New Pitcher Value Stats

The Value (WAR) section for pitchers has been updated to help further break out a pitcher’s value. These stats are now available in the leaderboards and player pages.

We’ve added the following stats:

RA9-Wins – Wins above replacement calculated with RA9. This is both park adjusted and league adjusted.

BIP-Wins – Wins above average based on BABIP. This is both park and league adjusted.

LOB-Wins – Sequencing (and miscellaneous) wins above average calculated as RA9Wins – WAR – BIPWins.

FDP-Wins (Fielder Dependent Wins) – This is the full difference between RA9Wins and WAR, or BIPWins + LOBWins.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

WAR – Wins Above Replacement remains unchanged.

Dave Cameron will have two posts with more details about these new stats at 9:00am and 10:00am and will be answering questions during his 12:00pm chat.

The full formula for BIP-Wins is:

((((H-HR)*(w1B * p1B + w2B * pxBH) ) / (TBF – HR – BB – HBP – SO)) – lgwBABIP) * (TBF – HR – BB – HBP – SO) / PF / RtW * -1

p1B = singles as a percentage of hits that are not home runs
pxBH = doubles and triples as a percentage of hits that are not home runs
w1B = linear weight value of a single
w2B = linear weight value of a double
RtW = runs to wins converter
PF = park factor
lgwBABIP = league average: ((H-HR)*(w1B * p1B + w2B * pxBH)) / (TBF – HR – BB – HBP – SO)





David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.

28 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Tyler
13 years ago

head explode

Graham
13 years ago

Wouldn’t “percentage of singles that are not home runs” and “percentage of doubles and triples that are not home runs” be 100% in every case?

Are we to assume those two definitions should mean “percentage of hits that are not home runs” and “percentage of extra base hits that are not home runs?”

odditie
13 years ago

Any update on Quality Start data being added 🙂

James Gentile
13 years ago
Reply to  odditie

FDP-Wins rules, QS drools.

NatsFan73
13 years ago
Reply to  James Gentile

QS drools, but I don’t see any fantasy sites using FDP any time soon. So.

James Gentile
13 years ago

This is the day your life will surely change.

andys
13 years ago

Great work, but why not allow other versions of WAR too? Why not have, say, SIERAWAR, xFIPWAR, etc.? I think these metrics are VASTLY overdue.

James Gentile
13 years ago
Reply to  andys

I think the idea is to keep WAR strictly to measuring things that actually occurred, rather than involving regressions.

andys
13 years ago
Reply to  James Gentile

xFIP is based strictly to things that occurred. There are only three variables – BB, K, and FB. The difference is you’re using FB instead of HR.

James Gentile
13 years ago
Reply to  James Gentile

OK sure, but it’s intended to be a regressed HR rate. You are assigning run values of HR (that have not necessarily occurred) to 11% of the pitcher’s FB%, rather than actual HR allowed.

andys
13 years ago
Reply to  James Gentile

But there’s still no regression happening. It’s just treating all fly balls the same, in the same way that FIP treats all non-HR balls the same.

FIP: HR balls, non HR balls each are being treated as the only two groups of contact.
xFIP: Fly balls, non-fly balls each are being treated as the only two groups of contact.

I fail to see the difference.

Tangotiger
13 years ago
Reply to  James Gentile

FIP is agnostic on what happens to fieldable balls. That’s because FIP only cares about non-fieldable PA. Just like OBP is agnostic on HR and 3B being different from 1B.

xFIP is agnostic on the actual outcome of a flyball. If you find that valuable, then fine. I don’t.

themiddle54
13 years ago

Since workload informs WAR to a large degree, would be great if the Value tab included IP. I find it handy to look at that stat when putting into context in my brain how/why a certain pitcher is valuable.

James Gentile
13 years ago
Reply to  themiddle54

you can create your own table with whichever stat you desire including IP with the custom tables feature.

brungl
13 years ago

any idea when these will be available in the dashboard stat customizer?

Anon
13 years ago

Excellent additions.

My vote for the next stats on Fangraphs is for stats that consider quality of opposition.

Will
13 years ago

For RA/9, don’t you think it would make sense to somehow adjust for runners left on base after the pitcher leaves that subsequently score? RA seems to give credit for pitchers on teams with good bullpens.

Tangotiger
13 years ago
Reply to  Will

You are totally correct.

Better than using RA9 is RE24 (already on Fangraphs, and already park-adjusted). For a pitcher that completes his own innings, then RE24 and RA9 are identical.

As best as I understand it, since RE24 is only available for a good deal, but not all, of baseball history, then RA9 was chosen.

But, I think it’s a matter of time until David will update his code to use RE24 when available.

YanksFanInBeantown
13 years ago
Reply to  Tangotiger

Is RE24 just the best stat for everything?

Tangotiger
13 years ago
Reply to  Tangotiger

Not “everything”. No such thing.

If you have decided you want to use something actual-runs-based, then yes, RE24 is what you should prefer.

Nathan Nathan
13 years ago

Thanks for the formula. Might we see a MathJax formatted equation as well? It would make it a lot easier to read, I think.

AustinRHL
13 years ago

Ooh. I like these! I assume that in due time, these statistics will be available to add to our customized dashboards?

Snowblind
13 years ago

I have no idea what a “good” number for any of these are. Is that going to vary wildly pitcher to pitcher? Year to year? Something else?

For example, I have a pretty good idea of the talent level and contribution of a 0 WAR player, or a 2 WAR player, or a 5 WAR player. I have a rough idea of the skill range of a guy with a 3.00 FIP, or a .320 OBP, or a RC+ of 100.

What the heck is a “good” number for FDP, RA9-Wins, or any of the other shiny new stats?

JBV
13 years ago
Reply to  Snowblind

I believe that 0 is the baseline; at 0 FDP, the pitcher is performing precisely as his WAR dictates, when taking into account BABIP and LOB. Any positive number will make him better than his WAR declares.

Tangotiger
13 years ago
Reply to  Snowblind

RA9-wins is on the same scale as WAR.

FDP and its subcomponents (LOB-wins and BIP-wins) are centered around 0 being average.

noseeum
13 years ago

I’m sure cursing is not generally appreciated on the boards here, so I apologize in advance. But it must be said:
This is fucking awesome.