VORP and the Nats

Posted by Jeff Bergin on Mar. 6, 2009 at 1:25 PM
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Before I get into projections and Value Over Replacement (VORP) statisitics, I first must spend some time on defining VORP in a real tangible sense that we can all groove to.  Too many sites provide you with the mathematical breakdown of the statistic, or a comparison of VORP rates across the league, but raise your hand if you have watched a game and have seen them list Zimm's VORP line...Great, I am assuming no raised hands.

Since VORP ties to a "value" in runs over this mythical replacement player, I thought it best to define was a replacement player looked like.  Stathead.com writer Keith Woolner (one of the inventor's of VORP) quantified in 2001, that a replacement player (with a VORP value of 0) would be, "an all-replacement-level team would hit about .235/.300/.356. The Pythagorean projection over 162 games would be 44-118, for a .271 winning percentage. This is comparable to the performance of the worst teams in history."

The reason I bring this up is when your team goes 59-102, you start to think that possibly, you have a team full of VORP = 0.  Actually, on offense, the Nationals had an average offense VORP of 2.3 and a pitching VORP of 3.6.  I know, there are probably many flaws with the math behind my average, but I think it shines a light on this fact: the 2008 Nationals sucked. 

The biggest VORP leader was Christian Guzman at 34 (which ranked him 9th, right below Derek Jeter and Mike Aviles) which is very good, and basically equates to his being able to produce 34 more run chances a game than a replacement player (again someone hitting .235/.300/.356, though with today's players, it probably closer to .245/.300/.360)

The worst VORP situations came at cather and third base, where Zimmerman's injury led to a veritable who's who of replacements (Pete Orr, Kory Casto) manning the hot corner, and lets be honest, Zimm had a terrible year, with a 3B VORP of 13.9, ranking him just below Mark Reynolds in Arizona (who sucks) and right above Kevin Kouzmanoff in SD (who is young and not there yet).  By the way Chipper Jones had a VORP of 75. 

On pitching, its even worse.  Pitching VORP is defined as, For pitchers, VORP is defined as the number of runs a pitcher surrenders below what a replacement level pitcher would have given up in the same number of innings. Of six starting pitchers with over 10 starts, only 3 had POSITIVE VORP, led by John Lannan's impressive 27 (on par with Gavin Floyd, Randy Johnson and Edwin Jackson), followed by Odalis Perez's shaky 15.3 (yeah we are in Jose Contreras land) and Tim Redding's 7.6 .  The group of Balester, Hill and Bergman all are waay low.  When you take into account pitcher who started, the average VORP is 3.145.  Ouch.  Replacement level all the way.

So to summarize, the 2008 Nationals were bad in every metric possible, but what is worse, is they truly resembled a replacement level team.  When your best VORP guy does not drive in runs, then you are in trouble.  When your table setter has a 13.9 VORP, you are in trouble.  But, there is room for hope...

The 2009 Projections have Zimm's VORP at 41...that would be equal to Miguel Cabrera, Vladimir Guerrero and Stephen Drew.  That is what this team needs.   More on 2009 projections in the next post.