WAR Question:

[nat]

The article isn't saying they think he's going to do it. Not even Trout's mom thinks he's going to do it. Just that he's on pace for it. Being on pace for the greatest season of all time after 40 games is hard, staying on that pace for the next 120 is much much harder. Ruth pulled it off, Trout probably won't.

But the article is celebrating Trout for managing this pace for even 40 games, which is an achievement all on its own.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by nat

The article isn't saying they think he's going to do it. Not even Trout's mom thinks he's going to do it. Just that he's on pace for it. Being on pace for the greatest season of all time after 40 games is hard, staying on that pace for the next 120 is much much harder. Ruth pulled it off, Trout probably won't.

But the article is celebrating Trout for managing this pace for even 40 games, which is an achievement all on its own.

He's hitting .290 with 12 or 13 HR. He is NOT on pace for the greatest season of all time. I don't care what his WAR is lol.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

He's hitting .290 with 12 or 13 HR. He is NOT on pace for the greatest season of all time. I don't care what his WAR is lol.

I saw Trout play today.

Struck out swinging in first.

Walked in the third.

Walked in the fifth.

Stole second.

Stole third.

Scored on sac fly.

Walked in the seventh.

Took third on a single.

Scored on sac fly.

Flawless in the field (He was the DH).

So, the DH doesn’t get his bat on the ball, reaches first three times, scores twice and his WAR continues to go up.

Peter, what on earth do you expect?

[parker1b2]

IMHO War is stupid, it is not a stat it is a judgement, and it does not take a lot of things into consideration on the true worth of a player. I truly believe it was developed by people who never played baseball or were athletes in general.

[AGuinness]

Originally Posted by parker1b2

IMHO War is stupid, it is not a stat it is a judgement, and it does not take a lot of things into consideration on the true worth of a player. I truly believe it was developed by people who never played baseball or were athletes in general.

I get where you're coming from, although traditional stats have judgements involved, including (but not limited to) error versus hit, "earned" runs, who gets a win, sacrifice bunts not counting towards ABs, etc. etc.

I'm fine with non-athletes developing stats or whatever. One not need to an athlete to enjoy or have educated observations on sport, just as one not need to travel at the speed of light to understand the theory of relativity.

WAR has its flaws, no doubt, but just about every front office in MLB finds WAR and sabermetrics valuable enough to utilize them in their decision making process. In all likelihood, most MLB front offices utilize stats and analysis beyond WAR that I would have even more trouble understanding than WAR. But just because I don't fully understand it doesn't make it wrong or bad - I'll try my best to glean something useful out of it, if I can. Just like the theory of relativity.

[Peter_Spaeth]

How does Bobby Grich come out so far ahead of Biggio and Alomar, among others, speaking of WAR? 7th best second baseman of all time?

[AGuinness]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

How does Bobby Grich come out so far ahead of Biggio and Alomar, among others, speaking of WAR? 7th best second baseman of all time?

I can't answer this to the underpinnings of WAR, and I'm certainly not well versed in Grich, but I'll do my best to share the context that I do know.

First off, there are two versions of WAR, produced by Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference, and they have some differences in how they get to where they get. Grich is 8th on BR's WAR list for 2B with 71.1 WAR (Alomar is 14 with 67.1, Biggio is 15 with 65.5). Grich is 8th on Fangraphs with 69.2 (Biggio is 10 with 65.8, Alomar is 11 with 63.6).

My understanding of WAR is that it offers an approximate value on a player's contributions, albeit the way it is presented sometimes would make one thing it is hard and fast to the decimal accurate. On a single season WAR total, my understanding is that there is around a .5 margin of error (possibly a bit more), so a player who has 6.5 WAR hasn't necessarily had a superior season to another one who has 6.0 WAR.

So my reading of that would lead me to believe that players with similar WAR totals for their career are all in the same boat, which would be the case for Grich, Alomar and Biggio. They all had about the same total contributions between defense, offense and baserunning.

In that light, it might be more useful to look at the different tiers of 2B, based on WAR. Using just Fangraphs' list, I might put Hornsby and Eddie Collins in the first tier, followed by Lajoie and Morgan in tier 2. After that, things get muddied, starting with number 5 all time with Charlie Gehringer (78.6 WAR) all the way down to Joe Gordon at 16th (60.6 WAR) - and due to service time limitations, and I'd easily include Jackie Robinson in this tier (17th, 57.2 WAR). This third tier could be broken up into two, easily, maybe three, or all grouped together. I don't think small differences in WAR should be hard and fast when it comes to ranking players.