Does anyone know the full equation of WAR and its subcomponent other metrics whose calculations it feeds off of (without Googling it)? Seems to me people put a lot of faith (or a lot of hate) into a stat almost nobody really even understands.

WAR is a good statistic when it complements other stats. So if you have a guy like Ken Griffey Jr. who you feel was a great player and you find he also has a high WAR, it's not surprising. You could compare someone you thought was as good as Griffey and see how their WARs compare, etc. That's a useful tool and metric for like players. Or comparing two MVP candidates for the year, etc.

What WAR isn't good for, in my opinion, is overriding all other aspects of the player. Bobby Grich has a high WAR and it's used to replace all conversation about what he actually did, which was bat 266 over his career with less than 2,000 hits and a 794 OPS. All very pedestrian numbers.

He's a deep cut people like to bring up for arguments sake. If you look at his similarity scores list it tells you a lot more than WAR.

Oh gosh, I misread that. Mea culpa.

We know that there are aspects of baseball that have been underappreciated in the past, which are now more understood. For example, probably because of how exciting they are, people overrated the value of a stolen base. Especially because they did not deduct the damage of a caught stealing. It is hard to get on base, so wiping out a baserunner and adding an out is a big deal. Gaining an extra base is comparatively a smaller deal. It is why a player needs to have roughly a 75% success rate to make stealing bases a net positive.

Similarly, walks were underrated, while hits were overrated. When the bases are empty, a single and a walk are practically the same thing. In essence OBP is a better indicator of value to a team that batting average.

Information like this exposed some players who were seen as far more valuable than they actually were. In particular, high batting average, low power players, and fast players whose stolen base rates were not elite. The biggest example might be Lou Brock, but it is also why Ichiro was an excellent player, but has a lower WAR than other star players who had a higher OBP.

Similarly, these ideas also shed light on players who were undervalued. Specifically, players who had a high OBP and lowish batting average. Bobby Grich is a primary example.

All that said, the formula for WAR was not 'given to Moses at Sinai'. It is a composite stat that makes assumptions. The positional adjustments are a major factor which can be confusing, and are why players at positions (like 2nd base) which traditionally have been weaker offensive positions will have a higher offensive WAR than players at other positions. Whether this should be this way (and certainly the degree that it is this way) is up for discussion.

Defensive metrics remain subject to many assumptions as well. Should we give a player benefit for positioning, or focus on how hard a play was? Has this changed over time given that players used to position themselves and now it is done from the dugout...

Lots to discuss. The conceptual ideas behind WAR aren't (to me) particularly difficult to follow, even if I never bothered to run through the exact math for each component. Here's the link to Baseball Reference's version...


https://www.baseball-reference.com/a...position.shtml

I don't follow. WAR is certainly based on what he ACTUALLY DID, what else could it be based on? You are assuming only counting stats reflect what he ACTUALLY DID. Again, WAR is not sacred, and while I have read the basics I don't purport to fully understand some of its nuances, but given that it seems to do a strong job of rating players overall, and that I agree with certain basic assumptions like walks are very important if not quite as good as singles, if it rates Grich high I am not going to automatically reject that assessment. Rather, my presumption would be that the traditional evaluations missed something important.

EDIT TO ADD I certainly find it more meaningful than some of the criteria people around here throw around, like great clubhouse leader, clutch hitter (devoid of statistical support), etc.

If WAR is based on what Grich actually did then how do you explain the disparity between him and other 266 lifetime hitters with less than 2,000 and a career OPS under 800? There are a lot of those guys. Grich might be better than them but does that make him a HOFer?

His WAR has him ranked above Sandberg. Again, I think he's probably king among his similarity scores like Toby Harrah but I don't think Grich was better than Sandberg or a HOFer.

I am not a WAR scholar, but among other things he gets credit for fielding, on base percentage, being a second baseman, and he played in an era where counting stats overall were generally lower.

https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/20...second-baseman

My main interest in baseball is the 19th century. I don't claim to know much about WAR, but it does seem to be unkind to players of the 19th century. How does WAR adjust for shorter seasons and a small ball style of play? Also, defensively, how are players who played before gloves were worn compared to later players who wore gloves. Walks were relatively uncommon, too. There are many other differences I could add. It just seems to me that it is virtually impossible to fairly evaluate players across eras when so many factors and strategies were different. There sure aren't many 19th century players on the top 100 WAR leader board.

