THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Tango, I just re-read your article.  Do you have updated numbers for “UZR runs/play” and “plays/game”?

There is a strong chance this question will make no sense (or WAR already does this) but wouldn’t changing the replacement level baseline for hitting by position fix this.  For SS, you define replacement to only other SS’s (indicating that no other positions would easily switch over), but at LF you define it based on all positions (non-DH) since theoretically a player playing any position could switch to LF (and base this off the defensive spectrum for other positions)?  If you think of it from an indexing standpoint, if Pujols is 100% and Yuni is 0%, then the replacement hitting value for SS would be a lower indexed amount than the replacement hitting value for LF.

Tango - I knew I wasn’t stating anything new.  I was just trying to clarify the misstatement that the position adjustment somehow has something to do with how hard the position is to play.  There seems to be some confusion about that.  Your link is a much more complete explanation.

John, you must be new. 

The argument I have always made that it’s we should not consider the average CF = average 2B = average whatever.  Clearly, this is not true in high school.

The average QB is not equal to the average whatever.

The average Center is not equal to the average LW.

NO ONE operates on this level.  MLB and NHL and NBA and NFL don’t pay like that.  No fan thinks like that.  No one.  Other than some early analyst-proponents of this kind of thinking who like to keep things nice and tidy.

In one year, Brian Giles is considered good because he’s being compared to the average NL LF (that includes Bonds) and then another year he is considered great because the average NL RF doesn’t include Bonds.

So, throw all that thinking out the window.  Well, throw it out while you are here.

The issue is to try to figure out how a replacement level player (I like to use Willie Bloomquist as my example, as I sometimes call it Wins over Willie, or W/W) would do at each of the eight positions.  His hitting remains constant.  As a SS, he would be not too good.  As a 2B, he would be a bit better.  As a LF, he would be pretty good fielding-wise.  And so on.

He becomes the constant, the single focal point against which everyone is compared.

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If you don’t like Willie Ballgame as the comparison point, then think of some amalgamation instead.  I’m just making Willie the face of replacement level, because it’s so easy to see him play every position.

Mike, I don’t have anything, but you can basically work it backwards from the spectrum I’ve been using in WAR.

unfortunately, not new but never thought the positional values truly demonstrated the actual position scarcity, mainly between infielders and outfielders/1B’s.  Point taken though.