White sox ranked 28th in errors per game and were all around horrendous defensively last year. I don't think he really benefited from fielding last year unless the team only felt like playing defense when he was on the mound.
>unless the team only felt like playing defense when he was on the mound
That is actually probably what happened.
bWAR applies a defensive bonus or penalty based on the overall team defense. If you are on a team with rotten D (like the Sox last season), and they just happen to play ok defense during your starts, you get a nice fat bWAR bump. It happened to Aaron Nola in 2018 to give him a monster 10.8 bWAR.
The fact that bWAR pretends defensive miscues are evenly distributed among a team's pitchers is it's biggest weakness IMO.
xFIP is talking about expected home runs allowed which is outside of team defense adjustments. xFIP is saying "hey, 11.4% of all fly balls are home runs and your HR/FB% is 8.4%. Let's pretend it's 11.4%. That means we think you deserved to give up 8 more runs due to HR than you actually allowed."
Isn't Gausman almost entirely because dude just forgot how to give up walks for the first 2 months of the year?
He allowed significantly more hits/9 this year but his BB/9 was way down. He had 3 walks in his first 50 innings and then 25 in the last 124.2.
Still a better walk rate than he's had in the past, a bit under 2, but a far cry from 0.5.
No major change in HR or K rate, he just walked a lot less so FIP thinks he was great.
I know he was someone I was going to watch the numbers on this year. If he regresses on the walks a bit and gets less unlucky/bad fielding he could have similar results with a very different year and I just think that'd be funny.
Then Manoah is literally the opposite. Tons of walks but very few hits.
I'd expect his ERA will be a lot better in 2023 if he pitches the same.
His FWAR was definitly better beause of the lack of walks early on but i think his .363 Babip is the big reason for the lower BWAR. You're going to give up more runs when that many balls in play go for hits.
Assuming his BABIP normalizes and he pitches to the same caliber he should have a great year. Oddly the jays shifted a ton in general last year and it seemed to burn Gausman so that going away may actually help him. He ran a .386 BABIP with the shift that lead to a .391 average and .500 slugging against when the Jays shifted.
It wasn't just a matter of the shift being a result of him being torched by lefties either (as lefties are usually shifted against a lot). .263 wOBA against lefties and .331 against righties. His BABIP against lefties was .317 against lefties and .399 against righties too.
Chris Black from Sportsnet had a [great thread on Gausman](https://twitter.com/DownToBlack/status/1611413681530617856?t=TYtN-07wdFb54GrysIU3lw&s=19) and concluded he really just doesn't get good fielding period when he was on the mound, shift or no shift. A lot of it was weak contact that they simply didn't field - "only George Kirby had a lower Outs Above Average by defenders behind him when he was on the mound (Gausman -11)." [Here's a compilation of it](https://twitter.com/DownToBlack/status/1611417634750218251?t=krgUKdU8Op3Mw7SwCOd53g&s=19). I swear to you it isn't normal.
But the shift did make it worse, and they still did it very often until late in the year, and his splitter when batters made contact tended to go to opposite field. So I definitely think we see positive regression for Gausman on the horizon.
As for Manoah, it is pretty well documented that he often gameplans his pitch mix to pitch deeper into games, thus not really using his extra FB velocity until later. fWAR hates the amount of contact and OBP he gives up as a result. But he nearly always knows how to pitch out of a jam, almost comedically so. There is concerns about his effectiveness against lefties, but it shouldn't be that big of an issue.
He won't pitch the same.
He has a career .316 BABIP.
He was unlucky, but not outrageously so. His command was incredibly lucky for a month and then just looked like a small improvement over the past.
But his ERA could have been worse - he got shelled after small errors and has 4 or 5 unearned runs that came on very hard hit balls. He got lucky in that sense.
He had an odd year. He got very lucky in some ways and very unlucky in others.
Fwar projects him to be a 3-4 win pitcher next year because it knows his walks lowering his FIP like that isn't sustainable and his fWAR this year was an illusion.
That's pretty much what bWAR has him at. He can't throw that many strikes to not walk people without giving up more hits as a side effect of being in the zone.
