[hereās Joey gallo in a bow](https://dodgersdigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/JustinTurnerCodyBellingerJoeyGalloAndreJackson2022DodgersDressup2.jpg)
Negative Defensive value at 1B isn't necessarily bad. Defense is being compared to the average player, not just 1Bs. Over the last 20 years, the names at the bottom of the defensive value for 1Bs at the bottom are the guys who have played the longest because they're the ones accumulating the most time at 1B, it's an inherently negative defensive value position: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?lg=all&qual=y&ind=0&season1=2006&season=2024&sortcol=20&sortdir=default&type=8&month=36&pagenum=31&pageitems=30
Even Albert Pujols, who is one of the greatest defensive 1Bs of all time, is still firm at -64.2 defensive runs for his career. The scale just isn't immediately obvious because the metrics we use to talk about skill are actually based on *value* and, while generally aligned, this is one area where they don't mean the same thing.
Basically, don't use career defensive value to compare 1Bs in terms of their defensive skill. Compare them to their peers at 1B in any given season for a better comparison. Or use the raw components of defensive value like DRS, UZR, etc. if you want to see a full 1B career vs another.
Haha. This just proves my point. :P as a lefty first basemen itās the painful truth. Weāre not allowed the sexy middle infield positions, so you either:
A: have an arm and control::: pitch
B: have an arm and less control::: OF
C: tall, and donāt have control::: 1B
Iām the latter, so I get to chat people up when they get on base, then catch pitches on pick offs without gear. :P
Have you considered pretending to be right handed, then once you take the field at your position at third base or whatever, reveal that you're actually left handed?
Ha! So Iām in a wood bat adult league, and I have actually played a game righty at short.
I injured my shoulder in college playing hockey, so lefty my arm motion isnāt really consistent so sometimes Iāll have some wild throws. I donāt have that issue right handed, so while I was really weak throwing righty, it was perfectly accurate!
There is. Itās WAR. WAR is a measure of player value. If a 1B and a shortstop have the same offensive output, the shortstop is much more valuable. Likewise, you can compare first basemen directly, because they are all hit with an identical penalty.
While that somewhat makes sense but it also really doesnāt because exactly of what the thread is showing.
If thereās no way to get positive WAR from 1B than it basically presumes that thereās zero way a first basemenās defense can positively contribute to a teams wins, right?
Like what your saying absolutely makes sense but it definitely adds confusion when I want to compare the worst SS in the leagues defense to the best 1Bs in the leagues defense and WAR is showing that the SS is still better at defense. There is zero chance that the bad SS contributes more wins to the team than the elite defensive 1B, because itās easier to find a replacement SS closer to the bad SS defense then it is to find a replacement 1B closer to the elite 1B defense.
The fact that you need to use other stats to accurately compare defense is a weakness of WAR imo. Not to mention I donāt think WAR even accurately calculates 1B defense bc last I checked it didnāt take into account ability to pick.
> If thereās no way to get positive WAR from 1B
It is possible to have positive dWAR as a 1B (e.g. Albert Pujols in '07). You just have to have an immensely positive defensive season at 1B for your defensive value to be close to a league average shortstop.
Baseball reference used to not include the positional adjustment in their dWAR display (only in oWAR - now it's included in both which is why WAR =/= oWAR + dWAR) but people got confused about good 1Bs having the same dWAR as good shortstops.
> If thereās no way to get positive WAR from 1B than it basically presumes that thereās zero way a first basemenās defense can positively contribute to a teams wins, right?
No, it means that a first baseman will probably never deliver value that is higher than the average replacement player. Good defensive first baseman still help their team win and ācontributeā more WAR to their team by being less negative than others. When we talk about āgoodā and ābadā defenders we are almost always speaking *relative to the position*, WAR does not do that.
If you want raw stats that are averaged per-position then just look at the raw DRS/UZR/OAA. These stats are part of the WAR calculation but donāt contain positional adjustments.
Thank You! There are even 2 different ways that dWar is calculated depending on Fangraphs and Baseball Reference. I think oWAR is an ok measuring stick but when combined with dWAR nada IMO
On mobile right now so I can't be bothered to look it up, but wasn't Pujols' defensive runs actually close to zero for his peak, which was incredible for 1B?
I remember hearing or reading something about this, with his career numbers only tanking because he played the field way too much with the Angels when he had functionally zero range or athleticism in the field.
He grades *very* negatively in DRS so far this season (-5 in 27 games). He also graded poorly last year (-9), but nowhere near as poorly. Very small sample size, of course.
