Chick Hafey - HOF...Why?

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

It's not that I dislike WAR at all. Firstly, there's no universal formula for it. Secondly, applying WAR to players that were in the Majors 80 years ago is an exercise in futility. Chick Hafey stole 70 bases in his career. There's no record how many times he was caught. What is that? An incomplete statistic.

How are they calculating something like defensive war? How do they determine range factor, or ultimate zone rating? They don't have any spray charts telling them where hitters made their hits and outs. What does all this mean? That the statistics are incomplete and inaccurate.

I'll straight up go ahead and say, even fairly modern defensive WAR stats are a joke and completely arbitrary.

As a Yankee fan, watching the difference on the entire attitude of the infield defense, when Don Mattingly was playing first base and Jason Giambi playing first base, was like comparing Brooks Robinson to Butch Hobson at 3rd base.

Yet, defensive WAR statistics on Baseball Reference seem to indicate they are fairly similar to each other on the field, and that Mattingly was actually a negative factor as a fielder, despite also being ranked at or near the top in range factor and every other defensive category as a 1st baseman, throughout his career.