Rox Girl has used wOBA (weighted On-base Average) in some of her recents pieces. For those that don't know what wOBA is, it is, as FanGraphs informs us, "a solid, context-neutral statistic that values hitting properly." FanGraphs has also recently added wRAA to its pages. It stands for weighted Runs Above Average, and this article can tell you a bit about how it is calculated. I'll just say here that it is derived in part from wOBA, a reason I mention that stat.
FanGraphs has these two stats for every season since 1974, though I'm only concerned with the last two seasons.
| 2008 | ||
| Player | wRAA | wRAA2 |
| Matt Holliday | 46 | 39 |
| Brad Hawpe | 23.9 | 17.5 |
| Chris Iannetta | 21 | 16.4 |
| Ryan Spilborghs | 12.8 | 9.7 |
| Todd Helton | 5.6 | 1.5 |
| Clint Barmes | 5.4 | -0.8 |
| Garrett Atkins | 4.9 | -2.6 |
| Ian Stewart | 4.7 | 1.3 |
| Jeff Baker | 3.3 | -0.4 |
| Seth Smith | 2.1 | 0.7 |
| Dexter Fowler | -4.2 | -4.5 |
| Troy Tulowitzki | -5.4 | -10.1 |
| Jayson Nix | -7.7 | -8.4 |
| Willy Taveras | -12.4 | -18.5 |
| Ubaldo Jimenez | -16.6 | -17.4 |
The second column, wRAA2, is FanGraph's "Batting" in their Value section and is adjusted for park factors. When adjusting for park factors, Garrett Atkins really suffers, as he goes from a wRAA of 5 to almost -3. Ian Stewart basically made the same contribution as Atkins did without park factors involved and was a net positive when park factors were included. Jeff Baker and Clint Barmes suffered similar fates as Atkins, but, as you most likely noticed, every player listed (and not) became a victim with the inclusion of park factors.
Matt Holliday's 46 wRAA was the fourth best in the NL and his wRAA2 moved him down to seventh. Ryan Ludwick came in just ahead of Holliday in the last category at 41.2. We'll return to Matt Holliday in a little bit with the 2007 table.
Willy Taveras--uh, yeah, that' self-explanatory. And Jimenez is on there if you want a chuckle.
Join me after the jump to see the 2007 table.
| 2007 | ||
| Name | wRAA | wRAA2 |
| Matt Holliday | 58.2 | 49.9 |
| Todd Helton | 39.2 | 31.3 |
| Brad Hawpe | 29.7 | 22.6 |
| Garrett Atkins | 21 | 13.1 |
| Troy Tulowitzki | 17.1 | 9.2 |
| Ryan Spilborghs | 8.8 | 5.3 |
| Willy Taveras | 4.3 | -0.4 |
| Kaz Matsui | 3.8 | -1.5 |
| Seth Smith | 2.1 | 2 |
| Cory Sullivan | -1.4 | -3.2 |
| Ian Stewart | -2.1 | -2.6 |
| Clint Barmes | -3.6 | -4 |
| Ubaldo Jimenez | -4.9 | -5.2 |
| Chris Iannetta | -5.4 | -8 |
| Jeff Baker | -6.2 | -8.1 |
As we note again, there is a noticeable dropoff when park factors are taken into account. Still, that's quite a turnaround from 2007 to 2008 for Iannetta. And what a dropoff for Atkins. There are other observations and points to make, but I'll leave that to you guys and gals.
But I do want to spend a moment on Holliday here. Holliday's unadjusted wRAA was tops in the NL, almost five full runs ahead of David Wright (53.3) and 27.2 ahead of 2007 NL MVPJimmy Rollins. You know who was ahead of Rollins, too? Todd Helton. With wRAA2, Holliday moves down to third (behind David Wright (55.5) and Chipper Jones (52)), but still ahead of Rollins' 28.6. Just adding to that argument.