Fantasy Baseball Cafe Forums

by **BronXBombers51** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:07 pm

I see alot of people throwing out stats like Win Shares and VORP and I'm disappointed to say that I have no idea what either is. Can someone give me a basic overview on what each stat represents and how accurate they are?

Thanks.

by **WharfRat** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:21 pm

Here's an article about win shares, breaks it down pretty well: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/2004-win-shares-have-arrived

A little more about Win Shares, gets into the nuts-and-bolts calculations (you'll have to scroll down): http://www.baseballgraphs.com/details.html

by **beltrans_boy** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:30 pm

Win Shares is a statistic developed by Bill James. It is a sabermetric way of evaluating a players contributions to team wins. It takes hitting, pitching, and fielding into account. These statistics are then adjusted for the league, park and era. Win Shares measures the contributions of an individual player on the field relative to his peers. It also takes clutch hitting into account. Basically, it's a complex method with a simple goal: to compare baseball players.

A Win Share represents EXACTLY 1/3 of a team win. Thus, if a team has a total of 300 Win Shares on its roster, that team can be expected to win 100 games. Conversely, if a team wins 90 games, you can expect to find a total of 270 Win Shares on the roster.

Derek Jeter had 27 Win Shares in 1998 when the Yankees won 114 games. Jeter can be credited with 9 of those wins by James' Win Share system.

Calculating Win Shares is extremely complicated, but here's an explanation:
http://www.baseballgraphs.com/details.html#sharecalc

Hope that helps. I'm sure I've left a few things out, if anyone wants to add anything...

by **BronXBombers51** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:02 pm

Is VORP the same thing? And are there any flaws to Win Shares? Is it just an estimate or is it an exact science?

by **blankman** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:25 pm

Everything involving defense is surely an estimate.

by **beltrans_boy** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 10:22 pm

BronXBombers51 wrote:Is VORP the same thing? And are there any flaws to Win Shares? Is it just an estimate or is it an exact science?

VORP is Value Over Replacement Player. Essentially, how much more valuable is player A Shortstop than Joe Schmo Shortstop? Replacement level is the expected level of performance that a team can obtain if it needs to replace a starter at minimal cost. I'm not really familiar enough with how VORP is calculated to go into depth on the subject, but it's used to determine how much more valuable a given player is than his "waiver-wire" (to use fantasy terms) replacement would be. The hardest part of using VORP is defining what exactly "replacement level" is. I'm sure there are more people on the board that can tell you a little more about VORP and how it is calculated, otherwise, a simple Google search might help you out.

As far as Win Shares...it's not an exact science, but it's very accurate in terms of quantifying a players performance. When you look at Win Shares over the course of an entire season, it becomes more accurate than when you look at it over a 3 month sample (duh).

by **BronXBombers51** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 10:52 pm

Thanks for the help, if there's anything else good to know about Win Shares or VORP, feel free to share.

Are there any real good sites that have Win Shares calculated continuously?