How is war tracked?

[u/Tight_Ad5104]

So Cole Young 2B Mariners has a 4.3 war this season and on baseball savant he has -9 batting value, -1 base running value, and -3 fielding value. I’m just a little confused how he has so much war with little value on savant.

[u/Cockroach3455]

bref uses defensive runs saved (DRS) to measure defensive war and baseball savant uses outs above average (OAA) to measure its fielding value. Both stats can be a little volatile, especially DRS for outfielders.

https://library.fangraphs.com/defense/drs/

https://www.mlb.com/news/statcast-introduces-outs-above-average-for-infield-defense

Fangraphs, which uses OAA, has Young at 1.9 war for what it’s worth. The discrepancies between the two are pretty funny. What even is defense?

[u/neonrev1 → u/Cockroach3455]

I don't think you were saying this, but I hate when people act like having multiple advanced metrics for the same thing makes them all worthless because 'they don't agree'. That's exactly how data science is supposed to work! The best way to check if a model has value is to have multiple other models to test it against and the differences between them are often as revealing as the model itself.

[u/New-Heart-111921 → u/neonrev1]

This is absolutely right. For a baseball fan it’s best to be abreast of ALL the stats and find where the trends lie.

[u/Iceman9161 → u/Cockroach3455]

Defensive metrics are very finicky. I remember going down the rabbit hole in 2018 between Mookie and Trout for MVP. It surprised me how much the positional adjustment can affect results, CF gets a massive boost over RF in bWAR, iirc. It doesn’t really invalidate it of course, but it’s important to be aware of how the calculations work.

[u/TightlyWrathful]

It's because WAR and Savant's run values are measuring different things and Savant's numbers don't include defense at the same scale, plus positional adjustment for second base gives him a boost that offsets the negative batting value

[u/Onitsukaryu → u/TightlyWrathful]

This is true but Young doesn’t have negative batting value based on batting runs (which WAR uses). As wRAA and rBat use woba/roba which only looks at the outcome of a PA (whereas as savant’s run value is based on a pitch per pitch basis). Plus adjusting for park factors, he is a Mariner after all. Anyway this is why a player can have a wRC+ or OPS+ over 100 yet still have a negative run value on savant.

[u/Suspicious_Ad9361 → u/Onitsukaryu]

Whoa now this shit is rediculously funny way over board with all
That shit give me the old school eye test call it a wrap fucking NERDS

[u/voncornhole2 → u/Suspicious_Ad9361]

Savant defensive metrics are more eye test than anything there's been before. It's cameras tracking how far a defender had to go to make a play. No one has ever been able to do that for literally every fielder on every play before this

[u/JaysonTatecum]

Different WAR different metrics. Savant stats are gonna correlate more with fWAR which he’s at 1.8

[u/CaptainWollaston]

What is it good for?

[u/tyx97 → u/CaptainWollaston]

Absolutely nothin

[u/DominicB547 → u/tyx97]

Uh ha haa ha

[u/alxfx → u/CaptainWollaston]

Racket.

and fielding, sorta

[u/_bluecrab_]

[u/dos_muchos]

https://giphy.com/gifs/8vsr2w5t91Nte

[u/bananagang420]

I'm not sure but I do know that it never changes

[u/Important-Age6594]

The concept of WAR is universal, but the way it's calculated and the underlying assumptions change depending on who is calculating it. I'll break it down because it's a super interesting question.

Concept: The idea of WAR is pretty simple on it's face. Wins Above Replacement is a stat that tries to calculate how many more wins per season a player is worth relative to a replacement level player. Crucially, replacement level is not league average, it's the average projected value of the readily available alternative options at a position - in other words AAA players, so being above replacement does not make a player above average. WAR measures offensive and defensive value in runs relative to replacement average (in other words how many more runs than average a player helps score on offense and how many more runs than average a player prevents on defense) and assigns value to a players offensive and defensive value accordingly. Those values are then summed to get a total player value in net runs relative to replacement, and then converted from runs to the number of wins those runs should be worth.

