Top WAR of all time

[abbott]

Then that stat is indeed severely flawed.

It's not a stat. It's a philosophy. WAR is unprovable.

IT's an estimate of a player's worth but it's not a statistic just because it uses numbers. Science, without proof, is philosophy.

You can't replay every game of a season, removing a single player and inserting a 'replacement player' and see what the team does. You'd then have to replay every game every played, removing 1 player each time. What are the permutations for the number of games each team would have to play, removing each player for 162 games and replaying it with the replacement player for every player on the roster.

THat Player A went 2-5, K BB 2B 2R 2 RBI 3 PO 1 A doesn't

even repeat itself naturally.

It's just a tool. Reducing a player to a single number isn't that useful.

[abbott]

It's not a stat. It's a philosophy. WAR is unprovable.

IT's an estimate of a player's worth but it's not a statistic just because it uses numbers. Science, without proof, is philosophy.

You can't replay every game of a season, removing a single player and inserting a 'replacement player' and see what the team does. You'd then have to replay every game every played, removing 1 player each time. What are the permutations for the number of games each team would have to play, removing each player for 162 games and replaying it with the replacement player for every player on the roster.

THat Player A went 2-5, K BB 2B 2R 2 RBI 3 PO 1 A doesn't

even repeat itself naturally.

It's just a tool. Reducing a player to a single number isn't that useful.

ALSO Raffy Palmeiro has a better WAR than Jim Palmer. THat refutes the the theory of WAR.

Seaver's WAR is 106.3. Palmer's WAR is 68.1. Really? That much difference. They had the same career ERA. Seaver won more and also lost more. WAR is a parlor game, but not reality

[Redskins Rick]

ALSO Raffy Palmeiro has a better WAR than Jim Palmer. THat refutes the the theory of WAR.

Seaver's WAR is 106.3. Palmer's WAR is 68.1. Really? That much difference. They had the same career ERA. Seaver won more and also lost more. WAR is a parlor game, but not reality

You can't compare WAR for position players against pitchers, its comparing apples vs oranges.

Palmer low career WAR is the reason, some believe he doesn't belong in the HOF, since its below the normal threshold.

[25 Nuggets]

I'm surprised Ken Griffey Jr is at #57 and Joe Dimaggio is at #68.

DiMaggio missed three peak years because of WWII, that would probably push him up into the top 30. He also retired with something left in the tank, but he couldn't stand the idea that a kid might see him as anything but an all time great. Which always kind of rubbed me wrong.

Griffey is probably in the top 20 for WAR through age 30. But he was worth more in 1996 than he was in his 30s.

The War made a tremendous impact on baseball like it did just about everything else, as Drungo can attest. DiMaggio was one of the stars most hurt statistically, missing his age 28-30 seasons. Here are some other notable Hall of Famers with their rWAR score and their age-seasons missed:

123.1 Ted Williams (24-26)

100.2 Warren Spahn (22-24)

66.4 Pee Wee Reese (24-26)

63.6 Bob Feller (23-25)

57.5 Hank Greenberg (31-33)

57.1 Joe Gordon (29-30)

55.8 Bill Dickey (37-38) - after a four-WAR season at age 36

55.1 Enos Slaughter (27-29)

54.7 Billy Herman (34-35)

As you can see, the Yankees were hit hard with the losses of DiMaggio, Gordon and Dickey among others. They won only 83 games in 1944 and 81 games in 1945.

- 1944 happens to be the only time in history our old Saint Louis Browns went to the World Series, losing to their cross-town rivals the Cardinals. Call them war-time opportunists.

- 1945 happens to be the most recent year the Cubs went to the World Series, losing to the Tigers.

Meanwhile, Hall of Famer and Detroit Tiger Hal Newhouser probably benefited the most from the decreased talent pool, winning back-to-back AL MVP awards as a pitcher in 1944-1945. To his credit, he carried his momentum several more seasons.

[DrungoHazewood]

Yeah -- Walter Johnson is probably still most often mentioned as the best pitcher of all time, and even he comes with some tags: deadball era, pre-integration.

If you want to start an online brawl, just say something like "The AL in Walter Johnson's time was probably about as good as the KBO today." I think that's basically true.

There are teams/leagues officially recognized as Major League that might not win the Appy League if transported to today. Example: pick a random Union Association team.

[DrungoHazewood]

It's not a stat. It's a philosophy. WAR is unprovable.

IT's an estimate of a player's worth but it's not a statistic just because it uses numbers. Science, without proof, is philosophy.

You can't replay every game of a season, removing a single player and inserting a 'replacement player' and see what the team does. You'd then have to replay every game every played, removing 1 player each time. What are the permutations for the number of games each team would have to play, removing each player for 162 games and replaying it with the replacement player for every player on the roster.

