First, I should note that when I looked last sim, and again this sim, French (7.8 WAR) was ahead of Rivera (7.1). So I can’t comment on that situation.
I can, however, dig into HGH’s plight, so that’s what I’m going to do.
FIRST: WHAT IS WAR?
To go back to basics let’s hear what FanGraphs has to say about WAR itself.
You can follow that link to get into the guts of how WAR is calculated by fangraphs. You should note that the last two words in the sentence “at fangraphs” are important. This is because different places calculate WAR a little bit differently. Baseball Reference WAR, for example, is sometimes different from fangraphs WAR.fangraphs wrote: WAR = (Batting Runs + Base Running Runs + Fielding Runs + Positional Adjustment + League Adjustment +Replacement Runs) / (Runs Per Win)
We will consider each aspect of the equation in turn, but the basic structure is that we take Batting, Base Running, and Fielding runs above average, add in a positional adjustment, a league adjustment, and then add in runs so that we are comparing to replacement level instead of average. That provides use with Runs Above Replacement (RAR), which we convert to WAR by dividing it by Runs Per Win. RAR and WAR communicate the same thing on different scales.
https://library.fangraphs.com/war/war-position-players/
But for our purposes, the fact that WAR is an attempt to gather all aspects of a player’s performance (batting, running, and defense) and then adjust for the league around that player. After that, the attempt is made to estimate how much that final score equates to wins for the team he plays on.
Simple, right? I suppose that’s a rudimentary thing, and we all understand that, at least a little and probably a lot.
But peeling the onion back a little for offensive players and focusing on the hitting part of the equation for now, we should realize something very important. So much of this is about runs created. In the old days we’d probably start with Bill James’ RC equations, but today we’ve moved a little beyond that. In fact, here’s what fangraphs says in the article I linked:
This is really important to me for the very concept that the whole of WARs calculation comes from wOBA. (this is one reason I think that I often start my sorting for various awards stuff with wOBA rather than WAR. The Puckett is about hitting, hence wOBA).The first step is to find Weighted Runs Above Average (wRAA) from the player’s wOBA
For reference, here’s Fangraph’s wOBA equation:
Take a long look at that equation before we go on. Look at its weightings. The process of calculating WAR will do several things to this result, but at its root it’s about wOBA relative to league average wOBA. If you believe in wOBA, you believe—fundamentally—in WAR.So at some level there are two questions inherent in the AFBI conversation:
- Is WAR itself useful?
- Does OOTP calculate WAR “properly”
My personal answers to these are that, yes, WAR is very useful as long as you’re not trying to be too fine with it. If your answer is that you don’t like WAR, then I suggest that the second question is not particularly useful. I mean, sure you can giggle if you think OOTP is just wrong, but you lose bonus points to me because if you don’t believe in WAR to begin with, you’re just futzing around for the fun of it.
Regarding the second question, since no one knows for sure how OOTP calculates it, no one can be for sure that the game does it properly.
That said, I can say three things in OOTP WAR’s favor:
- WAR’s greatest strength in my mind is that it’s consistent for all players, and with the caveat that OOTP occasionally tweaks things a little here and there, the same can be said for its WAR calculations. Maybe it’s off, or maybe it’s not, but it feels consistent enough for most uses regardless.
- At just over half a WAR difference, French (.415/.447/.697 180 OPS+, .469 wOBA, 31 HR, 31/54 SB, +2.4 ZR in CF) and Rivera (.352/.437/.723 182 OPS+, .469 wOBA, 45 HR, 30/41 SB, +4.2 ZR in LF/RF) are within the boundaries of being of similar value. So I won’t use their case either for or against WAR, though French is currently ahead. Note those wOBAs, after all. You can’t get any closer than this.
- The fact that Hugh Mangrouthorme is sitting at -0.2 WAR is not an indictment of OOTP’s WAR calculation. Instead, I think it’s a statement of HGH’s true value, and I’d argue that it is a point in WAR’s favor that it’s showing this.
HGH has clubbed 44 homers in his 122 games fer cryin’ out loud! Good for 113 RBI! No freakin way on God’s Good Earth can he be a negative replacement value!
Well … All right.
LET’S DIG INTO HGH, SHALL WE?
