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[QUOTE="donniesyracuse, post: 4384902, member: 101"]
If anyone is interested in getting into the weeds, here is a good explanation for why replacement level is used instead of league average:

[HEADING=2][URL='https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/replacement-level/']Replacement Level[/URL][/HEADING]
Just a tiny excerpt:

[I]Does it really matter if you compare Andrew McCutchen and Mike Trout to the average player or a replacement one? If you only care about which one is better, not really. You’ll be able to work with their stat lines. But if you want a better handle on most of the league, a baseline that incorporates performance and playing time is vital. You can’t do that with average as your baseline. And it’s also important because we’re talking about the true bottom of the MLB talent pool.

It’s a fairly easily concept to see in practice. You can identify replacement type players without much effort. It gets trickier when you’re trying to actually parse out the specific calculation. So we can leave it at that. If your entire team gets hurt, you don’t get to use an army of average players or an army of players who would literally hit .000. Replacement level is the bookend and having a baseline at the bottom is much better for determining a player’s importance than having one in the middle. And while this discussion has been mostly theoretically, there is [URL='http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-recent-examples-of-a-replacement-level-player/']evidence[/URL] that it lines up well with reality[/I]
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