WAR Question:
 

Mike Trout has a 3.9, while Mookie Betts is at 3.6. Of those totals, Trout has 0.9 for his defense, while Betts gets only 0.3 - yet neither has an error yet. The Range Factor Stats (which are VERY foreign to me) do not appear to make much of a difference.

Does it just mean that Betts has better replacements than Trout? If both are full-time players, how do they measure that?

I need someone who is fluent in WAR to explain the big difference.

I'd guess the difference is that Betts plays RF and Trout plays CF and has more overall chances and likely covers more ground due to his position.

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

That's certainly what I'd Betts on it.:rolleyes:

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.

:eek:

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.

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

Please.

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.

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? :eek:

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.

How does Bobby Grich come out so far ahead of Biggio and Alomar, among others, speaking of WAR? 7th best second baseman of all time?

I can't answer this to the underpinnings of WAR, and I'm certainly not well versed in Grich, but I'll do my best to share the context that I do know.

First off, there are two versions of WAR, produced by Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference, and they have some differences in how they get to where they get. Grich is 8th on BR's WAR list for 2B with 71.1 WAR (Alomar is 14 with 67.1, Biggio is 15 with 65.5). Grich is 8th on Fangraphs with 69.2 (Biggio is 10 with 65.8, Alomar is 11 with 63.6).

My understanding of WAR is that it offers an approximate value on a player's contributions, albeit the way it is presented sometimes would make one thing it is hard and fast to the decimal accurate. On a single season WAR total, my understanding is that there is around a .5 margin of error (possibly a bit more), so a player who has 6.5 WAR hasn't necessarily had a superior season to another one who has 6.0 WAR.

So my reading of that would lead me to believe that players with similar WAR totals for their career are all in the same boat, which would be the case for Grich, Alomar and Biggio. They all had about the same total contributions between defense, offense and baserunning.

In that light, it might be more useful to look at the different tiers of 2B, based on WAR. Using just Fangraphs' list, I might put Hornsby and Eddie Collins in the first tier, followed by Lajoie and Morgan in tier 2. After that, things get muddied, starting with number 5 all time with Charlie Gehringer (78.6 WAR) all the way down to Joe Gordon at 16th (60.6 WAR) - and due to service time limitations, and I'd easily include Jackie Robinson in this tier (17th, 57.2 WAR). This third tier could be broken up into two, easily, maybe three, or all grouped together. I don't think small differences in WAR should be hard and fast when it comes to ranking players.

I hear you, but I still don't know why Grich is even in that company. He didn't have much power, didn't hit for average, won a few GGs early but nothing after that, 1800 career hits with a .266 average.

Oh, here's a parallel: also think of WAR like ABV when it comes to beer. Beer may be listed at 6.5%, but there is a margin of error in that around .5%. WAR is the same.

And the best news is that having a beer will either help illuminate the value of WAR or help you forget about it entirely.

I'm with you on that, although I'll readily admit I know so little about Grich in the first place. But I'd suppose it means that WAR suggests Grich was more valuable than some of the numbers suggest - perhaps due to the era/ballparks he played in?

That Bobby Grich must have been one hell of a defensive wizard. In 1973 he batted .250 with 12 HR's, 50 RBI's, 82 Runs Scored, 17 SB's (9 times caught), .760 OPS and he led the AL in WAR for Positional Players according to BR (by kind of a lot).

I'm guessing with WAR it's kind of a positional thing to. If there's a shortage of other quality 2nd baseman, it's going to boost your replacement level.

There was a guy named Carew also playing.

Grich's lifetime WAR is nearly double that of Steve Garvey's. Sorry, I know all the rap on Garvey, but that just does not square with reality IMO.

Agree totally.

Grich had a bunch of little things going for him. None of them really dramatic, so they don't catch your attention, but add them all up and he ends up being really valuable. Some of them have already been mentioned. He was a good defensive player, especially when he was young. Another is that he drew a lot of walks. That will help make up for his low batting average. By comparison, he had about the same ability to reach base as Pete Rose. (Although obviously Rose played longer and so reached base more times.) He had good power for a second baseman; not "set HR records" kind of power, but a lot more than your ordinary skinny middle infielder of the 1970s. Indeed, he led the league in HRs once. Also, being compared against other second basemen helps. Sure, he's being compared to Rod Carew, but he's also being compared to Bucky Dent.

