Quote:
Originally Posted by Tabe
Raines is one of those guys that WAR loves far more than the numbers would seem to justify. In 1992, for example, his 7 homers and 22 doubles and .784 OPS were somehow worth a 6.3 WAR - basically the same as Mark McGwire and his 42 homers and league-leading 176 OPS+.
(Yes, I'm aware of the defensive component and positional adjustments, etc).
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You really cherry-picked the data. Yes Raines had low doubles and HRs in 1992. After all, Raines was no longer an All-Star and was past his prime, having been traded to the White Sox. But he still hit .294 with an OBP of .380 (both 13th in the AL), had 9 triples (4th in the AL), and stole 45 bases (7th in the AL). With the high OBP, stolen bases and triples, he was still a run scoring machine with 102 (6th in AL).
And Raines had arguably his best fielding year with 312 putouts, 12 assists and only 2 errors in 129 games in the outfield.
I am not an expert in WAR, but it seems like if you get on base a lot, run the bases well, and field well, you can accumulate a lot of it.