2023 18-game segment WAR & stats

[Frobby]

This year, I am going to track some elements of the individual performance of our main position players in 18-game segments.   Why?   Well, it has bothered me for a while that there is no easy way to pin down, after the fact, what a player's WAR or defensive stats were partway through the season.   You can use game logs to track offensive stats, but not the other stuff.   Why 18 games?   Well, it divides evenly into 162, and it's enough games for meaningful changes in the stats, yet it can be heavily influenced by hot streaks and cold streaks.   And, it's not so frequent that I have to do it all the time.   Once every 2.5 -3 weeks is manageable for me.

This idea came to me last year when I was watching the ups and downs of various players, partcularly Jorge Mateo and Austin Hays.  I was curious to know how their WAR totals had fluctuated up and down, but that information wasn't available.   So, this will be a way to track who's been hot or cold, not only offensively, but defensively and overall.

The stats I'm tracking include rWAR, fWAR, rDRS, UZR and OPS.  You can actually track OPS via game logs, but I'm just adding it here for convenience.  Catchers don't have a UZR, so read "Fangraphs defense" in the "UZR" column for Rutschman and McCann.   Without further ado, here are the stats for the first 18-game segment (and sorry for the spotty formatting):

Name			rWAR	rDRS	OPS	fWAR	UZR
Jorge Mateo		1.2	2	1.056	1.1	0.7
Adley Rutschman		0.7	-1	0.962	0.8	0.4
Adam Frazier		0.6	2	0.759	0.3	0.1
Cedric Mullins		0.5	-1	0.761	0.7	-1.8
Ramon Urias		0.4	0	0.722	0.2	0.6
Ryan Mountcastle	0.2	1	0.725	0.0	1.6
Austin Hays		0.1	-5	0.935	0.4	-1.3
Ryan O'Hearn		0.1	0	1.071	0.1	0.0
Ryan McKenna 		0.0	0	0.620	0.0	-0.3
Terrin Vavra 		-0.1	0	0.504	-0.1	0.4
Gunnar Henderson	-0.1	-3	0.648	-0.1	0.2
James McCann		-0.2	0	0.333	-0.2	0.1
Anthony Santander	-0.4	-2	0.625	-0.2	-1.2

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Frobby

[Frobby]

A couple of things I'm going to be looking at in the early going:

1.  I have a feeling that Adley is going to be steady as a metronome, putting out significant positive value every 18 games even if he's in a minor offensive slump.   But we'll see.

2.  Hays' defense.  -5 rDRS is really atrocious in an 18-game stretch.  It speaks volumes that he's had a .935 OPS and yet is only at 0.1 rWAR.  rDRS feeds directly into rWAR calculations.  Fangraphs was a little more charitable, putting him at -1.3 UZR and 0.4 fWAR.   

[Aristotelian]

Never would have guessed Frazier that high. Not to start another Frazier thread.

[interloper]

I like this. I think it will be interesting to see how WAR fluctuates over small chunks of games, because it's not something that is readily available. 

 

[interloper]

Also, looking at the chart in the OP... what the heck is going on with our outfielders? Lol. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, interloper said:

Also, looking at the chart in the OP... what the heck is going on with our outfielders? Lol. 

It mostly comes from that first weekend in Boston.  

[Can_of_corn]

18 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It mostly comes from that first weekend in Boston.  

Classic New Guy trick.  Be real impressive your first week at a new job.  Then you can coast off your reputation.

[seak05]

It will be interesting to see if the defensive numbers improve over the course of the season. It's also interesting to see how different metrics rate defense differently. For instance Gunnar does ok here, but OAA has him at -5

[Too Tall]

Now this is why this site is special! Thanks Frobby!!!! So much better than the back and forth complaining - not that there arn't times complaining is justified. I'm surely not up on all the current stats, but even I think I understand this!!!!!!  Look forward to the next sequence.

[Frobby]

The second 18-game segment is now complete, with the O's going 12-6 during the segment.  I've realized that there's no good way to post the type of table I did in the OP showing the results of every segment without it getting way too long and noisy.   So, I'm going to give some highlights, and people can ask me questions if they want more.

