Most overrated baseball stats????

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I like Mike Trout, but it is very very very hard for me to believe that on a per plate appearance basis he is at this point the second best hitter of all time or anywhere close. What is driving his WAR to be so high, he has some nice counting numbers but they don't seem particularly overwhelming? Maybe a small part of it is that he hasn't yet obviously had the usual end of career decline, but that doesn't seem enough to explain it.

Well, first off, his WAR says he is the 2nd best OVERALL PLAYER of all time, not just hitter. His elite baserunning and above avg defense combine with his elite bat to make him such a great player. Just hitting alone (using wRC+) he is 7th all time. But, as you said, much of this is because he hasn't hit his decline phase yet. If he stayed capable enough to play until say age 38-40, his overall wRC+ and other batting metrics would be expected to decline. (I'm guessing into the high teens all time, which is still damn good)

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

Well, first off, his WAR says he is the 2nd best OVERALL PLAYER of all time, not just hitter. His elite baserunning and above avg defense combine with his elite bat to make him such a great player. Just hitting alone (using wRC+) he is 7th all time. But, as you said, much of this is because he hasn't hit his decline phase yet. If he stayed capable enough to play until say age 38-40, his overall wRC+ and other batting metrics would be expected to decline. (I'm guessing into the high teens all time, which is still damn good)

Jason said his numbers showing Trout second were offensive only. In any event call me stubborn but I just cannot believe Trout legitimately ranks anywhere near second by any measure.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Jason said his numbers showing Trout second were offensive only. In any event call me stubborn but I just cannot believe Trout legitimately ranks anywhere near second by any measure.

There are no offensive numbers that show Trout 2nd all time. IDK where he got that from, but right now his wOBA is top10 wRC+ is top 10...etc WAR he's not close because of the length of his career. BUT, when you consider he is in his prime right now and yet to decline, it really isn't right to even put him in the discussion of "all time" players need to start declining before we can really get a glimpse of A- what their peak was and B- how long their career lasts. Some guys have a steep decline, others a long shallow one.

edit to add: Trout has had the 2nd best start to his career all time, but that doesn't mean he will end that way, using WAR ratio to games played or PA's says 2nd, but.... the guy is like 25, let's wait until he's 35 before making these claims as truths

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

There are no offensive numbers that show Trout 2nd all time. IDK where he got that from, but right now his wOBA is top10 wRC+ is top 10...etc WAR he's not close because of the length of his career. BUT, when you consider he is in his prime right now and yet to decline, it really isn't right to even put him in the discussion of "all time" players need to start declining before we can really get a glimpse of A- what their peak was and B- how long their career lasts. Some guys have a steep decline, others a long shallow one.

edit to add: Trout has had the 2nd best start to his career all time, but that doesn't mean he will end that way, using WAR ratio to games played or PA's says 2nd, but.... the guy is like 25, let's wait until he's 35 before making these claims as truths

Well, as of right now it's true, but it's obviously a little skewed since Trout only has 3,427 PAs compared to Babe Ruth's 10,623.

Like I said before, WAR is a counting stat just like Home Runs or RBI. So using WAR to compare which players are "better" can only be used when the length of time is similar. Mike Trout's average plate appearance brought as much value as every TWO plate appearances by Carl Yastrzemski (if you believe in WAR). This isn't even including external adjustments for time period.

Trout is great, but Babe Ruth player at an even more dominant level on average through his entire career. Pretty amazing.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

Well, as of right now it's true, but it's obviously a little skewed since Trout only has 3,427 PAs compared to Babe Ruth's 10,623.

Like I said before, WAR is a counting stat just like Home Runs or RBI. So using WAR to compare which players are "better" can only be used when the length of time is similar. Mike Trout's average plate appearance brought as much value as every TWO plate appearances by Carl Yastrzemski (if you believe in WAR). This isn't even including external adjustments for time period.

Trout is great, but Babe Ruth player at an even more dominant level on average through his entire career. Pretty amazing.

absolutely. Though, we must put a little * on WAR before the advent of UZR and DRS, range factor and total zone stats just aren't very good and thus it's pretty well agreed that the defensive value of players before the 90's is harder to determine (and the more you go back, the harder it gets).

