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Thread: Kemp and the Quest for 1 bWAR

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    Quote Originally Posted by Southcack77 View Post
    I don't see how it is is remotely as important as the hitting, myself.

    You could go entire games without there being a chance in LF that would merit a difference between the best and worst defensive LF. As opposed to 4-5 at bats a game.

    The stats boys at times will concede this is true, but nonetheless will hammer the defensive numbers again in the next moment.

    I certainly do recognize that Kemp passes no eye or metric test as a great defender. If we were talking about a playoff series, I would have some real concerns. But for a team without any real aspirations playing a 162 game schedule? I'll take the hitting because that's going to prove the more valuable asset over a large sample.
    It's not as simple as, 'There are more opportunities on offense than defense, so offense is more important and defense doesn't really matter.' It's all about differences relative to other players. You act as though the comparison is between a player making all of his couple plays a game vs. getting a hit in all of his 5 AB. In reality, while an offensive player gets 4 to 5 AB/game, so do the other offensive players. And the difference between a .320 OBP and a .350 OBP, over 600 PA, is...18 times on base. That comes out to a little more than 1 a week. So the difference between a guy who is really good at getting on base and a guy who is about average is about one time on base per week, or one every 33 PA.

    So is offense or defense more important for a player? Just depends. Certainly the ceiling for a player's potential value is higher on offense than defense. But Kemp's defense has actually been bad enough, relative to others in the league, to outweigh his offense at times and make him a guy with little to no value.

    So is defense remotely as important as offense? It just depends on the player's performance. But you certainly can't say that a guy was not brought in for defense, so the only thing that matter is his offense and so long as it's at least pretty good, he can be as bad as he wants on defense. That's ludicrous.

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    Look at the leader in dWAR, then look at the leader in oWAR. The highest dWAR value I can find quickly is Simmons' 5.4 back in 2013. The highest non-Bonds oWAR value I can find quickly is Cabrera's 9.1, also back in 2013.

    So the absolute peak elite offensive season was worth 68% more than the absolute peak elite defensive season. Offense is worth more than defense. Always has been, always will be.

    As usual, the only people that doubt the validity of defensive value metrics don't understand what they are talking about. All the arguments they attempt to use aren't even factual/relevant to the discussion.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Southcack77 View Post
    This is right and also wrong.

    Defense at SS is clearly more valuable than defense in LF. No argument here.

    We aren't constructing a list of the world's most valuable players though. We are assembling a team.

    And defense in LF is less important than defense at SS. And if you are assembling a team, it's irrelevant that some replacement level SS might have better dWar than your LF.

    You are only looking at the options in LF. And you could very well decide to throw an all defense LF out there to save the two or three bases a week that could be saved if you wanted to. And depending on the way your roster balanced otherwise that might not be a bad play. but it isn't going to work on every team.

    The best assembled teams do have the most valuable players overall on it though. It's kind of the whole point. And if you are only looking at LF's then why should the positional adjustment even matter since all LF's get hit with that penalty.

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    Quote Originally Posted by thewupk View Post
    The best assembled teams do have the most valuable players overall on it though. It's kind of the whole point. And if you are only looking at LF's then why should the positional adjustment even matter since all LF's get hit with that penalty.
    Add up the Braves total WAR, then adjust for bad luck in 1 run games. It almost perfectly predicts the Braves record.

    If defensive WAR was wrong, how could that be the case? If Kemp's WAR value is too low, which player's WAR value is too high?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Enscheff View Post
    As usual, the only people that doubt the validity of defensive value metrics don't understand what they are talking about. All the arguments they attempt to use aren't even factual/relevant to the discussion.
    Defensive value =/= defensive value metrics

    You can believe in the logic of one, while questioning the validity/accuracy of the other.

    Teams across the league do, especially the smartest ones.

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    Quote Originally Posted by chop2chip View Post
    Defensive value =/= defensive value metrics

    You can believe in the logic of one, while questioning the validity/accuracy of the other.

    Teams across the league do, especially the smartest ones.
    You mean like the Cubs who made it a point to bolster their defense last year and ended up producing one of the best run suppression teams in history?

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    Quote Originally Posted by chop2chip View Post
    Defensive value =/= defensive value metrics

    You can believe in the logic of one, while questioning the validity/accuracy of the other.

    Teams across the league do, especially the smartest ones.
    The "smartest" teams are almost exclusively the teams that value defense the highest.

    So answer the question everyone avoids: how can the total Braves WAR predict almost perfectly their record if the defensive values are wrong?

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    Quote Originally Posted by thewupk View Post
    You mean like the Cubs who made it a point to bolster their defense last year and ended up producing one of the best run suppression teams in history?
    They also used a ton of shifting and positioning that kind of messes up the metrics. That's in Klaw's book too.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Enscheff View Post
    The "smartest" teams are almost exclusively the teams that value defense the highest.

    So answer the question everyone avoids: how can the total Braves WAR predict almost perfectly their record if the defensive values are wrong?
    bc that is one particular example and doesn't prove the rule. You could probably pull other teams in other years where it doesn't do squat.

    I think Defense matters. And I think the metrics help. The question is how much.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Enscheff View Post
    Everyone? I don't think I've seen a single poster comment that he is a below average hitter.
    There were some when he came over. I think he had like a 320 or 310 OBP in SD. But he's been good for us since he got here. But his SD performance was below avg as I recall. lots of HRs but not on base much.

