Sabermetrics Experts: Win Shares or BFW/PW?

[BronXBombers51]

I just started reading, "The Book on the Book," by Bill Felber and though I'm only through one chapter, I've already got alot of questions. I'm not sure if anyone has read the book, but Felber questions the Bill James Win Share system, pointing out that every rated player gets a positive rating, and it doesn't take into account the negatives one could have on a team.

He uses two 2003 Mariner third basemen, Jeff Cirillo and Willie Bloomquist to prove his point. He shows that Bloomquist got 65 fewer plate appearances, but did better during his time there. Here's a quote from the book.

In sum we have two players, one playing poorly and the other so-so, the key difference being that the fellow who played poorly was on the field more. How should those players be rated?

Since he was worse over a longer period of time, there is no good reason why Cirillo should rate on a par with Bloomquist. Yet because it considers only positive accomplishments--of which an important one could essentially be described as hanging around--Win Shares rates Cirillo and Bloomquist dead even. Both get three Win Shares in the James system.

He then refers to a system developed by Pete Palmer, called Batter Fielder Base Stealer Wins and Pitcher Wins, or BFW/PW for short. Felber writes this of the Palmer system:

Palmer's BFW/PW system, for example, determines that while Bloomquist (-1.3) was hardly an asset to the 2003 Mariners, he was significantly less of a liability than Cirillo (-2.7).

So the BFW/PW system gives no credit to a player for hanging around for a long time, but measures both the positive and negative of every player rated.

My question is...which system is better? It sounds to me like the BFW system is more complete, though I've never heard of it before. Are there any sites that have each players' BFW/PW rating?

[wrveres]

I have never heard of BFW/PW

[BronXBombers51]

I googled Pete Palmer and BFW/PW and all I got was an interview with Bill Felber about the book.

[wrveres]

Now sure how to help you here then.

WS is a simple measurement to see how much each player contribute to each teams wins. I don't know of any measurement like loss shares ..

[Tavish]

Now sure how to help you here then.

WS is a simple measurement to see how much each player contribute to each teams wins. I don't know of any measurement like loss shares ..

First off you should be slapped for using Win Shares and simple measurement in the same sentence.

Bill James not including Loss Shares as a part of Win Shares is one of the fundamental flaws in the system (along with the use of marginal runs). He has admitted as much and is including Loss Shares in his next version. The Hardball Times created their own system for incorporating loss shares into their Win Share formula. The idea that a player can do nothing but help the team win is just a flawed theory (ie Sean Burroughs) and it one of the basic tenants of Win Shares. The more Bill James attempts to denegrate linear weights the more his "improved versions" of his formulas start to look like them.

Palmer's TPR (total player rating) is and always has been a better measurement as an "all-encompassing" statistic. Win Shares is still better than Davenport's awful WARP3 though.

[BronXBombers51]

Now sure how to help you here then.

WS is a simple measurement to see how much each player contribute to each teams wins. I don't know of any measurement like loss shares ..

First off you should be slapped for using Win Shares and simple measurement in the same sentence.

Bill James not including Loss Shares as a part of Win Shares is one of the fundamental flaws in the system (along with the use of marginal runs). He has admitted as much and is including Loss Shares in his next version. The Hardball Times created their own system for incorporating loss shares into their Win Share formula. The idea that a player can do nothing but help the team win is just a flawed theory (ie Sean Burroughs) and it one of the basic tenants of Win Shares. The more Bill James attempts to denegrate linear weights the more his "improved versions" of his formulas start to look like them.

Palmer's TPR (total player rating) is and always has been a better measurement as an "all-encompassing" statistic. Win Shares is still better than Davenport's awful WARP3 though.

I knew it would only be a matter of time before Tavish showed up.

Does The Hardball Times have Palmer's TPR stats? Any other site?

[Tavish]

Does The Hardball Times have Palmer's TPR stats? Any other site?

As far as I know the only place to get a list of TPR is through the Baseball Encyclopedia (ie Total Baseball).

[nuggets]

The more Bill James attempts to denegrate linear weights the more his "improved versions" of his formulas start to look like them.

What does this mean and did you spell the word before "linear" correctly?


This is interesting:

[url=http://www.geocities.com/cyrilmorong@sbcglobal.net/ComparingWSTPR.htm]Comparing Win Shares and Total Player Rating

By Cyril Morong[/url]

[BronXBombers51]

Does The Hardball Times have Palmer's TPR stats? Any other site?

As far as I know the only place to get a list of TPR is through the Baseball Encyclopedia (ie Total Baseball).

Aka, I have to dish out $65 to see these numbers.

[Tavish]

The more Bill James attempts to denegrate linear weights the more his "improved versions" of his formulas start to look like them.

What does this mean and did you spell the word before "linear" correctly?


This is interesting:

[url=http://www.geocities.com/cyrilmorong@sbcglobal.net/ComparingWSTPR.htm]Comparing Win Shares and Total Player Rating

By Cyril Morong[/url]

Yep, it was supposed to be denigrate. My bad. *shrug*

What it means is that Bill James took some very rough shots at the logic behind linear weights claiming that it was nonsensical among other things. But with each new version he puts out of Runs Created and Win Shares, they take on more and more the design of Linear Weights.

A really short comparison of the two systems is Win Shares tends to overvalue OF defense and closers, TPR tends to overvalue IF defense.