WAR so far this year for the 2011 Brewers

[crewcrazy]

This is exactly why WAR and other made up stats only count in for much in stat guys head. Wolf being at .8 is laughable. Especially considering Greinke and Narveson are double that. Which is why they basically tell you very little about what actually is happens in the games.

Aren't all stats "made up?"

 

As others have said, in the case of FanGraphs' WAR, FIP is the big factor. Wolf strikes out less batters than Narveson and Greinke and walks more. His success depends more on the defense behind him than those two (at least to this point). That said, Wolf's WAR to this point isn't bad. He's already been more valuable than he was all of last season.

[berniebrewer4life]

I think you need to start here.

A very helpful link. Thanks. I've always been slightly confused as to how FIP worked(never got a straight answer when i asked people). Now i know!

[joepepsi]

I can't even imagine the awesomeness of our offense if we could some how scrape together enough prospects to trade for the #1 OPS SS - Jose Reyes (as unlikely as that would be).

Hardy's OPS is .907.

Hardy doesn´t have enough ABs to qualify for the batting title, etc. Which is why I didn´t include him.

I figured as much, but the guy has been terrific since returning from the DL.

[sbrylski]

This is exactly why WAR and other made up stats only count in for much in stat guys head. Wolf being at .8 is laughable. Especially considering Greinke and Narveson are double that. Which is why they basically tell you very little about what actually is happens in the games.

"Because it doesn't fit with my preconceived notions" is not an acceptable argument. Unless you can prove that your preconceived notions are always 100% correct.

 

There may be valid criticisms of WAR out there, but this is not one.

[Funketown]

"Because it doesn't fit with my preconceived notions" is not an acceptable argument. Unless you can prove that your preconceived notions are always 100% correct.

Well, given that my preconceived notions are 100% correct...

 

It's quite impressive that the Brewers are on top of the division despite below replacement performances from two full time players and one ~half time player, not to mention the terrible 83 plate appearances the Brewers got from Nieves and Almonte.

 

In my mind, Rickie Weeks is clearly the Brewers' MVP over the last 1.5 seasons. He is truly becoming one of the game's elite players; it's just amazing how far he's come over the past five years.

[TheCrew07]

I thought it was amazing that even though Greinke has so few innings, he's been as valuable as Marcum according to WAR.

Pitching WAR isn't calculated off of ERA, but I believe it's calculated off of xFIP, which is why Greinke's WAR is so high even though he hasn't been very consistent thus far.

 

edit. Others beat me to it, should have read the entire thread before posting.

 

 

[COBrewerfan]

This is exactly why WAR and other made up stats only count in for much in stat guys head. Wolf being at .8 is laughable. Especially considering Greinke and Narveson are double that. Which is why they basically tell you very little about what actually is happens in the games.

"Because it doesn't fit with my preconceived notions" is not an acceptable argument. Unless you can prove that your preconceived notions are always 100% correct.

 

There may be valid criticisms of WAR out there, but this is not one.

No, preconcreived notion are what BF.net is all about. Watching the games, you can not come to a conclusion that Greinke and Narveson have been better than Wolf this year. You can use all the crap you want and there is no way you come to that result. Unless you combine 2-3 of these "fictional stats" that when you use the right combination of them, can make almost anyone look good.

 

[Tedaldtada]

This is exactly why WAR and other made up stats only count in for much in stat guys head. Wolf being at .8 is laughable. Especially considering Greinke and Narveson are double that. Which is why they basically tell you very little about what actually is happens in the games.

"Because it doesn't fit with my preconceived notions" is not an acceptable argument. Unless you can prove that your preconceived notions are always 100% correct.

 

There may be valid criticisms of WAR out there, but this is not one.

No, preconcreived notion are what BF.net is all about. Watching the games, you can not come to a conclusion that Greinke and Narveson have been better than Wolf this year. You can use all the crap you want and there is no way you come to that result. Unless you combine 2-3 of these "fictional stats" that when you use the right combination of them, can make almost anyone look good.

Please, tell me something else I can or cannot do.

Just looking at the K:BB and K/9 numbers are a pretty good indicator that Grienke and Narv-dogg have been more valuable.

"Fictional Stats"? What the heck does that even mean? Seriously.

Edit: Oh wait, you're the Yuni B guy....I see clearly now. This conversation is like beating a dead horse. Think whatever the heck makes you happy. Just don't tell me what to think unless you want to perform a proper statistical analysis.

[Thurston Fluff]

Watching the games, you can not come to a conclusion that Greinke and Narveson have been better than Wolf this year.

