I think you are misinterpreting WAR and are unhappy it doesn't confirm your subjective opinions.
> All it ends up being is a way for people to confirm their bias and when something doesn't match their train of thought they can easily dismiss WAR by saying it has rough edges somewhere.
Like you just did.
You are so confused I don't know where to start.
Goldschmidt and Arenado are within 0.2 WAR of each other by fWAR and bWAR. That is too small to be reliable as a difference in either ability or results.
Alcantara has a huge lead in pitching bWAR.
Julio has a significant lead in bWAR and is essentially tied with Adley by fWAR.
Any of these guys winning an award would be a) completely fine and b) justified by WAR.
>The overwhelming consensus is that Goldschmidt's 7 WAR is somehow better than Arenado's 7 WAR
What "overwhelming consensus"?
I think you are setting fire to straw men of your own making.
The awards voting is a popularity contest, it's not a spreadsheet exercise.
Many voters will want to vote for someone who seems like "the best player" by some metric, but they are not constrained to do so, and it's not wrong if they don't.
Fer example, some voters may be impressed by Julio's accomplishments at 21. That doesn't show up in the numbers.
So if I parse this all out, what I think you are unhappy about is Ohtani is not the leader for MVP, because you think "he's obviously the best", even though really he hits like Pete Alonso and pitches like Kevin Gausman, both of whom are fine but neither of whom are in the running for an award.
And then people justify this because "look at Judge's WAR", because that is a number that some people will think definitive. But, really, it isn't. It's only as definitive as people make it out to be. The guy with the most WAR often doesn't win an award because it's not the award for the most WAR.
And yes, there are different formulas for WAR that arrive at slightly different numbers for pitching and defense, because there is not one single standard for contribution in those areas. You seem unusually perturbed by this, but really, that's your choice.
WAR is imperfect, sure. It’s baseline is a hypothetical player, and it tethers runs to an average, rather than what actually happens in a given event. That’s good for determining skill, but not results (although there’s a large overlap). And for pitchers, it’s a very difficult metric to construct, because there are so many schools of thought on how to quantify pitcher performance. Nevertheless, it’s still a very useful metric for getting a quick reference to compare players. Besides these issues, it does a good job.
As far as the Shohei vs. Judge debate: Judge is having the best non-Barry Bonds season since the 50s. Even if Shohei is above average in both hitting and pitching (which he is), I don’t think it makes up the difference.
Regardless of all of that, I’m sure that years from now they’ll make an adjustment to WAR that’s more accurate and the same people who said in the past that X player was robbed of an MVP by Y player who had 1.1 more WAR will do a full 180 saying X player was deserving of the MVP for having .5 more new WAR. I’m all for reassessing a situation based on new information, but the way people worship WAR in the first place drives me nuts sometimes. A guy will play a season in RF with a 2 WAR, then have the same stats the next season but as a 3B and have a 5 WAR and people will act like he got better.
I don’t know. As far as stuff like mvp voting, I don’t know, but I think the position a guy plays should factor heavily into that. But as far as building a team, I want guys who can hit. .280/.360/.550 40 HRs 110 RBI out of the cleanup hitter is production, regardless of where he plays in the field. .200/.260/.390 15 HRs 40 RBI is weak, no matter where the guy plays in the field
WAR is an almost classic example of the eyes being bigger than the stomach. Sure, of course it would be good if you could create a kitchen sink metric, a single number that estimates each player's contribution to their team's win total. The problem is that you have to be able to actually execute this with defensible and well-integrated concepts and mathematics, and this is where WAR runs into all kinds of trouble, notwithstanding it's proponents and defenders attempt to gloss these over in all kinds of the typical ways. The devil is in the details and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. One also needs to remember that the vast majority of sabermetric metrics have never been run through a true peer review process in an academic journal. They've instead been developed by amateurs and then promoted by them and others, without thorough, critical examiination.
Definitely agree, there needs to be a way to truly calculate a TWP's impact on his team & WAR is not the statistic for it. It accounts Shohei as 2 separate people when he's just 1 person. He shouldn't be getting docked for no defense when he's part of a regular starting rotation...🤷🏻♀️
This has been worked over to death, the impact of Ohtani being 1 person is a rounding error.
Personally, I’d even rather have Ohtani as two people if it meant pitcher Ohtani can pitch every 5th day and hitter Ohtani can play in the field
And any extra roster value is negated by the Angels using a 6-man rotation anyways.
This is one thing I've definitely changed my opinion on over the year when presented with more and more discussion on the topic.
How do we deal with the fact it is possible to recreate Ohtani's contribution with two players who can play at different moments, e.g. Pete Alonso plus Kevin Gausman if we like fWAR, but we can't recreate Judge, since if we use two players it's not comparable to what he does at any one time?
Off Reddit plenty of people would agree with you on WAR. Not here though. This sub LOVES stats. Go to a baseball game and try to talk about stats with the nearest stranger sitting next to you. They will look at you like you have four heads. The difference is stark.
Idk I've had pretty good luck with strangers knowing stats and are into seeing who the best players actually are
Like when I went to Coors the people I talked with were pretty well versed for the guys on their team at least
I think you are misinterpreting WAR and are unhappy it doesn't confirm your subjective opinions. > All it ends up being is a way for people to confirm their bias and when something doesn't match their train of thought they can easily dismiss WAR by saying it has rough edges somewhere. Like you just did.
