eras committee candidates baseball HOF

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

As you know, WAR is a comparison vs. a theoretical replacement player. It doesn't compare across different eras or years.

So I am confused as to what you mean by "WAR directly reduces the value for 19th century pitchers".

Individual season WAR leaders ARE dominated by 19th century pitchers.
Just look at this list: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...h_season.shtml

ALL of the top 28 single season WAR leaders for pitchers were from the 19th century, with exception of 4 seasons (2 by Walter Johnson, one by Cy Young, and 1 by Dwight Gooden).

I also don't understand the comment about pitchers with respect to career totals, since Nichols rates 4th, Keefe 15th, and Clarkson 19th.

[FrankWakefield]

The WAR Calculation

https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/

[G1911]

WAR and the subcomponents use a moving baseline as the fundamental comparison, designed to account for a number of era differences and normalize to a comparable figure across eras.

The effect is to significantly lower 19th century pitching WAR, to make it comparable to other era's. It still comes out on top of the seasons list largely by virtue of the guys who were really 1 man rotations in a 2 man rotation era, but by a much smaller margin than it would otherwise. This is why Radbourn, who dominated for 678 innings, is far less than twice as valuable in war as Gooden who dominated in 276 innings.

Whether this is good or not depends on purpose and perspective. Obviously, a pitcher who leads the league in run performance rates and hurls 500 innings is innately more valuable than a pitcher who does it for 200 innings today, the value of a particular player at pitcher is much less today than it was then, as the game has changed and pitcher is no longer a one/two man show but a whole rotation with relievers. The position is equally, perhaps more important, today but the large roster of guys on the mound devalue any single pitcher. WAR attempts to contextualize the performance to the time in which that performance occurred - 19th century pitchers receiving the most punishment as a result, so that we point to a guy at #4 and a guy at #15 instead of a list much closer to the innings leaders list.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by G1911

WAR and the subcomponents use a moving baseline as the fundamental comparison, designed to account for a number of era differences and normalize to a comparable figure across eras.

The effect is to significantly lower 19th century pitching WAR, to make it comparable to other era's. It still comes out on top of the seasons list largely by virtue of the guys who were really 1 man rotations in a 2 man rotation era, but by a much smaller margin than it would otherwise. This is why Radbourn, who dominated for 678 innings, is far less than twice as valuable in war as Gooden who dominated in 276 innings.

Whether this is good or not depends on purpose and perspective. Obviously, a pitcher who leads the league in run performance rates and hurls 500 innings is innately more valuable than a pitcher who does it for 200 innings today, the value of a particular player at pitcher is much less today than it was then, as the game has changed and pitcher is no longer a one/two man show but a whole rotation with relievers. The position is equally, perhaps more important, today but the large roster of guys on the mound devalue any single pitcher. WAR attempts to contextualize the performance to the time in which that performance occurred - 19th century pitchers receiving the most punishment as a result, so that we point to a guy at #4 and a guy at #15 instead of a list much closer to the innings leaders list.

Not sure what you mean by WAR uses a “moving baseline” or that WAR “attempts to contextualize the performance to the time in which that performance occurred.”

Isn’t WAR a mathematical formula that compares players to their peers within a given season?

Where in the formula does it compare/contextualize to other years/eras?

The reason why Gooden’s season is worth so much was because it was so much better than his peers. Yet it is still barely in the top 30 seasons ever. The rest are basically all 19th century pitchers.

Pitching a ton of innings used to be common, so doing so did not by itself separate you from your peers.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Not sure what you mean by WAR uses a “moving baseline” or that WAR “attempts to contextualize the performance to the time in which that performance occurred.”

Isn’t WAR a mathematical formula that compares players to their peers within a given season?

Where in the formula does it compare/contextualize to other years/eras?

The reason why Gooden’s season is worth so much was because it was so much better than his peers. Yet it is still barely in the top 30 seasons ever. The rest are basically all 19th century pitchers.

Pitching a ton of innings used to be common, so doing so did not by itself separate you from your peers.

I'm not following it either, and I still don't understand how if WAR gets Nichols and Keefe and Clarkson etc. generally right for their careers, how it somehow devalues them? Of course throwing a zillion innings doesn't make you innately better than someone who dominated just as much if not more but in fewer innings in a different context, it's just a function of context and we're trying to evaluate on a level playing field.

[Misunderestimated]

There are actually two versions of WAR that are commonly used.
One is Baseballreference.com and the other is from Fangraphics.
They are similar but not identical.
This sheds some light on the WARs

https://www.samford.edu/sports-analy...ll%2DReference.

Bill James also has a different Uber Stat that he devised called "Win Shares"
Win Shares measures a player's total contributions across positions, teams, and eras. The general approach to calculating win shares is to divide a team's win shares between offense and defense.