Any gains he gets from a single or two less a game will most likely become a walk.
A pretty similar year in results isnwhats projected and I'd basically have to agree.
It wasn’t bad fielding. Well, that was part of it, but the biggest culprit was the shift. He gave up more hits against the shift than I have ever seen any pitcher surrender.
It had more to do with basically everything hit into play going for a hit against Gausman. But yes he didn’t walk anyone for the first like 6 starts of the year (or give up a home run either)
The difference between a .364 BABIP and a .300 (lower than Gausman's career average but higher than his 2021, roughly equal to 2020) is 31 none HR hits.
That means roughly 1 single (the majority of hits) per start with a couple of doubles.
While it certainly would save runs here and there, 3/4ths of his runners were stranded and thats right about normal for him. It's not a gigantic difference.
He was roughly 1 walk per 9 below his last two seasons so you can expect regression there and add 15-25 walks, which pretty much makes up the difference.
The walks and hits aren't quite perfectly split but they canceled out on overall results which is why his ERA is still very good.
The HR thing is relevant for the projections, as they expect that HR rate is the true number.
Add back in some walks and a few extra HRs and you get a 3-4 FIP with a 3-4 ERA, just like this year's end results.
Even if he does run a much better BABIP, they project a 3-4 win player and not close to 6 for good reason.
I don’t have time to read all of that.
But Gausman got screwed mostly under Montoyo who shifted every play no matter how badly it was screwing over Gausman. When Schnieder stepped in Gausman’s luck fell back to roughly average
"Corporate needs you to find the differences between this picture and this picture."
Fangraphs, looking at Dylan Cease's performance during 2021 and 2022: "They're the same picture."
I've always though of the difference between bWAR and fWAR like this.
bWAR is a measurement of the actual results on the field, that's why it uses more traditional metrics like ERA for evaluating pitchers. It also puts more emphasis on compiling and accumulation of stats over rate stats. That's why below average players who played the whole season seem to get a boost (IKF, Rodgers)
fWAR on the other hand is more of a projection. It's great for evaluating which players have the best chance of continuing their success into next season, but it doesn't always reflect the results on the filed the same way FIP doesn't always match with ERA.
They are both useful in their own ways but I like to think of it like this. When deciding end of year awards, use bWAR. When deciding who to rank as the top players going into next season, use fWAR.
I think this is true for pitchers, but for IKF DRS, which is what bWAR uses, loves him, he had 10 DRS each of the last two seasons. But OAA, which is what fWAR uses, hates him. He had -3 in 2022 and -6(!!!) in 2021
Yea another key difference now is that bWAR uses DRS and fWAR now uses OAA. I’ve never really understood DRS but I really think OAA is much more reflective of what I see as a fan
While I think OAA is a better defensive stat than any of the others we've come up with, it's not perfect and like any defensive stat it can have the occasional extreme outlier season. As another example, Nicky Lopez rated at +24 OAA last year, and I refuse to believe he's anywhere close to a true talent 6 WAR player.
Yeah, it’s always a good idea to take any sort of estimator/peripheral/defense stat like WAR, OAA or FIP with a grain of salt. Especially over one season sample sizes, which as you indicated can lead to some odd results
fWAR still has some problems if your trying to straight up predict based on the numbers.
Gausman was worth 5.7 fWAR this year but is being projected for 3-4, which is closer in line with what bWAR thinks.
It's because he simply stopped giving up walks at the start of the year. He had 3 in his first 50 innings and then 25 in the next 124.
The latter 2/3rds of the season are much closer to his normal numbers (1.8ish BB/9 where he's been at 2.3 and 2.4 the last two years) and probably indicate he won't have a 1.4 BB/9 next season.
So despite a 2.38 FIP last year, they project he'll still be a 3-4 FIP guy next season.
It lines up with Bref because he gave up a ton more hits last year, with a career high BABIP against. His H/9 the last 3 years was 7.5, 7.0, and 9.7. Unlucky or not, thats simply not good which is why his bWAR is lower.
You really have to look at all information and not just trust one or the other as a predictor.
