Examining eWAA: The Fifteen Best Players of the Decade

A while ago I wrote a python program, Basim, that simulates baseball games, and used to construct a statistic for the offensive output of a player: eWAA.  Also, check the bottom of the post for a few notes on the contest of the week.

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I've run a Basim simulation on all player-years from 2000-2011, inclusive, and used it to calculate the eWAA (empirical wins above average) for all player-seasons; think of this as the number of extra wins a team would be expected to get in the season if they replaced an average player with the given player.  Below, I've listed something close to the best 15 player-seasons in the 2000-2011 period.  I say "something close to" because, due to lack of available computer power, I haven't run enough simulations to get a stable result; so, the numbers below should be taken with a standard deviation due to limited simulations of something like 0.33 eWAA.  (Once I've run enough simulations I'll do a more in-depth look at eWAA, including its predictive power.)  For fun, I also put the spot in the batting order that Basim thought they should hit that year*.

Name	eWAA	Season	Best Spot
Barry Bonds	12.22	2001	2
Barry Bonds	12.03	2004	2
Barry Bonds	11.35	2002	2
Todd Helton	9.11	2000	2
Sammy Sosa	9.03	2001	2
Barry Bonds	8.91	2003	1
Luis Gonzalez	8.44	2001	4
Alex Rodriguez	8.35	2007	4
Albert Pujols	8.16	2003	1
Todd Helton	8.13	2004	1
Albert Pujols	8.04	2009	2
Todd Helton	8.02	2004	3
Jose Bautista	7.59	2011	2
Albert Pujols	7.51	2004	1
Jason Giambi	7.41	2001	4

I then computed the best total eWAA throughout the period (summed over the years 2000-2011); if you want, the best offensive players (again, with roughly a 2.5% error) of the decade:

Name	eWAA
Albert Pujols	69.2
Barry Bonds	60.5
Alex Rodriguez	60.3
Todd Helton	54.0
Lance Berkman	46.3
Manny Ramirez	46.2
Chipper Jones	44.5
Bobby Abreu	39.8
Vladimir Guerrero	39.7
Jim Thome	39.2
Jason Giambi	36.0
Carlos Beltran	34.4
Miguel Cabrera	33.3
Brian Giles	32.9
Gary Sheffield	32.5

My initial reactions:

1) Bonds was, in fact, really good.  Not only did he have the best seasons by far, but he has the second highest total eWAA despite retiring halfway through the period.

2) Pujols, unsurprisingly, is the man of the decade; he's been an mvp-level player for most of the years.

3) Coors field is really friendly.  (Also, Helton is really good.)

4) Berkman, Abreu, Thome, Beltran, and Giles are really underrated.

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A few notes on the contest of the week (a contest to create the best lineup you can from the 2002 Giants roster; see here for details).

1) For fun, I'm going to create a lineup submission of my own; it won't be in the contest, but in addition to the normal Shadow-point payout, I'm giving one extra Shadow-point to everyone who submits a lineup that does better than mine.

2) To clarity, the numbers I'll be drawing the stats from are the ones listed here; they are the players stats from their time on the Giants in 2002.

3) So far there are 12 entries, all of which are unique.

4) I'm not going to show my lineup until I run the results, but as a teaser I'll say that there's one thing I think a lot of people are forgetting to think about.

Anyway, good luck in the contest; submissions are open until this coming Monday, August 6th at 11:59 pm.



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*: I suspect that right now Basim is biasing too much toward having good hitters hit first and bad hitters hit last when calculating eWAA; I'll change that soon.