Friday Morning Evening Figures

Sorry for the delay in posting these. I will have more notes and explanation later this evening, especially for the new Win Value column.

Oh, BTW, Guzman's error yesterday had a negative 2.62 RV, by far the highest fielding blunder of the year, and an absolute RV value among the highest all year for any event.

Name	PA	BFP	Batting	Fielding	Running	Pitching	Total RV	Win Value
CastillaV	53	0	7.53	0.64	(0.90)	0.00	7.28	1.78
VidroJ	67	0	7.44	(0.64)	0.00	0.00	6.80	2.91
PattersonJ	6	76	(1.13)	0.00	0.00	7.82	6.69	5.56
CorderoC	0	43	0.00	0.00	0.00	4.97	4.97	1.82
GuillenJ	69	0	3.30	0.58	(0.73)	0.00	3.15	1.62
TuckerT	0	20	0.00	(0.25)	0.00	3.02	2.77	0.67
SledgeT	22	0	2.15	0.25	0.25	0.00	2.65	(0.49)
AyalaL	1	40	(0.17)	0.00	0.00	2.73	2.55	1.15
MajewskiG	0	12	0.00	0.00	0.00	1.61	1.61	0.26
JohnsonN	65	0	2.06	(0.21)	(0.53)	0.00	1.33	(0.48)
WilkersonB	72	0	1.27	0.22	(0.48)	0.00	1.01	1.64
CarrascoH	0	3	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.54	0.54	0.26
EischenJ	1	24	0.26	0.00	0.00	(0.26)	(0.00)	0.26
SchneiderB	54	0	(1.33)	0.53	0.47	0.00	(0.33)	0.82
BennettG	8	0	(0.30)	(0.12)	0.00	0.00	(0.42)	0.45
LoaizaE	6	85	(1.01)	(0.26)	0.00	0.56	(0.70)	(1.33)
BlancoT	6	0	(0.99)	0.00	0.00	0.00	(0.99)	(0.41)
OhkaT	6	75	(0.70)	0.07	0.00	(0.54)	(1.17)	(1.81)
CarrollJ	13	0	(1.35)	0.00	0.00	0.00	(1.35)	(0.75)
CorderoW	4	0	(1.68)	0.00	0.00	0.00	(1.68)	(0.91)
BaergaC	9	0	(2.27)	0.00	0.00	0.00	(2.27)	(0.54)
DayZ	5	74	(1.00)	(0.23)	0.00	(1.25)	(2.48)	(1.07)
DavisJ	19	0	(2.55)	0.00	(0.16)	0.00	(2.70)	(1.46)
HernandezL	10	108	(1.80)	(0.16)	0.00	(2.54)	(4.51)	0.85
ChurchR	36	0	(5.06)	0.00	0.00	0.00	(5.06)	(2.35)
HorganJ	0	28	0.00	0.00	0.00	(6.01)	(6.01)	(0.60)
OsunaA	0	23	0.00	0.00	0.00	(9.43)	(9.43)	(0.77)
GuzmanC	63	0	(11.41)	(2.34)	(0.31)	0.00	(14.07)	(9.99)

Through Thursday, April 21.

Notes:

-- What is RV anyway? It is a way of measuring the value of any event in a baseball game by comparing the Expected Run Value (ERV) for the state of the game before and after the event. Search the posts on the blog for more detailed information. Essentially, it translates everything in a game into Run Value, which is equivalent to runs, which are the currency of a baseball game. A positive RV means runs generated by that player, a negative RV means runs lost by that player. For pitching and fielding, runs saved by those activities are expressed as positives. For example, John Patterson's pitching this season has prevented 7.82 opposing runs from scoring, so he gets a plus 7.82 in the pitching column. In contrast, Cristian Guzman's fielding has given the opponents 2.34 runs, so he gets a negative 2.34 in his fielding column.

-- What can you conclude from these figures? That Vinny Castilla and Jose Vidro have each generated over 7 runs with their bats for the Nats this season, while Guzman has cost the Nats over 11 runs with his bat. In other words, had the average 2004 MLB player batted for Guzman each time this year, the Nats would have scored 11 more runs.

-- What is Win Value? This is an experimental stat I am working on. RV is independent of the score and inning of a game -- i.e. a solo homer with no outs in the top of the first has the same RV as a solo homer with 2 outs in the ninth in a 10-2 ballgame. Win Value attempts to modify RV in a way to reflect the score and inning of the game. Essentially, it works like this -- if a game is tied, the WV for an event is the full value of the RV. For other circumstances, the WV equals the RV times a discount factor, which is derived from the score of the game and the inning. In general, the larger the score differential and the later in the game, the more heavily discounted the WV is from the RV. For example, a 10-0 game in the ninth, the RV is discounted so much that the WV is almost always 0.

Another way to look at it is that WV is an "inflation-adjusted" RV. If you think of runs as the currency with which a win is purchased, some runs are more valuable than others. The solo home run in the Ninth of a tie game is worth a lot more than the grand slam in the ninth when your behind 10-0.

So what can you tell from WV? I'm still not quite sure, but I think it reflects the number of "valuable" runs the player has generated or lost, meaning the runs that change the state of the game (from losing to tied or to winning). Differences between RV and WV can tell you which players are producing when it matters most (or not). For example, Livan Hernandez has a positive WV and a negative RV, which I think is accurate, because he has pitched pretty well for most of his innings, having given away a bunch of runs in one inning against the Phils. Likewise, Dexys said to me at the home opener, "it seems like Schneider is hitting better than .250". Sure enough, at the time and through Thursday, Schneider has had a higher WV than RV.

But I am still watching this closely to see if it makes sense.

-- New Feature! I am very close to being able to generate ERV box scores for each Nats game quickly, and as soon as I finalize that I will start posting them for individual games. They give you a clear picture of who really contributed to the win or loss.