For pitchers typically yea. That said it’s defense formula is super outdated and doesn’t really account for the shift (which may not matter next year) so it tends undervalues contact based pitchers.
For batters it’s become almost useless in my opinion if you’re trying to accurately gauge a player at a defense first position like SS or CF, and is completely useless for catchers because it doesn’t factor framing at all. Their defense evaluation is so outdated (again that may not matter next year)
Not really sure which version of WAR you're talking about
~~DRS was updated to work more similarly to OAA, so it is taking into account shifted plays. UZR doesn't take into account shifted plays, but fWAR doesn't really use it anymore (it's mostly OAA based now, I think the only UZR component left is outfield throwing)~~
~~bWAR does also take into account framing (and pitch-calling), but their framing numbers are generally less extreme than Fangraphs'~~
It looks like BRef still uses an older version of DRS (the numbers BRef shows for Yadi and Matt Chapman don't match the numbers for the newest version of DRS)
I’m talking about bWAR. You are correct that their rDRS has updated, but according to their website bref their still using version 2.2 which was created in May of 2013. Their pitcher WAR is also still using their xRA-def system which is based off their old defense formula.
If they have updated their WAR calculations they haven’t listed it anywhere on their site or their WAR update history. And seeing how the previous years are still the same (unlike fangraphs which updated to fit their new defense formula) I’d wager to say bWAR has not update from their old defense formula.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_pitch.shtml
Not listing DRS changing is weird. It's possible they didn't list it because DRS changing how it's calculated technically doesn't change how their WAR is calculated, but that seems weird to not include. I don't use BRef as much as Fangraphs, so I'm not sure how often pages like that are actually updated (a lot of Fangraphs Glossary pages are only updated to around 2012/2013; for example, the Fangraphs Glossary page for their position player WAR still says they use UZR instead of OAA)
https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml
That page mentions they include catcher framing/pitch calling in position player WAR, so that was at least included in the version of DRS they used if it hasn't been updated
I would reread that breakdown if I were you. According to it they are still using John Dewans's 2011 pitch frame model. Even Dewan completely scrapped that model in 2016 in favor of the sabermetrics one (which fangraphs uses).
Also that breakdown doesn't even say how it weights the formula or even that it actually uses it. Here's the exact quote and source, copied directly from the article you sent.
"Catcher handling of the pitching staff via things like pitch framing and pitch calling - (See the Fielding Bible Volume III for a full run-down of the system)".
The only mention of "pitch framing" in their breakdown is that they use "thing like" and cites a 2011 system. It doesn't even fully commit to saying they utilize pitch framing. And they 100% do not use the modern version of what we actually consider pitch framing.
It looks like you're right (I checked a couple players, and they don't match the updated DRS numbers on Fangraphs). That's really weird they wouldn't go back and update everything
Also didn't know about the framing differences. Fielding Bible updated most of the explanations on their website after the last two sets of changes, and I don't own that book, so I couldn't find an overview of that version of DRS online.
Yea most of V3 of fielding bible is pretty outdated. I used to have a PDF of it but once sabermetrics really broke out it became the gold standard.
As for their WAR formula, I have no idea why they haven’t changed that yet. Bref always seems to be really slow to make any changes
That's true for pitchers, but not for hitters. For hitters, fWAR is basically the same offensively as bWAR but has a better defensive metric at its core for fielding.
If Fangraphs just wanted to show value in a vacuum with their WAR, that would be fine, but then they should be using xwOBA or similar for their position player calculation. As is, hitters are penalized for playing against a good defense while pitchers aren't penalized for pitching in front of a bad one.
3.2 is solidly above average - 34th in baseball last year - not rotation filler.
fWAR is based on FIP, not runs scored. His FIP- was 93.
Neither a strictly FIP-based nor strictly runs-based WAR is comprehensive. Urias had a 2.81 xERA, so one metric which incorporates contact metrics had him around the middle of his ERA and FIP.
He was the best starter on the best rotation in baseball. A formula calling him the 34th best starter is whack. FIP is for people who love stats but don’t like watching baseball.
