Szymborski: O’s are 20th in WAR lost to injuries

[GoldGlove21]

13 hours ago, Frobby said:

Before you get too wrapped up in the Orioles having an inordinate number of injuries: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/river-ryan-jazz-chisholm-and-baseballs-most-injured-teams/

Szymborski ranks the O’s 20th in WAR lost to injuries, at 4.70 WAR.  By contrast, the Dodgers are at 13.96.  In our division, the Red Sox are at 9.04 and the Yankees at 6.50.   

Obviously you could argue with the methodology or argue that multiple injuries to the rotation are harder to fill than other types of injuries.  But bottom line, injuries are prevalent around the league and we shouldn’t feel too sorry for ourselves.  
 

I kind of feel that Bradish and Bautista alone would be worth 4.7 WAR thus far.

[LA2]

3 hours ago, GoldGlove21 said:

I kind of feel that Bradish and Bautista alone would be worth 4.7 WAR thus far.

Inability to cover for the Mountain's absence will doom us in the postseason.

[bpilktree67]

4 hours ago, GoldGlove21 said:

I kind of feel that Bradish and Bautista alone would be worth 4.7 WAR thus far.

It didn’t include Bautista.  

[Sports Guy]

I think this is where we see the flaws in WAR (I’m not saying this because I think the Os should be ranked higher..I don’t know if they should or not)

[Aristotelian]

The more interesting stat would be projected lost playoffs WAR. Especially after the trade deadline since there is no opportunity to replace those players. 

[dystopia]

Doesn’t pass the smell test. 

[bpilktree67]

12 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I think this is where we see the flaws in WAR (I’m not saying this because I think the Os should be ranked higher..I don’t know if they should or not)

It went by wars projections and then how many games a player has missed so far.  
 

Bradish 1.5

Grod .4

Kremer .64

Wells 1.05

Means .75

4.34 there Then a few other guys lost a bit. To get to final number.  Position players also have much higher zips war projections and some are just funny.  Jud Fabian was worth 1.7 war projection.  While Bradish was 2.3.   

[Frobby]

47 minutes ago, dystopia said:

Doesn’t pass the smell test. 

How much attention do you pay to other teams’ injuries?   

[Hank Scorpio]

13 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Isn’t that where we are nowadays?

Everyone has their own "truths" hahahaha.... 

[Bahama O's Fan]

I feel Bradish alone would be worth alot more than 1.5 WAR over this season so far. 

[Tony-OH]

21 hours ago, Frobby said:

Before you get too wrapped up in the Orioles having an inordinate number of injuries: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/river-ryan-jazz-chisholm-and-baseballs-most-injured-teams/

Szymborski ranks the O’s 20th in WAR lost to injuries, at 4.70 WAR.  By contrast, the Dodgers are at 13.96.  In our division, the Red Sox are at 9.04 and the Yankees at 6.50.   

Obviously you could argue with the methodology or argue that multiple injuries to the rotation are harder to fill than other types of injuries.  But bottom line, injuries are prevalent around the league and we shouldn’t feel too sorry for ourselves.  
 

I have no idea how they think losing Bradish, Means, Wells, Rodriguez, Coulombe, and Westburg comes out to just 4.7 WAR. I agree with your premise that injuries affect all teams, and I'm not saying the Orioles have suffered more than others, I just question the 4.7 WAR number.

I will assume they don't count Bautista.

[BrandoVT]

I think it doesn't pass the smell test for us on the board because it measures a subset of the impact of injuries. It is also a subset we as O's fans least care about which is WAR lost to date due to injuries of players who played well in 2024. My understanding is that this is a measure of WAR lost to date from in-season injuries. The author does us no favors by leading off the article talking about Chisholm who doesn't really contribute to the table below in the article because he hasn't been injured long. As fans we focus on:

-What might have been with Felix in the bullpen all year and a rotation of Burns, Bradish, ERod, Means, Kremer. In this scenario the only significant WAR lost to this metric is the WAR lost by Bradish because he was pitching well in 2024 and has been lost for a while.

-How will injuries impact winning the division going forward

-How will injuries impact playoff results in the future

So really this is a measure of things we don't really focus on, WAR lost to date by players playing well in 2024. By my count this is mostly Bradish and a little of Danny, GRod and Westburg but those injuries are somewhat recent so not that impactful to date.

Edited August 15 by BrandoVT

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, bpilktree67 said:

It went by wars projections and then how many games a player has missed so far.  
 

Bradish 1.5

Grod .4

Kremer .64

Wells 1.05

Means .75

4.34 there Then a few other guys lost a bit. To get to final number.  Position players also have much higher zips war projections and some are just funny.  Jud Fabian was worth 1.7 war projection.  While Bradish was 2.3.   

This alone should make you question Fangraphs project WARs.

[LookitsPuck]

29 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

This alone should make you question Fangraphs project WARs.

Maybe so, but let's look at bWAR 2023 vs 2024 (actually accrued WAR):

• Bradish - 4.9 vs. 1.1 (has missed 3 months)
• Grayson - 0.9 vs. 1.5 (has only missed 2 starts)
• Coulombe - 1.2 vs. 0.8 (has missed 2 months)
• Westburg - 1.2 vs. 2.4 (has missed a couple weeks)
• Mateo - 0.8 vs. 0.7 (has missed a couple weeks)
• Wells - 1.8 vs. -0.3 (missed basically the whole year)
• Means - 0.7 vs. 0.7 (missed basically the whole year)

Just want to set the stage between bWAR and fWAR.

I think what this tells me is that most of the lost value according to Dan is Bradish, understandably so. He's missed the most time and he's the best arm of the group. 

Grayson hasn't missed much time and he hasn't been nearly the impact arm as Bradish. bWAR agrees w/ ZiPS.

ZiPS doesn't value relievers like Coulombe much. Nor does it value guys like Mateo.

I'm guessing it doesn't value Wells, Means due to varying roles (Wells being a reliever and a starter), injuries and stuff (neither of those guys have great strikeout numbers as starters).

ZiPS does love it some Westburg, and understandably so, but he's only missed a little bit of time.

I think the issue with the O's is that these injuries were mostly clustered over a 2 month period. And there are so many of them. 

[LookitsPuck]

One thing to remember about the ZiPS projections. If we look at Jud Fabian, it has his defense as being +11.2, but his offense/baserunning being -12.7 with an wRC+ of 80. That reads a lot like...Cedric Mullins without the SB. So I could see them being bullish on a guy like Fabian.

Fangraphs for some reason just doesn't rate pitchers very highly with their WAR projections. Hell, Tarik Skubal had a 2.4 ZiPS preseason WAR projection. Corbin Burnes had a 4.0 ZiPS projection. Just to give folks an idea of how even the absolute best in the game are rated.