MLB WAR: 7.4.2011

Have a feeling Victorino may fall a little after his miscue last night…lol

Victorino was having such a good season. His rate stats are better than Cutch’s, although he has 50 less AB’s. Seems like he’s been adding a little power and taking a few more walks the last couple years without affecting his speed or low K%.

McCutchen’s low Bsr score (Baserunning value) implies that he is a conservative runner when on base.

That score does not imply that he is conservative. It might be that he is conservative, it also might be that he’s too aggressive and thus gets thrown out too often while trying to take the extra base. I do think perhaps he has been too conservative, but you need more than that table for your implication.

Shane Victorino has played a better CenterField than McCutchen in 2011!

OK the table kind of supports this, but there are uncertainties around fielding statistics that make it so you can’t be this definitive with such a small discrepancy. A 0.8 run gap would indicate that it’s barely more likely than not that Victorino has been better than Cutch in 2011 (independent of who is better overall).

Matt Kemp would likely have a higher WAR if the Dodgers would put him in RF.

How do you get that conclusion from that table? His fielding would likely be better, but he’d receive less value from his position. The positional adjustments are set up to match roughly what is expected if a player were to move positions, so to make the conclusion that his WAR (not just his UZR) would improve by moving positions, you’d need some analysis/observations that his skill-set would particularly benefit from the change in position. Don’t get me wrong; it might, but that table doesn’t support that argument.

Joey Bats is a more aggressive baserunner than Jose Reyes!

Again that table alone says almost nothing about the aggressiveness of the baserunners; it is about their effectiveness. I would guess it’s actually the case that Reyes has been too aggressive and that has cost him some baserunning runs, but I don’t have any data or observations to support that (but neither does your table support your argument).

Don’t get me wrong; I love advanced baseball stats. It’s important though to be mindful both of what conclusions the stats support as well as what conclusions the stats do not support.