They might have. Its very difficult to keep up with the esoteric differences on how they calculate it. I like WAR and it has value, but this is the sort of stuff that turns the average fan off from putting a lot of stock in it. They used primarily UZR for years, IDK if they changed it.
For pitchers, most of the difference is due to bWAR using RA9 and fWAR using FIP, and the difference between outcomes-based and predictive-based numbers can be significant enough that it's fairly common to see relative large differences between pitcher WAR numbers.
For hitters, big gaps are less common. The two systems use almost exactly the same offensive information and only somewhat different defensive information, so the gaps are mostly due to defensive and usually pretty limited. So it's really interesting to see an outfielder like Soto on this list.
WAR is the all encompassing stat. It sums up a players performance better than anything else.
…..oh but different sites have different ways of calculating it.
Yet they generally are close enough to the margin or error range in agreement with each other with the expression of a small handful of players every year
fWAR uses a zone based defensive metric that does not account for the shift on a play by play basis in its calculation and because of that its totally inaccurate. For that reason there is no reason to use anything other than the Baseball Reference version of WAR for position players.
DRS takes into account player positioning and much more. That is why Baseball Reference uses it as the defensive component in the calculation of WAR
OAA is a very accurate measure of how a player responds to the ball in play, but it does not take into account any other part of defense like throws, hitting the cutoff man, turning the DP, etc... Because there is more to being a top defensive player than just making the out on the ball in play, I use a combination of DRS and OAA.
When it comes to pitchers, that fWAR counts an infield fly as a strike out skews the calculation. They also add a subjective leverage component to the calculation that further skews the results.
I agree with Fangraphs use of FIP instead of xFIP, just not the other two changes they make to the basic calculation.
The DRA calculations from Baseball Prospectus are fascinating, but use too many subjective measures in the calculation for my taste.
For the most part when it comes to pitchers I stick to Baseball Reference WAR also.
See, we’re playing both sides, so we always come out on top.
Also, I love our stoner Gaus, but no way in Hell he was even close to as valuable as Sandy.
The Dylan Cease flip is interesting
Cease and Isiah Kiner-Falefa are the two players to appear for both years.
Isiah "2 WAR difference" Kiner-Falefa
Confirmed Cashman prefers bWAR
His xFIP was like 3.50, fWAR usually penalizes pitchers who benefited from fielding since that tends to be more predictive
White sox ranked 28th in errors per game and were all around horrendous defensively last year. I don't think he really benefited from fielding last year unless the team only felt like playing defense when he was on the mound.
>unless the team only felt like playing defense when he was on the mound That is actually probably what happened. bWAR applies a defensive bonus or penalty based on the overall team defense. If you are on a team with rotten D (like the Sox last season), and they just happen to play ok defense during your starts, you get a nice fat bWAR bump. It happened to Aaron Nola in 2018 to give him a monster 10.8 bWAR. The fact that bWAR pretends defensive miscues are evenly distributed among a team's pitchers is it's biggest weakness IMO.
xFIP is talking about expected home runs allowed which is outside of team defense adjustments. xFIP is saying "hey, 11.4% of all fly balls are home runs and your HR/FB% is 8.4%. Let's pretend it's 11.4%. That means we think you deserved to give up 8 more runs due to HR than you actually allowed."
"If we regress him to league average..."
stupidest stat
If you average out the two years he’s probably right where he should be but he had one unlucky year and then one lucky year
Yeah FanGraphs had him as exactly the same pitcher, but bWAR showed a 3.5 WAR improvement. Pretty nuts
Went from being unlucky to lucky
[WAR trying to understand the Blue Jays rotation](https://media.tenor.com/w0PjtL6-8UEAAAAd/confused.gif)
Isn't Gausman almost entirely because dude just forgot how to give up walks for the first 2 months of the year? He allowed significantly more hits/9 this year but his BB/9 was way down. He had 3 walks in his first 50 innings and then 25 in the last 124.2. Still a better walk rate than he's had in the past, a bit under 2, but a far cry from 0.5. No major change in HR or K rate, he just walked a lot less so FIP thinks he was great. I know he was someone I was going to watch the numbers on this year. If he regresses on the walks a bit and gets less unlucky/bad fielding he could have similar results with a very different year and I just think that'd be funny. Then Manoah is literally the opposite. Tons of walks but very few hits.