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    Quote Originally Posted by thewupk View Post
    I'm sure each team values defense differently. Some don't put much emphasis on it (I feel the Braves are this way) and there are some teams that do (I feels the Cubs do for example). Hopefully at some point we will get a better understanding of it. I do feel the new statcast data is a huge step in the right direction.

    In regards to Kemp being a negative. It's obvious that so far this year he is not. But his time in San Diego (for whatever reason) was not good at all. Below average defender and average hitter to me equals a below average player. And his WAR numbers brought that out. It would show the same thing here if he was hitting at the level he did in San Diego. Thankfully he is hitting quite a bit better than that.
    I don't think the reference was that teams necessarily care about it less....that may be true.

    I think it's that teams value it less than publicly available war. Or that they have defensive metrics that they feel are more accurate. Or they feel positioning is more important than the player. Basically it's new enough that there isn't an industry consensus and the StatCast data is so new and massive that teams are constantly inovating. I think everyone values D. I think everyone knows it's paid less than offense and therefore there is a potential inefficiency there.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Russ2dollas View Post
    They also used a ton of shifting and positioning that kind of messes up the metrics. That's in Klaw's book too.
    It is possible (likely?) that it does on an individual level. On a team level I think it's going to work out just the same. The 2016 Cubs won 103 games. Their WAR and Pythag Records both said they should have won 107 games. The fact that WAR correlates super high with actual runs scored and allowed is enough for me.

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    Quote Originally Posted by thewupk View Post
    You mean like the Cubs who made it a point to bolster their defense last year and ended up producing one of the best run suppression teams in history?
    Maybe I didn't state my point clearly enough.

    Defense = great!

    The logic behind defensive value is undeniable.

    The accuracy of publicly sourced defensive metrics = ehhhh

    What defensive metrics do you think the Cubs relied upon when they built that team?

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    Sometimes I wonder if the mistake we make isn't assigning defensive value to players, but in assuming that every player's defensive value is as important as every other. The Boston Red Sox won 2 World Series' with Manny Ramirez in lf. I don't think it's out of line to assume that sometimes it's ok to pick and choose where to let defensive value slide in favor of offensive production, and vice versa.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Enscheff View Post
    The "smartest" teams are almost exclusively the teams that value defense the highest.

    So answer the question everyone avoids: how can the total Braves WAR predict almost perfectly their record if the defensive values are wrong?
    The smartest teams are the teams that value defense the most accurately, not highest.

    There is enough evidence on a macro level to question the accuracy of open source defensive metrics, my dude.
    Last edited by chop2chip; 05-17-2017 at 12:56 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Russ2dollas View Post
    I don't think the reference was that teams necessarily care about it less....that may be true.

    I think it's that teams value it less than publicly available war. Or that they have defensive metrics that they feel are more accurate. Or they feel positioning is more important than the player. Basically it's new enough that there isn't an industry consensus and the StatCast data is so new and massive that teams are constantly inovating. I think everyone values D. I think everyone knows it's paid less than offense and therefore there is a potential inefficiency there.
    There is definitely an inefficiency there. I think it was smart to lock up Ender for what they did. Also in the same vein I think it was a mistake to trade Simmons for what they did.

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    Quote Originally Posted by chop2chip View Post
    Maybe I didn't state my point clearly enough.

    Defense = great!

    The logic behind defensive value is undeniable.

    The accuracy of publicly sourced defensive metrics = ehhhh

    What defensive metrics do you think the Cubs relied upon when they built that team?
    Not sure. But UZR/WOBA/FIP accurately captured the value of the difference in runs scored and allowed in 2016.

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    Quote Originally Posted by thewupk View Post
    It is possible (likely?) that it does on an individual level. On a team level I think it's going to work out just the same. The 2016 Cubs won 103 games. Their WAR and Pythag Records both said they should have won 107 games. The fact that WAR correlates super high with actual runs scored and allowed is enough for me.
    I can't argue that....I want to say the correlation coefficient is like 0.8 and change. It's good but not amazing. And we don't have anything better...at least not publicly available.

    And I don't watch a ton of games. I just watch Braves games. And I've seen Gattis and Klesko et al in the Braves LF. To my eye there is no way Kemp's D (which I've said is clearly terrible based on how he moves) come close to impacting how he has hit for us. I also don't think he'll hit this well going forward. I also expect him to only get worse moving around. And I hope we can dump him ASAP.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Russ2dollas View Post
    I don't think the reference was that teams necessarily care about it less....that may be true.

    I think it's that teams value it less than publicly available war. Or that they have defensive metrics that they feel are more accurate. Or they feel positioning is more important than the player. Basically it's new enough that there isn't an industry consensus and the StatCast data is so new and massive that teams are constantly inovating. I think everyone values D. I think everyone knows it's paid less than offense and therefore there is a potential inefficiency there.
    This.

    What's dangerous is using DRS and UZR as the baseline for evaluating a given team's philosophy towards defensive valuation. Until we the public have access to the same pool of data these teams are pulling from, we can't know for sure.

    With that said, these metrics do provide enough surface level evidence that a team like the Braves either (1) doesn't value defense as much as a team like Chicago or (2) value defense, but aren't very good at measuring it. Or most likely, (3) both.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Enscheff View Post
    Everyone? I don't think I've seen a single poster comment that he is a below average hitter.
    You need to go back and look at some threads from last year then. In fact, I'm pretty sure you were one of them. I know others remember the "Kemp is a below average hitter" gibberish from last year

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