Anatomy of an "Importance Score": A WAR Story (but not the conflict kind)

 For the past few seasons, I have used the Importance Score to not just guide my own Hall of Fame voting, but also to make recommendations to the HOF Committee about who we recommend as locks/suggestions etc. I have also used it (when possible) for my Awards Voting blog...including this season, when thuggis asked for a more in-depth explaination of the Wins Above Replacement portion of that (and other) metrics that I have used. This is my attempt to adequately explain the process without writing a novel, but I make no guarantees about part two of that statement (sorry in advance!) 

Since I joined Stickball World, I have used a couple of different methods to calculate WAR for hitters: the first one I call the "Estimated WAR" because that's pretty much what it is...a back-of-the-napkin snapshot that gives a fairly accurate but not precisely calculated total. To get that I use the SB method on this calculator  to get an Estimated Career Runs Created total. I then take that number and subtract the Expected Runs Created for that player (which I get from the number of seasons that they played & their primary position...corner guys are expected to produce more than up-the-middle guys.) That tells me how many more Runs Created than average that person produced...from there I simply use the "10 runs per win" rule to divide by 10 and get a guesstimate for their Wins Above Replacement. While being fairly accurate, that does not account for a few key factors such as defense and home park, plus it only works for hitters. 

The second method that I use is what I call "Park Adjusted WAR" which accounts for all of the following aspects: hitting, fielding, pitching, position(s) played and home park. This method takes longer to calculate but I feel it is worth the time as it is significantly more accurate and can be used for any player any time rather than just hitters. While it is by far the best method that I have found, it is still not perfect as it is somewhat based on MLB data rather than Stickball data. 

By that I mean that the spreadsheet I found calculates a batter's value off of wOBA and a pitcher's value off of FIP, but the numbers that it uses to calculate those values come from extensive MLB research rather than anything that WIS or myself has produced. In an ideal world, I would easily be able to calculate those values for Stickball each season...and I do think that the data that I need is somewhere on the site, but it's an extra step and quite a bit of time that I'd have to take so I don't currently bother. That being said, if someone has made it this far in my ramblings and has an idea on how that can easily be done I'd love a suggestion! 

Once I have an initial WAR value based off of wOBA or FIP, I adjust that for the player's home park using the Park Factors that WIS has made public. After that, I factor in the player's defense at each position they played during the season and then add up the park-adjusted offensive WAR, total fielding WAR and pitching WAR that he produced to get a final total for the season. At that point, I enter his season total in the spreadsheet that I have created to track career totals. 

I know that's quite a lot all at once, and also fairly theoretical/vague so my plan is to make this the first in a series of posts with the next two being an example of calculating a position player's WAR and then calculating a pitcher's WAR. Feel free to Trade Chat, Sitemail or post in World Chat with any questions you have!