I'd expect his ERA will be a lot better in 2023 if he pitches the same. His FWAR was definitly better beause of the lack of walks early on but i think his .363 Babip is the big reason for the lower BWAR. You're going to give up more runs when that many balls in play go for hits. Assuming his BABIP normalizes and he pitches to the same caliber he should have a great year. Oddly the jays shifted a ton in general last year and it seemed to burn Gausman so that going away may actually help him. He ran a .386 BABIP with the shift that lead to a .391 average and .500 slugging against when the Jays shifted. It wasn't just a matter of the shift being a result of him being torched by lefties either (as lefties are usually shifted against a lot). .263 wOBA against lefties and .331 against righties. His BABIP against lefties was .317 against lefties and .399 against righties too.
Chris Black from Sportsnet had a [great thread on Gausman](https://twitter.com/DownToBlack/status/1611413681530617856?t=TYtN-07wdFb54GrysIU3lw&s=19) and concluded he really just doesn't get good fielding period when he was on the mound, shift or no shift. A lot of it was weak contact that they simply didn't field - "only George Kirby had a lower Outs Above Average by defenders behind him when he was on the mound (Gausman -11)." [Here's a compilation of it](https://twitter.com/DownToBlack/status/1611417634750218251?t=krgUKdU8Op3Mw7SwCOd53g&s=19). I swear to you it isn't normal. But the shift did make it worse, and they still did it very often until late in the year, and his splitter when batters made contact tended to go to opposite field. So I definitely think we see positive regression for Gausman on the horizon. As for Manoah, it is pretty well documented that he often gameplans his pitch mix to pitch deeper into games, thus not really using his extra FB velocity until later. fWAR hates the amount of contact and OBP he gives up as a result. But he nearly always knows how to pitch out of a jam, almost comedically so. There is concerns about his effectiveness against lefties, but it shouldn't be that big of an issue.
Manoah might get into the least intense jams I’ve ever seen. Plunks a dude, gives up a bloop single, then gets a K and GIDP.
He won't pitch the same. He has a career .316 BABIP. He was unlucky, but not outrageously so. His command was incredibly lucky for a month and then just looked like a small improvement over the past. But his ERA could have been worse - he got shelled after small errors and has 4 or 5 unearned runs that came on very hard hit balls. He got lucky in that sense. He had an odd year. He got very lucky in some ways and very unlucky in others. Fwar projects him to be a 3-4 win pitcher next year because it knows his walks lowering his FIP like that isn't sustainable and his fWAR this year was an illusion. That's pretty much what bWAR has him at. He can't throw that many strikes to not walk people without giving up more hits as a side effect of being in the zone. Any gains he gets from a single or two less a game will most likely become a walk. A pretty similar year in results isnwhats projected and I'd basically have to agree.
It wasn’t bad fielding. Well, that was part of it, but the biggest culprit was the shift. He gave up more hits against the shift than I have ever seen any pitcher surrender.
It will be interesting how the shift affects Gausman.
It had more to do with basically everything hit into play going for a hit against Gausman. But yes he didn’t walk anyone for the first like 6 starts of the year (or give up a home run either)
The difference between a .364 BABIP and a .300 (lower than Gausman's career average but higher than his 2021, roughly equal to 2020) is 31 none HR hits. That means roughly 1 single (the majority of hits) per start with a couple of doubles. While it certainly would save runs here and there, 3/4ths of his runners were stranded and thats right about normal for him. It's not a gigantic difference. He was roughly 1 walk per 9 below his last two seasons so you can expect regression there and add 15-25 walks, which pretty much makes up the difference. The walks and hits aren't quite perfectly split but they canceled out on overall results which is why his ERA is still very good. The HR thing is relevant for the projections, as they expect that HR rate is the true number. Add back in some walks and a few extra HRs and you get a 3-4 FIP with a 3-4 ERA, just like this year's end results. Even if he does run a much better BABIP, they project a 3-4 win player and not close to 6 for good reason.
