Welcome to my annual diatribe on positional WAR adjustments

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Ted
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Welcome to my annual diatribe on positional WAR adjustments

Post by Ted » Sat May 13, 2017 11:46 pm

They're poorly done. Corner OF's, 1B, and DH are penalized too damn much.

Current example from MLB.

Player A 31 G 148 PA 43 H 9 2B 11 HR 29 BB 27 SO 0 SB 2 CS .368/.493/.726 2.1 WAR
Player B 32 G 139 PA 42 H 10 2B 2 3B 10 HR 18 BB 27 SO 5 SB 1 CS .347/.441/.711 2.1 WAR

So if we prorate these totals over an entire season, these players will have identical WAR, but player A will have 25 more hits, 9 more home runs, 59 more BB, and an OPS 100 points higher. This will be offset by 8 fewer triples, 13 more SO, 21 fewer stolen bases and 5 more caught stealing.

These are of course Bryce Harper and Mike Trout. Projecting these rates over an entire season is only to give us numbers we are more used to interpreting. Of course any of us would be happy with either, but due to the ridiculously overstated positional adjustments in WAR, Harper would get on base EIGHTY FOUR!!!! more times and hit 10 more home runs, yet be valued the same by WAR. Apparently playing center field is worth EIGHTY FOUR times on base and THIRTY SEVEN bases worth of hits more than playing left. That's fucking stupid as hell and just an absolute joke. Admittedly, the guys at fangraphs and baseball reference both say that really WAR that is less than one win apart should be considered roughly equivalent, as the statistic is a bit fuzzy, but this is just wrong. Period. End of discussion.
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Re: Welcome to my annual diatribe on positional WAR adjustme

Post by allenr » Sun May 14, 2017 12:00 am

Lol
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Re: Welcome to my annual diatribe on positional WAR adjustme

Post by Bumstead » Tue May 16, 2017 8:27 am

I don't disagree with you at all, but, do you really think Bryce Harper is more valuable to his team than Mike Trout is? Both players are ridiculously good. I think I would rather have Trout, but that may be for other reasons beyond the numbers. Having said that, it's not because Harper is an asshole and other teams don't like him (I like that about him really; not all of it, but the taking extra bases when teams don't think he should and stuff like that, I like). It's just hard not to pick a CF who looks like a future HOF'er over a RF that looks like a future HOF'er (maybe).

I hate defensive WAR. I only find it valuable when comparing the same position players.

Jeff

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Re: Welcome to my annual diatribe on positional WAR adjustme

Post by JohnC » Thu May 18, 2017 6:29 am

I love Ted's rant's about WAR. Mostly because I agree with them, but we seem to be in the minority. Although maybe not as much now that Kyle is gone.
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Re: Welcome to my annual diatribe on positional WAR adjustme

Post by Ted » Thu May 18, 2017 8:54 am

Bumstead wrote:I don't disagree with you at all, but, do you really think Bryce Harper is more valuable to his team than Mike Trout is? Both players are ridiculously good. I think I would rather have Trout, but that may be for other reasons beyond the numbers. Having said that, it's not because Harper is an asshole and other teams don't like him (I like that about him really; not all of it, but the taking extra bases when teams don't think he should and stuff like that, I like). It's just hard not to pick a CF who looks like a future HOF'er over a RF that looks like a future HOF'er (maybe).

I hate defensive WAR. I only find it valuable when comparing the same position players.

Jeff

Overall I like Trout a LOT more than Harper on a year by year basis, but Harper's batting right now (admittedly only a quarter of a year) is SO incredibly superior to Trout's (which is frankly amazing given how good Trout has been) that having the same WAR is a joke. The way Harper is hitting right now is greatest hitter in baseball history good (in that it's as good as anyone else you want to put in the conversation). It's not that I expect him to keep it up, but the fact that the positional adjustment for WAR makes his bat "equally valuable" compared to Trout's isn't right.
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