This page covers some run estimators. It by no means includes all of the run estimators, of which there are dozens.
I may add some more descriptions at a later time. Anyway, Base Runs and Linear Weights are the most important and relevant.
Equivalent Runs is often misunderstood. Appraised Runs is my twist on the funny looking, flawed, but no more so than
Runs Created method of Mike Gimbel.
I guess I'll also use this page to make some general comments about run estimators that I may expand upon in the future.
I posted these comments on Primer in response to an article by Chris Dial saying that we should use RC(or at least that it
was ok as an accepted standard) and in which me mentioned something or the other about it being easy to understand for the
average fan:
If you want a run statistic that the general public will understand, wouldn't
it be better to have one that you can explain what the structure represents?
Any baseball fan should be able to understand that runs = baserunners *%
of baserunners who score + home runs. Then you can explain that baserunners and
home runs are known, and that we have to estimate % who score, and the estimate we have for it may not look pretty, but it's
the best we've been able to do so far, and that we are still looking for a better estimator.
So, you've given them:
1. an equation that they can understand and know to be true
2. an admission that we don't know everything
3. a better estimator than RC
And I think the "average" fan would have a much easier time understanding
that the average value of a single is 1/2 a run, the average value of a walk is 1/3 of a run, the average value of an out
is -1/10 of a run, then that complicated, fatally flawed, and complex RC equation. But
to each his own I suppose.
I will also add that the statement that "all RC methods are right" is simply
false IMO. It is true that there is room for different approaches. But, for instance, RC and BsR both purport
to model team runs scored in a non-linear fashion. They can't both be equally right. The real answer is that neither
of them are "right"; but one is more "right" than the other, and that is clearly BsR. But which is more right, BsR or
LW? Depends on what you are trying to measure.