Players who are good at everything but not outstanding at any particular thing are easily overlooked. The hall of fame, for example, has had a terrible time recognizing them. They finally got one right with Alan Trammel, whose case sabermetic types have been championing for a long time. Actually, a comparison between Trammell and Grich may be instructive. Trammell was the better fielder and Grich was the better hitter, but in both cases they were the sum of a bunch of little parts. Contrast this with guys like Jim Rice or Tony Gwynn, who will catch your attention because there's one particular skill that they excel at.

And yes, there's also a margin of error around WAR. Grich had 71.1, Trammel had 70.7. That's a tie. Seeing thing in tiers instead of a ranking is a good idea.

Since WAR is just a number that Grich and Trammel weren't flashy players doesn't matter to it, all it knows is that a bunch of relatively little numbers (which reflect their fielding, their ability to reach base, their power, and so on) can add up to one big number.

Is that why Trammell and Steve Garvey received over 40% on HOF balloting and Grich received less than 3% his one year on the ballot? Or why Trammell and Garvey were on the last VC ballot and Grich wasn't? WAR is just one person's opinion of what is valuable. Baseball Reference and Fangraphs disagree on what makes a player "valuable."

Trammell hit .300 7 times. How do you figure Grich is the better hitter?

It's not an account of value (although some people certainly use it as a proxy for that). What it measures is how many additional games an arbitrary team would expect to win if the player in question were to join that team. This is a very difficult thing to measure. You need to know, among other things, how many runs a single/double/triple/HR can be expected to produce on average, how a player's park affects his ability to hit singles/doubles/etc, how many runs prevented/saved it takes to win an additional ball game (on average), how a team's defense shapes a pitcher's ability to record outs, how many runs are prevented by each out recorded (on average), and on and on.

B-R and Fangraphs have different WARs because they disagree about the best ways to measure some of these things. This is common in an on-going scientific investigation. Measuring things can be hard. And this is especially hard because we can't move players around from team to team to see how their records change - the best we can do is see how the various things that players do (hit singles, catch pop flies, strike batters out, etc) have correlated (historically) with run production/prevention. It's not that the dispute between B-R and Fangraphs is "just a matter of opinion", they have different hypotheses about how best to measure a player's effect on a team's record.


The hall of fame did a good job with Trammell. Historically they have overlooked players like him, either completely (as in the case of Grich) or it has taken them a long time to recognize their greatness (as in the case of Ron Santo). If you want to be a deserving player who doesn't get recognized by the hall of fame, a good way to do it is to be good at everything and great at nothing. We'll see Chase Utley does in a few years.

Trammell had a career on-base percentage of .352 against a league average of .330.

Grich had a career on-base percentage of .371 against a league average of .324.

So Grich was both better at getting on base than Trammell, and had to do it in an environment in which getting on base was harder to do.

A walk isn't as good as a hit, because hits can move runners along. So let's look at their respective abilities to do that.

Trammell had a career slugging percentage of .415 against a league average of .401.

Grich had a career slugging percentage of .424 against a league average of .384.

So Grich picked up more bases each time he came to bat than did Trammell, and he did it in an environment in which hitting for power was harder. Trammell was better at hitting singles than Grich was (that accounts for the difference in batting average), but that's more than made-up for by Grich's superior ability draw walks, together with the fact that he hit for more power.

So what's your theory on why Trammell is in the Hall and Grich never even registered with the voters or the VC?

WAR is completely unrelated to wins. That is why Bill James doesn't like WAR. It is just a theoretical number that has very little value on its own. The example of Trout vs. Betts is the perfect example. Trout is one of the worst centerfielders in MLB, while Betts is one of the best rightfielders. However, since someone decided that a CF is more "valuable" than a RF, Trout has a higher WAR.

WOW! Now, that's a statement!

WAR would be completely unrelated to wins if its components didn't correlate with wins, but they do. You can take its components and run a regression analysis to see how closely they correlate (and the people who developed WAR did just this).