Kid Nichols ranks 4th among pitchers. Tim Keefe 15th.

WAR directly reduces the value for 19th century pitchers, because otherwise the lists would be dominated by them and their high inning counts. The shorter seasons lead to hitters having lower values of WAR naturally without the direct lowering it does to punish pitchers. Defensive values use a lot of assumptions to fill in missing datapoints, adding to the many problems.

I think WAR is useless for the 19th century, personally. 19th century baseball is pretty much 1/6 of professional baseball history, but rarely gets anywhere near 1/6 of the star credit or fame or attention, unfortunately.

So do you think Nichols should be ranked higher than 4th all time? If not, how do you explain (genuine) why WAR doesn't seem to punish him the way you say it punishes others?

As you know, WAR is a comparison vs. a theoretical replacement player. It doesn't compare across different eras or years.

So I am confused as to what you mean by "WAR directly reduces the value for 19th century pitchers".

Individual season WAR leaders ARE dominated by 19th century pitchers.
Just look at this list: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...h_season.shtml

ALL of the top 28 single season WAR leaders for pitchers were from the 19th century, with exception of 4 seasons (2 by Walter Johnson, one by Cy Young, and 1 by Dwight Gooden).

It would seem that WAR elevates 19th century pitchers and devalues 19th century position players based on the last few posts?

Since WAR is a comparison measurement to a theoretical replacement player, wouldn't it be more relevant by comparing players who played within a small time, frame, such as a decade or so? Or maybe comparisons of players who played under similar rules and conditions? Comparing George Wright to Aaron Judge using the same set of valued factors can not be accurate. WAR obviously makes assumptions based on data that is not complete. We can mathematically come up with batting average, OBP, the number of walks, etc. The answer is absolutely accurate. WAR is a useful tool, but it is not an absolute answer because it is only as good as the formula(s) used to compute it. I'm sure the formulas have been adjusted and are a continual work in progress?

I also don't understand the comment about pitchers with respect to career totals, since Nichols rates 4th, Keefe 15th, and Clarkson 19th.

The WAR Calculation

https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/

WAR and the subcomponents use a moving baseline as the fundamental comparison, designed to account for a number of era differences and normalize to a comparable figure across eras.

The effect is to significantly lower 19th century pitching WAR, to make it comparable to other era's. It still comes out on top of the seasons list largely by virtue of the guys who were really 1 man rotations in a 2 man rotation era, but by a much smaller margin than it would otherwise. This is why Radbourn, who dominated for 678 innings, is far less than twice as valuable in war as Gooden who dominated in 276 innings.

Whether this is good or not depends on purpose and perspective. Obviously, a pitcher who leads the league in run performance rates and hurls 500 innings is innately more valuable than a pitcher who does it for 200 innings today, the value of a particular player at pitcher is much less today than it was then, as the game has changed and pitcher is no longer a one/two man show but a whole rotation with relievers. The position is equally, perhaps more important, today but the large roster of guys on the mound devalue any single pitcher. WAR attempts to contextualize the performance to the time in which that performance occurred - 19th century pitchers receiving the most punishment as a result, so that we point to a guy at #4 and a guy at #15 instead of a list much closer to the innings leaders list.

Not sure what you mean by WAR uses a “moving baseline” or that WAR “attempts to contextualize the performance to the time in which that performance occurred.”

Isn’t WAR a mathematical formula that compares players to their peers within a given season?

Where in the formula does it compare/contextualize to other years/eras?

The reason why Gooden’s season is worth so much was because it was so much better than his peers. Yet it is still barely in the top 30 seasons ever. The rest are basically all 19th century pitchers.

Pitching a ton of innings used to be common, so doing so did not by itself separate you from your peers.

