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Thursday, August 19, 2010
The greatness, or not, of Josh Hamilton
Poz asks, and he’s a bit bothered with the fielding analysis part:
Fangraphs shows Hamilton as having (by a sizable amount) the highest WAR among position players in baseball at 6.7. ... However, Baseball Reference does not show Hamilton in the Top 5 at all....
So what gives? Tom Tango explains that the big difference is how the the competing WARS rate defense. Fangraphs’ WAR uses Ultimate Zone Rating to quantify defense. Baseball Reference’s WAR uses Total Zone to quantify defense. Tom thinks “UZR is better, but not markedly so.”
In Hamilton’s case, the competing systems judge him almost precisely the same on the offensive side. Fangraphs has him at +47 runs, Baseball Reference at +46 runs. The difference is defense. UZR has Hamilton as a very good defender — his UZR is +5.8.* Total Zone has Hamilton as a below average field, minus-7 runs.
Those 13 runs on defense make up the difference.
...
Tom Tango does not have a strong feeling about which WAR is more accurate (“Split the difference,” he suggests).
For those interested, here was the full email response I had given Poz:
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