The positional adjustment is in there because some positions are harder to play than others. Trout may be a poor CF, but center fielders need to cover more ground than do right fielders. If he was a right fielder he'd catch a higher percentage of the balls that are his responsibility than he does now. (Likewise Betts would catch a lower percentage of balls if he played CF.)

Defensive stats are subject to enough noise, though, that you should really use a range of years of performance when evaluating a player, and you should certainly be doing that this early in the season. So far this season Trout has a 5-run advantage over Betts on defense (that includes the positional adjustment). That's not much, and it will probably be gone by the end of the year. Trout is a roughly average CF and Betts is a really good RF, by the end of the season Betts will almost certainly catch enough extra balls to he'll come out ahead in the defensive component of WAR. (In fact, WAR says that for his career Betts has save far more runs than Trout has, even though Trout has been in the league longer.)

There's another one.

Blyleven, Gaylord Perry and Phil Niekro all have higher lifetime WARs then Pedro Martinez & Bob Gibson... Really?? Some one please explain that to me

Longer careers, by a lot. The JAWS scores might be more meaningful, they are an average of career WAR and WAR7 meaning WAR for the best 7 year stretch.

So by WAR standard Blyleven was a better pitcher then Bob Gibson cause he played longer??

And again the old Mattingly debate, maybe one of the best defensive 1B in the 80s and early 90s and has a negative defensive WAR.

As I said, on Baseball Reference I would compare the JAWS metric.

Just checked. All 3 are still higher then Pedro Martinez... makes no sense

No metric is perfect. I was surprised to see Pedro's WAR7 wasn't in the top 10 given his absolutely dominant stretch. Who knows. In fact he was only 21st.

By the 90’s pitchers were pitching far fewer games/innings...

WAR is a counting stat, like home runs, not a rate stat, like batting average. It's not surprise (as noted up thread) that Phil Neikro has a higher WAR than Pedro Martinez, he pitched many many many more innings than Pedro did. It's likewise no surprise that Harold Baines had more hits than Joe DiMaggio. His career was 33% longer. That doesn't mean that Harold Baines was a better baseball player than DiMaggio, and Neikro's WAR doesn't mean that he was a better baseball player than Pedro. He wasn't, and WAR doesn't claim that he was.

Mattingly was a very good defensive first baseman, and has the advanced stats to prove it. Look up his Rfield on baseball-reference. He, like pretty much every first baseman, has a negative dWAR because he's a first baseman, and you get a penalty just for that. The idea is that it's easier to find someone who can play first base than it is to find someone who can play any other position (besides DH). Imagine that Brooks Robinson had played 1B; he would have been out-of-this-world good, defensively. Even better than he was at 3B. If there was no positional adjustment you wouldn't be able to account for the fact that Brooks was a better defensive player than anyone who ever actually played first base.

delete...

Trammell was the better pure hitter if you go by AVG alone. But hitting is not just AVG, of course. Ted Williams knew this: if you can't hit safely, get on base. What's the line from Moneyball? "He gets on base a lot. Do I care if it's a walk or a hit? No, I do not." Trammell had a .285 career AVG, and his OBP was .352. Grich hit .266, but with all those walks, his lifetime OBP of .371 dusts Trammell's. He got on base more. Grich also had a better SLG (.424 vs .415 for Trammell) playing in an era where hitting was at a premium. If you adjust for league averages, Grich did more damage at bat than Trammell. Significantly more.

Consider this. Three guys playing premium positions (short and second).

Player 1: lifetime 72.4 WAR. 115 Career OPS +. Hall of Famer
Player 2: lifetime 70.7 WAR. 110 Career OPS +. Hall of Famer
Player 3: lifetime 71.1 WAR. 125 Career OPS +. Not a Hall of Famer

If this is the era of advanced metrics, players three, Bobby Grich, is clearly on par with players one and two, Derek Jeter and Alan Trammell. If the argument is that Jeter is an automatic inductee because of his 3,000 hits (and Grich got only 1,833), how much value did Derek Jeter really give the New York Yankees during his career? WAR is clearly an imperfect metric. It can't be considered otherwise until there is one standard formula. What WAR does, however, is force baseball fans to look at things differently. I think that's a good thing.

So, maybe Grich deserves to be in the Hall. Before you scoff, think of this. What am I always harping on? Context!

