hotstatrat
Brock -

Yes, the DH takes the bat away from the pitcher and puts it in another hitter's hands. However, that other hitter could just as easily be someone who will play in the field moving a poorer fielder to the DH as it could be just another bat added to the line-up. If it is the former, then having that DH improves that team's defense. If it the latter, there is no effect on the defense. So, why should the penalty be the equivelent of the worse defensive player in the league? Half of the DHs are probably better fielders than a slightly below average first-baseman defensively. They shouldn't be penalized so heavily just because they aren't on the field. They are still in the line-up and in many cases allowing the team to have a better defense.
11:40 AM Jan 26th

hotstatrat
Furthermore, if David Ortiz played in Dick Stuart's day, he obviously would have played first-base. From the evidence on FanGraphs, for example, Ortiz was probably a significantly better first-baseman. So, if you want to compare how much more valuable to his team was Ortiz vs. Stuart, is it fair to penalize Ortiz just because he rarely played first, while Stuart was a regular at the position during an era when there was no DH? Go ahead and give good fielding first-basemen credit for the runs they saved, but don't over penalize DHs just because they aren't out there getting any opportunities.
5:57 PM Jan 24th

hotstatrat
I understand that the DH on the teams with poor fielding first-basemen should be considered at least as unproductive defensively as those poor fielding first-basemen.

But, what about the DHs on teams with good fielding first-basemen? Should they be as penalized as the DHs on those poor fielding first-basemen teams? Arguably, yes, because all DHs should be treated equally - they aren't doing anything on defense.

Yet every team needs a DH. Somebody has to play it. He fills a spot in the line-up. Should all DHs be penalized as much as the ones on teams with poor fielding first-basemen? Or, should the DH be penalized just slightly more than the average worse fielder (or first-baseman)?
4:14 PM Jan 24th

Brock Hanke
Um, Tom, things are getting worse here. You did, in fact, answer the specific question I asked, which was how do you determine the defensive value of a DH. You said that a "poor fielding" 1B has the same defensive values a DH. But, but, but - That is obviously and provably false! Even the worst fielding 1B will make SOME plays. I saw Dick Stuart (I started going to baseball games in 1954). He did make SOME plays. He did catch SOME throws. And a DH catches NONE. Makes NO plays. His defensive value is FAR, FAR less than that of even the worst 1B you can imagine. It is ABSOLUTE ZERO. His defensive value is the same as if you did not send anyone out there to play 1B at all. No 1B is anywhere near that bad. My problem is how could you manage to finally ignore this obvious fact. You are obviously not stupid or ignorant. What happened here?
12:47 AM Jan 21st

Brock Hanke
I've been putting this off for a few days, to see if the question got answered earlier, but it hasn't, really.

Where did the -22.5 for DH come from?

We know where Bill's DH number of zero came from. A DH contributes zero to his team's defense. Easy, simple, obviously accurate. But why -22.5? The skeptical, and much more hostile than I want it to be, question is - Did the -22.5 come from looking at Bill's results and figuring out that -22.5 for DH would produce a similar set of numbers, after conversions? I can't figure out where it came from, and the hostile question keeps raising its head. Sorry to be hostile. I don't want to be. I really don't think you would stoop to anything like that. But I don't have any other answer to go with.
1:53 AM Jan 18th

TheRicemanCometh
Please forgive me if this is obvious, but where did the 216 come from? It's not very clear in the article.

Thanks,
-CTR
6:42 AM Jan 13th

tangotiger
If you count an average 1B as being "3", then a terrible 1B that is 10 runs worse than average will come in at -7. In other words, whereas a DH counts as 0 runs, a terrible fielding 1B comes in at -7.

If that is the case, then why let a terrible fielding 1B on the field? You should make him a DH.

But clearly, if a team has a choice between putting their DH at 1B, and relegating their demonstrably terrible fielding 1B to DH and they STILL choose to keep their 1B as 1B, then the player they have at DH must provide LESS defensive value.

Logically, you can't give the DH more defensive value than the player actually on the field.

5:27 PM Jan 11th

tangotiger
The WAR framework allows for a dynamic replacement level. The reality is that (a) it's alot of work and (b) most people don't care. So, there is a path to get there.
10:03 PM Jan 10th

tangotiger
Bill uses ~12, I use 10, and you say 8.