I don’t have time to read all of that. But Gausman got screwed mostly under Montoyo who shifted every play no matter how badly it was screwing over Gausman. When Schnieder stepped in Gausman’s luck fell back to roughly average
"Corporate needs you to find the differences between this picture and this picture." Fangraphs, looking at Dylan Cease's performance during 2021 and 2022: "They're the same picture."
I've always though of the difference between bWAR and fWAR like this. bWAR is a measurement of the actual results on the field, that's why it uses more traditional metrics like ERA for evaluating pitchers. It also puts more emphasis on compiling and accumulation of stats over rate stats. That's why below average players who played the whole season seem to get a boost (IKF, Rodgers) fWAR on the other hand is more of a projection. It's great for evaluating which players have the best chance of continuing their success into next season, but it doesn't always reflect the results on the filed the same way FIP doesn't always match with ERA. They are both useful in their own ways but I like to think of it like this. When deciding end of year awards, use bWAR. When deciding who to rank as the top players going into next season, use fWAR.
I think this is true for pitchers, but for IKF DRS, which is what bWAR uses, loves him, he had 10 DRS each of the last two seasons. But OAA, which is what fWAR uses, hates him. He had -3 in 2022 and -6(!!!) in 2021
Yea another key difference now is that bWAR uses DRS and fWAR now uses OAA. I’ve never really understood DRS but I really think OAA is much more reflective of what I see as a fan
While I think OAA is a better defensive stat than any of the others we've come up with, it's not perfect and like any defensive stat it can have the occasional extreme outlier season. As another example, Nicky Lopez rated at +24 OAA last year, and I refuse to believe he's anywhere close to a true talent 6 WAR player.
Yeah, it’s always a good idea to take any sort of estimator/peripheral/defense stat like WAR, OAA or FIP with a grain of salt. Especially over one season sample sizes, which as you indicated can lead to some odd results
Oaa only was used in fWAR starting in 22. They may have retroactively fixed if but it was UZR in 21.
When they switched to OAA they used it retroactively for as long as OAA has existed (back to 2016)
It was retroactively fixed
Cheers. Wasn't sure about it cause fangraphs loads like shit on my phone.
fWAR still has some problems if your trying to straight up predict based on the numbers. Gausman was worth 5.7 fWAR this year but is being projected for 3-4, which is closer in line with what bWAR thinks. It's because he simply stopped giving up walks at the start of the year. He had 3 in his first 50 innings and then 25 in the next 124. The latter 2/3rds of the season are much closer to his normal numbers (1.8ish BB/9 where he's been at 2.3 and 2.4 the last two years) and probably indicate he won't have a 1.4 BB/9 next season. So despite a 2.38 FIP last year, they project he'll still be a 3-4 FIP guy next season. It lines up with Bref because he gave up a ton more hits last year, with a career high BABIP against. His H/9 the last 3 years was 7.5, 7.0, and 9.7. Unlucky or not, thats simply not good which is why his bWAR is lower. You really have to look at all information and not just trust one or the other as a predictor.
