Win Values

If you ever read this blog, you would know I'm a pretty big fan of fangraphs.com. I don't know if they're getting more popular or what the reason is, but recently they've been adding some incredible stuff. Obviously, that gets me excited, and the newest addition is Win Values. They have a solid must read three part explanation on them here, here, and here. This stat is for positional players, and instead of giving out some random number that rarely anyone will understand, it expresses someones value in terms of wins that they contribute to the team. It takes into account batting (their production above or below average, park adjusted), fielding, and then positional adjustment to give a pretty incredible overview of a players value. Even cooler possibly is that they can take a players win value and say what he's worth in terms of dollars, and everyone in the world can understand dollars. For instance, a lot of people say how Derek Jeter is overrated, and when you take into account all the jerseys he sells or the little girls that want to see him maybe it's a moot point, but when I tell you that last year he was worth $15.9m and was paid $21.6m isn't that something that everyone can relate to?

Anyways, they do a better job explaining it then I can, and just browsing at what some people make in comparison to what they've earned is pretty neat, so take a look.