Warp3

by DavidWrightismyGod on Sep 14, 2006 1:07 PM EDT Comment 23 comments

does anyone know where i can get up to date warp3 numbers? i am also wondering what people view as the single best stat to gauge the value of a player. win shares, warp3, vorp, etc.? thanks in advance for the help and info on these stats. and since i am told i have to say more in the diary, who do people think is the best choice for NL MVP? it seems to be pujols, howard and beltran as the most discussed, with miguel cabrera getting some love too. thanks!

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re

Howard- His power numbers are awesome, his RBIs are awesome, and he is hitting .315 to boot. Plus, the Phillies are 2 games out but would be 20 games out without him. Beltran and Pujols are good, but their teams would win without them. Phillies would be toast without Ryno

by ScottAZ on Sep 14, 2006 2:12 PM EDT reply actions

Ummmm....

The Cards would still win without Pujols?? How exactly would they manage to do that?

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by KevinApps on Sep 14, 2006 2:34 PM EDT up reply actions

re

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Baseball Tonight just do something about this and show that the Cards still had a winning record in the 3 weeks without Pujols?

by ScottAZ on Sep 14, 2006 3:01 PM EDT up reply actions

Your what hurts?

Can you say "small sample size?"

by BobbyMac on Sep 14, 2006 7:39 PM EDT up reply actions

Agreed

If you take Puljos out of that lineup ther is no way the cards make the playoffs.It would hurt the Phils in the same respect when you take out Howard from their lineup
That being said, Howard's rediculous performance shows how much help he would to get the phils into the playoffs. Even with the insane second half his team still would not be in the playoffs today.
Puljos on the otherhand has missed alot of time and his team did not colpase compleltely even with pressure from Houston and the Reds. Maybe this shows how soild his team is in comparison to the Phils, the strenght of compeititon, or the veteren leadership being in the post season regualrly.
The whole that would be created if you lose Albert, who i think everyone would agree is the better player in all fasits of the game, would not be as large as the one Howard would create.
Think who is filling the shoes of Albert, who i would like to add is a much much better defender than Howard. Jim Edmonds, and Scott Rolen. Two "old" poteinal HOFs... And For Howard? Pat Burrell... and ummm maybe you can throw David Delluci in there. And unless Burrell is playing the mets then he has little to no vaule in today's ballgame.
In addition, look at the two pitching staffs. It becomes very clear who has a better overall team. The one item that Puljos and the Cards will have to worry about is Izzy, who has allowed 10 BS.
I think most people would take Albert Puljos for the next 10 years over any player in baseball, possibly by a longshot. But the MVP is for this year, and you cannot overlook Howard's dominance in the Second half. As a met fan, I would love to see Reyes get some votes.. but RYAN HOWARD for MVP

by JDSussman on Sep 14, 2006 3:05 PM EDT up reply actions

re

amen brotha

by ScottAZ on Sep 14, 2006 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions

umm...

Chase Utley?

In the name of David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Lastings Milledge. Amen.

by BlackOps on Sep 14, 2006 7:17 PM EDT up reply actions

umm

Utley Hits infront of him and therefore can't be pitched to after they walk him.

by JDSussman on Sep 14, 2006 7:20 PM EDT up reply actions

utley

but he is the best 2nd basemen in baseball

by JDSussman on Sep 14, 2006 7:20 PM EDT up reply actions

silly

This is silly. To "penalize" Pujols because LaRussa prefers to bat a scrub in the 2-hole while the Phillies use lesser hitters deeper in the lineup is silly to me. Unless you do ballpark effects, there's not really any argument that the other 7 Cardinals this season have been even close to the other 7 Phillies. And if you start evaluating ballpark effects, you need to reduce Howard's staggering totals somewhat too.

by BobbyMac on Sep 14, 2006 7:43 PM EDT up reply actions

agreed

I don't want to throw all the numbers on here, but it is definitely true that having utley in front of howard helps with his RBI opertunity adn you can see htose stats on BP. But there isn't a scrub hitting infront of pujlos. His protection is so much greater than Howards and that increases his opertunity aswell.

by JDSussman on Sep 14, 2006 10:05 PM EDT up reply actions

definition of "scrub"

re: "there isn't a scrub hitting infront of pujlos"

Call it what you like, but Pujols has hit 3rd all season, and the Cardinals' stats from their first two lineup positions are:
#1: .277/.332/.346
#2: .277/.340/.413

When I wrote it, I was thinking primarily of the parade of characters who rotated through the 2-hole before Belliard was acquired, and for on-base purposes, he's not an upgrade either.

by BobbyMac on Sep 15, 2006 12:58 PM EDT up reply actions

re

actually not at all since his road/home splits are about dead even and considering most of his homers are of the 400+ feet variety, or out in any ball park. Its not like he's Dwight Evans lofting popups over the Green Monster that would be caught in any other park.

by ScottAZ on Sep 14, 2006 10:09 PM EDT up reply actions

And...

he's struck out 158 times versus Pujols 43. The only thing Howard has on Pujols is HR and RBI, but he's played 15 more games. Here's a nice article from Jayson Stark digging a little deeper.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=2585469&lpos=spotlight &lid=tab5pos1

The RISP numbers about 2/3 of the way down really tell the story to me. Howard has 47 more PAs with RISP and only 1 more RBI in those ABs.

