had an artificially depressed salary due to not being able to qualify for free agency.

I am glad you posted this, because its another flaw I see in the calculation. The part I highlighted just cannot be true, and I am surprised people even cite this metric after reading something like this.

[sheethead]

I've never put a lot of stock in the WAR calculations. Pujols is only 6.8 WAR and is the best player in the game. Jason Kendall is 1.0 WAR, how he is even positive is amazing.

 

So Fangraphs has determined that Jason Kendall is above replacement level, which I take to mean above average by definition of replacement level. I might need another website to tell me who's decent and who's not.

[logan82]

The difference in wins between pitchers does make sense and can easily be calculated. 10 runs is generally considered a win. Half a point of ERA over 180 innings comes out to 10 runs so the difference between a 3.00 ERA and 5.00 ERA is 4 wins. When you start looking at win% for pitcher you start to cloud things by including run support. Including run support gets you things like Looper being a better pitcher than Gallardo because his win% is better.

[Diskono]

So Fangraphs has determined that Jason Kendall is above replacement level, which I take to mean above average by definition of replacement level. I might need another website to tell me who's decent and who's not.

Above replacement level is not the same as above average. A team of average players would be a .500 team, a team of replacement players would be a .300 team

[sheethead]

The difference in wins between pitchers does make sense and can easily be calculated. 10 runs is generally considered a win. Half a point of ERA over 180 innings comes out to 10 runs so the difference between a 3.00 ERA and 5.00 ERA is 4 wins. When you start looking at win% for pitcher you start to cloud things by including run support. Including run support gets you things like Looper being a better pitcher than Gallardo because his win% is better.

So pitchers are evaluated solely on ERA with this metric? Pitcher X goes 200 IP w/ 3.00 ERA vs. Pitcher Y goes 175 IP w/ 5.00 ERA = 3.06 wins. How did that win calculation go down? Its not weighted, again, assuming each pitcher threw in the same amount of games.

[sheethead]

So Fangraphs has determined that Jason Kendall is above replacement level, which I take to mean above average by definition of replacement level. I might need another website to tell me who's decent and who's not.

Above replacement level is not the same as above average. A team of average players would be a .500 team, a team of replacement players would be a .300 team

That's right, my bad.

[MJLiverock]

The difference in wins between pitchers does make sense and can easily be calculated. 10 runs is generally considered a win. Half a point of ERA over 180 innings comes out to 10 runs so the difference between a 3.00 ERA and 5.00 ERA is 4 wins. When you start looking at win% for pitcher you start to cloud things by including run support. Including run support gets you things like Looper being a better pitcher than Gallardo because his win% is better.

I didn't mention a thing about run support and I easialy calculated how pitcher like Wainwright is more than 3 wins above a guy like Burns. I didn't meniton wins credited to the pitcher for that very reason, just that the team wins because he is more likely to keep them in the game and sometimes doesn't get the win himself.

 

I just don't believe WAR gives enough credit to great players vs. terrible players. All the players are too closely bunched up making it easy for some of the arguments that player X is only a little better than player Y because, "look their WAR is only 2 or 3 apart." Part of it I believe is due the defensive metrics being poor and also the replacement level settings being off somehow.

[TooLiveBrew]

I've never put a lot of stock in the WAR calculations. Pujols is only 6.8 WAR and is the best player in the game. Jason Kendall is 1.0 WAR, how he is even positive is amazing.

 

WAR is adjusted for position, which would explain both of these cases.

[endaround]

No, the problem is you expect great players to be worth much more than they really are. An average player is about 2 WARs. A very good player is about 4 WARs. An All-Star is 4-5 WARs and an MVP is over 6. A win is huge amount. If you want to multiply it by 10 and call it runs, fine, but its just a measure of scale.

 

EDIT: Think of it like GPA, Kendal with his 1.0 is a D student whereas Pujols with his 6.8 is acing all his honors courses and taking extra credits on top of it

[sheethead]

No, the problem is you expect great players to be worth much more than they really are. An average player is about 2 WARs. A very good player is about 4 WARs. An All-Star is 4-5 WARs and an MVP is over 6. A win is huge amount. If you want to multiply it by 10 and call it runs, fine, but its just a measure of scale.

I prefer to multiply it by ? and call it HIPS.