Despite an acronym that sounds like it fits more appropriately in a phonetic acting class warm up than a baseball discussion, baseball reference has given us a fascinating value for players if they played on a team with league average players all around him: waaWL%, or Win-Loss percentage with average team.
Another way to look at this: How much better does this one player make his team than a .500 squad? Or how much worse? This varies from W.A.R., which looks at an improvement above an average replacement level player. This looks at the effect of a player on an otherwise completely league average team.
Hitters: The average I have chosen selects just the games the players played in. All games the player missed were thrown out (i.e. do not contribute to the won/lost percentage.
Pitchers: Same rules apply. All other games are thrown out. Only the games the pitchers start or relieve in count. All fielding, run support, batted ball percentages, etc. are league average.
A note before we begin: I gathered information for about 30 players the Mets are giving at least a decent shot to make the 25-man roster after spring training but I did not include rookies that have a chance such as Jack Leathersich or Rafael Montero because there I cannot find this data for the minor leagues. Even if I could, the league averages there would be too inconsistent to include in this report.
In addition, this Mets team is very young. Some of the sample sizes are far too small to be significant enough for argument. In the fourth column titled “Notes”, I disclose the sample size that could lead to misinterpretation. Similarly, many players played partial seasons last year, thus potentially skewing the data as well. Those are also mentioned.
I have listed them in order from highest waaWL% in 2013 to lowest.
| Player | 2013 waaWL% | Career waaWL% | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bartolo Colon | .611 | .549 | |
| Jenrry Mejia | .561 | .495 | 92.1 career innings |
| David Wright | .540 | .519 | |
| Juan Lagares | .520 | .520 | 121 career games |
| Zack Wheeler | .520 | .520 | 17 career starts |
| Dillon Gee | .518 | .508 | |
| Josh Satin | .507 | .503 | 91 career games |
| Bobby Parnell | .506 | .498 | |
| Carlos Torres | .506 | .493 | |
| Anthony Recker | .504 | .502 | 77 career games |
| Curtis Granderson | .503 | .514 | |
| Josh Edgin | .500 | .594 | |
| Daniel Murphy | .499 | .503 | |
| Andrew Brown | .499 | .493 | |
| Eric Young Jr. | .499 | .492 | |
| Vic Black | .498 | .498 | 17 career innings |
| Scott Rice | .498 | .498 | 51 career innings |
| Matt den Dekker | .495 | .495 | 27 career games |
| Ike Davis | .491 | .501 | |
| Kyle Farnsworth | .494 | .499 | |
| Jeurys Familia | .490 | .479 | 27 career games |
| Jose Valverde | .488 | .510 | |
| Lucas Duda | .487 | .486 | OF defense drags this number down |
| Chris Young | .486 | .503 | |
| Jon Niese | .481 | .491 | Career high .562 in 2012 |
| Travis d’Arnaud | .479 | .479 | 31 career games |
| Ruben Tejada | .474 | .496 | 57 games in 2013 |
| Wilmer Flores | .467 | .467 | 21 career games |
| Daisuke Matsuzaka | .449 | .520 | 7 starts in 2013 |
| John Lannan | .442 | .506 | 14 starts in 2013 |
Notes:
– Lucas Duda as a first baseman will yield a much better waaWL%. His outfield defense drags most weighted averages such as this way down.
– Matsuzaka, despite the positive career average, has been poor in this metric since 2009 and has gotten steadily worse.
– Despite the small sample size, Juan Lagares’ percentage is incredible.
– Mejia had four really good starts in 2013.
– Mike Trout, the most valuable position player in baseball last year, had a .543 waaWL%.
– Clayton Kershaw, the most valuable pitcher in baseball last year, had a waaWL% of .681.
If I missed a player that you think makes the team, let me know in the comments and I’ll find their waaWL%.
As always, if you have a question or an idea for an article, reach out to me on Twitter at Stephen Guilbert (@guilbs88) and I will get back to you.
Good thing we are gonna put Lagares in AAA for the season…
Wow Ike and Tejada get handed starting jobs and Lagares is probably sent to Vegas. What’s wrong with that picture?
How does this stat get calculated? I’ve never heard of it.
Appreciate the intro to a stat I know nothing about. As a fan, I can’t really do much with it though. Some of the metrics stats become paralysis by analysis. Its seems to value offense/defense equally much like WAR. Gerardo Parra and Angel Pagan I’m sure love these stats, Lagares too.
To be honest, I can’t do much with it either. I think I’ll only use it to see how significant a player had an impact on the team for a short time..say for a quick cup of coffee or an injury. Since it normalizes everything else to average, you can see if that player were above or below the league average, which has its value opposed to WAR which looks at value over replacement level instead of league average. You’re not going to see this on stat sheets anytime soon but it’s an interesting metric. Thanks for the comment.
It seems like this stat is mainly useful for guys who are with a club for a few years. But then if they are there for a while, it makes sense that they would have a higher wala%L!*, or whatever it is. It seems like another stat that proves what was already accepted. Nice article, though!
Honestly, not to belittle the writer, but this seems an awful lot like masturbation. I don’t know that it sheds any light … and I mean ANY light … on baseball discussions at all.
Let’s start with the concept of a “completely average team”. Is the calculated W% of an average team .500? Because a team full of replacement level players is decidedly less than .500.
Looking at Colon, is the suggestion that 25 Colon’s would have a winning percentage of .549 over his career? Because I have a huge HUGE issue with that idea. You are telling me that there is no cumulative effect of having a bunch of bad players, or having a bunch of good players?
Again – no shot at Steve here. It’s like we’re making up information because we have it and someone, some math genius from Yale needs to validate his $75000 salary from the Red Sox.
You can choose to ignore or look at the stats you want. I don’t look at wins and losses for pitchers and find them ridiculous–I mean absolutely ridiculous–when discussing a pitcher and yet that’s the first thing you’ll learn about a pitcher, right?
As I said above, this doesn’t do much for me either. It’s an introduction to the stat for anyone who wandered over to b-r and wondered where the Mets players fit in with that.
And, for clarity, you are misunderstanding the Bartolo Colon statement. The only way your assessment would work is if you amend it to: “Five Colons in the starting rotation plus a league average bullpen and league average hitters and defense will have a winning % of .549”
The other place it’s cool to look at is for the best to ever play the game. Go take a look at Babe Ruth’s value and enjoy the thought of a bunch of Babe Ruth’s on the same team.