When it comes to baseball statistics, there are a lot of different metrics used to evaluate players and teams. One of the more advanced metrics is WRC+, which stands for Weighted Runs Created Plus. While it may sound complex, it's actually a fairly straightforward statistic that can provide valuable insights into a player's offensive production.
So, what exactly is WRC+ and how is it calculated? In simple terms, WRC+ is a measure of a player's offensive ability that takes into account factors like ballpark effects and league average performance. It's expressed as a percentage, with 100 being league average and anything above or below indicating how much better or worse a player is than the average.
To calculate WRC+, we first need to understand a few key components. The first is runs created, which is a statistic that estimates the number of runs a player has contributed to his team's offense. There are different formulas used to calculate runs created, but the basic idea is to assign values to various offensive outcomes (like singles, doubles, and walks) and then use those values to determine a player's total contribution.
Once we have a player's runs created, we can adjust it for factors like ballpark effects and league average performance. Ballpark effects refer to how a player's home ballpark might impact his offensive production, with some ballparks being more hitter-friendly than others. League average performance is simply the average offensive output for all players in the league.
By adjusting a player's runs created for these factors, we arrive at their WRC+. A player with a WRC+ of 100 is considered an average hitter, while a player with a WRC+ of 150 is 50% better than average and a player with a WRC+ of 75 is 25% worse than average.
One of the benefits of WRC+ is that it can provide a more accurate picture of a player's offensive performance than traditional statistics like batting average or home runs. For example, a player who hits a lot of home runs in a hitter-friendly ballpark might have impressive traditional statistics, but his WRC+ could be lower than expected once we factor in the impact of his home park. Similarly, a player who hits for a high average but doesn't walk much might have a lower WRC+ than a player with a lower average but more walks and extra-base hits.
Another benefit of WRC+ is that it allows us to compare players from different eras or leagues on a more even playing field. Because WRC+ is adjusted for league average performance, we can compare a player from the 1920s to a player from the 2010s and get a better sense of how their offensive abilities stack up.
So, how can we use WRC+ to evaluate players? One way is to compare a player's WRC+ to his peers at the same position or in the same league. For example, a shortstop with a WRC+ of 110 might not look that impressive on its own, but if we compare him to other shortstops in the league who have a lower WRC+, we can see that he's above average for his position.
Another way to use WRC+ is to evaluate a player's overall offensive impact. A player with a high WRC+ is obviously providing a lot of value to his team's offense, but we can also look at a player's total runs created (which is used to calculate WRC+) to get a sense of how much he's contributing overall. For example, a player with a high WRC+ but low total runs created might be a great situational hitter but not as valuable overall as a player with a lower WRC+ but more total runs created.