If you look at the numbers like home runs, batting average, it might seem that Grich was a slightly above average player. But numbers can be deceiving. Consider this.

Carl Yastrzemski won the batting title in 1968 with a .301 AVG. The next best hitter in the American League was Danny Carter at .290. Yaz also led the league with a .426 OBP. Frank Robinson was next best at .390. Did Yaz have an off year in 1968? No. The pitching was that good.

Well, Bobby Grich came up to the Majors in 1970. He started off in that same pitcher dominated era.

Look at the average runs scored per game in the AL by year.

1968 3.41 (lowest in AL history)
1969 4.09 (MLB institutes a change to mound height across baseball)
1970 4.17 Bobby Grich plays in 30 games
1971 3.87
1972 3.47!!
1973 4.28
1974 4.10
1975 4.30
1976 4.01
1977 4.53
1978 4.20

Between 1970 and 1978, Grich puts up a 122 OPS +. His actual OPS is only .763 (.369 OBP, .394 SLG), but pitching dominates so much, even after MLB institutes the mound height adjustment, that offense is at a premium. Hell, in 1976, his .790 OPS is 38% above American League average.

Bring Carl Yastrzemski back into the conversation.

Yaz's .922 OPS In 1968 was worth a 171 OPS. He was 71% above league average.
In 1981, Bobby Grich led the American League with a 165 OPS +. He had a .921 OPS.

See the difference? Yaz and Grich, in those two seasons, had nearly identical OPS figures. But Yastrzemski's 1968 was, essentially, 6% better than Grich's 1981, relative to league average, because the pitching he faced was better in 1968. That's why you cannot simply compare things like batting average, and home runs, from players of different eras and leagues.

If you look at Grich, season by season, the counting stats don't grab ya. But he's sneaky good.

And yes, Grich only had four Gold Gloves. But that shouldn't be construed as meaning he had a drop off defensively after his last win. Hank Aaron won three straight Gold Gloves from 1958 to 1960. Did his play in the field drop off precipitously? No. He had a 2.0 dWAR in 1961. His play with the glove was worth two wins. But Roberto Clemente was also a right fielder in the NL, and starting in 1961, he won 12 straight Gold Gloves. He's arguably the best to ever play the position, at least with the glove. So, Aaron still played good defense, but, to borrow from Highlander, "there can be only one" winner.

Bobby Grich was still pretty good defensively after the Gold Gloves. It's just that Frank White and Lou Whitaker were better, splitting the next 11 awards between them.

By the way, Grich has the 8th best JAWS (compiled by combining career and 7 year peak WAR totals) of any second baseman, better than Ryne Sandberg, Roberto Alomar, and Craig Biggio (all Hall of Famers). It's also better than Lou Whitaker's (a man many think is Cooperstown bound). Grich's JAWS is 58.7. Whitaker's is 56.5.

Then, there's this:

Average for the twenty Hall of Fame second basemen:
69.5 career WAR, 44.5 seven year peak, 57 JAWS

Bobby Grich:
71.1 career WAR, 46.4 seven year peak, 58.7 JAWS

Discussion of his Hall worthiness is not that far fetched. He certainly deserved more consideration than he got by Hall voters his one time on the ballot.

Compare his numbers to the other second basemen of his day. Compred to them he had quite a bit of power. He was a far superior all-around player to his contemporaries. Bill James has been a huge supporter of Grich forever.

Bucky was a shortstop, try Willie Randolph (another player whose WAR might surprise some)

Pretty much everyone believes that CF is more valuable than RF. ALso I'd have to investigate but I've never heard that he was a bad CF.

Also James might not like WAR but he loves Grich. It's a solid measuring stick of relative value. Yes BR and FG have differences in how they compile WAR, but relatively speaking they feel Grich belongs in the same company

Fangraphs has Trout's UZR/150 at 14.5 for 2018, and Betts' at 15.8. Maybe I am not a Sabermetrics expert yet, but those numbers don't suggest Trout is one of the worst anything when compared to Betts.

Good analysis on Grich, but the disparity between the sabremetric numbers and the voters' perception is pretty staggering. Can you be a great player and nobody knows it? I guess.

As for walk vs. hit that line is specious. Consider the dramatic difference with a runner on second. A hit likely scores a run, a walk just makes it first and second. The only time they are the same is with bases empty.