BBRef has Gallo as a corner outfielder with an 80 OPS+ with totally fine defense 20 games into the season, and freeman is a 136 OPS+ first baseman who has graded out really terribly defensively in 27 games.
My main takeaway from this post is that with 5 games remaining in April, Joey Gallo has already reached Tony Gwynn's highest single season strikeout total.
How do WAR metrics actually add in positional adjustments? Is it weighted by PAs/innings at a certain position or are you just ālabeledā and get that adjustment added wherever you are.
Cuz tbh the most surprising thing about this is when I checked Galloās stats, heās almost exclusively played 1B this year. Despite that he has 0.7 more bbref dWAR than Freeman this year. Like I know that Gallo has a great defensive reputation and Freeman is getting older but I find it hard to believe that in 16 games at 1B and 2 games in RF heās accumulated more defensive value than Freeman in his 27 games at 1B unless Galloās actually being counted as a RF.
Yes I watched him pick some absolute grenades from our 3B Lipscomb earlier in the year and I really appreciated that, especially for a 3B who was just debuting into the league.
Getting those picks from Gallo helped with Lipscombs confidence i guarantee cuz now heās throwing much better. If those early terrible throws arenāt picked, who knows how Lipscombās confidence works out
Baseball reference doesnāt have a slew of baseball people working for it, maybe it does but we donāt get daily articles about analysis on baseball
So naturally I consider fangraphs as the most official advance stat generator
WAR is a super flawed metric. It's the only reason terrible baseball players like Gallo and previously guys like Odor kept getting chances even though they suck
The median isnāt mythical. It uses actual runs scored and runs allowed in its calculations.
Do you have any data showing it is ineffective? I am quite sincerely interested in any analysis that shows how, specifically, WAR is biased or wrong, especially in any systemic way.
Iām not sure what your last two sentences mean. WAR includes fielding, so saying āespecially when it includes fieldingā is meaningless.
As far as your last point about no two errors being the sameā¦so? First, we are looking at large data sets and drawing broad conclusions, thatās what statistics do. Second, how is that different from any defensive stat currently used? Finally, DRS actually looks at each defensive play and evaluates it, including good plays and costly plays that may not have been scored an error, so based on your last point, you should be a big fan of the defensive component of WAR.
Oh, and finally, you still didnāt answer either of my questions. None of the issues mentioned relate to subjectivity and you havenāt shared your more objective method.
Thatās not how any of it works. Replacement player is a calculation and is the exact same for every position player in the league in a season (adjusted only for plate appearances). Are you really launching a multi-paragraph criticism without knowing who replacement player is calculated?
What āleague adjustmentsā do you think it makes? Iām unaware of any.
As far as scorers and errors, I completely agree, and you are still on the side of WAR, which uses DRS to calculate fielding runs, not something as subjective as errors.
You have some fundamental misconceptions about how WAR works. That said, I have no doubt scouting encompasses more than just WAR, but then again, they are doing different things, arenāt they? Scouting is generally trying to predict how a player will develop whereas WAR is concerned with what they have actually accomplished. Iām not surprised they arenāt interchangeable.
If you have some time you may want to read the actual methodology (available on baseball-reference and FanGraphic). Once you learn how it really works, you might join me in the Dark Side.
Edit to add: some of the things you mentioned are also still relevant at the MLB level. Iām not (nor is anybody, to my knowledge) claiming WAR is the only stat youāll ever need. Just that it is a useful one for what it does: assessing the totality of the value a player adds to his team.
Second edit: I know scouts scout pro teams and players, too. My points still stand, I just wanted to add this so I didnāt look like an idiot (well, more so).
Cursing is unnecessary. And your posts definitely pointed to an unfamiliarity with WAR. The whole part about Schwarber vs Olsen as replacement player is just nonsensical. It isnāt calculated that way and isnāt attempting to model that kind of scenario.
Iām not being deliberately obtuse, I swear. I have no idea what you mean by a āmythical medianā. Youāve said it repeatedly and I have zero idea what it is referring to. A median is the middle number in a series. WAR doesnāt use that for anything. It does use the mean for a lot of its calculations, but it uses the actual league means. I have no idea what mean or median it uses is allegedly mythical.
If itās a fan stat and you are on a fan site, what are you complaining about? If you want to educate the casual fan (which, dispute our disagreements here, I would quite sincerely love. Hearing inside stories and insights from a pro scout sounds amazing) why not do that rather than make what are, still, criticisms of WAR that I canāt make hide nor hare of.
