The Best and Worst Advanced Metrics, Part One

The advanced number-crunching has been shedding light on the baseball universe for well-nigh a generation now, sufficiently long, and sufficiently entrenched into the fabric of the game, that it should hardly be called new anymore. 

It's also been stirring the baseball pot for long enough that we have competing analyses, overlapping metrics and even obsolete "new" statistics.

The new analysis has given us a bouillabaisse of acronyms and measuring sticks: WAR and WARP, OPS and wOBA, FIP and FRA, BABIP and Zone Rating, and the projections systems PECOTA, ZIPS, STEAMER, MARCEL, etc. 

As you might imagine, some are more useful than others. Over the next few weeks, let's sift through them and see which make it through our colander. First, the king.

The grand, high, exalted, mystic ruler of offensive statistics is Offensive Wins Against Replacement, or oWAR, the alpha and omega of offensive stats. oWAR considers a player's offensive contributions in total, adjusts for the park and compares it to a replacement level player at the same position. It helps us compare Robby Cano to Miguel Cabrera even though the latter plays an offensive position and the former a defensive one. Indeed, it helps us compare players across eras, relative to their competition.

Suppose you want to compare 60s and 70s Yankees second baseman Horace Clarke to just-released outfielder Jeff Francoeur. You can do so, despite the passage of years and different positions. Dan Shaughnessy or Murray Chass might note that Francoeur hit over .280 four times., slammed 140 bombs and knocked in 100+ runs twice while Clark hit .280 once, totaled 27 homers his entire career and never reached 50 RBI in a season. In their eyes, Frenchy was clearly a more valuable asset at the plate.

oWAR tells a very different story. It corrects for era -- the late 60s represented the basement of offensive baseball -- and for position -- the bar is set lower for keystoners. Clarke wasn't a better hitter than Francoeur but he would have been more difficult to replace. Francoeur was worth two wins over a replacement outfielder in his career while Clarke was worth 14 wins over a replacement second baseman.

That's because, although Francoeur hit 8% better compared to league average, Clark stole three times as many bases at a much higher success rate, played a position that required more defensive skill and came to the plate 300 more times. (This assumes Francoeur is done. It does appear that way.) 

(Clarke took home about $350 grand in his career. Francoeur's grandchildren can thank the Marvin Miller and the MLBPA for $26 million in career earnings.)

The glaring shortcoming, or rather, limitation, of oWAR (and its many cousins: VORP, wRC, BWARP, etc.) is that it doesn't address the bottom of the inning. If Clarke had been a butcher in the field and Francoeur a magician, the latter might have been more valuable. (Not only isn't that the case, adding defense actually accentuates the difference. But there are other players for whom it's more of an issue.) Fielding statistics are still not wholly reliable, though they are improving all the time, which is why WAR and WARP are not yet among statistical royalty. Their day is coming, though.

Next time, we'll consider the life and times of BABIP, which created an epiphany in baseball analysis and was then relegated to the dog house.