Werth crushes lefties. Werth does not do as well against righties.

Werth faced more lefty pitching the first half of the season because he platooned. If he did not platoon than he faces more righties and he has more ABs against pitchers that he struggles against.

Not sure what is confusing, this is pretty basic. If he had more ABs against RHP than those numbers (which aren’t as high as his numbers vs. LHP) get more weight.

The offensive runs come from wRAA, which is calculated from wOBA. So, the general formula is something like ((Player wOBA – League wOBA)/1.15)* PA.

If a player had a .380 wOBA in a .332 wOBA league, with 600 PA, then we get roughly +25 runs above average.

wRAA is available on our player pages and leaderboards.

I understand how to use UZR to calculate the run value of defense and the need to apply a positional adjustment. However, oddly enough, I’m not sure how you are converting a player’s offensive production into a single run number. For example, how do you arrive at Werth being +11.7 above average?

What stat or calculation do you perform to boil a player’s production down to a single offensive run value that can be used with defense and positional adjustment to derive an overall win value for the player?

Thanks in advance!!!!

If a great player played a little bit more, he would have been much worse?

Count me amongst the dazed and confused.

I’ll admit, I never expected Maitland’s attempt after I read this article. Everything is aligned with Werth statistically, so stop wasting your breath and straining our eyes, Maitland.

Before getting into Werth/Howard comparisons, I do want to comment on how hilarious that statement is given that I’ve pointed out several possibilities that could have inflated Werth’s value. But, have pretty much just been met by resistance (not by the original author of the column, but Dave’s came with the standard not open to a stat dig and now this one), just by putting out why Werth’s numbers might be inflated in a particular case. Dave, just think about that with your knowledge and enemy of learning lines.

I believe I’ve mentioned a comparison of his home/road UZR would or UZR in the games without Victorino in CF. Werth’s a solid defender, it’s just that playing in that ballpark for half of his games, it is easy to see that his role is reduced to less than most right fielders. Does that show up in the statistics? I don’t know, it might.

As for hitting, one of the things I posted about his hitting is that he was a platoon player at the start of the season. So, his end of the season numbers are inflated because of that. If he had 100 more at bats last season it’s going to further mix in with his huge stats against lefties and bring everything down, it’s mainly just a matter of degree.

I’m closed off because I think there are reasons why the stats might be skewed in ONE case? Look, if you disagree with my possible reasons for why the value on Werth might be skewed, I’m completely OK with that. All it will mean is that I was wrong. But, to ignore that and just give me the standard lame remarks to people questioning statistics doesn’t fit the situation. It’s kind of like if someone that doesn’t like blogs dropping the “eh, it’s just someone blogging from their mother’s basement” jab to try. It’s not a very good way of dismissing points.

Anyway, Werth and Howard.

Eric, while Howard hit .352 in September and that was his best month in batting average, I don’t think it does his performance justice to say that he was dreadful for a lot of the season.

You dismiss RBI as a product of those hitting in front of him, but let me make one point on the RBI numbers without getting into how valuable of a statistic they are. By month, he had 12-30-26-27-19-32. April was an obviously bad month. But, I put the RBI by month out there as a way of saying there wasn’t a dramatic increase in RBI in the month that you call great compared to the rest of the season where you say he was largely dreadful.

The reason for that is because he hit over .300 with RISP in the months before September.

RISP with 2 outs, he hit .322.

He got RBI in the months that he was “dreadful” not because runners were on base alone, but because he hit better than anyone on the Phillies in those situations. I’m not making a case for those RBI being valuable marks of his performance, just to make a point on this idea that he was just a one month player. And, to point out that if he was that much better in that month, and the Phillies were still getting on base like they do, couldn’t you expect to see a jump in his RBI numbers as well? We didn’t see that.

The reason is because the AVG and OBP for the other months were so low. He only really produced those numbers in September.

He obviously has flaws in his game. Right now, the most obvious of those is his hitting with the bases empty.

His situational hitting the last two years has been better with runners on and RISP than with the bases empty where he hit .239 in 2007 and .196 in 2008. In 2006, before teams started to consistently put that shift on against Howard, he hit better with the bases empty than with runners on.

His numbers with the bases empty are so far down that it brings everything down. Still, Howard is their #4 hitter. He bats with runners on a lot. 298 ABs with runners on 312 with the bases empty. To be a premier player does he need to be a better hitter with the bases empty and have more months like September? Absolutely.

We’re comparing him to Jayson Werth, though. Werth produced an RBI in 41% of his ABs with a RISP. Howard was at 50%. For comparison, Teixeira was at 51% and Hamilton at 56%.

Aside from that, again I’ll mention that I think Werth’s value offensively would come down a bit if he had to face right handed pitching in more at bats. I mean, if you take away 100 of Howard’s ABs against lefties, his stats obviously are going to go up a bit. It would obviously be silly to do this and look at Howard’s stats, but the point is that Werth’s numbers are inflated by Jenkins taking his at bats against righties during the first half of the season. Werth was hitting .282/.378/.529, an OPS of .907 coming into September, but what does that become with 100 more ABs of .255/.360/.407 with an OPS of .767?

Obviously that comes down somewhat.

Maybe I appreciate Howard’s last two seasons more because they’ve been alongside Burrell. Burrell is a guy whose situational hitting has been such a nightmare to Phillies fans that seeing someone hit as well Howard has the last two seasons with runners on makes a huge difference. The Phillies had been a solid team close to the playoffs for several years, the last two years, they’ve made the playoffs. I don’t think it’s insignificant that now they have someone in the middle of their order that can hit with runners on the way Howard does.

Werth was more valuable than Howard last year. It’s not laughable – it’s the truth.

Speaking of red flags, a red flag went up when you called Howard a premier player that told me that you don’t know anywhere near as much about baseball as you think you do. I’ll give you a break because you’re obviously new to this, but 7.3 wins above replacement the last two seasons? Far from premier. For reference’s sake, there were seven hitters who amassed that amount in 2007 alone. Howard didn’t rank in the top forty in either year, and that’s not even including pitchers. Nowhere near where you thought he’d be, right? That alone disqualifies you from this argument.

Entering September, Howard hit .234/.324/.490, an .814 OPS. Werth was hitting .282/.378/.529, an OPS of .907, almost 100 points higher.

Howard was more valuable, by far, in September, but that’s it. Even if you consider Werth a +7 fielder and +16 hitter as opposed to +15 and +22, Werth comes out as +3.5 WAR… Howard in 2008 was +3.4.