In addition to Wins Above Replacement (WAR), I’ve started using Wins Above Excellence (WAE) to help analyze career value. So far, I’ve applied WAE to Non-Hall of Fame third baseman. But you know I couldn’t go long without applying it to relief pitchers!
When Sean Smith introduced WAE, he added up any WAR above 3.0. In my third base analysis, I did 3.0, 4.0, and 6.0 to get a sense of both “excellence” and “awesomeness”. Relievers simply don’t pile up high-WAR seasons like hitters, so I’ve included columns for 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0. It is pretty rare for a reliever to pick up over 4.0 WAR in a season (unless you’re Mariano Rivera). (more…)
Several years ago, on the now defunct Rule V Baseball Blog, I started writing a series of posts wondering what makes a relief pitcher a Hall of Famer. I’ve always been curious about the true value of a relief pitcher and what their representation in the Hall of Fame would be.
My original hypothesis was that too few relievers were in the Hall. Rich Gossage and Bruce Sutter were not yet in, so it was just three (Dennis Eckersley, Hoyt Wilhelm, and Rollie Fingers). I’ve considered a series of stats to evaluate relievers—starting with the likes of ERA+ and eventually settling with Wins Above Replacement (WAR)—and if you dig deeper into the numbers, my original hypothesis doesn’t really hold up too well. (more…)
- Posted December 10th, 2009. Comments Off
I’m a complete fanboy when it comes to Beyond the Box Score. They’re big fans of Wins Above Replacement (WAR) over there and constantly publish these “nth best year” charts. Basically, you plot multiple players by showing their best to worst years in a line graph. Gives you the best view of their peak, how high it was, how long it lasted, etc. (more…)
One of the great things about the Baseball Hall of Fame is that it gives us countless topics to debate—who belongs and who doesn’t? In most cases, each case revolves around a player. However, there are cases that revolve around entire positions. Today, I’m not talking about the relatively small amount of catchers or third basemen in the Hall. I’m not even talking about the DH. I’m talking about relief pitchers. (more…)