Cumulative rWAR leaders (1st segment, 2nd segment)

Jorge Mateo 1.5 (1.2, 0.3)

Adley Rutchman 1.0 (0.7, 0.3)

Adam Frazier 0.8 (0.6, 0.2)

Ramon Urias 0.8 (0.4, 0.4)

Cedric Mullins 0.7 (0.5, 0.2)

Ryan McKenna 0.5 (0.0, 0.5)

Cumulative fWAR leaders (1st segment, second segment)

Jorge Mateo 1.4 (1.1, 0.3)

Cedric Mullins 1.1 (0.7, 0.4)

Adley Rutschman 1.0 (0.8, 0.2)

Ramon Urias 0.5 (0.2, 0.3)

Austin Hays 0.4 (0.4, 0.0)

Biggest movers in second segment

Anthony Santander 0.7 rWAR, 0.5 fWAR

Ryan McKenna 0.5 rWAR, 0.2 fWAR

Ramon Urias 0.4 rWAR, 0.3 fWAR

Cedric Mullins 0.2 rWAR, 0.4 fWAR

Conclusion

As you can see, nobody stood out in the second segment the way that Mateo and Rutschman did in the first segment.  Santander was by far the standout, posting a .323/.363/.600 line in the period.  By the same token, there weren't any dramatically negative performances.  The only players I'm tracking who had a negative rWAR or fWAR in the period were Kyle Stowers and Ryan O'Hearn.   

There were a couple of negative notes on defense, with Cedric Mullins going -3 Rdrs and -1.8 UZR during the period, and Ryan Mountcastle going -3 Rdrs and -0.8 UZR.   Otherwise, Austin Hays, who was awful in the first segment, was basically neutral in the second (0 Rdrs, -0.1 UZR) and Gunnar Henderson, who also had bad early numbers, was at 0 rDRS and +1.5 UZR.

Speaking of Gunnar, both rWAR and fWAR had him at +0.2 for the segment.  

If anyone wants other specifics, let me know and I will answer.

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by Frobby

[maybenxtyr]

14 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The second 18-game segment is now complete, with the O's going 12-6 during the segment.  I've realized that there's no good way to post the type of table I did in the OP showing the results of every segment without it getting way too long and noisy.   So, I'm going to give some highlights, and people can ask me questions if they want more.

Cumulative rWAR leaders (1st segment, 2nd segment)

Jorge Mateo 1.5 (1.2, 0.3)

Adley Rutchman 1.0 (0.7, 0.3)

Adam Frazier 0.8 (0.6, 0.2)

Ramon Urias 0.8 (0.4, 0.4)

Cedric Mullins 0.7 (0.5, 0.2)

Ryan McKenna 0.5 (0.0, 0.5)

Cumulative fWAR leaders (1st segment, second segment)

Jorge Mateo 1.4 (1.1, 0.3)

Cedric Mullins 1.1 (0.7, 0.4)

Adley Rutschman 1.0 (0.8, 0.2)

Ramon Urias 0.5 (0.2, 0.3)

Austin Hays 0.4 (0.4, 0.0)

Biggest movers in second segment

Anthony Santander 0.7 rWAR, 0.5 fWAR

Ryan McKenna 0.5 rWAR, 0.2 fWAR

Ramon Urias 0.4 rWAR, 0.3 fWAR

Cedric Mullins 0.2 rWAR, 0.4 fWAR

Conclusion

As you can see, nobody stood out in the second segment the way that Mateo and Rutschman did in the first segment.  Santander was by far the standout, posting a .323/.363/.600 line in the period.  By the same token, there weren't any dramatically negative performances.  The only players I'm tracking who had a negative rWAR or fWAR in the period were Kyle Stowers and Ryan O'Hearn.   

There were a couple of negative notes on defense, with Cedric Mullins going -3 Rdrs and -1.8 UZR during the period, and Ryan Mountcastle going -3 Rdrs and -0.8 UZR.   Otherwise, Austin Hays, who was awful in the first segment, was basically neutral in the second (0 Rdrs, -0.1 UZR) and Gunnar Henderson, who also had bad early numbers, was at 0 rDRS and +1.5 UZR.

Speaking of Gunnar, both rWAR and fWAR had him at +0.2 for the segment.  

If anyone wants other specifics, let me know and I will answer.

 

I was  looking at Mateo and his numbers a little bit last night. He's kinda back to being a defensive SS first and a pretty bad bat at the moment. It's going to be interesting to see if he can length to his peaks and shorten the valleys. Right now, I'd like to see them plug him in at the 9th spot and leave him alone.

[Frobby]

The O's went 11-7 in the third 18-game segment of the year.   

Cumulative rWAR leaders (1st/2nd/3rd segment)

Cedric Mullins 1.8 (0.5, 0.2, 1.1)

Adley Rutschman 1.7 (0.7, 0.3, 0.7)

Austin Hays 1.6 (0.1, 0.0, 1.5)

Jorge Mateo 1.1 (1.2, 0.3, -0.4)

Adam Frazier 1.0 (0.6, 0.2, 0.2)

Cumulative fWAR leaders (1st/2nd/3rd segment)

Cedric Mullins 1.8 (0.7, 0.4, 0.7)

Adley Rustchman 1.5 (0.8, 0.2, 0.5)

Austin Hays 1.2 (0.4, 0.0, 0.8)

