Ben Lindbergh: Juan Pierre's career was just as good as Adam Dunn's

[cincinnati chili]

I like Lindbergh a lot, but this article illustrates the perils of putting your faith in defensive WAR, especially with respect to outfielders:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/ad...lacement-stat/

The emerging discourse about this guy being a "3-win player" and that guy being a "4-win player" is troubling to me, given the highly unreliable defensive component of the equation.

Jeff Passan made the point well last year:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/10-degr...030133203.html

[Wonderful Monds]

http://regressing.deadspin.com/sport...now-1688293396

[RedsManRick]

I like Lindbergh a lot, but this article illustrates the perils of putting your faith in defensive WAR, especially with respect to outfielders:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/ad...lacement-stat/

The emerging discourse about this guy being a "3-win player" and that guy being a "4-win player" is troubling to me, given the highly unreliable defensive component of the equation.

Jeff Passan made the point well last year:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/10-degr...030133203.html

What point do you think the Grantland article is illustrating exactly? That WAR is wrong because defensive metrics aren't perfect? I'm not quite following your logic...

The point of the article is that before WAR we had no systematic way of aggregating player value, leaving us somewhat in the dark as to the relative value of players of different types. The WAR framework provides us a holistic and systematic way of comparing the total production of very disparate players. That's very useful.

WAR isn't perfect. We'll measure defense more accurately in the future. But we shouldn't confuse the the fundamental value of having an aggregate model with the relative imprecision of one component of that model. If you have reason to believe (e.g. real evidence) that WAR's defensive component is biased in a way that makes a certain kind of player over/under-valued, then perhaps this specific example isn't as tidy as we might think. But the larger point would remain.

As for WAR's defensive components, that defensive measures are not fully consistent implies that they are imprecise (that they bounce around a lot), but that does not necessarily that they are inaccurate (systemically wrong in the same direction).

Or if this is just another one of those "let's throw the analytics baby out with the bathwater because some people over-state the power of them or use them wrong" case then "yawn" is my response.

[Javy Pornstache]

"Juan Pierre's career was just as good as Adam Dunn's"

[757690]

Clearly Dunn was a better player. He had more RBI than Pierre

[Ironman92]

But Juan had a much higher batting average

[lollipopcurve]

Depending on the makeup of the roster, I'm sure there have been many teams that would have been better off with Juan Pierre than with Adam Dunn, and vice versa.

[ac084c]

Clearly Dunn was a better player. He had more RBI than Pierre

I can't tell if this is a Marty quote or a Russo quote.

[kpresidente]

Adam Dunn was a better player than Pierre, but I can totally accept that Pierre was more productive. That's because Dunn was playing out of position his whole career. His natural position was DH. So you have to ask what Pierre's WAR would have been if they'd have stuck him at SS.

[kpresidente]

What point do you think the Grantland article is illustrating exactly? That WAR is wrong because defensive metrics aren't perfect? I'm not quite following your logic...

The point of the article is that before WAR we had no systematic way of aggregating player value, leaving us somewhat in the dark as to the relative value of players of different types. The WAR framework provides us a holistic and systematic way of comparing the total production of very disparate players. That's very useful.

WAR isn't perfect. We'll measure defense more accurately in the future. But we shouldn't confuse the the fundamental value of having an aggregate model with the relative imprecision of one component of that model. If you have reason to believe (e.g. real evidence) that WAR's defensive component is biased in a way that makes a certain kind of player over/under-valued, then perhaps this specific example isn't as tidy as we might think. But the larger point would remain.

As for WAR's defensive components, that defensive measures are not fully consistent implies that they are imprecise (that they bounce around a lot), but that does not necessarily that they are inaccurate (systemically wrong in the same direction).

Or if this is just another one of those "let's throw the analytics baby out with the bathwater because some people over-state the power of them or use them wrong" case then "yawn" is my response.

And one more thing...