For pitchers typically yea. That said it’s defense formula is super outdated and doesn’t really account for the shift (which may not matter next year) so it tends undervalues contact based pitchers. For batters it’s become almost useless in my opinion if you’re trying to accurately gauge a player at a defense first position like SS or CF, and is completely useless for catchers because it doesn’t factor framing at all. Their defense evaluation is so outdated (again that may not matter next year)
Not really sure which version of WAR you're talking about ~~DRS was updated to work more similarly to OAA, so it is taking into account shifted plays. UZR doesn't take into account shifted plays, but fWAR doesn't really use it anymore (it's mostly OAA based now, I think the only UZR component left is outfield throwing)~~ ~~bWAR does also take into account framing (and pitch-calling), but their framing numbers are generally less extreme than Fangraphs'~~ It looks like BRef still uses an older version of DRS (the numbers BRef shows for Yadi and Matt Chapman don't match the numbers for the newest version of DRS)
I’m talking about bWAR. You are correct that their rDRS has updated, but according to their website bref their still using version 2.2 which was created in May of 2013. Their pitcher WAR is also still using their xRA-def system which is based off their old defense formula. If they have updated their WAR calculations they haven’t listed it anywhere on their site or their WAR update history. And seeing how the previous years are still the same (unlike fangraphs which updated to fit their new defense formula) I’d wager to say bWAR has not update from their old defense formula. https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_pitch.shtml
Not listing DRS changing is weird. It's possible they didn't list it because DRS changing how it's calculated technically doesn't change how their WAR is calculated, but that seems weird to not include. I don't use BRef as much as Fangraphs, so I'm not sure how often pages like that are actually updated (a lot of Fangraphs Glossary pages are only updated to around 2012/2013; for example, the Fangraphs Glossary page for their position player WAR still says they use UZR instead of OAA) https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml That page mentions they include catcher framing/pitch calling in position player WAR, so that was at least included in the version of DRS they used if it hasn't been updated
I would reread that breakdown if I were you. According to it they are still using John Dewans's 2011 pitch frame model. Even Dewan completely scrapped that model in 2016 in favor of the sabermetrics one (which fangraphs uses). Also that breakdown doesn't even say how it weights the formula or even that it actually uses it. Here's the exact quote and source, copied directly from the article you sent. "Catcher handling of the pitching staff via things like pitch framing and pitch calling - (See the Fielding Bible Volume III for a full run-down of the system)". The only mention of "pitch framing" in their breakdown is that they use "thing like" and cites a 2011 system. It doesn't even fully commit to saying they utilize pitch framing. And they 100% do not use the modern version of what we actually consider pitch framing.
It looks like you're right (I checked a couple players, and they don't match the updated DRS numbers on Fangraphs). That's really weird they wouldn't go back and update everything Also didn't know about the framing differences. Fielding Bible updated most of the explanations on their website after the last two sets of changes, and I don't own that book, so I couldn't find an overview of that version of DRS online.
Yea most of V3 of fielding bible is pretty outdated. I used to have a PDF of it but once sabermetrics really broke out it became the gold standard. As for their WAR formula, I have no idea why they haven’t changed that yet. Bref always seems to be really slow to make any changes
That's true for pitchers, but not for hitters. For hitters, fWAR is basically the same offensively as bWAR but has a better defensive metric at its core for fielding. If Fangraphs just wanted to show value in a vacuum with their WAR, that would be fine, but then they should be using xwOBA or similar for their position player calculation. As is, hitters are penalized for playing against a good defense while pitchers aren't penalized for pitching in front of a bad one.
I prefer fWAR position players and actually dislike both for pitchers. Instead I prefer just simple RA9-WAR, though that's less commonly cited.
I prefer [gWar](https://youtu.be/v4-4AzJ8s8k) 🤘
I think that's fair. ERA can be just as misleading as FIP sometimes.
For pitchers, basically yes. For position players, just always use fWAR because OAA is a better metric than DRS
Kluber being sub-1 in 2022 feels weird, but Sandy being an 8 feels appropriate
Hunter Dozier 💀
He's up to a -1.4 bWAR 2022. But he couldn't move his -1 fWAR. At least he's closing the gap!
FIP vs RA/9 OAA(they replace UZR) vs DRS wRC+ vs OPS+ fWAR hates contact pitchers and loves a good FIP.
Petition to stop using bWAR and fWAR for pitchers and instead use RA9-WAR. Also, Nicky Lopez was a 5.9 fWAR player two years ago !?
RA9 WAR is indeed the superior WAR for pitchers.
I was always under the impression that fWAR was better at grading our defense but seeing Brendan Rogers I’m not so sure about that anymore
Looks like it rated IKF more correctly, assuming a significant part of the difference was defense
/u/Constant_Gardner11 do you have a Twitter account with this info that I can retweet?
No, I don't use Twitter. Thanks for asking. You're welcome to share the image if you like.
> No, I don't use Twitter. I knew you were smart, but I didn't realize you're actually a fucking genius.