THat Player A went 2-5, K BB 2B 2R 2 RBI 3 PO 1 A doesn't

even repeat itself naturally.

It's just a tool. Reducing a player to a single number isn't that useful.

I'd suggest you do some reading, like start with some old school Bill James, then The Book by Tom Tango and others. But I'm not entirely sure you're interested in challenging your preconceived notions.

[abbott]

You can't compare WAR for position players against pitchers, its comparing apples vs oranges.

Palmer low career WAR is the reason, some believe he doesn't belong in the HOF, since its below the normal threshold.

Anyone who thinks Palmer doesn't belong is not worth listening to.

The all time list cited at the beginning of the thread contains pitchers and position players. So WAR does attempt to do the improbable.

Can you compare Ozzie Smith to Willie McCovey using WAR? That's just silly.

It's all a compost heap

[DrungoHazewood]

You can't compare WAR for position players against pitchers, its comparing apples vs oranges.

Sure you can. It's all measured in wins. It's apples to apples.

Palmer low career WAR is the reason, some believe he doesn't belong in the HOF, since its below the normal threshold.

People argue all kinds of things, so I guess someone suggested Palmer isn't a Hall of Famer. But there are pitchers in Cooperstown with half of Palmer's WAR total. If you set the line above Palmer (and ham-fistedly using career totals alone) you're alsothrowing out roughly 25 other pitchers like Carl Hubbell, Sandy Koufax, Iron Man McGinnity, Dizzy Dean...

[Redskins Rick]

Anyone who thinks Palmer doesn't belong is not worth listening to.

The all time list cited at the beginning of the thread contains pitchers and position players. So WAR does attempt to do the improbable.

Can you compare Ozzie Smith to Willie McCovey using WAR? That's just silly.

It's all a compost heap

There is more than a few people of that believe, that Palmer was the benefit of a star defense behind him, there been more than one article wrote that complained that Palmer was over-rated.

Just because you fail to admit that, oh well, doesn't make it untrue.

Regardless, you can't just say Seaver and Palmer was the same pitcher, and that their WAR was wrong, that doesn't work that way. Like most metrics, you can always read it one way or another, but WAR is pretty solid metric.

[abbott]

I'd suggest you do some reading, like start with some old school Bill James, then The Book by Tom Tango and others. But I'm not entirely sure you're interested in challenging your preconceived notions.

It's not provable mathematically therefore it's not science.

A batting average is provable as a reflection of past performance. It's a theory of how well a player will hit in the future.

[DrungoHazewood]

Anyone who thinks Palmer doesn't belong is not worth listening to.

Strawman. The only way to use WAR to throw Palmer out of Cooperstown is in conjunction with a very small Hall philosophy that excludes a ton of other current inductees.

The all time list cited at the beginning of the thread contains pitchers and position players. So WAR does attempt to do the improbable.

Can you compare Ozzie Smith to Willie McCovey using WAR? That's just silly.

It's all a compost heap

Of course, that's the whole purpose. It's a consistent and systematic way to put everyone's contributions on a common standard. Do you have any particular criticisms or questions, or are you just ideologically opposed to careful evaluation of baseball?

[Can_of_corn]

It's not provable mathematically therefore it's not science.

A batting average is provable as a reflection of past performance. It's a theory of how well a player will hit in the future.

Is it?

I would think differences in scoring could lead to some unknown variables being introduced.

[Redskins Rick]

Sure you can. It's all measured in wins. It's apples to apples.

People argue all kinds of things, so I guess someone suggested Palmer isn't a Hall of Famer. But there are pitchers in Cooperstown with half of Palmer's WAR total. If you set the line above Palmer (and ham-fistedly using career totals alone) you're alsothrowing out roughly 25 other pitchers like Carl Hubbell, Sandy Koufax, Iron Man McGinnity, Dizzy Dean...

You are correct, but you also listed older pitchers, newer pitchers are expected to have a WAR over 70.

Granted Palmer isn't at 70, and I wasn't trying to say he doesn't belong, but there are some that believe that.

Just like I believe Mussina deserves to be in the HOF and meets most of the thresold, but others do not believe so.

[DrungoHazewood]

It's not provable mathematically therefore it's not science.

A batting average is provable as a reflection of past performance. It's a theory of how well a player will hit in the future.

I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with the discussion. I don't know what "not provable mathematically" means, or how that is relevant.

[abbott]

I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with the discussion. I don't know what "not provable mathematically" means, or how that is relevant.

People are using WAR as a statistic. That's an incorrect usage. WAR is a value assigned but is not s statistic. You can't prove that a team a team of only replacement level players would win 29.4% of games played.