As for the comparison between the teams, I'd take the Utley/Rollins combination over any other 2 position players on the Cardinals and Carpenter has been the only consistent pitcher for the Cardinals.

by joerote on Sep 14, 2006 3:03 PM EDT up reply actions

re

but, the award is Most valuable Player, not best statistical. Is Pujols more valuable to the Cards than Howard is to the Phillies? i would say no, but that is obviously debatable

by ScottAZ on Sep 14, 2006 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions

value

IMO, the best measure of a player's offensive value to his team in a given season is WPA.

http://www.fangraphs.com/winss.aspx?team=Cardinals&season=2006

Pujols: 8.33
Howard: 7.54

Pujols is also an asset on defense while Howard is a liability.

by jeck on Sep 14, 2006 3:50 PM EDT up reply actions

It's very debatable

and very subjective in your case. Without really digging into who has the better surrounding case, who has the better pitching staff, etc., it's difficult to ascertain who's more "valuable." Plus, it's nothing but speculation to how these teams would perform without their star player save a small 15 game sample in the middle of the season for Pujols. What I do know is the Phillies have scored 77 more runs than the Cardinals and Pujols has 10 more Runs Created than Howard.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/?view=batting&league_filter[]=2

I think if you dug further, you'd find that not only does Pujols win the statistical battle but he'd win the "valuable" battle too.

by joerote on Sep 14, 2006 4:20 PM EDT up reply actions

RBI?

Im sorry, I cant accept any argument concerning the MVP as cogent if it (a) comes from Joe Morgan or (b) mentions "RBI". Again Im sorry.

by sanchez101 on Sep 14, 2006 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions

RBI

not to touch off a raging debate, but i actually find that MVP discussions (as odious as they are) are the one place where RBI really has some merit as a statistic. driving in runs helps your team win games. MVP discussions are where we talk about how much a player has helped his team win.

RBIs are like WPA in the sense that they have very little predictive value, except insofar as they are weakly correlated with how good a player is generally. everybody knows RBIs have a lot to do with how often the guys in front of you are getting on base and into scoring position; nevertheless, knocking them in still puts runs on the board and puts your team in a better position to win. it's very analogous to player X who just happens to come up a lot with the game on the line. if he does well in those situations, he's helping his team win. maybe player Y has slightly better raw (individual) performance but hasn't been up as often with the opportunity to drive in runs, or the opportunity to win games in the 9th. even though that is not the fault of player Y, player X has been more valuable.

so i think RBIs deserve to be looked at, as does WPA. having said all that, i find the actual MVP voting to be an absolute crock and i couldn't care less who wins the hardware in any given year. it's like the all-star game for me. i just don't understand why i should care who the writers decide to honor, even though i am interested in who has performed the best.

by the way, to answer the original poster's question, WARP3 can be found on BP's site. you can look up a player's DT card and it will show you his WARP3 for every year of his career, including this year. for the purposes of MVP discussion, WARP1 is probably more useful since there's no real need to adjust everybody for era, level of competition, or length of season. the BP sortable stats also let you see who the leaders in WARP1 are, but you may have to be a subscriber to access that feature.

by jpahk on Sep 14, 2006 5:38 PM EDT up reply actions

one thing against Pujols

Pujols is doing exactly what is expected of him, so it does not stand out as much as Howard. People are talking about Howard because it is such a great leap forward for him. His name is on peoples tongues and that gets votes.

though my vote would go to the most dangerous hitter in the league and that is Pujols.

by jbg3004 on Sep 14, 2006 5:15 PM EDT reply actions

Sanchez 101

AMEN Brother. AMEN!!!

Anything, and I mean ANYTHING Joe Morgan says has to be taken not with a grain of salt but with an entire ROCK of salt.

RBI is dependent upon guys on your team getting on in front of you.

Howard is good, but he's no Pujols.

I won't get married until the Red Sox win the World Series. AGAIN!!

by Shep on Sep 14, 2006 8:40 PM EDT reply actions

Pujols

I'm a sick puppy, so I hope Howard wins and Pujols gets stiffed yet again, like all those Barry years.

I love that this guy has 200 HRs in his first five ML season with a .330 BA and an OPS over .1000 and he's only got 1 MVP to his name.

by Yakker on Sep 14, 2006 8:43 PM EDT reply actions

Back to the matter at hand

Err...wasn't this thread supposed to be about WARP?

You have to go to baseballprospectus.com and search for each player individually. I really wish they'd make leaderboards available for WARP, but oh well.

I try not to read too much into WARP however. For starters, BP's defensive statistics are very unreliable. For another, I'm not too thrilled with their all-time adjustments for WARP3. Not necessarily that it's wrong, just that they haven't explained it nearly enough for me to be comfortable with it yet.

I tend to look at EQA and VORP, take into account any available UZR and The Fielding Bible's stats, and some old-fashioned subjective defensive evaluations.

by Anthony on Sep 15, 2006 7:20 PM EDT reply actions