wRAA by position

by Bearskin Rugburn on Jan 5, 2009 9:31 PM PST

With all the recent talk about value, WAR, and (new Mariner!*) Tango's positional adjustments I had a mind to see how current players at each position hit, on average. I set about this in maybe not the most idiotic way possible, but as my Excel skills are pretty poor the methodology was... shall we say rudimentary?

Anyhow, what I did was to average the wRAA of each team at each position over the 2008 season. This allowed me to not have to adjust for plate appearances and so forth at the cost of including September callups, stopgap replacements and other players who are listed as getting at bats at a certain position who in no way represent the talent available at it. Nevertheless, I think that these data will skew the results only slightly, the only notable exception being catcher where perhaps a distinction should be drawn between starters and backups.

Another issue is that for different teams various positions accrued somewhat different numbers of at-bats depending on where their players hit in the lineup. However I think the sum PA for each position cannot be much more than, oh, 75+/- the average overall, which won't make much difference. I also thought that if all SS see less time at the plate then there's no reason not to have the averages reflect that.

The last thing I'd like to point out that I don't mean to propose these as true positional adjustments, which I'm not qualified to make at all. This is just something I did which may or may not have any value or meaning. But hey, look - numbers!

C -10.4

1B 15

2B 2

SS -6.7

3B 5.2

RF 11.4

CF 2.2

LF 11

DH 4.4

*I know Tango is not a Mariner. Yet.

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Maybe I should also add that I've had a long day

and may have mistyped some numbers (when averaging that is) so while I think it’s unlkely my math could be a touch off. if anybody catches any mistakes please let me know.

I will immediately go to Times Square dressed in a clown suit and yell ‘fuck me’ at the top of my lungs a number of times that corresponds to the square of the magnitude of my error.

by Bearskin Rugburn on Jan 5, 2009 9:44 PM PST reply actions

These are pretty close to Tango's positional adjustments.

Everything’s within 3 runs, except for DH, and I think that kind of makes sense given that few teams actually have a legitimate every day DH.

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by Jack Moore on Jan 5, 2009 9:59 PM PST reply actions

er, wait a minute

looking at it again I see that the confusing trifecta of CF/2B/3B are all actually the negatives of what the adjustment actually is.

interesting, maybe catchers are so bad that they bring the average down for the rest of the league?

---
Juuuust a bit outside!!
http://www.rightfieldbleachers.com

by Jack Moore on Jan 5, 2009 10:02 PM PST up reply actions

They all seem 3-5 runs over their adjustment

Except the DH. Which makes some sense to me, although I still agree with the -17.5. That has more to do with how they should be valued as non-fielders, I think, rather than a handicap to bring them back down to average.

I think that above average DHs are fairly rare on account of good hitters tending to make a lot of money. Teams seem to think they get more value out of a player in the field, even if they field very poorly than at DH. So the DH ends up being the best no glove hitter that can be had for cheap, unless he’s Ortiz or Morneau or something. But i’ve been wrong before.

by Bearskin Rugburn on Jan 5, 2009 10:13 PM PST up reply actions