But WAR, isn't meant to be perfect, it's there to be a handy number of comparison. Think of it as the difference between looking something up on google maps and buying a geographical survey map. The latter is the peripheral stats that give you the more accurate picture (but requires deeper digging and effort) and the former is the convenience of WAR.

[the 'stache]

Agree with the bolded part completely. I see that Roberto Clemente's defense in right was worth only 12.1 wins over 17 seasons, and I laugh myself silly. Then I look at somebody like Andruw Jones, who was a fine center fielder, no doubt. But you'll never convince me that, for his career, his defensive contribution was twice as good as Clemente's. Jones had 24.1 dWAR to Clemente's 12.1. The argument has always been "Clemente made 140 errors in 17 seasons". How many of those errors came on balls that no other right fielder in baseball could have even gotten to? If you get a glove on the ball, but don't catch it, the official scorer is going to give the fielder an error. The point being that any other fielder in right is going to let the ball drop in for a double. Clemente's range in right was unrivaled, and his gun might be the best the game has ever seen. Of course, he's going to have more errors, because he's going to also attempt to throw out more runners than the average outfielder. When you're throwing the ball from the warning track in right field all the way to third base, some balls are going to skip away because the third baseman can't handle it, or it hits the runner.

Please. I've watched a ton of footage from Clemente's defense over the years. The man was a god in the outfield, and some stupid metric trying to convince us that his defense didn't even net 1 win in 162 games a season is utter bullcrap.

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

absolutely. Though, we must put a little * on WAR before the advent of UZR and DRS, range factor and total zone stats just aren't very good and thus it's pretty well agreed that the defensive value of players before the 90's is harder to determine (and the more you go back, the harder it gets).

[zachtruitt]

An OF's arm has been historically overrated in defensive value. If Clemente had played CF then he may have rivaled Jones in dWAR. Errors cost bases and I doubt Clemente's OF assists overcome the bases lost to errors.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Agree with the bolded part completely. I see that Roberto Clemente's defense in right was worth only 12.1 wins over 17 seasons, and I laugh myself silly. Then I look at somebody like Andruw Jones, who was a fine center fielder, no doubt. But you'll never convince me that, for his career, his defensive contribution was twice as good as Clemente's. Jones had 24.1 dWAR to Clemente's 12.1. The argument has always been "Clemente made 140 errors in 17 seasons". How many of those errors came on balls that no other right fielder in baseball could have even gotten to? If you get a glove on the ball, but don't catch it, the official scorer is going to give the fielder an error. The point being that any other fielder in right is going to let the ball drop in for a double. Clemente's range in right was unrivaled, and his gun might be the best the game has ever seen. Of course, he's going to have more errors, because he's going to also attempt to throw out more runners than the average outfielder. When you're throwing the ball from the warning track in right field all the way to third base, some balls are going to skip away because the third baseman can't handle it, or it hits the runner.

Please. I've watched a ton of footage from Clemente's defense over the years. The man was a god in the outfield, and some stupid metric trying to convince us that his defense didn't even net 1 win in 162 games a season is utter bullcrap.

playing Cf gives you more value because it's a more difficult position. Andruw is not only the best fielding CF'er of all time, but it's not even close and Clemente had a great arm, but his range wasn't as good as old timey memory may make us believe. Confirmation bias skews things (which is why we have stats) (and man alive quit using baseball reference, it's old, antiquated and behind the times)

Clemente was a great OF'er, but by playing RF he is always going to be worth less than an equally great fielder who plays CF because of the range required.

oh, and Fangraphs has him worth 1+ win a year for his fielding :-)


edited to add: errors are not included in metrics, they are based on plays made relative to avg, in zone and out of zone as well as arm, distance covered...etc and yelling at math because it disagrees with your opinion is not really very scientific, it's the reason we needed metrics, confirmation bias skews things far too much for things like fielding% or errors made to have much value