Anthony Santander 0.8 (-0.2, 0.5, 0.5)

Jorge Mateo 0.6 (1.1, 0.3, -0.8)

Biggest movers in the 3rd segment

Austin Hays 1.5 rWAR, 0.8 fWAR

Cedric Mullins 1.1 rWAR, 0.7 fWAR

Adley Rutschman 0.7 rWAR, 0.5 fWAR

Anthony Santander 0.3 rWAR, 0.5 fWAR

Conclusion

Obviously, this was a good segment for Austin Hays.   In addition to hitting well (.965 OPS in this segment), his fielding metrics improved a lot.   By Rdrs, he leaped from -5 to +4.   By UZR, he went from -1.4 to +1.2.  OAA still has him at -2, but he was at -5 previously.   And remember, OAA doesn't include throwing, and Hays had a couple of outfield assists during this segment.

For all the grief he is taking, Gunnar Henderson is at 0.6 rWAR, 0.4 fWAR, and was worth 0.4/0.3 during this segment.  He had a .767 OPS in this segment.   Baby steps.

Mateo obviously was a disaster during this segment, at -0.4 rWAR, -0.8 fWAR, despite posting good defensive numbers.   His OPS this segment was an unbelievable .277.  Other players with a negative WAR in this segment included Urias (-0.2, -0.2), McKenna (-0.6, -0.2) and McCann (-0.2, -0.1).  In Urias' case, he was on the IL most of the segment, and is 1 for 12 in the four games he's played since his return.

Meanwhile, Adley Rutschman and Cedric Mullins have just consistently piled up numbers all season, adding significant positive value in all three segments per both rWAR and dWAR.  We are going to miss Cedric badly while he's out.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Frobby

[justD]

How anyone can complain about this excellent thread is kinda head-scratching...

BUT I really liked seeing the rDRS and UZR contributions to the totals as well as the columnar presentation of the OP.

I know that cumulatively it would be too unwieldy, but can you post that same format for the current segment just to see that segment in detail without it being compared to previous ones? 

I found myself making all kinds of conclusions off that original table format; this last one my eyes glaze over.  Yes, that might just be me, but if it wouldn't be too much trouble to post that, would really appreciate it!

[Frobby]

On 5/30/2023 at 11:53 AM, justD said:

I know that cumulatively it would be too unwieldy, but can you post that same format for the current segment just to see that segment in detail without it being compared to previous ones? 

I found myself making all kinds of conclusions off that original table format; this last one my eyes glaze over.  Yes, that might just be me, but if it wouldn't be too much trouble to post that, would really appreciate it!

@justD, this is complicated to do, for reasons I won't bore the board with.  I will PM you once I have posted the 4th segment update.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Frobby

[Frobby]

In the fourth 18-game segment, the O's went 11-7.   For the record, in the four segments so far, the O's have gone 11-7, 12-6, 11-7 and 11-7.   Very consistent!

Cumulative rWAR leaders (segments in parentheses)

Austin Hays 2.2 (0.1, 0.0, 1.5, 0.6)

Adley Rustchman 2.0 (0.7, 0.3, 0.7, 0.3)

Cedric Mullins 1.8 (0.5, 0.2, 1.1, 0.0)

Gunnar Henderson 1.4 (-0.1, 0.3, 0.4, 0.8)

Anthony Santander 1.2 (-0.4, 0.7, 0.6, 0.6)

Cumulative fWAR leaders (segments in parentheses)

Austin Hays 2.0 (0.4, 0.0, 0.8, 0.8)

Adley Rutschman 1.9 (0.8, 0.2, 0.5, 0.4)

Cedric Mullins 1.8 (0.7, 0.4, 0.7, 0.0)

Gunnar Henderson 1.4 (-0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 1.0)

Aaron Hicks 1.1 (all in this segment!)

Biggest movers in the 4th segment

Aaron Hicks 0.9 rWAR, 1.1 fWAR

Gunnar Henderson 0.8 rWAR, 1.0 fWAR

Ryan O'Hearn 0.7 rWAR, 0.8 fWAR

Austin Hays 0.6 rWAR, 0.8 fWAR

Anthony Santander 0.6 rWAR, 0.2 fWAR

Conclusion

The O's keep getting it done regardless of who is hot or cold in a particular segment; they are never clicking on all cylinders but enough players always are making positive contributions at a given time.  What really stood out this segment were the outstanding contributions of Hicks and O'Hearn, neither of whom were on the Opening Day roster (and Hicks wasn't even in the organization).   A lot of people scratched their heads when Elias acquired these two players, but it's hard to doubt these moves now, regardless of what happens with Hicks and O'Hearn from here.  They have had their impact.   The long awaited explosion from Gunnar, and Hays' consistently good play, also were big factors in this segment.