Bill- While I have great respect for your extensive research, you make my brain hurt. :confused:

"As for walk vs. hit that line is specious. Consider the dramatic difference with a runner on second. A hit likely scores a run, a walk just makes it first and second. The only time they are the same is with bases empty."

That's why you also have to look at slugging percentage. Grich does well there too. (I mean, of course he does, he led the league in HRs!)

Oh, I agree, Peter. The single and walk are only the same where OBP are considered. But if a guy gets a hit with a runner on, he gets the benefit of an RBI. If he gets a single, his SLG increases.

I don't know why there's a disparity between how voters that watched Grich play valued him, and how modern metrics value him. Is it possible that the baseball writers from that era were too focused on the Triple Crown stats? .300, 25 HR, 100 RBI sounds great, and better than a guy that hits .280, 17 HR 80 RBI. But if the .300 hitter has 25 doubles, 3 triples and 43 walks, while the .280 hitter has 40 doubles, 7 triples and 72 walks, obviously the Triple Crown stats don't tell the whole story.

I think this is a prime example of why the Veteran's Committee exists. Baseball thinking changes over time. Evaluation methodology evolves, and guys that didn't get a fair shake can get another look. I think guys like Ted Simmons, Dave Parker and Bobby Grich will ultimately benefit from this.

I think Pedro's probably the best starting pitcher of my lifetime. I don't know how it's possible that he won 20 games in a season only twice. Between 1997 and 2003, he had a composite 213 ERA +. That's filthy.

Thanks, Raymond. And sorry. :D

Just wait until I have a better command of Sabermetrics. Then I'll make your head explode.

At his peak of a few years, I would agree. But I'm not sure that makes him the "best" pitcher. I would value the overall career more, and take Clemens, Maddux and Randy Johnson over Pedro.

Parker doesn't do so well on the sabremetrics as I recall.

Between 1997 and 2003, seven seasons and 199 games started, Martinez was 118-36 (.766 winning pct) with a 2.20 ERA. In 1,408 innings pitched, he struck out 1,761 batters against 315 walks. 93 home runs given up in 5,542 batters faced. Led the league in ERA five times, ERA +, FIP and WHIP five times each.

His 162 game averages: 21-7, 2.20 ERA, 240 IP, 300 SO, 54 BB.

Dwight Gooden's 1985 season is often mentioned as one of the best of the modern era. His ERA + was 229.
Roger Clemens had three individual seasons over 200 with a high of 226.
Sandy Koufax's career best ERA + was 190.
Bob Gibson, on the tall mound, had a 258 ERA + in 1968. Never over 200 before or after.

Pedro had a 213 ERA + over the course of seven seasons.

The best career ERA + in history belongs to Mariano Rivera (205).
The second best, and best by a starter, is Clayton Kershaw's 160.
Pedro is third with a 154 ERA +, but he's started over 111 more games.

In that seven seasons, Pedro won three Cy Youngs, was runner up twice, and finished third once. He didn't place in the voting in 2001 because he only started 18 games.

His 2000 season, by ERA +, is the second greatest in history. Only Tim Keefe's 293 (in 1880!) bests Pedro's 291.

In 2000, Pedro was 18-8 with a 1.74 ERA (league average was 4.92) across 217 innings. He struck out 284, walked 32, and only gave up 128 hits. He led the league in ERA, shutouts (4), strike outs, FIP (2.17), WHIP (0.737), hits/9 IP (5.3), HR/9 IP (0.7), strikeouts/9 IP (11.8) and K:BB (8.88).

Oh, and by the way. The second best ERA in the American League in 2000? Roger Clemens at 3.70. Pedro's 1.74 was almost 2 full runs better than any other pitcher in the league.

For sheer dominance over that period of time, Pedro was absolutely spectacular.

Just saw this.

Mike Trout's career WAR is 59.6 in the equivalent of six seasons (6.10 to be precise, 988 games).

He has already passed Yogi Berra, a three time MVP winner who also played a premium position, catcher. He was both a strong offensive and defensive catcher. Per BBR, Berra was worth 59.4 WAR. Fangraphs has Trout at 60 WAR. Fangraphs has Berra at 63.7. That still seems off to me.

