2008's top ten WAR players sorted by Wins Per Pound

by astrostl on Dec 29, 2008 4:10 PM EST

Name, WAR, weight, WPP ("Wins Per Pound")

Sorted by WAR:

"Albert Pujols",9.0,230,0.0391
"Chase Utley",8.2,200,0.0410
"Chipper Jones",7.6,210,0.0362
"Hanley Ramirez",7.3,200,0.0365
"David Wright",7.2,217,0.0332
"Grady Sizemore",7.0,200,0.0350
"Lance Berkman",7.0,220,0.0318
"Mark Teixeira",6.8,220,0.0309
"Dustin Pedroia",6.6,180,0.0367
"Manny Ramirez",6.5,200,0.0325

Sorted by WPP:

"Chase Utley",8.2,200,0.0410
"Albert Pujols",9.0,230,0.0391
"Dustin Pedroia",6.6,180,0.0367
"Hanley Ramirez",7.3,200,0.0365
"Chipper Jones",7.6,210,0.0362
"Grady Sizemore",7.0,200,0.0350
"David Wright",7.2,217,0.0332
"Manny Ramirez",6.5,200,0.0325
"Lance Berkman",7.0,220,0.0318
"Mark Teixeira",6.8,220,0.0309

WAR and weight provided by Fangraphs. This is science at its best, folks!

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Comments

Amazing.

by R.J. Anderson on Dec 29, 2008 9:00 PM EST reply actions

Chase had a bum hip for some of the year or all of it for all I know

by ol Pete on Dec 29, 2008 10:16 PM EST reply actions

Chase sucks

he needs to get his playing weight down to about 180 to reach his full potential!

* sarcasm might be involved in this comment

by mattyfrommo on Dec 29, 2008 10:58 PM EST up reply actions

Lance Berkman 220 my ass.

Space.

It's a problem we face.

So we never go anywhere.

We just stay in one place.

by hazel on Dec 30, 2008 9:21 AM EST reply actions

Do you mean his ass?

It’s probably somewhere in the 220 vicinity. Here are two more entirely fabricated player weights:
1) Prince Fielder: 270. Is that the weight on his birth certificate? It sure as hell isn’t his playing weight.
2) CC Sabathia: 290. He’s six foot seven and as fat as any athlete I’ve ever seen. I would bet he’s at least 320.

by dakoose on Dec 30, 2008 1:32 PM EST up reply actions

Keep in mind that Fielder is relatively short.

He’s only 5’10 (listed at 6’, but that’s clear bullshit), and if you’ve ever seen a 5’10 person that weighs over 250 pounds, you’d believe that he plays at 270.

---
Juuuust a bit outside!!
http://www.rightfieldbleachers.com

by Jack Moore on Jan 2, 2009 5:05 PM EST up reply actions

I have a brother that's 5'11-260,

and Fielder could eat him and have room for dessert.

by dakoose on Jan 4, 2009 12:07 PM EST up reply actions

CC as fat as any athlete you’ve ever seen? Do they lock you in a closet from September thru January?

by passed ball on Jan 5, 2009 10:51 PM EST up reply actions

Lineman are very fat,

but in terms of body fat percentage, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if CC is fatter than they are. Lineman are awfully strong and have tons of muscle.

by dakoose on Jan 5, 2009 11:47 PM EST up reply actions

Lincecum

Had an 8.2 WAR, and weighs 170 pounds. That’s a .0482 WPP!

..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.

by Cookyman on Jan 3, 2009 6:08 AM EST reply actions

Thank you for your contribution to next-generation performance analysis!

I wonder if STATS and BIS have proprietary player weight data, and how much they differ…

by astrostl on Jan 3, 2009 11:34 AM EST up reply actions

Any chance of crunching the #s on some gritty short dudes?

If small guys really do get the most out of their God-given frames they should compare favorably to someone… I’m not sure whom that would be.

by mattybobo on Jan 6, 2009 1:25 PM EST reply actions

good call

I’d like to see some collaboration between WPP and the Brew Crew Ball’s Kendall Units of Grit.

I’d love to see the battle in who is the grittiest/best player among Kendall, Aaron Miles, David Eckstein and Ryan Theriot.

by mtalken on Jan 9, 2009 12:20 PM EST up reply actions

KUG Formula

1000(SH/PA + HBP/PA + CS/PA) / 100(HR/PA + IBB/PA + GIDP/PA + SO/PA) * ( 1- (H/XBH) + (GB rate) + (Contact %) )

Then the whole thing is divided by 4.19, which is Kendall’s raw Grit output during his half 2007 season with the As, when he was about the worst hitter in baseball. KUG is then expressed as a percentage. Kendall’s KUG last year was 153%. A Wins Per Pound would definitely fit in with the formula, we tried a height penalty but it was difficult to pull off.

The 2008 final KUG for the Brewers is here, and here’s the spreadsheet.

Of course, this is far more important than quantifying “wins” or “runs” or anything like that.

Scored three times and detonated an indisputable in four visits to the batting box.

by Jordan M on Jan 10, 2009 12:01 PM EST up reply actions