2011 Sox Had 5 Starters With Negative WAR

[FirstTimer]

Major League Leaderboards

How can Josh Johnson's effort be more valuable than Felix Hernandez's despite pitching 65 less innings?

DON'T QUESTION WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[FirstTimer]

Nothing screams "great metric for picthers" like one that doesn't even evaluate how many hits they allow!

 

[FirstTimer]

BRB would rather have Nolasco over Kershaw and Jared Weaver in 2009 based on WAR

 

[FirstTimer]

BRB would rather have Nolasco over Ted Lilly in 2009 based on WAR

 

[FirstTimer]

BRB would rather have Nolasco over Zambrano, Dempter, Mark Buerhle, Edwin Jackson, Matt Cain, Randy Wells, John Danks, Joahan Santana, and Bronson Arroyo in 2009 based on WAR

 

[FirstTimer]

BRB going to go back to ignoring pitchers WAR completely

 

[FirstTimer]

Can't wait for #19's post

B...b.b.b.but thisbook I read says WAR rocks and I feel smart by using it.

 

[#19]

Major League Leaderboards

How can Josh Johnson's effort be more valuable than Felix Hernandez's despite pitching 65 less innings?

That is interesting.

Johnson's HR rate was nearly half of Felix's. Johnson's BABIP is a lot higher which suggest that Felix was a little lucky. Plus, Johnson's K and BB rates are better. Not sure overall but I agree that 65 IP is significant.

 

[Rice Cube]

The WAR metric is not supposed to be a rate stat, really...it's more of a cumulative assessment of that player's value over the course of a season, or over the course of his career. Depending on which WAR calculation you use, it's going to vary...you can't compare BRef's WAR directly to FanGraphs' WAR because they're using different calculations. I think BRef uses defensive runs saved whereas FanGraphs uses FIP, which makes FirstTimer's point that if you're only valuing a pitcher on his luck-independent skills rather than what actually happened.

However, if you compare two players (or more) within one WAR system, it's standardized so that you know, based on that calculation, which guy was better at producing or preventing runs. Of course it's not perfect and WAR enthusiasts are usually open to pointing out the inherent flaws. Within a season, you don't use WAR to evaluate a player because you don't know when he's going to slump. For example, I think in the first month Starlin Castro had a blistering hot batting average and amassed something like 1.2 WAR, but ended the season as barely a 3 WAR player.

As for the Josh Johnson and Felix Hernandez thing, because Johnson pitched 65 innings less, he didn't have those 65 innings in which he could've sucked to drive down his WAR, or where he could've been awesome and left Felix in the dust. I don't think WAR is a good measure here just based on the discrepancy in innings pitched. It also is a bit wacky for relief pitchers, who have inflated leverage indices and thus get a boost in WAR (and which fuels my philosophy that most relief pitchers not named Mariano Rivera are overrated).

 

[SaberSox]

Strawman. Most times bad beats and shitty wins balance out.

Also on to this, there's a reason why typically pitchers would lead the league in wins are usually the elite. Sure you will have Rick Hellings and Ben Sheet exceptions but for the most part pitchers who win a lot of games are typically pretty damn good. Pitchers who lose a lot are usually pretty fucking bad.

They can be, sure. But pitchers who lose can also be on teams where his offense produces runs like my last-place little league baseball team; thus never really ever able to tally up the wins or end up having a crooked number in the L column. See: Felix Hernandez (14-14) or John Danks (8-12).

For the record, I'm not saying Danks is great, but he doesn't fall in your category of "pretty fucking bad". A 3.74 xERA, 44% GB rate, 7.1 K/9 is more worthy than having a 8-12 record. Danks had 16 Quality Starts, which is largely independent of the offense or the defense behind him; that defines him more than 8-12 does. 8-12 is more a function of the shitty White Sox offense and the atrocious defense in the outfield behind him than it is of Danks' skill-set.

 

[#19]

What I don't understand is the anger that WAR brings out in some people. WAR is not a perfect stat but to say it doesn't have value is ridiculous. WAR is not the definitive, all-encompassing stat (nothing is) but it is the best single metric for getting a quick glimpse of a player's worth. I agree that is not as important for pitching since you can look at a couple other stats and understand a pitchers's performance but it is outstanding for positional players since it combines hitting, baserunning, and defense plus the worth of their position. I'm sure someone will come back and talk about positional value or replacement level stats or the issues with UZR 150 but I challenge someone to name 1 stat that is better for a quick glance at a player's overall worth.

 

[Rice Cube]

I think the "subjective" issue is with how those positional adjustments are applied depending on where the player is on the defensive spectrum, as well as the way they manipulate the weights such that WAR comes out to become a number that reflects "wins" rather than some convoluted number with a bunch of digits and decimal places. Same with wOBA and other stats that depend on linear weights. The thing is that the people who calculate these things have compiled tons of data in order to optimize those weights, so while they aren't exactly ideal, they are indeed mathematically based.

Not that I'm an expert, but that's how Tango explained it in "The Book"...

 

[SaberSox]

What I don't understand is the anger that WAR brings out in some people. WAR is not a perfect stat but to say it doesn't have value is ridiculous. WAR is not the definitive, all-encompassing stat (nothing is) but it is the best single metric for getting a quick glimpse of a player's worth. I agree that is not as important for pitching since you can look at a couple other stats and understand a pitchers's performance but it is outstanding for positional players since it combines hitting, baserunning, and defense plus the worth of their position. I'm sure someone will come back and talk about positional value or replacement level stats or the issues with UZR 150 but I challenge someone to name 1 stat that is better for a quick glance at a player's overall worth.

I was thinking the same thing. I had no idea talking about WAR was analgous to talking about politics where people all of a sudden become smarmy children who can't have an adult conversation about it.

I guess whitesox901 was right when he said I opened a can of worms.

Most of the discussion was good, though, because it can be a very good discussion.

 

[FirstTimer]

They can be, sure. But pitchers who lose can also be on teams where his offense produces runs like my last-place little league baseball team; thus never really ever able to tally up the wins or end up having a crooked number in the L column. See: Felix Hernandez (14-14) or John Danks (8-12).

Ok again. Exceptions to the rule. Which was my point overall mentioning Ben Sheets and Rick Helling. Do you even understand what the hell I was talking about? Name me a 300 game winner who was shitty. Or a guy with a lot of career losses/a shitty W/L record that was actually any damn good.

Want another reason why pitching WAR sucks? According to Bref Nolan Ryan only had 4 seasons in his entire career that according to WAR were All Star quality. LULZ.

But yeah, let's just keep letting pitching WAR hold any value at all.

 

[nwfisch]

What I don't understand is the anger that WAR brings out in some people. WAR is not a perfect stat but to say it doesn't have value is ridiculous. WAR is not the definitive, all-encompassing stat (nothing is) but it is the best single metric for getting a quick glimpse of a player's worth. I agree that is not as important for pitching since you can look at a couple other stats and understand a pitchers's performance but it is outstanding for positional players since it combines hitting, baserunning, and defense plus the worth of their position. I'm sure someone will come back and talk about positional value or replacement level stats or the issues with UZR 150 but I challenge someone to name 1 stat that is better for a quick glance at a player's overall worth.

W/L.

 

[#19]

W/L.

Wow

 

[nickofypres]

W/L.

:andruw:

Not sure if serious.

 

[Uman85]

No stat or metric is ever going to be perfect. That's why simply using one isn't going to get you too far. You have to look at many across the board to get the true outlook on a player's worth.

 

[FirstTimer]

Wow

Replace that post with you saying WAR and it's equally as lulz worthy.