I'm not following it either, and I still don't understand how if WAR gets Nichols and Keefe and Clarkson etc. generally right for their careers, how it somehow devalues them? Of course throwing a zillion innings doesn't make you innately better than someone who dominated just as much if not more but in fewer innings in a different context, it's just a function of context and we're trying to evaluate on a level playing field.

(WAR) What is it good for?
 

There are actually two versions of WAR that are commonly used.
One is Baseballreference.com and the other is from Fangraphics.
They are similar but not identical.
This sheds some light on the WARs

https://www.samford.edu/sports-analy...ll%2DReference.

Bill James also has a different Uber Stat that he devised called "Win Shares"
Win Shares measures a player's total contributions across positions, teams, and eras. The general approach to calculating win shares is to divide a team's win shares between offense and defense.

Well, yeah. It was 1981. They played 2/3 of a regular schedule because of the strike.

Grich, like Joe Morgan, benefits from playing in era when most of his position contemporaries stunk. In 1973, Grich led the AL in WAR, while hitting .251 with 12 homers and a 116 OPS+. By no stretch of the imagination was it a great - or even anything more than just pretty average - season. But because he had contemporaries putting up .300 slugging percentages, he gets an 8.3 WAR.

Grich had 107 walks in 1973, and won a Gold Glove. He was also in the 2d year of a 3-year run of being in the top 20 of MVP voting. So even without the advanced stats, the baseball world of the time recognized that he had far better than a "pretty average" season. With today's perspectives, we can see that he had a superlative season.

I like using All Star selections as a good barometer. Yes, sometimes it can be seen as a popularity contest, but I think it's a good indication of the player's ability compared to his peers. If he wasn't making all-star teams, it's hard to consider the player a hall of famer.

+1

Grich had an on base percentage of .373 which was top 10 in the League and had one of the all-time best fielding seasons by a 2nd baseman, leading the league in assists (503), putouts (431), double plays (130) and fielding % (.995).

He also played every game of the season, which helped him pile up the WAR.

But in typical Tabe fashion, he only looks at Batting Average and HRs and dismisses everything else.

Bill Freehan was an 11 time all-star! Never a sniff at the hall of fame.

I grew up watching Lou Whitaker. He finished his career with the 7th highest WAR of any 2nd baseman in history (75.1) - ahead of Bobby Grich, Ryne Sandberg, Craig Biggio, Bobby Doerr, Roberto Alomar, and even Jackie Robinson. There are at least 14 second basemen in the hall with a lower WAR than Whitaker. But I'm not sold on him being a hall of famer - which is blasphemy to say out loud in Detroit. He was better than Bobby Grich, but he wasn't better than Alomar or Biggio.

But doesn't the point still stand? His 1973 season was not a great season. You can talk about his fielding and I would agree with you, but the same thing would be said of Omar Vizquel and he's not a HOFer, even before his off-field issues.

I don't think anyone can objectively say a guy hitting 251 with 12 homers and 50 RBIs with an OPS+ of 116 had a great season just because he led in WAR.

For comparison's sake, Rod Carew did not lead the league in WAR in 1973 but he did finish 4th to Girch's 19th in MVP voting after hitting a league leading 350 with a league leading 203 hits and leading the league in triples.

His WAR is almost a point and a half below Grich's but how could anyone say Carew had the inferior season?

My point is that there is more to a player's value than just looking at Home Runs and Batting Average. Grich's defense in 1973 was one of the greatest defensive seasons of all time, and arguably more valuable than any that Vizquel ever had. Vizquel didn't make many errors, but he only led the league in Putouts and Double plays once. Vizquel never led the League in Assists. Grich led the League in all 3 categories and and still had a fielding percentage of .995. When you have one of the best fielding seasons in the history of the game and are an above average hitter and get on base as much as Grich did, add it all up, and I think he did have a great year.

I'm not arguing Grich should be a lock for the hall of fame, just that he is more valauable than people like Tabe (and apparently you) would suggest.

Per BR, in 1973 his offensive WAR came to 5.1 and his dWAR came to 4.0 but he's awarded an 8.3 WAR overall.

