FanPost

2009 Projected Red Sox WAR Results

I mentioned in a previous post that Sky Kalkman has posted on "Beyond the Boxscore"

2009 WAR Projection Project

He has started a SB Nation community project for 2009 projections. For those unfamilar with WAR (Wins Above Replacement) TangoTiger has a great introduction.

Tango Tiger's WAR Calculation

The idea behind the project is we know that a completely average team made up of completely average players will win 55 games. If a player is above average the amount of wins will increase for a given team. We project hitters with wOBA and the amount of PA over the course of the season. For pitchers, it is based off of the amount of innings pitched and their FIP.

For the wOBA, IP, and FIP projections I used an average of CHONE, Marcels, and Bill James 2009 projections. All are weighted equally. The PA projections are not very accurate because alot depends on who the starter and who the back up is. I came up with the PA for all the hitters. Please let me know if you feel that the PA are not a good projection.

There is also a Fielding WAR included in the spreadsheet. For this calculation I took the average of UZR over the past 3 full years at that position. If a player has not been playing that long, I used however many years that were available. For the catchers I left at 0. Mostly because it is very hard to accurately determine a defensive metric for catchers. I think this works out well because Bard is an above average fielder and Kottraras is a below average fielder and if you average both of them together it would be 0 WAR.

For the Baserunning WAR I used Baseball Prospectus metric from the 2008 year.

2009 Projected Red Sox WAR

The projected team wOBA is .355. The 2008 team had a wOBA of .352. This looks like the projection is correct. If the Sox had a wOBA of .355 in 2008 they would have them tied for 1st in the MLB with the Rangers.

The projected team FIP is 3.98. The 2008 team had an FIP of 4.09. It appears that the the projections have the teams pitching getting better this year. This seems viable with all the pitching acquisitions during the offseason (Smoltz, Penny, Ramirez). All 3 project to have a 4.09 FIP or better. If the 2008 Sox had an FIP of 3.98 they would have been 5th in the MLB.

Overall the projections say we should win 106 games over the season.

Please respond with comments, concerns, or anything I can do to improve the projection. Enjoy