I went ahead and ran the offense numbers for 2011, using the same assumptions as for my 2012 projections (4-year average for preceding 4 years (2007-2010), etc.) at this time last year, we should have expected Werth to have a wRC of 109.21. His actual 2011 wRC was 76. In other words, he underperformed by -33.29 from his projection. This was the worst underperformance on the 2011 Nats.
To put this into perspective, 2011 Jayson Werth was a plague on the Nats greater than to the combined calamities of the injury to Zimmerman (-4.98), La Roche (-12.47), and the puzzling existence of Matt Stairs (-8.33; I still believe Stairs's presence on the '11 Nats is proof he has some unbelievably good blackmail material on Rizzo).
But, as I said, I baked that calamity into my 2012 models. It is my fervent hope that it does not revisit the Nats this year.
I object to the claim above, as you first say:
"we should have expected Werth to have a wRC of 109.21. His actual 2011 wRC was 76. In other words, he underperformed by -33.29 from his projection."
This statement then leads you to say that:
"To put this into perspective, 2011 Jayson Werth was a plague on the Nats greater than to the combined calamities..."
This claim is extremely misleading. The way you have said it strongly implies that Werth hurt the Nats more than Matt Stairs' existence (and Zim and LaRoche's injuries, but I'll get to that). However, simple use of WAR proves your statement false - Werth's WAR was much higher than Stairs'. As for the Zim + LaRoche injuries, you're dealing with major hypotheticals with regard to their production, which brings me to this:
I THINK you're trying to say that relative to your calculations, Werth underestimated your projections more significantly than any other Nat (and by those three Nats combined); however, this differs strongly with "2011 Jayson Werth was a plague on the Nats". He was not, and if he had not played, we would not have done as well as we did this past season.
I'm not assuming any malicious intent on your end to slander Werth; on the contrary, I've found your posts very enlightening so far. I just wanted to make that distinction especially in light of your posts' informative nature, as I wouldn't want such a discrepancy to be held up as fact.
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