I don't care how good Mike Trout is. Something is rotten in Denmark when Mike Trout in 988 games is more valuable than Yogi Berra in 2,120 games.

Oh, and before the season's end, Trout will have passed Mike Piazza, Harmon Killebrew, Jackie Robinson and Shoeless Joe Jackson.

:rolleyes:

Trout and WAR seem to be the perfect couple.

What I don't get is why Pedro, with that incredible stretch, is only 22nd all time in WAR7. It's not a perfect metric but it must mean something.

The short answer, Peter? Pedro pitched less per season than the guys ahead of him. Here are his seven best seasons by WAR

2000 11.7
1999 9.8
1997 9.0
2003 8.0
1998 7.3
2005 7.0
2002 6.5

When I look at these seasons, the first thing that jumps out at me is his starts per season. Typically, a starter of the last few decades will get 33 or 34 starts in a full season. Pedro, for whatever reason, didn't. Here's his seven best WAR seasons with the number of starts.

2000 11.7 (29 starts)
1999 9.8 (29 starts)
1997 9.0 (31 starts)
2003 8.0 (29 starts)
1998 7.3 (33 starts)
2005 7.0 (31 starts)
2002 6.5 (30 starts)
59.3 WAR7

Look at his 2001 season, too. He had a 5.1 WAR, but only started 18 games. I don't recall the injury, and one would not usually assume he'd maintain the same level of dominance across 33 starts....but Pedro had 202 and 211 ERA + the next two seasons. Take that 5.1 WAR across 33 starts, everything else being constant. His WAR ends up being about a 9.4.

When I look at Clemens, he averaged 34 starts per 162 games for his career. Martinez averaged 31. Considering Clemens' career length, what he did was amazing. But then again, he was 6'4" 205 lbs. Pedro wasn't built for a long career. He's 5'11" 170 lbs. Johnson was 6'10" 225 when he played. Seaver and Gibson were both 6'1" and 190 lbs approximately.

Look at his seasonal WARs for those seven seasons if he averages 33 games started each year.

2000 11.7 (29 starts) (33 starts WAR is 13.3)
1999 9.8 (29 starts) (33 starts WAR is 11.2)
1997 9.0 (31 starts) (33 starts WAR is 9.6)
2003 8.0 (29 starts) (33 starts WAR is 9.0)
1998 7.3 (33 starts) (WAR does not change; he made 33 starts)
2005 7.0 (31 starts) (33 starts WAR is at 7.5)
2002 6.5 (30 starts) (33 starts WAR is 7.2)

Martinez gains another 19 starts, about 2/3 of his regular season work load. His WAR7 increases from 59.3 to 65.1. That moves him up to 13th, a half game behind Lefty Grove's 65.6. Grove and Clemens would be the only pitchers who started their career in the live ball era with higher WAR7.

Had he not missed so much of the 2001 season, it's more than likely he passes up his 2002 and 2005 tallies, thereby increasing his WAR7 further. This is clearly an estimation, but based on how he'd pitched that season, and the next two seasons, I don't think it's a stretch. Additionally, Clemens pitched 24 seasons to Martinez' 18. But Pedro broke down after the 2005 season.

Just look at the innings pitched by the modern era starters on this WAR7 list.

(IP per 162 games)

Gibson 262
Seaver 250
Gomez 250
Clemens 236
Randy Johnson 230
Martinez 217

Pedro's high IP seasons were 241 and 233. He didn't top 220 in any other season.

Clemens had eight seasons of 240 +, including four of over 260.
Johnson had seven seasons of 240 +, including two over 260.

I looked at Boston's rotation while Pedro was there. In 1998, they had a four man rotation (Martinez, Wakefield, Saberhagen and Steve Avery combined for 120 starts). In 1999, the starts were divided this way:

Pedro Martinez 29 (2.07 ERA)
Mark Portugal 27 (5.51 ERA)
Pat Rapp 26 (4.12 ERA)
Bret Saberhagen 22 (2.95 ERA)
Brian Rose 18 (4.87 ERA)
Tim Wakfield 17 (5.08 ERA)
Jin Ho Cho 7 (5.72 ERA)
Kent Mercker 5 (3.51 ERA)
Ramon Martinez 4 (3.05 ERA)
4 other pitchers with 7 starts

I'd have to do some looking up to be sure, but my impression of why Pedro had fewer starts is a combination of schedule and how he was handled.