 

Warning I am about to continue my war against WAR. This does not mean I hate all stats or sabremetrics in general. It means I hate WAR. All this does is show how useless WAR is. Anything that tells you Greinke has contributed to more wins than Wolf this season should have it's veracity questioned.

 

"Because it doesn't fit with my preconceived notions" is not an acceptable argument. Unless you can prove that your preconceived notions are always 100% correct.

 

There may be valid criticisms of WAR out there, but this is not one.

 

If you can't accept Wolf has helped this team more than Greinke this season because WAR tells you he isn't then I think you are the one who has preconceived notions. Your preconceived notion of WAR seems to blind you to the fact that Wolf has been better than Greinke. This once again goes back to someone crunching a bunch of numbers based off stats that are predictors of performance to tell us what their performance has been. This is the same argument as k's/ab being used to tell us someone was fine when he just got shelled. Simply because he struck out a bunch of guys doesn't mean he had a good game. If, for example the other guys hit homeruns his K's/ab didn't accurately tell us his performance that day.

xFIP is fine for telling us what we can expect in the future. I think doing things like correcting for flyballs/HR to the norm makes it useless for telling us how well they have done in the past. Pitchers know where they are pitching and part of their ability being measured should be adjusting to the situation. If you are in Wriggly with the wind blowing out assuming no pitcher can adjust to get more groundballs seems wrong. To just assume it isn't a skill any of them possess is incorrect. Pitchers who are flyball pitchers should be penalized for being such since they do give up more HR in bad conditions. After all they are going to be expected to pitch in those situations so why isn't that part of the skill set measurement? To make those adjustments for predicting the future success is fine since the goal is to measure in an all things equal sort of way. To make those adjustments to show his past success is not. Thus in my mind xFIP, by making those adjustments, turns it into purely a predictive stat. It works well for that.

It is not nearly as good at telling us what the actual production was in the past. Unless you use xFIP as the definition of what success is xFIP does not = success. xFIP = probability of future success. The sooner people understand the difference the sooner they will stop accepting things like WAR that use them wrong. Perhaps Fangraphs needs to learn that as well.

 

WAR has it has it backwards. If WAR was telling me who is likely to be better in the future then it can use xFIP. If it wants to tell us how good someone has been then why use a predictive stat instead of the measurement of success that very same predictive stat was supposed to be measuring to? Ok done with my war on WAR rant now.

 

Well almost...

One thing I have to ask about ERA vs WAR. Wolf seems to be showing it isn't as bad as some make it out to be for showing actual production. The major issue with ERA is it is a team stat due to fielders contribution. Yet Wolf is more the pitch to contact type who is relying on an admittedly subpar defense more than the guy who isn't relying on the subpar defense. If ERA is so bad at telling us what happened and WAR so good at it why does ERA seem to describe what actually happened more accurately in this situation?

I understand ERA isn't perfect. But so far those who dismiss ERA because it isn't perfect seem to accept WAR which is even less perfect. Seems odd to me.

 

 

[rluzinski]

This is exactly why WAR and other made up stats only count in for much in stat guys head. Wolf being at .8 is laughable. Especially considering Greinke and Narveson are double that. Which is why they basically tell you very little about what actually is happens in the games.

As I explained earlier, WAR isn't trying to. It's context neutral, just like BA, SLG, WHIP and every other context neutral, made up stat.

 

"If you can't accept Wolf has helped this team more than Greinke this season because WAR tells you he isn't then I think you are the one who has preconceived notions."

Who's made that claim? I don't think the person you quotes was.

My very first post in this thread was an attempt to guard against people criticizing WAR for not being what it's not trying to be. I failed miserably, so we end up arguing about nothing.

[Baldkin]

You should look at baseball-reference WAR, BUC. They use ERA in their calculations instead of FIP.

 

It has Greinke with negative WAR on the season thus far.

[thebruce44]

Wolf's LOB% has really helped his ERA. You can argue that he performed better in tight spots than Grenkie has, but over his career that isn't true. Over time he should come back to his norms.

 

Thats an additional reason why WAR, FIP, and xFIP indicate that Grenkie has done more for his team than Wolf. Either way, I don't see the point in telling other people what to think in a condescending way. From the sound of it you lack a clear understanding of the statistics you are bashing and have no intention or desire to do any further research. That isn't a very good way to convince someone.

EDIT: Actually his LOB% has come back to earth a little bit. Should have pulled up the stats before I posted instead of after. The rest of my points still stand though.

[Thurston Fluff]

You should look at baseball-reference WAR, BUC. They use ERA in their calculations instead of FIP.

