Seattle Mariners 2022 Projections featuring The Art of WAR
Recently Fangraphs put out their 2022 predictions for the Seattle Mariners players. Our Joe Swenson makes sense of it all.
Fangraphs came out with their predictions for the 2022 Seattle Mariners. Luckily Pacific Northwest Sports has its own stat guru to break it down.
If you like rabbit holes and statistics, then I have the ultimate rabbit hole for you to go down. But you really have to like statistics, understand statistics, and be able to think in complexity. Also, do you like humor or, more specifically, roasting those that think too simply? Then you’re going to enjoy this article about the Seattle Mariners 2022 projections.
The IDIOTS Guide to WAR
We start by quickly understanding what WAR (Wins Above Replacement) really is. The baseline is different than you think. The simple thinker, a basic fan, believes that WAR is based on average performance at the Major League level. They believe this because their friend thinks this, and some random guy thinks this, and well, quite simply, the words involved in WAR leave it ambiguous.
There are some wonderful articles out there that lead you astray as well. The part that is clear is that the baseline is the replacement player. Think AAAA (that’s four A’s) quality, the player who is too good for Triple-A but not consistent enough for regular MLB duty. Another simple thought is that if a team has an average WAR of 0.0, then that team should be projected to be 81-81. However, that once again is something made up or something someone told you. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to figure out the baseline wins and losses for a team based on WAR. Nearly impossible being the key phrase.
Most statisticians put an entire team of QUAD-A players at around 50 wins. The Mariners had a combined 26 fWAR in 2021 (hitters were 11.3 and pitchers were 14.6). The f is silent but stands for Fangraphs version of WAR. By comparison, the Houston Astros finished six games ahead of the Mariners in 2021 but finished 24 fWAR ahead of the Mariners at 50 fWAR.
Equating wins specifically to a team using WAR isn’t appropriate because it’s dumb. The worst argument any fan could ever get into is one where they are using WAR as their backing data to establish actual wins.