Let’s get something straight. A guy who hits HRs like this is great fun. I mean, it’s gotta be cool going to the park when he’s playing. But WAR is not about fun. WAR is about value. So …
Let’s dispense with the easy stuff. HGH is a DH, so he has zero fielding value. He’s stolen four bases of the six he’s tried, so he’s at 66% success rate. The league’s success rate is 73.9% (OOTP calls his Base Running Runs -1.2), so he’s a gentle minus when it comes to baserunning and fielding combined. Nothing huge, of course, but it’s not positive—and that means we can focus completely on his bat.
So, to do that let’s first start a wOBA. That’s the core of WAR, after all.
Per StatsPlus, our league average wOBA is .343.
You know where this is going, right?
Hugh Mangrouthormone’s wOBA is .328. In other words, wOBA says HGH is 15 points below the league average hitter. Or, looking at it a different way, Des Moines’ team wOBA is .329, Portland’s team wOBA is .325. So a team of HGH’s would produce runs (as measured by wOBA) at a rate somewhere in the range of those two teams. Given that HGH has no value beyond his bat, this is not good. I note that Portland is 47-74 (and their offense has scored the fewest in the Frick League), and Des Moines is 56-64 (their offense is 13th best when it comes to scoring runs).
So, there’s the wOBA test.
But let’s not stop here. How about wRC+, where HGH is at 91…in other words he’s creating 9% fewer runs than the average hitter.
Or let’s play with pure runs created/27 outs.
Per his BNN page, HGH is creating 4.73 Runs/27 outs. That feels like a lot, right? At least not chopped liver! But, yes, in the BBA 2041 environment, where the league’s ERA is 5.07 and the league overall is averaging 5.39 runs per game, you can see that HGH’s 4.73 runs/9 is .66 runs per game below what an average team is scoring in it’s 27 outs.
Another cut? Take that 4.73 runs/27 and multiply by the 122 games he’s played in (all of Louisville’s games). That gives you 577 runs. Portland has scored 572, so an HGH-staffed offense is five runs better than Portland’s. But realize that Portland has played one less game, so they still have a chance to put this team of HGHers behind them.
So, yeah, by the old Bill James method, HGH is a deeply sub-standard performer.
How about team WAR?
Portland’s offense, per StatsPlus, has created 7 WAR, so you might say aha! But realize that 7 WAR has to be split among 14 or 15 hitters, so at best you can say HGH should maybe be a .5 WAR kind of guy.
Of course, realize that HGH has no defense and negative base running. So, he’d get less than his share of WAR. Let’s be generous and say he’d be 0.2. Maybe.
SO, TELL ME AGAIN, WHAT’S WRONG WITH WAR?
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with WAR. Nothing. Or, rather, you can’t use HGH as an example to talk about what’s wrong with WAR. The problem in HGH’s case is us. We think that 44 HR is a real value—and it is, but we are unable to comprehend exactly how BAD everything else is about his current performance.
The right question here is “what’s wrong with Hugh Mangrouthormone?
The answer to this question is, just like Don Smith, he’s up too soon. I mean, he’s never going to be a HoFer with a string of 5 or 7 WAR seasons, but he should be really valuable by the time he’s 23 or so. But right now he’s a 5 Contact (out of 7 Pot), which means he’s rarely going to get to use his Gap (which is still 7/8). And “worse” he’s “only” 9 POW against his 12 potential. Let him grow into those numbers, and HGH will pop some 2-3 WAR seasons and be both useful and good.
But right this minute, HGH is a replacement level player, and the fact is that he’s barely a replacement level player only because of those 44 HR.
What this means is that the problem we’re having here is US.
We think 44 HR are so powerful they can overcome anything. But look at that wOBA equation. Realize that in real life there are a few similar examples (but you have to squint hard—Franmil Reyes, for example, hit 38 HR and registered only 1 WAR…his OBP was .310 and his wOBA was .338… Reynato Nunez and Randal Grichuk both hit 31 dingers last year, and registered 0.6 and 0.5 WAR).
It can happen.
Some of you will likely say “well, that just proves WAR is stupid!” Which is fine, of course. Everyone can think whatever they want to think. But remember, WAR comes from wOBA, and pretty much every other way I can think of to judge HGH outside of the number 44 says the same thing that WAR does.
So …
Shrug.
Seriously, wtf.... Like he needed that