In these discussions, EVERYBODY USES DEFENSIVE METRICS! You cant comment on whether X player is better than Y player without measuring it in some way. So to the people that don't like fWAR or bWAR I ask, "what are you using"? Because I guarantee with five minutes of consideration I can develop a lot more damning critique of whatever it is than you can of WAR. The thing about evaluation is that it doesn't matter if mine has a high degree of uncertainty, it only matters that my uncertainty is lower than yours.

[IslandRed]

As for WAR's defensive components, that defensive measures are not fully consistent implies that they are imprecise (that they bounce around a lot), but that does not necessarily that they are inaccurate (systemically wrong in the same direction).

Yep. Going all the way back to the early Moneyball days, many people have dealt with the lower precision of defensive measures by pretty much ignoring them. "We can't know for sure, so give me the better offensive player every time" became a default position.

But I think it's instructive that, as teams started putting more and more effort into analytics over the last decade, the roster composition of the so-called smart teams reflected an increased emphasis on defense. The original conventional wisdom from the early aughts would have suggested a move in the other direction.

[westofyou]

From article

Although WAR reveals that Pierre and Dunn were equally valuable to their teams, their teams weren’t equally generous to them. From a financial perspective, it was far better to be Dunn, who retired with $112.7 million in career earnings, almost twice Pierre’s $57.1 million take. When economist Matt Swartz studied spending on free agents in the Hardball Times Annual 2013, he found that defense, baserunning, and contact were all undervalued skills, and that walks weren’t, which helps explains the disparity.

Defense and base running are skills that are more aligned to the younger player and thus tend to not be rewarded financially since they are skill sets that the player tends to bring into the league when they are under a tighter pay scale. Then as they get closer to FA that skill set tends to regress with age, creating the disparity described above.

The old adage is shake a tree and 100 gloves fall out of it and 1 bat has merit, the game has always rewarded the hitter more than the well rounded player (with cash at least) especially since the items they bring to the game (offense) is visible to even the novice fan. When a Pierre player hits the market he's going against many other players with his skillset, many younger and cheaper.

Not many three outcome players with prodigious power coming up each year so it is natural that teams tend to pay out more for those players over the life of their career.

[RadfordVA]

Sounds about right to me. Quote of the article for me.

Dunn hit dingers and drove in runs, but he was a nonfactor (or worse) when he wasn’t in the batter’s box.

He actually hurt the team anytime he was not in the batters box. You can not be too surprised of this result when you realize that. Same conversation that is going on in the Cozart thread. You cannot ignore everything else that is going on in the game just because it is easier to relate to batting stats.

[BRM13]

More valuable? Hmm...

Baseball is entertainment. I think more people were willing to pay money (or watch on TV) to watch Adam Dunn take his hacks than watch Juan Pierre do his thing. So, if they are even remotely similar in improving the teams chance of winning, I'd think Dunn might be more financially valuable to a team. After all, they didn't say 'chicks dig the long ball' for nothing.

[757690]

It makes sense if you look at their careers in more detail

Both were high OBP guys. Dunn .364, Pierre .343. But Pierre has a much higher BA, which meaningful, because despite what we were told in little league, a walk is not as good a hit. A walk is worth on average .68 runs and a single is worth .89 runs. That difference meant that even though Dunn had a slightly higher OBP, Pierre was producing around 5-10 more runs a season with his lower OBP than Dunn was with his higher OBP.

Of course, Dunn vastly out produced Pierre in terms of power and slugging. But Pierre vastly out produced Dunn in virtually every other element of the game. He was a better base runner, base stealer, and better fielder. Even if you don't buy into these new defensive metrics, an average baseball fan would understand that base running and fielding are extremely important parts of the game, just as important as slugging. Both are centered on base acquisition, which is a central part to the most important part of the game, scoring runs.

Dunn was better than Pierre at slugging, but that's about it. So it makes sense that Pierre was the overall more productive player.