The Net Effect

Many commentators remarked as the regular season wound down that the NL MVP race was between Joey Votto, Albert Pujols and Carlos Gonzalez.  And as the Rockies faded from post season contention, Gonzalez’s stock fell; many now predict that Votto, who had a very-good to great season for a division winner will get the award.

SABR-matricians will tell you that the real winner should be Roy Halladay, because his WAR stat is best in the NL.  WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is, in theory, a stat that allows for the comparison of all players, pitchers and position players, across all teams.  It is a grand unified stat.  

I suspect Votto will win, but predict that Roy Halladay will finish in the top 4.

A unique aspect of the whiffle stats is the fact that EVERY player is a batter and a pitcher.  This simplifies the issue of League MVP voting, because voters will not have to decide between a dominant pitcher and a dominant hitter.  So can one develop a single unified statistic that weighs a player’s contribution on the asphalt both as a pitcher and as a batter?

The “Net”

Following on from the concept that all plays are positive for one player and negative for another, could one sum up all a player’s positives, and the subtract out the negatives and get a single measure of the player’s effectiveness?

Say for instance we take a player’s positive stats, batting hits (bH) , batting RBI (bR), and pitching strikeouts (pK) and add them up.  Then subtract out the negatives, hits allowed as a pitcher (pH), runs allowed as a pitcher (pR) and batting strikeouts (bK).  So, we’d have:

bH+bR+pK-pH-pR-bK = Net

In the case of Matt Lindsay you’d have:

94+30+114-98-27-106 = 7

But we can get a little more detailed with the stats.  Instead of hits, how about total bases batted (bTB) and allowed (pTB)?

bTB+bR+pK-pTB-pR-bK = Net

Again, using Lindsay’s stats:

133+30+114-146-27-106 = -2

So, after a Spring and Summer of whiffle, the net effect of Matt’s play has been a negative 2.

Using this formula, here are the players with a positive net:

Name	Net
Mosser	161
Eldridge	105
Berwald	90
Ha	39
Simpson	27

That’s it.  That's the list.  And if you add up all 17 players’ Nets from this full season, naturally, you get zero.  So these five players have been feasting on the other 12 of us.  Or actually 11 of us, because in his one appearance Chris Diodoardo’s Net summed to zero.

But wait, these are cumulative stats.  What about a really good player that didn’t play very much (I’m looking at you, Brian Simpson)?  To really compare players, this stat should be a per-game measure.  So here is the per game Net for these players:

Name	Net	Games	Net/Game
Simpson	27	4	6.75
Mosser	161	29	5.55
Eldridge	105	19	5.53
Berwald	90	31	2.90
Ha	39	18	2.17

The last question is, “6.75 what?’  What does the number mean?  Might mean nothing as we are adding up net bases, net runs and net strikeouts.  I guess it means these are good players to have on your team - they do more good than harm.

Oh, I’m sure your anxious to know Stats’ Net/Game.  With 27 games played it calculates to -0.07.  Yep, it’s almost like he was never even there.