Calling BS on WAR
 

Yelich slash line -- 14/34/.353
DeJong slash line -- 5/13/.342

DeJong has a higher WAR.

For a guy so anti-war you sure likes to keep track and bringing it up. I think you're secretly in love with it! :)

You are ignorant of the following WAR provision.

If you play in Milwaukee, your WAR is automatically divided by three.

Maybe DeJong is the new Trout, he gets points just for participation.

The difference is all fielding. DeJong is a shortstop (and a good one). Yelich is a little bit above average in RF. (Also DeJong's batting is a little better than you made it seem, as he's leading the league in doubles.)

But perhaps more to the point: the difference is 0.1 WAR, which really doesn't signal anything. Heck, it could be a result of rounding. A (so far) great hitting shortstop is as valuable as a really great hitting outfielder. That's totally believable.

Call me old fashioned, but I'll take Yelich.

Pretty nice start to season
 

You're old fashioned :)

WAR agrees that Yelich has been the better hitter this year, even with the position adjustment. According to baseball ref, Yelich worth 2.1 and DeJong 1.8 on hitting alone.

DeJong's 167 OPS+ year to date pretty impressive for a middle infielder, but Yelich has a 223 OPS+

The difference is defense --DeJong 0.6 WAR and Yelich 0.0.

Of course WAR doesn't predict future performance. Yelich is still almost certain to end up with a higher WAR for the year than DeJong.

+1 and however many zero's you want to add.

I look at the basic stats and percentages, but in no way is DeJong more valuable than Yelich. This shouldn't even be a discussion. However someone will keep spinning the stats to try and show otherwise.

oh hey trout just woke up and put on his pants today, that adds another .02 to his war total. trout has tied or ahead of bellinger and yelich "unbelievable" years. trout's also on pace for his best war year if he doesn't get injured.

War
 

Good band

+1 Low Rider and The Cisco Kid are among my favorites.

WAR...what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, except starting an argument in a sports bar.

My favorite example of a player who has benefited from WAR is Edgar Martinez.

His total WAR is 68.4 which includes 2247 hits, 309 hr, 1261 rbi.
Eddie Murray is 68.7 which includes 3255 hits, 504 hr and 1917 rbi.

War stats include defense - which Edgar has none and Eddie has multiple gold gloves. I couldn’t begin to explain the calculations involved.

Edgar won the WAR.

Say it again!

Edgar's advantage is that he was much better at reaching base (=not making outs) than was Murray. He's 22nd all-time in on-base percentage, sandwiched between Mike Trout and Stan Musial. Eddie Murray is 470th all-time, tied with Danny Green. Edgar has 60 points of on-base percentage over Murray. That's huge. And it's also what makes up for the fact that Murray was a good first baseman and Edgar was mostly a DH. (Edgar was a 3B when he was young, and a good one. He was moved to minimize injuries, not because he wasn't good with the glove.) Murray's other problem is that after age 35 he wasn't a good defender any more, and he actually lost WAR due to defense over his final six seasons. Of course Edgar still paid the penalty for being a DH when he was old (it's about -1.5 WAR per season), but Murray's advantage in defense declined significantly as he got older.

Here's another way to look at the differences in their bats. OPS+ measures on-base plus slugging percentage, adjusts it for the ball park the player plays in (so Rockies players, for example, don't get an unfair advantage) and then compares it to league average. Edgar's OPS+ is 42nd all-time, tied with Willie McCovey and Mike Schmidt, just a notch below Albert Pujols. Eddie Murray is 179th all-time, tied with, well, lots of people: Bobby Bonds, Mickey Cochrane, Nelson Cruz, Buck Ewing, Sid Gordon, David Justice. These are good batters, but they're not Willie McCovey and Mike Schmidt. Murray was a very good player who played for a very long time. Edgar was a genuinely great batter with a shorter career. On balance, what they contributed to their respective teams works out to be about the same.