 

Thanks I will. I always sort of thought it was a fangrapshs thing. Good to know others are taking a different approach. I'll look at it and adjust my war on WAR accordingly.

 

Wolf's LOB% has really helped his ERA. You can argue that he performed better in tight spots than Grenkie has, but over his career that isn't true. Over time he should come back to his norms.

 

Thats an additional reason why WAR, FIP, and xFIP indicate that Grenkie has done more for his team than Wolf.

 

You just said because Greinke projects to be better than Wolf in the future it means he was better than him so far this season. How does one follow from the other? The stats you cited are merely indicators of how effective a pitcher should be at accomplishing those goals. They are not the goals themselves.

xFIP and FIP should be used as predictive stats not descriptive ones. To use them as descriptive ones means you are using them as the basis for defining success so far. The only way xFIP and FIP means ipso facto one is better than the other so far is to assume they actually are the very description of success. They are not. Innings pitched and runs allowed are what indicate success or failure. Doesn't matter if it was sheer luck or that it won't last. So far Wolf has pitched more innings, both per game and overall, while allowing less runs per game to score. That would seem to indicate Wolf has helped the team win more games so far. What happens in the future are best foretold by some of those stats not what happened so far.

[M Skjellyfetti]

Backupcatchers, you might also be looking for WPA instead of WAR. See rluzinski's post above for a good description. That seems to be exactly what you're looking for. Those of us who use WAR are more interested in finding out how players have done with the stuff that they can control (instead of the stuff they can't really control, like LOB% for instance). Fangraphs WAR takes that into account by using FIP for pitchers, etc.

[thebruce44]

You just said because Greinke projects to be better than Wolf in the future it means he was better than him so far this season. How does one follow from the other? The stats you cited are merely indicators of how effective a pitcher should be at accomplishing those goals. They are not the goals themselves.

I have no desire to get into a WAR or FIP debate. I just wanted to point out that I didn't say that what you wrote here at all. I am saying there are factors outside of the pitchers control that have helped Wolf more than Grenkie and I don't think he should be looked at better in our eyes because of that.

[DuWayne Steurer]

It's clear to me that there are people arguing 2 separate things here. Performance, and Results.

 

In a nutshell, most of the advanced metrics seem to indicate that Greinke has 'performed' better than Wolf, but obviously, his results have been clearly worse.

 

There, argument solved.

[Gobias Industries]

It's clear to me that there are people arguing 2 separate things here. Performance, and Results.

 

In a nutshell, most of the advanced metrics seem to indicate that Greinke has 'performed' better than Wolf, but obviously, his results have been clearly worse.

 

There, argument solved.

Well stated. I was thinking the same thing, but you summed it up perfectly.

[adambr2]

Here's something interesting:

 

CF WAR for 2011: 4.1 (Morgan 2.3, Gomez 1.8)

1B WAR for 2011: 3.7 (Prince)

 

 

And Prince is having a big year, and CF was seen before the year as one potential major position of weakness. This is why I don't put too much stock into the thinking that we are screwed once Prince leaves.

 

Although 1.8 seems like an awfully inflated WAR for Gomez. I realize he's a defensive stud, but he's had only 209 AB's this year. Is it really possible that in limited time, his defense is so good that it makes him better than an average everyday starter at the position?

[Oldcity]

His defense is outstanding, coupled with the fact that many of his PAs were against lefties, where his offense is palatable.

[logan82]

CF was seen before the year as one potential major position of weakness.

 

No, it wasn't.

[Invader3K]

CF was seen before the year as one potential major position of weakness.

 

No, it wasn't.

Yeah, it was. A lot of people didn't realize Morgan was so good defensively, or that last year was his only really bad season as a hitter.

[endaround]

I think after Morgan was acquired most thought it was fine. When Gomez was expected to play all the time it was slightly worrisome but not close to short stop concerns. Now batting Gomez at the top of the order and taking forever to play Morgan were bad things.

 

As to Fielder going, keep in mind Morgan is playing over his head. His BABIP is going to come down from .393 (he even has a BABIP of .381 vs LHers).

[tyguy20204]

Nyjer's playing over his head, but 3B and SS should be easy to upgrade over their negative WAR so far this year (whether they will be or not is another question). So that coupled with the stellar platoon in CF should be able to offset Fielder's departure. Especially if Gamel is able to perform at least decently.

[Ennder]

It's clear to me that there are people arguing 2 separate things here. Performance, and Results

 

If I want to argue about results I probably wouldn't look at W or RBI or most likely even ERA, those are just way too heavily influenced by things out of a players control, in effect they become team stats as much as individual stats.