Nathaniel Lowe this season was the league-worst fielder at -8 runs in 1327 IP, which works out to annualized -9 runs. In 2021, Dalbec was -8 annualized. In 2019: Hosmer -9. In 2018, the bottom 2 were Cards 1B, who each played half the time, so combined were -12.

That sounds like reasonable agreement to me between the three of us, and consistent with the data.

If you have a specific question, I'd be happy to answer it.
9:26 PM Jan 10th

hotstatrat
didn't see your last post -

Fair enough, I don't know. 12 or 13 runs over what? a whole season? - that seems a little high, I guessed 8, but I'm sure you've done serious research in that matter, so I won't argue about that. My argument is that it seems conceptually wrong to subtract from a DH's offensive contribution. If you aren't doing that, my apologies.

No fielder should have negative defensive numbers unless they were on the field letting runs in like crazy. . . Just like no batter should have a negative WAR unless he was making more outs with less production than a .300 W-L pct. call-up.
9:10 PM Jan 10th

hotstatrat
(continued) A moderately bad 1B contributes more than a DH on a bad defensive team, but most DHs have better fielding first-basemen. Most of those DHs would be interchangeable with that not-so-good first-baseman. Figuring all DHs should be treated equally, I figure they should all be treated about as equally as that slightly below average 1B.

The rest of the positions should be treated upwards from the run saving capabilities of that a little below average first-baseman.


9:02 PM Jan 10th

hotstatrat
Of course. And the average 1B contributes more than a DH, but I'm not convinced that a moderately below average 1B contributes more defensively than a DH.

8:51 PM Jan 10th

hotstatrat
Thanks, Tom,

So - I'm suggesting that defensive contribution to WAR should be calculated such that being DH doesn't take away from those contributions. Does it?
7:31 PM Jan 10th

hotstatrat
Oh, so oWAR and dWAR are not components of WAR? I guess I have to go back to WAR 101.

Let me ask: are Offensive contributions to WAR are calculated the same for all batters or is it based on their position?

Whichever it is, the way defensive contribution is calculated, I think should be done is a similar way as much as possible.


6:34 PM Jan 10th

hotstatrat
To suggest anything regarding measures of defense that hasn't already been considered by Bill, you, or others in the Sabermetric community is mountainous, indeed. No doubt you already have considered what I'm trying to point out.

The point being is: oWAR measures all batters against a singular replacement level of hitting. Why shouldn't dWAR? DHs are penalized from that their total WAR for merely being a DH. That is unfair. The are a part of the line-up just as much as the other 8 batters, if not a tiny bit more. Defensive WAR should only be negative if the defensive contributions are worse than what would occur if a typical DH had to play in the line-up instead - not necessarily at that players position, but somewhere which may or may not involve the some other players shifting to a more demanding position. A slightly below average shortstop would still be contributing i.e. saving more runs than an average first-baseman, but I don't think it would be the full difference between what that first-baseman would do if he were playing shortstop and that below average shortstop. Players move around to miminize others shortcomings.

Likewise an outstanding shortstop or centerfielder would still make a bigger difference than an outstanding thirdbaseman, I would think, because they are involved in far more plays. But many plays are rountine. Yes, errors occur, but there's an expected amount of errors players make at each position. It doesn't mean we have to penalize DHs for not being on the field making all those routine plays. We need to find a replacement level for each position that makes sense given the nature of baseball: every batter but the DH has to play somewhere.

Teams instinctively know this. I don't know what the stats are now, but I do recall at one point DHs were the most highly paid position. Yes, that had much to do with it being generally an older player's position, but still - having a good bat in the line-up shouldn't be quite so negated because he happens to be the DH.

It seems to me the distribution of positive and negative dWARs should be similar to oWARs. The positives of dWAR should probably be much less than the positives of oWAR because you can't field an un-home run (well, outfielders can to a very small degree). Also, there are fewer fielding plays than batting opportunities.

