Hitting and Fielding WAR Totals By World Series Winners
by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 29, 2010 11:53 AM EDT
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Last night while hosting the Fangraphs chat session, it was brought up that the Giants may be the wost offensive team to win the World Series. Using rWAR, the Giants have a total of 19.6 WAR this season. The search went out to find the worst collection of position players for a World Series winner and I will let the results speak for themselves.
The data is the entire position player WAR ever since there were 162 games and I discarded any year that was shortened.
| Rank | Year | Team | rWAR |
| 1 | 1998 | New York Yankees | 42.8 |
| 2 | 1973 | Oakland Athletics | 40.4 |
| 3 | 1975 | Cincinnati Reds | 39.4 |
| 4 | 2002 | Anaheim Angels | 38.5 |
| 5 | 1961 | New York Yankees | 37.9 |
| 42 | 1987 | Minnesota Twins | 18.5 |
| 43 | 2005 | Chicago White Sox | 15.6 |
| 44 | 1996 | New York Yankees | 14.7 |
| 45 | 1990 | Cincinnati Reds | 14.2 |
| 46 | 1985 | Kansas City Royals | 8.9 |
Only 8.9 WAR. Heck George Brett had 8.0 WAR by himself. To put into prospective, this season the Royals had almost twice as much WAR generated from its position players with 17.2 WAR. 322 individual players have generated more WAR in a season than all the hitters on the team that year. All I can say is thank God that the Royals had a decent pitching staff that season.
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That's exactly why I argue that Brett could have been the 85 MVP
Yeah, others (especially Rickey Henderson) may have been better that year – but no position player meant more to his team than Brett did that year.
"We're gonna win with pitching and defense" General Manager Dayton Moore, circa winter 2009
"Where did all these Indians come from?" General George Armstrong Custer, circa summer 1876
what were his and Rickey's numbers?
Like a weapon labeled "very stupid weapon, do not use." - BabyBlues
I looked at this extensively a while back
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/11/18/1160938/reward-retrospective-1985-al-mvp
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 29, 2010 9:36 PM EDT up reply actions
Not surprised at all to see the '90 Reds right down with the Royals
They surprised most everyone all year and seemed to be a mediocre bunch.
The 2002 Angels are surprising. Never thought of them as that great of a team.
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
How good was Chris Sabo?
Answer: he pulled a couple low-.800s OPS in ’89 and ’90.
But that fella had grit.
Like a weapon labeled "very stupid weapon, do not use." - BabyBlues
correction
’90 and ’91, and in ’91 he had an .859 OPS
He actually had a star-caliber season in ’91. 26HR, .354 OBP
Like a weapon labeled "very stupid weapon, do not use." - BabyBlues
Do you have the full list up anywhere?
I’d be interesting in seeing what you came up with. Great stuff. Will you be doing pitching too?
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
Here is the complete list
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApDc5PGsBzgVdHQzc0ZrTzZRaS1vZWx0bUpCODZoR0E&hl=en
I got the data by looking up each team on B-Ref (which has the WAR totals). I may do the pitchers if I get bored some day.
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 29, 2010 12:41 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I have added the pitchers to Sheet 2
Along with the team’s actual wins.
I should have done the first one in SQL, about 5 times fast.
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 29, 2010 2:46 PM EDT up reply actions
From what I know, rWAR is just a certain system's calculation (Rally)
That’s what B-R uses. FanGraphs, on the other hand, calculates fWAR. But I could be wrong.
"This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."
Contributor at Kings of Kauffman
by MinnesotaRoyal on Oct 29, 2010 1:08 PM EDT up reply actions
You are right and 1 minute faster
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 29, 2010 1:09 PM EDT up reply actions
Sorry about that
r = Rally/Sean Smiths WAR at baseballprojection.com. It is the WAR values used at baseball-reference.
The other would f which is based off the Fangraph numbers
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 29, 2010 1:09 PM EDT up reply actions
rWAR and fWAR for hitters is almost indentical.
The major difference for position players is with how defense is calculated. fWAR uses UZR to measure defense while rWAR uses values generated from retrosheet.
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 29, 2010 1:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Good to know
I had just read about the abbreviations, but I didn’t know this difference.
"This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."
Contributor at Kings of Kauffman
by MinnesotaRoyal on Oct 29, 2010 5:49 PM EDT up reply actions
This is interesting...
….the WAR on the current Royals roster is higher than ’85, and yet…..?
I wonder if there is a threshold of WAR each year a team needs to obtain, and that threshold could vary from year to year, division by division.
This makes me think more, I like it.
Dr. Ausgiano schools me in the classroom and on the field of battle
by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on Oct 29, 2010 1:13 PM EDT reply actions
year-adjusted WAR.....that's got to be out there, right?
Like a weapon labeled "very stupid weapon, do not use." - BabyBlues
I could get what ever he is looking for.
The key numbers are a team of replacement players is wins 30% of its games or 48.6 wins. To get to 90 wins, you need 42 WAR to be in the division race (90 wins) or 52 to probably win the division (100 wins).
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 29, 2010 9:39 PM EDT up reply actions
I over simplified it.
The yearly offensive WAR would have to be off set by that years pitching and defense as Chris pointed out below.
But does the WAR vary year to year of the teams that make the playoffs or does it just generally trend higher and higher?
Dr. Ausgiano schools me in the classroom and on the field of battle
by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on Oct 30, 2010 11:48 AM EDT up reply actions
Total WAR is the Total number of wins in a season. It will varies with how much is given to offense, defense and pitching.
League wide WAR is constant.
What you need to look at is the number of wins it takes to win a division.
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 30, 2010 12:25 PM EDT up reply actions
AH....yes.
Dr. Ausgiano schools me in the classroom and on the field of battle
by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on Nov 1, 2010 2:37 PM EDT up reply actions
Offensive only?
I think those numbers above are for he offense only – could we have the WAR numbers for the pitching of those teams? Just curious.
(actually, I’m not curious, I’ve always been annoyed by the idea that “WAR” can be calculated and might not reflect the actual number of wins a team actually achieved, and could probably sit and pout when I’m proven wrong)
Nick Swisher is handsome.
gack.
It just struck me. Those are offense ONLY. There’s defensive WAR and of course pitching to consider.
I don’t know (from a pure numbers standpoint), but if I had to hazard a guess, those Royals and Twins teams had good defenses
Nick Swisher is handsome.
There is a link above with the pitching numbers also
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Oct 30, 2010 9:47 AM EDT up reply actions
And despite being so horrible offensively
they still beat the living crap out of the Cardinals in every offensive statistical category that series.
My new blog: Those Other Guys. Critiques welcome.
Gotta love 7 games.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
Actually, what this shows is...
…the uselessness of WAR in relation to constructing a championship team. So much calculation for naught. Perhaps there IS something to those chemistry and pitching arguments. – TL
"Sir,--It has been wittily remarked that there are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third and most aggravated is statistics." *The National Observer* (June 13, 1891): p. 93-94.
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