Quote:
Originally Posted by D. Bergin
WAR loves Angels players as compensation for hating former Angels prospect Dante Bichette so much. 
Ohtani is pretty great, but I can't for the life of me figure out how he has a nearly identical pitching WAR to Justin Verlander and Alex Manoah when looking at their stat lines next to each other. Is strikeout percentage ranked that much more important then nearly every other statistic on the stat sheet, including ERA, Whip and Innings load?
As far as hitting. He's having an average J.D. Martinez type season as a DH. No, not one of his better seasons...one of his average seasons....except Martinez did actually play in the field every once in awhile, even if he wasn't very good at it.
I get that nobody has done what Ohtani has done, as good as he's done it in a very long time.
He's very good, but not great, at two different positions (one of which does not play in the field). This frees up the Angels to...maybe add one more roster spot near the end of the bullpen, or the end of the bench to add more depth. A player who likely wouldn't register as a blip on the WAR scale. Valuable sure, but arguable exactly how valuable on a team that has two of the most valuable analytical players in the league, and very little to show for it.
It's very interesting...very impressive, etc, etc, etc......but can't wrap my head around how that's more valuable then what Judge is doing this year.
BTW, I don't think the MVP race will be close. I think Judge will run away with it...but get ready to be bombarded by article after article from stat head contrarians whining about how badly Ohtani got ripped off from winning a 2nd MVP in a row. |
Bichette is a good example of WAR’s excesses. WAR loves the K (for pitchers, doesn’t hurt batters much to whiff 200 times, which seems a contradiction. If it’s great for the pitcher, it should be the opposite for the batter) and FIP > ERA (which is about the same for Ohtani). WAR makes so many arbitrary value judgements that, while it does a good job at highlighting stars, saying Ohtani’s 8.1 and Judge’s 9.0 are ‘right’ requires accepting all of these valuations and weightings in the formula. Thus, it’s greatly overblown.
I don’t Ohtani’s value comes in the sense that he saves a roster spot. It’s not that much more valuable to the team to have him as 1 man instead of 2 (ignoring the obvious: that the Angels can’t easily just go get a 2.55 pitcher or a 148 OPS+ hitter whenever they want), but when we measure a players overall value, that he basically gets to count twice is really tough to overcome. If you have a 2.55 ERA and a 148 OPS+, it’s hard to not be the most valuable player. Is Judge’s 61 point lead in OPS+ (or pick whatever of his amazing batting stats one likes) greater than also also being a 2.55 ERA starting pitcher? I’m not sure it is. I think I’d vote Judge if the season ended today, but I’m not sure he really produces more value.