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Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Monday, June 16, 2008Sabernomics: Bradbury: VORP ShmorpHab SoSlI’ Quch!
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I think VORP as a number that must be obeyed is far less interesting (and informative) than the ideas behind the stat which are very useful in player evaluation.
That said, explaining those ideas can be daunting. For example I can't imagine the difficulty I'd have trying to explain DIPS to (picking a former player completely at random) say Mark Grace. I'm sure I'd fail at the task, particularly if, hypothetically, I had a few beers in me. :)
Exactly. I've been reading this site for years, and I still don't understand what VORP is or how to use it. Please don't say that I'm a Luddite - I'm not rejecting it at all. In fact it's the opposite. I really would like to learn. But I'd just like to be able to have a nice, simple layman's definition of what it is, and what types of information go into computing it, and how to use it, without including advanced mathmatical formulas that would go over my head. In other words, I don't need to know how repair the car, but I'd like to be able to drive it.
Oh, and I only watch the BBC news, but then, I'm British.
Replacement level is 80% of average for position players and 85% of average for pitchers - at least since last I knew. These levels are approximations but were arrived at through some empirical process.
That's an incomplete explanation but I hope it's useful to some degree.
Oh, and I only watch the BBC news, but then, I'm British.
But that only bolsters the point...
If this is referring to the U.S. of A., my response to someone who said that would be, "Balderdash!" (humor me here, people).
I find it hard to imagine how one could intentionally block themselves off from the mainstream American media. And is the BBC even on American television? It's not on my list (300+ channels) with Comcast digital cable.
x Dollars Per Win
x Years of Service Adjustment
equals Salary
Wins Above Average times Dollars Per Win
+
Constant Dollars Per Playing Time Unit times Playing Time Unit
, all times Years of Service Adjustment
equals Salary
It's all about where to put that "constant". But, it works out to the exact same thing.
The answer is of course 15%. 15% of what? 15% of the league average OPS. Well what is a point of OPS worth? Ummm, well, it's basically a point of SLG or OBP. How much is a point of one of those worth??? Etc etc etc. Tell me what the difference on the team level of a 115 OPS+ vs a 100 OPS+. 15% doesn't quite say anything now does it.
VORP puts it in actual runs, which have an actual meaning for a baseball game. I fail to see how it is complicated how "X number of runs over a shitty player" is better than "15% better than league average".
It starts with the decision to save $360+ annually by not subscribing to cable. Add a low tolerance for advertising, which is 30% of broadcast television. Add a busy day job and raising young kids, which leaves little time for gathering info, so sources have to be high density (which is related to the low tolerance for advertising). Since even NPR doesn't qualify as high density, this combination left people SOL in the past, but thankfully now one has the freedom to identify good information sources on the internet.
Can't say I've missed broadcast or cable TV in the slightest, nor the traditional media rags. Many of the people I know who have kids have done the same.
And then when you say "When you add 9 or 10 runs, on average you're adding one win," you get stared at again.
I agree with #3 very much. Almost everything that statheadism has taught me that is worth knowing can be explained simply without resorting to numbers or jargon. When you have to reach for the Klingon-equivalent jargon, or get out your calculator, the point is frequently so fine that you might as well just shut up.
This is a good point. When you're talking with people who are interested in debating the extremely fine points, then the advanced metrics are fine. When you're talking about general park effects, general defensive effects, etc. then simpler stats are fine.
I still don't have an adequate explanation of why Quarterback Ranking is so completely accepted by everyone from the MSM down to the guy at the bar, while things like VORP are ridiculed. I mean, nobody understands how the data works in QB Rating. They understand that it takes important things like yards, TD's, and INT's into account, but they don't know how. And it has its flaws as well, since there's such thing as a "perfect rating" even if you went 20-24 with 3 TD's. What would your rating have been if you completed those other 4 passes, 3 of them for TD's? Oh, the same.
I think that describes RARP, while VORP is based on MLV.
VORP (and its cousins the WARPs) are clearly not numbers that "must be obeyed" as Voros puts it. For one thing, I think that they are numbers with one foot in the fantasy-baseball realm. I know these are very simple observations that have been made often, but: starters are not uniformly replaced by "replacement-level" talent except in fantasy; they are often replaced by top bench guys or top prospects. Nor (except in fantasy) are players locked into positions. Catchers are, and maybe some left-handed first basemen; veterans often get highly acclimated to one position; but usually players are much more mobile across positions than VORP and WARP would indicate. Take somebody like Mark DeRosa, who is perhaps an extreme example but not an unusual type. What "position" does he play?
IOW, in order to judge whether the claim has merit, you have to understand how the claim is supported. To the uninitiated, VORP is no different. If you want to speak in VORP, either you need to find someone who speaks VORP, teach someone how to understand VORP, or find a language your audience understands.
I guess that's a big part. I guess if VORP (or EqA, or whatever) was routinely shown on TV and talked about then it would gain some acceptance.
starters are not uniformly replaced by "replacement-level" talent
I think this is a big part, as well, at least for any "replacement-level" stats. It's actually kind of dehumanizing to talk about players in terms of how much better (or worse) they are than "some random guy", even if that guy is an AAAA player.
Yes. And I realize that "replacement level" is just an abstract benchmark, no different in kind from league-average, but chosen for specific alternative good reasons. Within the logical system of the replacement-level-based metrics, things hang together; but they don't reflect baseball realities in many ways. Nor does any single metric, obviously.
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