The schedule struck me as something like pedro starts, 4 other guys start, then an off day. So instead of starting every 5 he started very 6th day sometimes. But I cold easily be wrong about that.
The handling I think was occasionally sliding him a day or so to get him matched up with the other teams ace. great matchups, and maybe a good overall strategy pairing Pedro with the players who were harder to beat. I'm almost positive that happened at least a couple times a year.

In The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001), James ranked Bobby Grich as the 107th greatest player of all-time. Keep in mind that several of the players on his top 100 either never played in the Major Leagues (their careers came prior to 1942), or they played on a very limited basis:

4. Oscar Charleston
9. Josh Gibson
17. Satchel Paige
25. Turkey Stearnes
43. Mule Suttles
52. Smokey Joe Williams
65. Buck Leonard
67. Cristobal Torriente
76. Cool Papa Bell
86. Willie Wells
95. Martin Dihigo

Therefore, it's clear that of the full-time Major League players, James, as of 2001, anyway, would put Bobby Grich in the top 100 all-time.

He has Grich 12th all-time at second base.

1. Joe Morgan
2. Eddie Collins
3. Rogers Hornsby
4. Jackie Robinson
5. Craig Biggio
6. Nap Lajoie
7. Ryne Sandberg
8. Charlie Gehringer
9. Rod Carew
10. Roberto Alomar
11. Frankie Frisch
12. Bobby Grich
13. Lou Whitaker
14. Billy Herman
15. Nellie Fox

For Peter,

Sorry I'm just now getting around to this. But in reference to your point about Grich's batting average being lower than Alan Trammell's:

The things that a hitter does to help his team can be summarized in two more or less equal groups:

1. Hitting for average
2. Everything else

"Secondary average" is a loose and approximate measure of the "everything else" group-walks, power and stolen bases, per at bat.

Overall secondary averages are almost the same as overall batting averages-but not for middle infielders. Second basemen tend to have secondary averages about 60 points lower than their batting averages, overall. Grich was an exception to that rule: a second baseman who did hit for power and did draw walks. The best secondary averages among second basemen:

1. Joe Morgan, .431
2. Maxie Bishop, .362
3. Rogers Hornsby, .362
4. Jackie Robinson, .355
5. Joe Gordon, .346
6. Davey Lopes, .344
7. Tony Lazzeri, .336
8. Bobby Grich, .330
9. George Grantham, .329
10. Eddie Stanky, .322
11. Eddie Collins, .322

I totally don't get that bit. Does he consider pre 1942 to not be major league?

The players he listed are all Negro Leaguers.

Going back to the Grich question, I think the era that he played in and where he played had a lot to do with it. I don't know how many times I saw Alan Trammell play, but I can comfortably say it was several hundred times. How can I guess this? I had cable TV and access to American League teams starting in the mid 1980's. I saw the Tigers at least 10-15 times per regular season, plus all of the playoff games during Trammell's career. For guys like Garvey, how many times was he on television? The Dodgers were always a hot draw, plus you could see them on WGN or WTBS against the Cubs and Braves. I'd say I saw Garvey play at least 20-30 times per season from the 1977-1985.

Now, what about Grich? Grich played with the Orioles and Angels. Those teams didn't play on WGN or WTBS in the 1970's. For many fans, the only baseball game was the 1 PM NBC Game of the Week, and the ABC Monday Night Baseball game. How many times would you see Grich play in a season? 2-3 at most I would guess. Someone mentioned Rod Carew. He is a good example. Remember watching him with the Twins? No, seriously, do you remember? I don't. I collected his cards and I always saw him near the top of the batting stats, but how many times do I really remember seeing him as a Minnesota Twin? Maybe a couple in 1977 when he was pushing .400, but not before that. From 1973-76, I would bet the Twins were almost NEVER on national television.
So, I say all of this because we vote for who we know. Sportswriters didn't vote for Grich because half of them never saw him play. If you are going to get voted in without being seen, you better put up Rod Carew numbers. Grich didn't.