WAR Question:

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think WAR is a conspiracy invented by someone heavily invested in Trout cards.

LOL, it's crossed my mind before.

The guy is obviously a great player, but sometimes it seems like he just sneezes and his WAR goes up somehow.

[nat]

That Trout is a CF and Betts is a RF is part of the difference. (Two runs worth.) Most of the difference in defensive ability these days is based in a player's range. Errors are so rare that they don't make much difference. So far this year Trout has been a better fielder than Betts. His defense has saved about three runs more than Betts' has. (To find this look for Rfield on a player's baseball-reference page.)

But also, remember that 0.6 WAR is not much of a difference, and that it's early enough in the season that our final defensive numbers will likely look very different than these.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

LOL, it's crossed my mind before.

The guy is obviously a great player, but sometimes it seems like he just sneezes and his WAR goes up somehow.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2...espnapi_public

Please.

[nat]

The article isn't saying they think he's going to do it. Not even Trout's mom thinks he's going to do it. Just that he's on pace for it. Being on pace for the greatest season of all time after 40 games is hard, staying on that pace for the next 120 is much much harder. Ruth pulled it off, Trout probably won't.

But the article is celebrating Trout for managing this pace for even 40 games, which is an achievement all on its own.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by nat

The article isn't saying they think he's going to do it. Not even Trout's mom thinks he's going to do it. Just that he's on pace for it. Being on pace for the greatest season of all time after 40 games is hard, staying on that pace for the next 120 is much much harder. Ruth pulled it off, Trout probably won't.

But the article is celebrating Trout for managing this pace for even 40 games, which is an achievement all on its own.

He's hitting .290 with 12 or 13 HR. He is NOT on pace for the greatest season of all time. I don't care what his WAR is lol.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

He's hitting .290 with 12 or 13 HR. He is NOT on pace for the greatest season of all time. I don't care what his WAR is lol.

I saw Trout play today.

Struck out swinging in first.

Walked in the third.

Walked in the fifth.

Stole second.

Stole third.

Scored on sac fly.

Walked in the seventh.

Took third on a single.

Scored on sac fly.

Flawless in the field (He was the DH).

So, the DH doesn’t get his bat on the ball, reaches first three times, scores twice and his WAR continues to go up.

Peter, what on earth do you expect?

[parker1b2]

IMHO War is stupid, it is not a stat it is a judgement, and it does not take a lot of things into consideration on the true worth of a player. I truly believe it was developed by people who never played baseball or were athletes in general.

[AGuinness]

Originally Posted by parker1b2

IMHO War is stupid, it is not a stat it is a judgement, and it does not take a lot of things into consideration on the true worth of a player. I truly believe it was developed by people who never played baseball or were athletes in general.

I get where you're coming from, although traditional stats have judgements involved, including (but not limited to) error versus hit, "earned" runs, who gets a win, sacrifice bunts not counting towards ABs, etc. etc.

I'm fine with non-athletes developing stats or whatever. One not need to an athlete to enjoy or have educated observations on sport, just as one not need to travel at the speed of light to understand the theory of relativity.

WAR has its flaws, no doubt, but just about every front office in MLB finds WAR and sabermetrics valuable enough to utilize them in their decision making process. In all likelihood, most MLB front offices utilize stats and analysis beyond WAR that I would have even more trouble understanding than WAR. But just because I don't fully understand it doesn't make it wrong or bad - I'll try my best to glean something useful out of it, if I can. Just like the theory of relativity.