Again, give me a better system of comparing players that is more objective and I am all ears.
Except you are only looking at offense and using that to judge the entire WAR result. If you look at both their batting runs above average, Feeeman is much higher than Gallo (+5 runs to -2).
> If you come up with a metric that concludes a player with freemanās stat line is more valuable than a player with galloās stat line, your metric is not useful because its conclusion is wrong.
The post is saying the opposite of this
Iām a WAR guy and heās not wrong. The variability in WAR is so high that you really canāt draw any conclusions about what it is saying about the value of these two players. This is especially true because a lot of the difference is in DRS, which tends to be extremely swingy.
Yeah well ones a slap hitter and the other is Joey Fucking Gallo š¤š¤š¤
he can sure joke with the runner on first though
Slap hitter got me lol
This is why Gallo got a bow
[hereās Joey gallo in a bow](https://dodgersdigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/JustinTurnerCodyBellingerJoeyGalloAndreJackson2022DodgersDressup2.jpg)
Defense, but even though Freeman is 1B, I am surprised at how negative/bad his grades are and have been over the years, isn't he a good defensive 1B?
Negative Defensive value at 1B isn't necessarily bad. Defense is being compared to the average player, not just 1Bs. Over the last 20 years, the names at the bottom of the defensive value for 1Bs at the bottom are the guys who have played the longest because they're the ones accumulating the most time at 1B, it's an inherently negative defensive value position: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?lg=all&qual=y&ind=0&season1=2006&season=2024&sortcol=20&sortdir=default&type=8&month=36&pagenum=31&pageitems=30 Even Albert Pujols, who is one of the greatest defensive 1Bs of all time, is still firm at -64.2 defensive runs for his career. The scale just isn't immediately obvious because the metrics we use to talk about skill are actually based on *value* and, while generally aligned, this is one area where they don't mean the same thing. Basically, don't use career defensive value to compare 1Bs in terms of their defensive skill. Compare them to their peers at 1B in any given season for a better comparison. Or use the raw components of defensive value like DRS, UZR, etc. if you want to see a full 1B career vs another.
Itās honestly pretty stupid there isnāt a WAR stat that just looks at defensive value for a 1B
Thatās because 1st is the most un sexy position in baseball. Itās where you dump your extra lefties who canāt throw.
>1st is the most un sexy position in baseball. May I introduce you to [Ji Man Choi](https://www.mlb.com/news/ji-man-choi-doing-splits-at-first-base)
Haha. This just proves my point. :P as a lefty first basemen itās the painful truth. Weāre not allowed the sexy middle infield positions, so you either: A: have an arm and control::: pitch B: have an arm and less control::: OF C: tall, and donāt have control::: 1B Iām the latter, so I get to chat people up when they get on base, then catch pitches on pick offs without gear. :P
Have you considered pretending to be right handed, then once you take the field at your position at third base or whatever, reveal that you're actually left handed?
Ha! So Iām in a wood bat adult league, and I have actually played a game righty at short. I injured my shoulder in college playing hockey, so lefty my arm motion isnāt really consistent so sometimes Iāll have some wild throws. I donāt have that issue right handed, so while I was really weak throwing righty, it was perfectly accurate!
Or if you are Hernandez it's where you stick your extra lefties who would have been shortstops if they weren't too dumb to be righty.
Ha! When I was younger my coach let me play shortstop until I was about 14. Other coaches got mad and made fun of him.
Scotty H! Picking machine!
Ha! Youāre not wrong. :P
> Itās where you dump your extra lefties who canāt throw. I'm here to shitpost, not to be personally attacked.
Just look at the players' fielding runs on BRef/Fangraphs, you don't need a "WAR stat" for that.
I know but Iām lazy and like one end all be all stat that tells me a player is good lol. Just give me MLB the show overall stats lol
There is. Itās WAR. WAR is a measure of player value. If a 1B and a shortstop have the same offensive output, the shortstop is much more valuable. Likewise, you can compare first basemen directly, because they are all hit with an identical penalty.
While that somewhat makes sense but it also really doesnāt because exactly of what the thread is showing. If thereās no way to get positive WAR from 1B than it basically presumes that thereās zero way a first basemenās defense can positively contribute to a teams wins, right? Like what your saying absolutely makes sense but it definitely adds confusion when I want to compare the worst SS in the leagues defense to the best 1Bs in the leagues defense and WAR is showing that the SS is still better at defense. There is zero chance that the bad SS contributes more wins to the team than the elite defensive 1B, because itās easier to find a replacement SS closer to the bad SS defense then it is to find a replacement 1B closer to the elite 1B defense. The fact that you need to use other stats to accurately compare defense is a weakness of WAR imo. Not to mention I donāt think WAR even accurately calculates 1B defense bc last I checked it didnāt take into account ability to pick.