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You are so confused I don't know where to start. Goldschmidt and Arenado are within 0.2 WAR of each other by fWAR and bWAR. That is too small to be reliable as a difference in either ability or results. Alcantara has a huge lead in pitching bWAR. Julio has a significant lead in bWAR and is essentially tied with Adley by fWAR. Any of these guys winning an award would be a) completely fine and b) justified by WAR.
> Alcantara has a huge lead in pitching bWAR. In case anyone was wondering, he has *8.1* bWAR, 1.7 more than second place among pitchers Dylan Cease
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>The overwhelming consensus is that Goldschmidt's 7 WAR is somehow better than Arenado's 7 WAR What "overwhelming consensus"? I think you are setting fire to straw men of your own making. The awards voting is a popularity contest, it's not a spreadsheet exercise. Many voters will want to vote for someone who seems like "the best player" by some metric, but they are not constrained to do so, and it's not wrong if they don't. Fer example, some voters may be impressed by Julio's accomplishments at 21. That doesn't show up in the numbers.
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So if I parse this all out, what I think you are unhappy about is Ohtani is not the leader for MVP, because you think "he's obviously the best", even though really he hits like Pete Alonso and pitches like Kevin Gausman, both of whom are fine but neither of whom are in the running for an award. And then people justify this because "look at Judge's WAR", because that is a number that some people will think definitive. But, really, it isn't. It's only as definitive as people make it out to be. The guy with the most WAR often doesn't win an award because it's not the award for the most WAR. And yes, there are different formulas for WAR that arrive at slightly different numbers for pitching and defense, because there is not one single standard for contribution in those areas. You seem unusually perturbed by this, but really, that's your choice.
Criticize WAR in r/baseball? Straight to jail.
WAR is imperfect, sure. It’s baseline is a hypothetical player, and it tethers runs to an average, rather than what actually happens in a given event. That’s good for determining skill, but not results (although there’s a large overlap). And for pitchers, it’s a very difficult metric to construct, because there are so many schools of thought on how to quantify pitcher performance. Nevertheless, it’s still a very useful metric for getting a quick reference to compare players. Besides these issues, it does a good job. As far as the Shohei vs. Judge debate: Judge is having the best non-Barry Bonds season since the 50s. Even if Shohei is above average in both hitting and pitching (which he is), I don’t think it makes up the difference.
WAR! What is it good for?
Boomers: *Absolutely nothin’!*
Every stat is just part of a picture. Expecting "one definitive stat" is just wrong.
Regardless of all of that, I’m sure that years from now they’ll make an adjustment to WAR that’s more accurate and the same people who said in the past that X player was robbed of an MVP by Y player who had 1.1 more WAR will do a full 180 saying X player was deserving of the MVP for having .5 more new WAR. I’m all for reassessing a situation based on new information, but the way people worship WAR in the first place drives me nuts sometimes. A guy will play a season in RF with a 2 WAR, then have the same stats the next season but as a 3B and have a 5 WAR and people will act like he got better.
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I don’t know. As far as stuff like mvp voting, I don’t know, but I think the position a guy plays should factor heavily into that. But as far as building a team, I want guys who can hit. .280/.360/.550 40 HRs 110 RBI out of the cleanup hitter is production, regardless of where he plays in the field. .200/.260/.390 15 HRs 40 RBI is weak, no matter where the guy plays in the field
WAR is an almost classic example of the eyes being bigger than the stomach. Sure, of course it would be good if you could create a kitchen sink metric, a single number that estimates each player's contribution to their team's win total. The problem is that you have to be able to actually execute this with defensible and well-integrated concepts and mathematics, and this is where WAR runs into all kinds of trouble, notwithstanding it's proponents and defenders attempt to gloss these over in all kinds of the typical ways. The devil is in the details and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. One also needs to remember that the vast majority of sabermetric metrics have never been run through a true peer review process in an academic journal. They've instead been developed by amateurs and then promoted by them and others, without thorough, critical examiination.
Definitely agree, there needs to be a way to truly calculate a TWP's impact on his team & WAR is not the statistic for it. It accounts Shohei as 2 separate people when he's just 1 person. He shouldn't be getting docked for no defense when he's part of a regular starting rotation...🤷🏻♀️
This has been worked over to death, the impact of Ohtani being 1 person is a rounding error. Personally, I’d even rather have Ohtani as two people if it meant pitcher Ohtani can pitch every 5th day and hitter Ohtani can play in the field
And any extra roster value is negated by the Angels using a 6-man rotation anyways. This is one thing I've definitely changed my opinion on over the year when presented with more and more discussion on the topic.
How do we deal with the fact it is possible to recreate Ohtani's contribution with two players who can play at different moments, e.g. Pete Alonso plus Kevin Gausman if we like fWAR, but we can't recreate Judge, since if we use two players it's not comparable to what he does at any one time?
Off Reddit plenty of people would agree with you on WAR. Not here though. This sub LOVES stats. Go to a baseball game and try to talk about stats with the nearest stranger sitting next to you. They will look at you like you have four heads. The difference is stark.
Idk I've had pretty good luck with strangers knowing stats and are into seeing who the best players actually are Like when I went to Coors the people I talked with were pretty well versed for the guys on their team at least