I don't know how those calculations are made, but dWAR seems extremely flawed to me and I'm not sure how much stock it's meant to carry.

I say this because according to dWAR, Don Mattingly, a 9 time Gold Glove winner and more or less universally acclaimed first baseman, has only negative dWAR for his entire career, which doesn't seem like a reflection of his actual play.

So if you put that much stock in dWAR, it appears Grich had an 8 WAR season. But did he? I don't know because dWAR seems so out of whack. If you do accept his 8.3 WAR as accurate and a reflection of his play, then I still feel like you are putting an extreme amount of stock in stellar defensive play from your second baseman in place of actual production. Which you can do, of course. But given his 19th place finish in MVP voting and non-selection as an All Star during what is, by WAR, his best statistical season, could reflect similar disinterest.

Mattingly 's DWAR reflects the position he played, not his ability personally. First base is considered a relatively easy position so first basemen do not start out at zero, they start negative when comparing them to other players. At least that's how I understand it.

Would you say his dWAR reflects he was a good player or a bad one? Tough to find a positive in a negative, as they say.

Most 1B have negative dWAR.

But does that seem like it should be true? I'm asking you, not the dWAR creator.

Again, Grich led the league in Putouts, Assists, Double Plays AND had a fielding % of .995 as a 2nd baseman, and played all 162 games. This is why his DWAR was so high.

He didn't make the All Star team or finish high in MVP voting because of people like you and Tabe that only seem to care about batting average and HRs. But that doesn't mean he didn't deserve to be higher in MVP voting. There are many, many examples of MVP votes going towards undeserving guys. I am not saying Grich deserved to win MVP, but he deserved to be higher than 19th (he should have definitely been higher than Tommy Davis and Orlando Cepeda, for example)

I'm not saying Grich was a terrible player, just that he was not a HOFer and even at his best, without a defensive metric it becomes very difficult to discuss him in terms of being a great player.

Great fielder, could take a walk, sure. I agree. But there seems to be so much more stock put in Grich's defensive metrics than I find reasonable. He played second base, not shortstop, not catcher, not centerfield. There are plenty of slick fielding second basemen but I don't think that turns them into HOFers. It barely creates HOFers at short.

Yeah, its extremely difficult to have positive dWAR as 1st baseman.

Not sure what you have against 2nd basemen. They are probably more important defensively than Center Fielders.

Here are the defensive adjustments per position as calculated by Baseball References WAR:

Current values (per 1350 (150*9) innings played) are:

C: +9 runs
SS: +7 runs
2B: +3 runs
CF: +2.5 runs
3B: +2 runs
RF: -7 runs
LF: -7 runs
1B: -9.5 runs
DH: -15 runs

So if you play an amazing 2nd base, you can be the most valuable fielder in your League. You may have seen that the National League Platinum Glove (best overall fielder) went to Brice Turang, 2nd baseman of the Brewers this year. But Grich's 1973 season was WAY better than Turang's past season.

It makes some sense. All things being equal, I'd rather have a great SS or 2B than 1B. The specifics, I can't really speak to.

Since Bobby Grich retired, can you think of a second baseman elected to the HOF for his glove?

There haven't been many 2nd baseman get into the HOF since Grich retired. But Mazeroski, Schoendienst and Fox are a few examples over the years.

But Grich's offensive numbers stack up well against HOF 2nd baseman.

Here is the OPS+ of all 2nd baseman in the HOF.

1) Hornsby: 175
2) Lajoie: 150
3) Collins: 141
4) Morgan: 132
5) Jackie R: 132
6) Carew: 131 (but he played a lot of first base)
7) Gehringer: 124
8) Lazzeri: 121
9) Gordon: 120
10) Doerr: 115
11) Sandberg: 114
12) Billy Herman: 112
13) Biggio: 112
14) Frish: 110
15) McPhee: 107
16) Evers: 106
17) Nellie Fox: 94
18) Schoendienst: 94
19) Mazeroski: 84

Grichs' career OPS+ is 125, so it is better than 12 of the 19 HOF 2nd baseman.

It's also better than Jeff Kent's (123) or Lou Whitaker (117).

