JFLNYC wrote:Dee Gordon is better.

Three weeks ago Revere was better. Gordon was second. He could have pulled ahead now.

Regardless, Revere has been very good this season.

Let's not overstate the importance of Revere's baserunning.

And let me be clear - I love advanced metrics. Love them. I hate that people consistently quote them because they support a position, but don't understand how they're calculated, or what they consider. No accusations against any individual poster here, just generally hate it. And most people here that care about that stuff know that I'm not a gigantic fan of WAR. I love the concept, I hate the inconsistency across sources, and I hate that (in some cases) actual results are mixed with component actions/expected results.

That said, both bWAR and fWAR include "baserunning" as a component, and both value him very highly. High enough that - per bWAR - he becomes replacement level, and - per fWAR - he becomes above replacement level, but well below average.

The "AR" part of WAR is the most confusing, I think, to most people. Above Replacement. Above the theoretical worst player in baseball. A team full of replacement players would win 29.4% of their games (47.7 over a full season), per both bWAR and fWAR. Using fWAR, because it's easiest to download their data, you can find the following:

Position players - via hitting, baserunning, and defense - account for 57% of overall value.
Pitchers account for 43%.

A .500 team needs 81 wins, 33 (and change) more than replacement value.

Thus, a team that wanted to be .500 - average - would need 19 wins out of their position players, and another 14 (and change) from their pitching staff.

With only 8 position player slots, a team would need to accumulate nearly 2.4 WAR for each position, just to reach the goal of average, with an average pitching staff.

If a guy plays every day, or nearly, and is worth 2 WAR, he is below average, and dragging your team below .500. You'd need a 3 WAR player somewhere else, just to maintain equilibrium (.500).

Now, I don't think .500 is the right goal. I think the goal should be higher - say 92 wins. That would put you in the playoffs, generally even if you had "bad luck" and your 92 win team only won 87 games. To get to 92 wins, you need 44 (and change) WAR. A perfectly (per fWAR) balanced 92-win team would have 25+ wins from the position players, and 19 from the staff. That means, even with a "92 win" staff, you need over 3 WAR per position to be a 92 win team. If you carry a 1-win position player, you need a Giancarlo Stanton to balance him out, and still need 3 WAR players everywhere else.

This is like ptk-level long already, so I'm stopping. But a guy like Revere is going to have a very very hard time being a regular on a 92-win team. And even if he is, that team would be better off with an average player in his place.

Bill James came up with the formula that determines baserunning plus and minus. I trust it. I'm not quoting it because it supports anything. I'm quoting it because I was pretty damn surprised to learn it and I am pretty sure no one here knew about it.

No one is calling Revere a really good player. He would have to be an outstanding CFer with a good arm and that will never happen. He has no power. But his offense is under rated when you don't count his baserunning value this season.

He is OK. Probably should be a 4th OFer. Having zero power and a wet noodle for an arm hurts his value badly. If he was otherwise outstanding with the glove, he might be a decent regular on a good to outstanding team but I don't think he is.

A smart GM might be able to trade him for something fairly valuable. Not Amaro of course. He'd probably get a 32 year old reliefer with a bad elbow and a utility infielder who can't play SS for him. But a smart team that needs an outfielder might surrender something worthwhile for him. The are a few teams that could use him I believe.

I think he is a bit under rated because he really improved as a baserunner. He's also hit like .355 for over a month. That's not bad.

A smart GM already traded him.

Good post shore

I wonder how close an actual 92 win team comes to having 44 and change WARs

anyone been to the AT&T Park? Standing room tickets as good as they are in Philly?

td11 wrote:Good post shore

I wonder how close an actual 92 win team comes to having 44 and change WARs

I think the 2013 Dodgers (92-70) had 27.1 offense and 16.4 pitching (43.5), which is damned near 44. I'll have to look up others later.

The Savior wrote:anyone been to the AT&T Park? Standing room tickets as good as they are in Philly?

Pretty much. Go to CF bleacher/Bud Zone or whatever. Best park

JFLNYC wrote:A smart GM already traded him.

A smart GM trades half this roster. Byrd has value don't you think? Utley. Rollins. Ruiz. There are a lot of teams in the playoff hunt that have holes we could fill. This team has more value than the other lousy Philly teams I remember.

Amaro was a comet. Had some magnificent seasons as an Assistant and his first couple of years as real GM. I think the Howard move was the beginning of the end. Then the Halladay fiasco. Now Lee.

I meant the Minny GM.

Grotewold wrote:

The Savior wrote:anyone been to the AT&T Park? Standing room tickets as good as they are in Philly?

Pretty much. Go to CF bleacher/Bud Zone or whatever. Best park

done and done. thanks!

Revere has a 2.2% walk rate. Jesus lord, have mercy.

Yeah, one hope I had for him to make himself more valuable was that he'd increase his walk rate with experience, but he's actually gotten worse.

We have 2 of the 4 worst WAR regulars this year (Brown and Howard). The real kicker, though, is we've given them 903 PA.

JFLNYC wrote:Yeah, one hope I had for him to make himself more valuable was that he'd increase his walk rate with experience, but he's actually gotten worse.

Having no power means pitchers have no reason not to throw strikes to him. Plus, he doesn't swing and miss much. Tough to walk under those circs.

I'm no Revere fanatic by any means but the criticism borders on comical. No one fields eight bangers

Grotewold wrote:I'm no Revere fanatic by any means but the criticism borders on comical. No one fields eight bangers

That's such a weak response from you, which isn't what I expect. The "fact" that "No one fields 8 bangers" doesn't make Revere better, nor acceptable. 1-win everyday players are a fucking death spiral. The A's are going to have 9 or 10 players with 2 or more WAR. 1 star, in Donaldson, 1 huge year, in Moss, and bunch of 2-WAR guys. And another 6 or so pitchers with 2+ WAR. The Dodgers will have 7 2+ WAR offensive guys, with one star, Puig, and 1 huge year, Gordon. And Kershaw, plus 2 other big producers. The Dodgers have given under 300 PA to guys with negative WAR, so they've lost less than a 1 win to joke players. We've given almost 2,000 PA to negative WAR guys, with a total of 7 wins below replacement from those PA. We're going to have 4 2+WAR guys, with one star - Utley, and only one other 1-WAR guy, in Revere. The rest of the team is a collection of 100+ loss-level talent. We'll have *1* 2-WAR pitcher. We're doing it wrong. The teams that excel have a .500 base, with stars that bring them to .550, .575, .600. We have a .400 base, with stars that drag us to .450.

We need about 15 different, better players to compete... it's alarming.

I hear you but almost none of that applies to Revere in isolation. I want a lot of new stuff, but you can absolutely win with a fast .300 hitter in your outfield. Especially when he's cheap

Revere's OWAR is allegedly 2.0. If he was good defensively he would have good value but his DWAR is allegedly negative. That was my point. Who knows how accurate the defensive number is? Probably fine. Can he improve? Maybe. If so, he'd have good value.

Grotewold wrote:I hear you but almost none of that applies to Revere in isolation. I want a lot of new stuff, but you can absolutely win with a fast .300 hitter in your outfield. Especially when he's cheap

Is that why Revere's been on so many winning teams? Or why he's been a sub-1 WAR guy 3 of his 4 seasons? Who are the .300 hitting, no-walking, ass-defense, fast 1 WAR guys who play outfield on winning teams?