"He is who we thought he was." - Fangraphs after Robbie Ray's 2022 season
*Sees Robbie Ray* I now believe fWAR is the correct one
What is it with the Blue Jays’ shiny new offseason pitching toys that make Fangraphs and BBRef fight
2018 Aaron Nola says hello (4.2 less fWAR than bWAR)
BABIP & strand rate merchant
Urias at 3.2 fWAR … c’mon man, that’s just stupid. .960 WHIP, 194 ERA+, FG pegs him as a rotation filler.
3.2 is solidly above average - 34th in baseball last year - not rotation filler. fWAR is based on FIP, not runs scored. His FIP- was 93. Neither a strictly FIP-based nor strictly runs-based WAR is comprehensive. Urias had a 2.81 xERA, so one metric which incorporates contact metrics had him around the middle of his ERA and FIP.
He was the best starter on the best rotation in baseball. A formula calling him the 34th best starter is whack. FIP is for people who love stats but don’t like watching baseball.
BWAR> fWAR
For pitchers, yeah, I agree. I also am a bit skeptical of the fWAR framing numbers. My preference is always to just take an average of the two
MLB does now have a WAR STAT that is the average of bWAR and fWAR
Oh interesting. Where do you find it?
Not sure, they issued a press release of a player that used that stat. Not sure if it’s kept anywhere
an average of them is completely useless imo
I think the fielding metrics used in BWAR are superior to FWAR too
I’m always surprised how much difference there is between UZR, OAA, & DRS. It’s a tough think to measure I guess
DRS is the best by far. UZR is a joke and it the main the FWAR uses to judge defense.
I thought fangraphs recently moved to OAA?
They might have. Its very difficult to keep up with the esoteric differences on how they calculate it. I like WAR and it has value, but this is the sort of stuff that turns the average fan off from putting a lot of stock in it. They used primarily UZR for years, IDK if they changed it.
No
For pitchers, most of the difference is due to bWAR using RA9 and fWAR using FIP, and the difference between outcomes-based and predictive-based numbers can be significant enough that it's fairly common to see relative large differences between pitcher WAR numbers. For hitters, big gaps are less common. The two systems use almost exactly the same offensive information and only somewhat different defensive information, so the gaps are mostly due to defensive and usually pretty limited. So it's really interesting to see an outfielder like Soto on this list.
bWAR doesn't use RA9, they have their own adjustment based on how good the defense is.
It's defense adjusted RA9, but it uses overall team defense, not the actual defense a pitcher received.
The Blue Jays had a 5+ WAR starter, but bWAR and fWAR can't decide if it's Gausman or Manoah
Interesting that Dylan cease is on both these lists but was valued more highly bwar one year and fwar the other
After reading the comments to this post, all I have to say is f*** WAR
Ikf hate posts are getting creative
WAR is the all encompassing stat. It sums up a players performance better than anything else. …..oh but different sites have different ways of calculating it.
Yet they generally are close enough to the margin or error range in agreement with each other with the expression of a small handful of players every year
fWAR uses a zone based defensive metric that does not account for the shift on a play by play basis in its calculation and because of that its totally inaccurate. For that reason there is no reason to use anything other than the Baseball Reference version of WAR for position players. DRS takes into account player positioning and much more. That is why Baseball Reference uses it as the defensive component in the calculation of WAR OAA is a very accurate measure of how a player responds to the ball in play, but it does not take into account any other part of defense like throws, hitting the cutoff man, turning the DP, etc... Because there is more to being a top defensive player than just making the out on the ball in play, I use a combination of DRS and OAA.
When it comes to pitchers, that fWAR counts an infield fly as a strike out skews the calculation. They also add a subjective leverage component to the calculation that further skews the results. I agree with Fangraphs use of FIP instead of xFIP, just not the other two changes they make to the basic calculation. The DRA calculations from Baseball Prospectus are fascinating, but use too many subjective measures in the calculation for my taste. For the most part when it comes to pitchers I stick to Baseball Reference WAR also.
IKF the bWAR star
See, we’re playing both sides, so we always come out on top. Also, I love our stoner Gaus, but no way in Hell he was even close to as valuable as Sandy.
How did Cease have the same fWAR 2021-2022 despite having a better ERA, xERA, FIP, xFIP, and more IP in 2022?
Fangraphs doesn't like falafel