Comments on: The Road They’ve Traveled: George Plimpton, DRA Run Values, and the Cubs Rotation

By: saxtrax

saxtrax — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 19:54:53 +0000

Well, this certainly pushes the choice of Arrieta or Lester in the Wild Card game in the direction of no-brainer.

By: J Mcgowan

J Mcgowan — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 17:43:20 +0000

Thanks that makes sense.

By: Rian Watt

Rian Watt — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:54:56 +0000

I’ll copy the answer directly from an email I got from Jonathan Judge, so I can be certain I’m right: “‘Value’ is runs above average the pitcher was worth, in total; this is the total run ‘value each pitcher has over / under league average after all of our adjustments, but before we convert it to a rate per 9 innings for DRA.”

So ‘Value’ is expressed in runs, and it’s a measure of the total performance *after* the adjustments discussed in the body of the article. You can think of it as equivalent to WARP, but in terms of runs rather than wins.

By: J Mcgowan

J Mcgowan — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:49:48 +0000

I’m a little confused about the meaning of the “Value” figure. Is that still expressed in “runs” and so Arrieta for example has “lost” 15.73 runs relative to his peers? I’m just struggling to contextualize the “value” figure.

By: Rian Watt

Rian Watt — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 14:45:03 +0000

Very glad you liked it (and commented)! I absolutely intend to dive further into these numbers as the season progresses, and certainly during the offseason.

By: wthomson

wthomson — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 14:34:02 +0000

Excellent, Rian. Give us more.