In celebration of the new season, Seamheads.com and The Baseball Gauge are proud to announce our new Wins Above Replacement. The updated calculation has two major changes from our previous system.<\/p>\n
The first upgrade is our Fielding system, which now uses Runs Saved from Michael Humphreys Defensive Regression Analysis. This allows us to compare and evaluate fielders from all eras of Baseball history and accurately place a value on their performance. To find out more about DRA, check out his book Wizardry<\/a> and\/or take a look at the DRA series<\/a> at The Hardball Times. Humphreys also provides an extremely informative appendix<\/a>, describing the method.<\/p>\n Not only does this new fielding system allow us to evaluate defensive ability, it also helps us estimate how a team’s defense helps or hurts its pitching staff.<\/p>\n Previously, our Pitching WAR was DIPS based (Defense Independent Pitching) and because of that, it did not have the ability to measure a pitcher’s ability to control the running game and preventing extra base hits, along with other skills. We now take each pitcher’s runs allowed and then adjust for Defense, Bullpen, and Ballpark to determine the pitcher’s value.<\/p>\n