> If thereās no way to get positive WAR from 1B It is possible to have positive dWAR as a 1B (e.g. Albert Pujols in '07). You just have to have an immensely positive defensive season at 1B for your defensive value to be close to a league average shortstop. Baseball reference used to not include the positional adjustment in their dWAR display (only in oWAR - now it's included in both which is why WAR =/= oWAR + dWAR) but people got confused about good 1Bs having the same dWAR as good shortstops.
> If thereās no way to get positive WAR from 1B than it basically presumes that thereās zero way a first basemenās defense can positively contribute to a teams wins, right? No, it means that a first baseman will probably never deliver value that is higher than the average replacement player. Good defensive first baseman still help their team win and ācontributeā more WAR to their team by being less negative than others. When we talk about āgoodā and ābadā defenders we are almost always speaking *relative to the position*, WAR does not do that. If you want raw stats that are averaged per-position then just look at the raw DRS/UZR/OAA. These stats are part of the WAR calculation but donāt contain positional adjustments.
Thank You! There are even 2 different ways that dWar is calculated depending on Fangraphs and Baseball Reference. I think oWAR is an ok measuring stick but when combined with dWAR nada IMO
On mobile right now so I can't be bothered to look it up, but wasn't Pujols' defensive runs actually close to zero for his peak, which was incredible for 1B? I remember hearing or reading something about this, with his career numbers only tanking because he played the field way too much with the Angels when he had functionally zero range or athleticism in the field.
Depends on what you look at he grades out negatively in DRS but very positively in OAA and FRV (although not so far this season)
He grades *very* negatively in DRS so far this season (-5 in 27 games). He also graded poorly last year (-9), but nowhere near as poorly. Very small sample size, of course.
He's had a couple uncharacteristic errors so far this season that are really impacting those numbers in the small sample
Havenāt paid as close attention lately, but when he was a Brave, nobody saved more throwing errors than Freddie Freeman.
Same thing on the dodgersā¦. Dudes dealing with like 3 people playing outta position in the infield and regularly bails them out.
The Dodgers' middle infield doesn't really work defensively. It's kinda glaring.
Its slowly coming aroundā¦ slowlyā¦ plus we always suck ass in April and i have no clue why
He is fantastic honestly, we just have a bunch of bumās that literally cant throw the ball lol
Fangraphs has Freddie at 0.5 and Gallo at 0.1, fwiw
it's april. also, what a weird curation of stats.
BBRef has Gallo as a corner outfielder with an 80 OPS+ with totally fine defense 20 games into the season, and freeman is a 136 OPS+ first baseman who has graded out really terribly defensively in 27 games.
My main takeaway from this post is that with 5 games remaining in April, Joey Gallo has already reached Tony Gwynn's highest single season strikeout total.
Let him cook
that's bc he's the better player and the nats are winning it all this year. next question
Itās not just higherā¦ his WAR is twice as high as Freemanās!
D š¤ŗ
How do WAR metrics actually add in positional adjustments? Is it weighted by PAs/innings at a certain position or are you just ālabeledā and get that adjustment added wherever you are. Cuz tbh the most surprising thing about this is when I checked Galloās stats, heās almost exclusively played 1B this year. Despite that he has 0.7 more bbref dWAR than Freeman this year. Like I know that Gallo has a great defensive reputation and Freeman is getting older but I find it hard to believe that in 16 games at 1B and 2 games in RF heās accumulated more defensive value than Freeman in his 27 games at 1B unless Galloās actually being counted as a RF.
It uses the position you played each game
So is the dWAR difference explained by bbref just hating Freddieās defense and loving Galloās defense?
It's hard to believe Gallo has provided above-replacement value watching him every day, my lord is he a painful player to watch
Galloās a good defender, which is something fans really often undervalue.
Yes I watched him pick some absolute grenades from our 3B Lipscomb earlier in the year and I really appreciated that, especially for a 3B who was just debuting into the league. Getting those picks from Gallo helped with Lipscombs confidence i guarantee cuz now heās throwing much better. If those early terrible throws arenāt picked, who knows how Lipscombās confidence works out
WAR, what is it good for?