I wouldn't be super-excited if Grich got into the HOF, but I also wouldn't throw a sh*t fit, like I think you would.

An honest, non-sarcastic question here. I don't purport to understand this WAR, even less so when it comes to my favorite player, Billy Cox, so forgive if my question seems ridiculous.

You will find multiple accounts from Cox' contemporaries that he was the best defensive third baseman in the league. Some even felt perhaps the best ever until Brooks Robinson came along. I even heard it directly from Brooks himself that he was of the same opinion (naturally, the ever-humble Brooks did not add the "until I came along"!). If his own contemporaries, in addition to the man who most people feel was the greatest say this, then why is Cox' WAR only 10.1? Yes, he was a light hitter. From what I have read here, however, being at the top of your game defensively should serve to boost up your WAR.

Looking at Cox' fielding stats, it certainly doesn't show him as a league leader. Could all of those people who would have had an educated opinion and witnessed him in action be as wrong about him as his pitiful WAR would suggest? I'd venture not. Single season WAR totals are awful. So, what wasn't he doing? Or, dare I say it, is WAR not an ironclad formula to fairly rate every single player?

Is it all in the fact that he wasn't prone to being played throughout entire seasons? It may be apples and oranges for all I know, but look at Riggs Stephenson. He's another player who had some fancy stats (of course, remembered more for his BA) but struggled with games played each season. Still, his WAR is 32.8.

I don’t think my posts suggest I’d throw a fit, only that I think Grich is correctly omitted from consideration.

I was looking at Fox on BR and the voting on him. He got all the way up to 74.7% on his final ballot before entering the veterans pool. I wonder if that’s the closest anyone has come without getting in.

It's almost like I didn't include OPS+ in my post.

But, sure a .373 OBP with a .387 slugging percentage is great.

I agree with a lot of what you've said. I believe WAR does not and can not include the total value of a player when compared to his peers. There are intangibles that can not be quantified. If you've participated in team sports, you know who you value as a teammate considering everything you see day in and day out about that teammate. Peer evaluations have value. Just like WAR, they help to give us a clearer picture of the value of a player to his team.

Yes.

Going by WAR alone, Cox would appear to possess none of the skill that was always lauded by the teammates whose stardom forever outshone him. He was quiet and unassuming both on and off the field. He spoke with his glove.

The interesting thing about WAR is it compares players from the same era, but if all the 2B from that era are below average and one player is average, wouldn't they have a high WAR, but still not considered a Hall of Famer compared to the greats?

I thought the same thing a few days ago. It explains Grich sufficiently enough for me.

Compare his D-War to other first basemen considered great fielders and you'll have your answer. Keith Hernandez may be the only positive D-War first baseman in history.

Todd Helton had 3 Gold Gloves and is -5.0
Mark Grace and his 4 Gold Gloves is -5.0
Paul Goldschmidt has 4 Gold Gloves and is -5.3
Steve Garvey and his 4 Gold Gloves is -11.7
Mark Texiera and his 5 Gold Gloves is -0.9
Wes Parker and his 6 Gold Gloves is -3.0
Vic Power and his 10 Gold Gloves is -0.8
Hernandez and his 12 Gold Gloves is 1.3

So Mattingly with his 9 Gold Gloves is right in that range with guys considered top fielders at the position.

Just for fun here are some disasters:

Dick Stuart -12.8 in a short career
Mo Vaughn -12.4 in a fairly short career
Dave Kingman -16.7 but almost half of his time was spent in the outfield with much less of a positional penalty.
Willie McCovey -21.7 with one season of LF mixed in.
Pedro Guerrero was an error in search of a home. He played all over trying to find a place to hide him but he was very negative at 1b in roughly 4 seasons he was -7.1

For a second basemen from his era it's damn near otherworldly. A middle infielder who slugged .400 was an extreme rarity.

Mazeroski who is a near analogue of Frank White and nobody is talking about putting White in.

Let's not open the can of worms that is Mazeroski. Maris is more deserving for his season in the sun as opposed to a moment in time, but he doesn't belong, either.