Comments on Basement Dwellers: WAR Q&A

@Rally, thanks. The leverage stuff took me a while...

2009-06-22T13:32:31.473-04:00

@Rally, thanks. The leverage stuff took me a while to get straight as well. I'm doing something similar with my Reds stuff, but for leverage over 1 I'm giving bonus credit if a reliever is better than a 0.570 pitcher. If so, the pitcher gets normal credit vs replacement, plus credit for anything they do over 0.570 times their leverage-1. That's pretty much in keeping with what Tango does, I think.

@Sky, thanks for the scale--that looks right and is a great shorthand.
-j

I once looked at how many players were above certa...

2009-06-22T13:15:11.581-04:00

I once looked at how many players were above certain WAR cutoffs and came up with my own subjective scale:

0 WAR: useless
2 WAR: average
4 WAR: borderline All-Star*
6 WAR: will get MVP votes
8 WAR: top MVP candidate**
10 WAR: No-brainer MVP***

* There are about as many All-Star slots as players to hit 4 WAR in a season.

** That is, players who SHOULD be MVP candidates, not those that actually are.

*** Unless, of course, there happen to be multiple guys up here, which is rare.

Cool writeup. Sometime I'll have to create a page...

2009-06-22T13:03:27.630-04:00

Cool writeup. Sometime I'll have to create a page and link to posts like this for people who have questions about the system.

About leverage - relievers get credit for 1/2 of the extra leverage beyond one - If Mo Rivera has a 1.8 then I give him (1.8+1)/2 = 1.4 credit.

The explanation is not an easy one, I had a hard time getting it straight, but it really depends on chaining - if Mo gets hurt you don't give his 1.8 leverage innings to a replacement level reliever, you give them to his above average setup man. And the setup man's 1.3 leverage goes to an average pitcher, and so on, with the "replacement level" guy added to the roster while Mo is out goes to 0.3 leverage mopup work.