Sean Smith
Description
If you follow baseball, you've probably heard about WAR, or Wins above Replacement. But how do you calculate it? Sean Smith walks through the methods
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used to calculate all of the components of WAR. Wins above Replacement has its roots in the early Baseball Abstracts of Bill James and the Hidden Game of Baseball by John Thorn and Pete Palmer.
This book explains how the pieces - batting, baserunning, fielding, pitching - are calculated, why they are calculated that way, and explores ways that the calculations can be improved. Also included are many examples using great players of the past and present. See how Ray Schalk, one of the few clean White Sox of 1919, rates among the greatest defensive catchers of all time. Todd Helton is now in the Hall of Fame, but just how good were his batting statistics, and how much help did he get from Coors field? How much extra value did a workhorse starting pitcher like Jack Morris have by keeping his bullpens well rested? Should WAR be used to decide who wins the MVP award? Does WAR undervalue the catching position?
Sean Smith has been involved in baseball analytics for over 40 years. He is the proprietor of Baseballprojection.com, and creator of the CHONE projection system. He designed the WAR calculations now available on Baseball-Reference.com. His writing has been featured in publications such as the Hardball Times. From 2010 to 2023 he worked as a consultant for a major league team. He is a federal civil servant by day and lives in Maryland with his family. In addition to baseball, Sean possesses a wide variety of skills and abilities. He once performed physical labor in the service of The Incredible Hulk. In 2006, Time Magazine named him Person of the Year.
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