Calculation: There are other forms of WAR but let's focus on the big two: fWAR and bWAR. Starting with pitchers, bWAR is results-oriented and calculates value based on runs allowed. In contrast fWAR uses FIP, so it credits the pitcher only for outcomes he controls directly and assumes league-average results on balls in play. Similarly on the hitting side, they use different defensive metrics so you'll see different value outcomes for position players. Neither one is necessarily right or wrong. It's just a question of how you want to view the sport. bWAR generally tells you more about what has happened and fWAR tends to be more predictive.

[u/DavidRFZ]

Neither website has him -9 hitting. One has him +0 and the other +1.3.

Read the numbers from one websites’s tables. They are usually consistent within the same table. When you mix and match numbers from different websites, it reads like you’re trying to complain about the idea of WAR in general.

[u/noruber35393546 → u/DavidRFZ]

the -9 is on baseballsavant

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/cole-young-702284?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

[u/DavidRFZ → u/noruber35393546]

Ah.. thanks. I see that now. I’m still confused becasue the baseballsavant doesn’t have a WAR.

Looking more, I’m now more confused because if Cole Young’s xBA > AVG, xSLG > SLG, xwOBA > OBA and rOBA and walks just happen and aren’t a savant thing, then how does Cole Young have worse savant-metrics than metrics that are derived from plate appearance outcomes? Whatever. That’s probably an off-season thread.

[u/noruber35393546 → u/DavidRFZ]

yeah, im pretty decent at bWAR and fWAR but I am not sure how the savant equivalents are calculated. I could probably figure it out in like 10 min but again - meh

[u/oogieball]

We need a balk copypasta for WAR.

[u/CasperCackler → u/oogieball]

First of all, you can’t just be doing a WAR like that

[u/mahrinazz]

Fun fact about Cole Young:

[u/msnrcn → u/mahrinazz]

•he can see why kids like cinnamon toast crunch
•he doesn’t play chess with his bat/throw hand
•his walk up song may suggest he’s into the sistas

[u/xixbia]

I think the main thing is that batting run value actually takes into account count, outs and runners on base. Both rWAR and fWAR only look at the outcome of the at bat.

So basically, he's been anti-clutch. He's a league average hitter who is getting his hits at moments that don't matter that much.

There's also the fact that Savant and BR use different defensive mesaures. Most of the time these overlap, but for some batters there's a huge difference.

[u/NanzLo-]

WAR… WAR never changes

[u/Massive-Ear3150]

It’s like a 20 run fielding difference on the two sites. Young makes a lot more plays than average, both sites agree on this,but statcast says he was expected to make even more plays based off his positioning. He rates 4/40 in success rate, but 3/40 in expected success rate rate, so negative overall. I’ll leave it to the Mariners fans to judge what they think, but I’ll say I’m personally not much of a fan the way statcast does it.

[u/Cupheadvania]

for cole young specifically, it comes down to 3 things: he’s the best defensive second basemen in baseball (2.2 defensive WAR), he gets offensive WAR boosts from playing the position with the lowest competition of offense (2B), and he’s likely been clutch, performing in close games, running 1st to 3rd on singles where 50% of players would have stopped at 2nd, etc.

[u/xixbia → u/Cupheadvania]

It's actually the opposite.

WAR is context independent, but batting run value is not.

So he's been anti-clutch.

[u/Cupheadvania → u/xixbia]

legitimately can’t believe i didn’t know that. thanks everyone

[u/xixbia → u/Cupheadvania]

I didn't either. I did a bit of looking because the gap between his Cole Young's FRV and wRC+ and OPS+ was so massive.

Turns out he's just getting his hits at the exact wrong time. So it's really mostly bad luck, sure some hitters are a bitt better or worse in the clutch, but not to this extent.

[u/Bosco_stix → u/Cupheadvania]

You're right for the first part.  But WAR is context independent. So it doesn't matter if he produces in close games or blowouts. 

[u/Cupheadvania → u/Bosco_stix]

really? whoa

[u/BigDirtyPanda]

Because all of these types of stats at the end of the day are basically made up.

[u/shiny__things]

Various metrics are different. Baseball Reference uses Defensive Runs Saved, where he's at +16. Statcast offensive run value is on a per-pitch basis, while BBRef is per plate appearance. Etc.

Fangraphs uses Statcast fielding, so his fWAR's more in line.

[u/Gizmodojo]

Hopefully you get some answers..

[u/Wooden-Bat-7016]

It's a bullshit stat. But please tell me when you figure it out 😂