Tuesday, August 05, 2008

2008 Total Value Estimates - Through August 4th

I've updated the total value estimates for 2008 players. You can read about all the methods in this series of posts.

Features:
  • Total value estimates for every MLB position player, based on hitting (RAR), fielding (Fld), and their position (PosAdj). Units are runs produced above a replacement player.
  • Fielding measures are based on the average runs saved according to zone rating and revised zone rating.
  • Pitchers are listed according to RAR (base runs saved above replacement) and FIP-Runs (a defense-independent pitch stat estimating runs saved above repalcement).
  • League differences are taken into account. So are park differences.
  • Closers get a leverage-based bonus in value (though it's pretty rough).

A huge thanks to Joel Luckhaupt, who used his visual basic wizardly to automate the population of my makeshift spreadsheets. Thanks also to the Hardball Times, who supplied most of the data.

Thanks also to Skyking162 for the nice feature on this project.

Update: Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times also linked to these data and pulled some interesting stuff from them. Thanks Geoff!

5 comments:

  1. Enjoyed printing these out and reading them. You know what really jumped out at me this time? The fact that the so called (by me too) "challenge trade" of Hamilton and Volquez has a combined TV of 65.0, and that the much less heralded change-of-scenery trade of Rolen and Glaus has nets a nifty 62.3.

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  2. Yeah, that's worked out pretty well! I noticed that both made my all star list a few weeks back, but you're right that that trade hasn't gotten nearly the attention it deserves. -j

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  3. Can you calculate Zambrano's RAR as a hitter? I'm just curious about his overall total. I know he doesn't have many PA and you may not have position adjustments or weights for pitchers, but BP's VORP seems to love him on both sides of the ball.

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  4. Baserunning runs? Here I'm thinking of John Walsh's (was it John's?) framework on the subject.

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  5. I'll try to do Zambrano at some point here. An interesting point is whether you should use a different baseline for pitcher hitters...I'm thinking yes. So Given that pitchers aren't advanced to the majors for their hitting, I'd probably use the average hitting pitcher as the baseline, assuming that the average replacement pitcher would be an average (vs. other pitchers) hitter.

    @PC, SB and CS are included. I'm not sure if there's a way to do more than that (e.g. Walsh's or Fox's baserunning / arms statistics) without a pbp database. That makes it hard to update during the season (though I imagine an industrious sort could pull data from b-ref or something). And it would take me a while to implement.

    Not saying I won't do it. But it'd be a major project, for relatively little reward--I don't think those numbers tend to cause much of a swing in value... -j

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