Call to the pen
Fansided

MLB: Declaring WAR on the BBWAA Award Finalists

By Bobby Mueller

Sep 19, 2016; Arlington, TX, USA; Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout (27) smiles to the bench after hitting a triple and driving in a run during the sixth inning against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Park in Arlington. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 19, 2016; Arlington, TX, USA; Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout (27) smiles to the bench after hitting a triple and driving in a run during the sixth inning against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Park in Arlington. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 7
Next

How do the recently announced BBWAA MLB Award finalists compare through the lens of Wins Above Replacement?

The MLB BBWAA Award finalists came out on Monday and had many of the names you would expect. Mike Trout and Mookie Betts will finish in the top three for the American League MVP Award. Kris Bryant is among the finalists for the NL MVP. Rick Porcello, who won a career-high 22 games this year, is a top-three candidate for the AL Cy Young along with post-season star Corey Kluber and veteran Justin Verlander.

There are some interesting players NOT among the finalist also. Last year’s AL MVP, Josh Donaldson, will not finish in the top three this year despite having another very good season and playing for a team that earned a wild card spot. The three pitchers who finished atop last year’s NL Cy Young Award list—Jake Arrieta, Zach Greinke, and Clayton Kershaw—did not make the top three this year. One of the finalists for the NL Rookie of the Year Award is a 32-year-old pitcher who has been pitching professionally since 2008 (in Japan).

With the finalists being revealed, I decided to look at each award through the lens of the two main versions of Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which come from FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.com. WAR is a framework for combining the things a player does on the field to determine how many wins that player is worth compared to a replacement-level player. Here’s a handy guide:

0-1 WAR: Scrub

1-2 WAR: Role Player

2-3 WAR: Solid Starter

3-4 WAR: Good Player

4-5 WAR: All-Star

5-6 WAR: Superstar

6+ WAR: MVP

For position players, the main difference between FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference is how they measure defense. FanGraphs uses Ultimate Zone Rating and Baseball-Reference uses Total Zone Rating. For pitchers, the main difference is that FanGraphs uses Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), which tries to isolate what a pitcher is most responsible for (strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed) and Baseball-Reference uses runs allowed as a starting point.

For this comparison, I averaged the two versions of WAR and created leaderboards for each BBWAA Award category. The WAR totals listed below are a combination of FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference. I’m not an absolutist when it comes to this statistic. I know there are error bars around the measurements, so I don’t sweat small differences in WAR values, but I do believe it’s meaningful when there’s a sizeable gap.

Here is a look at each of the BBWAA Award categories.

Home/MLB Awards