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Old 08-24-2016, 01:21 PM
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So, what bravos said, and:

WAR measures all aspects of a player's game, not just hitting. Ted was a god of a hitter, but an indifferent to poor fielder. Lots of the guys above him on the WAR list were good fielders, which means that Ted may have been a better hitter than they were, even if he wasn't as good all around.

FWIW, Ted is second all-time in wOBA. It's a very different stat than WAR, but if you want an answer to the question "who was the greatest hitter of all time", it's better to look at wOBA than at WAR. wOBA only measures offense, and it's a rate stat, so your wOBA won't go up just because you played a long time. (In both of these respects it is different than WAR.) The only batter in front of Ted in wOBA is Ruth. And while I'm open to the suggestion that Ted was the greatest pure hitter of all time, that it's actually Babe Ruth is a pretty reasonable position to take.
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