Atlanta Braves Were a Long Way From Being Competitive in 2015
Sep 12, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta Braves first baseman
Freddie Freeman
(5) drives in a run with a base hit against the New York Mets during the first inning at Turner Field. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
WAR vs. Wins Chart Shows the Distance Between Competitive and Non-Competitive Teams
The data on the chart below is going to seem intuitive. In fact, it was pretty much designed to be so. The stat-makers of baseball want their “WAR” – Wins Above Replacement – figures to be representative of actual wins on the field of play.
What might be a little surprising, though, is just how closely those numbers correlate over the course of a season and just how vital they are to the ultimate success of a team. Click on the graphic to see the details.
2015 WAR vs. Wins – National League. TomahawkTake.com graphic. Data source: fangraphs.com
The black dot on the graph is the Phillies; the red dot is for the Reds; the blue dot represents the Braves. The Yellow dots on the far right represents the 5 NL playoff teams. Your team’s dot moves further to the right with more Wins; it goes higher with more WAR.
That WAR figure as plotted represents Offensive WAR (ignoring pitchers) + the WAR generated by all pitching. The line represents the best straight-line “fit” to the data. If your team’s dot is above the line, then they may have under-performed by generating fewer Wins than expected. If that line is above your dot, then you out-performed your WAR.
So believe it, Braves fans: it could have been worse in 2015.
There’s No Shortcuts for Production
With a total of 18.6 Wins Above Replacement in 2015, the Braves had the second-lowest production in the National League. Among playoff teams, the minimum production was St. Louis with 43.4 WAR. They bolted out to a big start and then more-or-less cruised into the playoffs without having to exert the effort that some teams did (this includes being shutout for the entire season-ending series in Atlanta). Of course, we now know that this lethargic finish continued in the playoffs as the Cubs ousted them.
But I don’t want to miss this point: the distance between Atlanta and the production of playoff teams is enormous. roughly 25 WAR, which is well over double the production generated by Braves’ players in 2015.
Were there reasons that this number was so low? Sure. Let’s tick them off:
- Freddie Freeman missed 54 games…fully 1/3rd of the season. His 3.4 WAR could have been 4.5… and likely over 5.0 had his wrist actually been healthy the whole year.
- Nick Markakis was plagued by what seemed to be a season-long recovery from neck surgery. He managed 2.4 WAR in 2014, which might have been his 2015 ceiling. 1.6 was the actual number.
- Juan Uribe was traded after cranking 1.4 in less than 1/3rd of a season. I think we can argue that doubling this number would be about right had he remained with the Braves.
- Everyone else that played third base (save for Philip Gosselin… 0.3 WAR in 20 games) stunk.
- There were swoon jobs done by several: Cameron Maybin, Jace Peterson, A.J. Pierzynski (though he heroically managed 2.1 WAR through a hot Atlanta summer, so I can’t blame him when others failed to step up)
- On the pitching side, there was that awful, awful stretch from the bullpen in June.
- Alex Wood had 2.0 WAR before being traded at mid-year
- Julio Teheran had a down year (1.1)
- 26 of the 37 pitchers used in 2015 had WAR of 0.0 or less. Twenty-six.
In adding all of that up, I believe the argument could be made that 6-7 WAR was left on the table as a result of injury, trades, and worse-than-expected performance.
But even with that… 18.6 + 7 (if you give the benefit of doubt) is the “could have been” number. That’s still under 26 WAR… and the graphs suggests something around 73 wins for that little of production.
But that was 2015, and we know how things actually turned out.
Next: Looking Ahead