Actual vs. expected record using WAR
by Home Run Tony Cogan on Jul 3, 2009 4:26 PM EDT
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PrintI got to thinking, with the performance of this year's team, what really is to blame for the Royals' sickly performance thus far in 2009? We know that the team as constructed weren't going to be world-beaters, but my sense is that the team has significantly underperformed it's talent level so far.
So, I decided to do a quick and admittedly rough analysis of our beloved Royals. I then wanted to see what our performance looked like compared to the other teams in the league, to see if I could come up with any conclusions.
I took each team's hitting and pitching WAR, then added a hypothetical 24 wins for replacement level since we're at about the halfway point. I then compared this number to the team's actual record and sorted by the difference. Where a team hadn't played exactly 81 games I "fudged" just a little bit by projecting what their record would be for 81 games, so that everybody was on the same level. Another note: since not everybody has played the same number of games, and this was done just prior to the 81 game mark, the results are probably a bit skewed, and the difference is probably a little understated for all teams. However, I was just looking for overall "trends" and then wanted to see what some of the causes might be. Here's the data:
|
Team |
TOTAL |
REPL |
EXPW |
ACTW |
DIFF |
||
|
12.1 |
9.4 |
21.5 |
24.0 |
45.5 |
50.0 |
4.5 |
|
|
6.7 |
6.9 |
13.6 |
24.0 |
37.6 |
41.0 |
3.4 |
|
|
7.0 |
4.8 |
11.8 |
24.0 |
35.8 |
38.0 |
2.2 |
|
|
5.8 |
2.2 |
8.0 |
24.0 |
32.0 |
34.0 |
2.0 |
|
|
5.7 |
10.5 |
16.2 |
24.0 |
40.2 |
42.0 |
1.8 |
|
|
8.8 |
7.8 |
16.6 |
24.0 |
40.6 |
42.0 |
1.4 |
|
|
12.9 |
4.0 |
16.9 |
24.0 |
40.9 |
42.0 |
1.1 |
|
|
4.9 |
7.0 |
11.9 |
24.0 |
35.9 |
37.0 |
1.1 |
|
|
7.2 |
4.1 |
11.3 |
24.0 |
35.3 |
36.0 |
0.7 |
|
|
13.0 |
1.7 |
14.7 |
24.0 |
38.7 |
39.0 |
0.3 |
|
|
8.2 |
5.7 |
13.9 |
24.0 |
37.9 |
38.0 |
0.1 |
|
|
11.0 |
7.3 |
18.3 |
24.0 |
42.3 |
42.0 |
(0.3) |
|
|
11.7 |
12.7 |
24.4 |
24.0 |
48.4 |
48.0 |
(0.4) |
|
|
6.1 |
11.0 |
17.1 |
24.0 |
41.1 |
40.0 |
(1.1) |
|
|
11.5 |
7.8 |
19.3 |
24.0 |
43.3 |
42.0 |
(1.3) |
|
|
11.7 |
8.7 |
20.4 |
24.0 |
44.4 |
43.0 |
(1.4) |
|
|
7.3 |
11.1 |
18.4 |
24.0 |
42.4 |
41.0 |
(1.4) |
|
|
16.5 |
6.7 |
23.2 |
24.0 |
47.2 |
45.0 |
(2.2) |
|
|
4.2 |
11.0 |
15.2 |
24.0 |
39.2 |
37.0 |
(2.2) |
|
|
8.1 |
5.2 |
13.3 |
24.0 |
37.3 |
35.0 |
(2.3) |
|
|
8.5 |
9.1 |
17.6 |
24.0 |
41.6 |
39.0 |
(2.6) |
|
|
10.5 |
7.8 |
18.3 |
24.0 |
42.3 |
39.0 |
(3.3) |
|
|
11.5 |
4.0 |
15.5 |
24.0 |
39.5 |
36.0 |
(3.5) |
|
|
3.4 |
9.6 |
13.0 |
24.0 |
37.0 |
33.0 |
(4.0) |
|
|
12.2 |
10.4 |
22.6 |
24.0 |
46.6 |
42.0 |
(4.6) |
|
|
Royals |
3.9 |
11.6 |
15.5 |
24.0 |
39.5 |
33.0 |
(6.5) |
|
10.2 |
4.9 |
15.1 |
24.0 |
39.1 |
31.0 |
(8.1) |
|
|
7.3 |
9.1 |
16.4 |
24.0 |
40.4 |
31.0 |
(9.4) |
|
|
21.8 |
7.9 |
29.7 |
24.0 |
53.7 |
44.0 |
(9.7) |
|
|
6.3 |
3.0 |
9.3 |
24.0 |
33.3 |
22.0 |
(11.3) |
Some brief takeaways-
I was surprised to see the Reds up so high, considering how poorly they played against us.