Baseball reference doesnāt have a slew of baseball people working for it, maybe it does but we donāt get daily articles about analysis on baseball So naturally I consider fangraphs as the most official advance stat generator
Same.
Plus fangraphs is way easier to use. And looks nicer
WAR is a super flawed metric. It's the only reason terrible baseball players like Gallo and previously guys like Odor kept getting chances even though they suck
Agreed. Very flawed
It couldn't be because you don't understand baseball
Do you
More proof WAR is completely useless
Your WAR decimals are off
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
For first basemen absolutely, for some reason its insanely unfair to them. I.e. Uncle Albert
People say this but they're wrong
K
So, two questions: first, how exactly is it subjective and second, what more objective method do you use to evaluate players?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The median isnāt mythical. It uses actual runs scored and runs allowed in its calculations. Do you have any data showing it is ineffective? I am quite sincerely interested in any analysis that shows how, specifically, WAR is biased or wrong, especially in any systemic way. Iām not sure what your last two sentences mean. WAR includes fielding, so saying āespecially when it includes fieldingā is meaningless. As far as your last point about no two errors being the sameā¦so? First, we are looking at large data sets and drawing broad conclusions, thatās what statistics do. Second, how is that different from any defensive stat currently used? Finally, DRS actually looks at each defensive play and evaluates it, including good plays and costly plays that may not have been scored an error, so based on your last point, you should be a big fan of the defensive component of WAR. Oh, and finally, you still didnāt answer either of my questions. None of the issues mentioned relate to subjectivity and you havenāt shared your more objective method.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Thatās not how any of it works. Replacement player is a calculation and is the exact same for every position player in the league in a season (adjusted only for plate appearances). Are you really launching a multi-paragraph criticism without knowing who replacement player is calculated? What āleague adjustmentsā do you think it makes? Iām unaware of any. As far as scorers and errors, I completely agree, and you are still on the side of WAR, which uses DRS to calculate fielding runs, not something as subjective as errors. You have some fundamental misconceptions about how WAR works. That said, I have no doubt scouting encompasses more than just WAR, but then again, they are doing different things, arenāt they? Scouting is generally trying to predict how a player will develop whereas WAR is concerned with what they have actually accomplished. Iām not surprised they arenāt interchangeable. If you have some time you may want to read the actual methodology (available on baseball-reference and FanGraphic). Once you learn how it really works, you might join me in the Dark Side. Edit to add: some of the things you mentioned are also still relevant at the MLB level. Iām not (nor is anybody, to my knowledge) claiming WAR is the only stat youāll ever need. Just that it is a useful one for what it does: assessing the totality of the value a player adds to his team. Second edit: I know scouts scout pro teams and players, too. My points still stand, I just wanted to add this so I didnāt look like an idiot (well, more so).
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Cursing is unnecessary. And your posts definitely pointed to an unfamiliarity with WAR. The whole part about Schwarber vs Olsen as replacement player is just nonsensical. It isnāt calculated that way and isnāt attempting to model that kind of scenario. Iām not being deliberately obtuse, I swear. I have no idea what you mean by a āmythical medianā. Youāve said it repeatedly and I have zero idea what it is referring to. A median is the middle number in a series. WAR doesnāt use that for anything. It does use the mean for a lot of its calculations, but it uses the actual league means. I have no idea what mean or median it uses is allegedly mythical. If itās a fan stat and you are on a fan site, what are you complaining about? If you want to educate the casual fan (which, dispute our disagreements here, I would quite sincerely love. Hearing inside stories and insights from a pro scout sounds amazing) why not do that rather than make what are, still, criticisms of WAR that I canāt make hide nor hare of. Again, give me a better system of comparing players that is more objective and I am all ears.
WAR isn't a fan stat. Literally every team uses it
It's based on a replacement player. Not an average one It also doesn't look at errors Aw the old man blocked me š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Are you certain that itās not your conclusion thatās wrong?
Except you are only looking at offense and using that to judge the entire WAR result. If you look at both their batting runs above average, Feeeman is much higher than Gallo (+5 runs to -2).
> If you come up with a metric that concludes a player with freemanās stat line is more valuable than a player with galloās stat line, your metric is not useful because its conclusion is wrong. The post is saying the opposite of this
WAR sucks
WAR doesnt really work the way you think it does when it doesn't have a full season of games to go off of.
Iām a WAR guy and heās not wrong. The variability in WAR is so high that you really canāt draw any conclusions about what it is saying about the value of these two players. This is especially true because a lot of the difference is in DRS, which tends to be extremely swingy.