I've had this WAR spreadsheet sitting around for a couple weeks now, just waiting for the perfect time to present it along with detailed instructions, zero kinks, and some community collaboration. Well, that plan has been scrapped. We're going instead with a "here's the spreadsheet, we'll work everything else out later" plan (which actually might not be a bad idea.) So...
Feel free to download this thing and tell me what you think. Some brief instructions:
- Change the information in the green cells, but don't touch the rest.
- Everything is measured in wins. If you prefer to do your scratch work in runs, just divide by ten when entering the info in the spreadsheet.
- If you're not up with using wOBA, try using (OBP*1.75 + SLG)/3, which puts a properly adjusted OPS number on the wOBA scale. If you're really lazy, you can go with OPS/2.25
- BR is baserunning, which probably will include both SB/CS info and non-SB/CS info, unless you're looking at Fangraphs for wOBA (which already includes SB and CS in wOBA). I'd suggest assigning most players 0 for non-SB/CS BR, with some at +/- .25 wins and the rare player at +/- .5 wins. Baseball Prospectus has some solid baserunning numbers, just make sure to ignore the EQSBR piece if appropriate.
- Fld is fielding relative to position. You could even add in OF throwing arms from THT, although 2008 data isn't available yet.
- Once you have IP set for the relievers, change their leverages so that the team averages out to 1.0. Closers should stay at about 1.8 with one setup guy at 1.3 and a bunch of guys below 1.0 to average it out.
- Please, please, please don't just look at 2008 data. This is a projection. All past performance matters to varying degrees, not just last year. Even better, use projections done by people smarter than both you and me (CHONE and PECOTA are my favorites). Or get community input and take a wisdom-of-the-crowds approach. Or see how much over their heads the players on your favorite team have to perform in order to reach 90 wins.
- WAR stands for wins above replacement. An average player over a full season is worth 2.0 to 2.5 WAR. FA$ is the per-season value of each player's projected production priced at $4.84MM per win above replacement.
Feel free to ask questions or make suggestions in the comments. I'll fix things as we go. Be warned, depending on what changes need to be made, you maybe need to enter all the information again in the new version. Remember, this is a BETA.