Not surprisingly, the Royals are near the bottom of this list. Luckily, the Indians have been even worse than we are, thus keeping us out of last place.
The Diamondbacks standing makes sense, given the fact that they seem to have some real talented young players and seem to have severely underperformed.
The Rays being next to last? I don't get that at all.
So, I guess what I'm trying to figure out from this data is, what causes the difference? I can think of three things, but this is probably not all-inclusive, and this is in no particular order:
- Random chance
- Baserunning
- "Non-error" errors, things like throwing to the wrong base, missing a cutoff man, etc. that I'm assuming also don't show up on zone ratings
What else might be a cause? In the Royals' case, I kind of worked backwards, knowing what some of our problems have been thus far, but I'm sure that there are things I'm missing.
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Interesting stuff, Tony,, rec'd
If you wanted to work in baserunning, baseball prosectus’ EQBRR is already in run above/below average format
I thought about the accuracy WAR-as-projectoin when we were doing pre-season projections, and again when the two of us were discussing it on the game thread… This is cool, and need to be done, but I still think something along pythag is going to be more helpful in the “immediate sense.”
The Beyond the Box Score power rankings are a very cool, of course, but this is a different animal.
I might post more on this next week at Driveline, but I did a very quick, poorman’s “expected win%” this morning, pretty much all from FanGraphs.
Runs scored, I used each teams wRC (absolute wOBA Runs Created). For runs allowed, I scaled FIP to RA by dividing by .92, then prorated by innings pitched/9. Then I modified that by adding in UZR above/below average. Then I did pythagenpat on the runs/scored allowed.
As of today, the AL East has 4 of the 5 top expected win% in the MLB. The Rays are a .640 team (103 wins over a full season), the Red Sox a .590 team (96), the Yanks .562, (91), and the Jays .550 (89). The Royals are a .451 team, or about 73 wins over a full season.
Not saying it’s a great way to do it. I just did it for fun to see what would happen — a different perspective. Not meaning to take away from your post above. I think that using WAR is just going to need a much larger sample.
Also, Zack is responsible for a huge proportion — but players don’t “dole it out” evenly, especially starting pitchers. I don’t know how to express this right — probably means I need to think it through better — but he’s contributing a huge share of the teams WAR in only about 1/5 of their games, so especially early in the season, that might be part of the discrepancy. But I’m just throwing that out there.
Again, good stuff.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
thx, i'm curious
to see individual components by year, i think that’s what i might look at next.
i’m curious, is one able to break pythag down to individual player level, so you can see who the reason for increases/decreases are, or is that just more on a total runs scored/runs allowed basis?
Kansas City Royals - rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic since 1994.
by Home Run Tony Cogan on Jul 3, 2009 6:44 PM EDT up reply actions
so, this is pretty similar to pythag record vs. actual record?
correct?
Fire Everyone
sort of
pythag uses “actual” runs scored and allowed. If I understand him right from our previous conversations, HTCG is starting from what a theoretical “replacement level team” would have done in the same number of games (i.e, .300 win %), then from that number of wins, adds in all the wins above replacement.
I guess I should let him speak for himself though.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by Matt Klaassen on Jul 3, 2009 11:05 PM EDT up reply actions
no, you're right
believe me, you know much more about this stuff than i.
Kansas City Royals - rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic since 1994.
by Home Run Tony Cogan on Jul 3, 2009 11:25 PM EDT up reply actions
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