Anyway, I hope I'm not wasting anyone's time. This is my view. I don't think I'm a genius, but I'm not stupid.
4:45 PM Jan 10th

jgf704
When trying to assess fielding via BB-Ref, I prefer to look at Rfield (fielding runs) instead of dWAR. As Tom mentions, dWAR includes performance against the center, plus the positional adjustment. Rfield is simply performance compared the the center for the position (or combination of positions for multi-positional players). Players like Mattingly and Tino Martinez show up as negative because of the position adjustment for 1B.

Here's a ranking of 1B only (75%+ games) by Rfield:

https://stathead.com/tiny/QL8Wq

Some familiar names are at the top, e.g. Keith Hernandez +117 runs.
4:28 PM Jan 10th

abiggoof
To be clear, Tom, Bill and everyone else working on these issues deserve praise — we’re still far ahead of where we were a few decades ago. And I think it says more about the problem than the researchers.​
2:51 PM Jan 10th

tangotiger
When a gold glove catcher bats as a DH because they want to give him half-a-day off, he bats as a DH with no defensive impact whatsoever on that day.

When Frank Thomas bats as a DH it's because he's a DH.

If you want to suggest that we value their DEFENSIVE impact differently, because one is a true-DH and the other is not, then you are going to have a mountain to climb to make your argument.


2:06 PM Jan 10th

hotstatrat
Re: bigotis49 - number of recent outstanding CFs

Perhaps, modern teams have developed better strategies for covering more ground particularly among centerfielders.
12:26 PM Jan 10th

jgf704
Bill said:

Part of the problem, I believe, comes from trying to measure things from a non-existent center. I don't believe that we can ever successfully measure the defensive contribution to a team by measuring from the center.

Actually, the much of the apportionment of win shares (as described in Win Shares) is done using "claim points" across different elements, and these are most certainly anchored to the center. For example, the method for dividing defensive win shares between pitching and fielding (at the team level) is based on claim points for defensive efficiency, BB allowed, HR allowed, errors/passed balls, double plays, and strikeouts (see pp 26-33). Every one of these (except strikeouts) is of the form:

CLAIM POINTS = A + B * (TeamPerformance - LeaguePerformance)

A and B are constants, with different values for the different elements.

It is once again like Tom wrote in his second paragraph: Bill is anchoring things about the center, but then translates to an absolute scale. He does these two things in a single step, whereas WAR does it in two steps.


9:51 AM Jan 10th

tangotiger
I should point out that both Bill and I agree that the DH has zero defensive value, as noted by our two independent scales.

Even though we come at the problem from two very different perspectives, we do agree on that.
9:27 AM Jan 10th

hotstatrat
(continued) Sorry, being rushed here ... Why give the firstbaseman even an average firstbaseman so much more credit than the DH when he may only be very marginaly better?
8:57 AM Jan 10th

hotstatrat
One thing doesn't sit right with me about all the defensive analysis we have done so far - that is you've got to play 9 (actually 10) guys. Someone has to be the DH. Why does he get dinged so much just because he doesn't have the opportunity to field the ball?

Perhaps, Bill's point is that you need a replacement value for each position. How much better is Player X at first base than the generic AAA or AA firstbaseman? Why give him a whole bunch of credit for being no better than an average Major League DH?
8:54 AM Jan 10th

tangotiger
"If there is an adjustment to be made why does WAR not just add 22.5 to each position"

In point of fact: WAR does do that. It simply does it in a future step. It doesn't really matter where or when it does it, as long as it does it. And it does in fact do it.


8:41 AM Jan 10th

willibphx
The fundamental flaw in the Tango version in my view is the assumption that an average fielder across all positions has no value. How can you charge a DH with a negative number when he does not enter the field? Would you charge a player a negative value offensively if he never received a PA? If there is an adjustment to be made why does WAR not just add 22.5 to each position and then multiply by 1.2?
5:20 AM Jan 10th

jgf704
For completeness, here are Bill's Runs Saved (RS) version, Bill's Intrinsic Weights (IW) scaled to 216, and Tango's translated to 0 DH and scaled to 216:

RS / IW / TT
C: 42 / 41 / 42
SS: 36 / 39 / 36
2B: 32 / 35 / 30
CF: 29 / 30 / 30
3B: 25 / 26 / 30
LF: 20 / 16 / 18
RF: 19 / 16 / 18
1B: 13 / 13 / 12
DH: 0 / 0 / 0

4:22 PM Jan 9th