Career WAR for HOF consideration?

[Green & Gold Heart]

Ran across this blog post on Baseball Reference:

Bobby Abreu has never heard of Wins Above Replacement Baseball-Reference Blog Blog Archive

It brings up the Bobby Abreu = HOF? question, which at first glance makes me but then you look at career WAR and it's like

Anyway, take a look at the list:

Career Leaders &amp Records for WAR Position Players - Baseball-Reference.com

Some interesting things in that list, like Graig Nettles ahead of Harmon Killebrew and Dave Winfield.

Anyway, just seems like something worth discussing.

[TribeFanInNC]

Sometimes I have a problem with WAR. IMO, it seems to give too much credit for defense. I'll take Andruw Jones for example. He was a good, all-star caliber player for many years. But I have a hard time thinking he is one of the top 120 position players of all time. Seems that the 2-3 outs/game he accounts for as a good CF doesn't equate equally with the 4-5 plate appearances he makes per game. Kenny Lofton kind falls in that category also.

I could be wrong though. I'm actually not that surprised about Abreu - he's been a .300/.400/.500 guy with some speed for quite some time.

EDIT: I missed Jim Edmonds the first time through. Clearly not a top 60 player of all time.

[Chicagofan76]

WAR is another overrated baseball stat...while its nice to look at it doesnt have much of an overall value in the total game......A-Ram had a WAR of 1.2 or -1.2 in june when he was batiing .170 3 hr 12 rbi.....now he has 17 hr and he isnt the reason why the cubs suck.....Gerald Laird and Brandon Inge had negative #'s but both r slid defensive players that dopnt provide much offense but they r on a team, with Cabrera, Maggs, Boesch etc.


But every1 has stats they prefer over opthers and say other r overrated..

myself i also hate SLG because it represents power i am more of a fan on OBP avg, 2B, BB....ER, opp bavg, H, BB,.

[Green & Gold Heart]

Yeah, first everyone loved VORP, and now they love WAR. But then you see a list like this and it's obviously flawed.

Or maybe certain players in the last 20 years were underrated, or a lot of the old timer greats were overrated...

[Goody]

When I was living in Michigan and following the Tigers, I often got the feeling Inge was the weakest link on the team. And I like the guy as a player to root for.

[Goody]

189. Mike Cameron

????


Sabermetrics will help many players with their HoF bids I think. Edgar Martinez is high on that list of career WAR...at 71. That makes sense, as it would take me a long time to put together a list of 70 players I would rather have up to bat in the 9th with 2 on and 2 out.

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by Goody

Sabermetrics will help many players with their HoF bids I think. Edgar Martinez is high on that list of career WAR...at 71. That makes sense, as it would take me a long time to put together a list of 70 players I would rather have up to bat in the 9th with 2 on and 2 out.

That's pretty solid, especially considering he doesn't have many defense runs helping him.

[JWay]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

Seems that the 2-3 outs/game he accounts for as a good CF doesn't equate equally with the 4-5 plate appearances he makes per game.

A player getting 1 extra out a game compared to the next guy is huge don't you think? Anyone makes the routine plays, but these stats reward players for getting outs that aren't typical. Players saving singles, doubles, and triples keep pitch counts low, keep scoring low, and help the team win.

Is defense overrated in the stat? Could be, there's no perfect way to measure defense, but there's a way to tell that stealing hits is extremely valuable.

Try it in OOTP, I did for beta testing. Take any team sim 100 seasons with injuries and development off. They win x amount of games on average. Replace their CF with a guy who has a 9 in CF rating. Do the same sim. Its staggering how much difference having a guy in CF or at SS who steals hits.

You put a capable bat in the hands of a guy who steals outs in the field, and you have a great player.

[JWay]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

That's pretty solid, especially considering he doesn't have many defense runs helping him.

In fact his DH role takes away from his WAR.

[mirrf]

Bad Bill Dahlen at #42? Sure, he has ~2500 hits with ~550 steals, but #42? A .272 career hitter with little or no power?

Above Gwynn? A similar type player with 60 point higher batting average and 500 more hits.

If you say it's a different position and/or better fielding, then why is he ranked loads better than Ozzie Smith. ~2400 hits, 580 SB, .262 ave

Looking at one particular stat doesn't really do it. Even if that stat is a combination of other stats.

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by JWay

A player getting 1 extra out a game compared to the next guy is huge don't you think? Anyone makes the routine plays, but these stats reward players for getting outs that aren't typical. Players saving singles, doubles, and triples keep pitch counts low, keep scoring low, and help the team win...

Well, I guess if you look at it in terms of bases (which I guess is what WAR does) rather than opportunities (as I've framed it), maybe the defensive component for outfielders makes more sense. A OF defensive play probably averages closer to two bases whereas IF plays generally only lead to one base. I guess that makes the diference.

Still though, the Edmonds/Jones/Lofton contingent still doesn't quite pass the sniff test v. guys like Lance Berkman and Jorge Posada were 100+ places lower.

[Left-handed Badger]

HOF is a great example of why I dont like the attempt at the one all-encompassing stat. I feel VORP, and to a lesser extent WAR basically tries to turn a novel into a cliff note. Maybe, you can tell a guy is a good player but with just one stat you want see WHY he is. Sometimes, I just enjoy the entire body of work instead of the condensed version.

And I am not saying VORP or WAR or whatever comes out for next year shouldnt be a consideration of the HOF/MVP/etc. I am just saying it should sure as hell never be the ONLY stat considered. I think that of EVERY stat, too.

[Left-handed Badger]

Originally Posted by Goody

When I was living in Michigan and following the Tigers, I often got the feeling Inge was the weakest link on the team. And I like the guy as a player to root for.

On the offensive side? Yes.

On the defensive side? All I can say is if I am a TIgers fan, I would be very,very happy that Cabrera is only a 1B. (Which he is only because he was a crappy 3B)

[Jason Moyer]

I wouldn't put Abreu in the hall of fame, but he was certainly a better player than Jim Rice or Andre Dawson, and not far off of Ichiro (although he should get extra credit for having to play in Japan, obviously without that they aren't as close).

Career stats are overrated imho as far as hall consideration goes anyway. I'm more interested in HOF-caliber seasons than longevity (you win pennants based on your play for 162 games, not 3200), although obviously guys who have a short but huge peak or are able to stay productive for a long time should get consideration too.

Edit: Personally, I don't have much of a problem with the way James ranked players in the "new" Historical Abstract because it weighed peak years against longevity, with the elite guys scoring well in both areas.

Edit 2: As a good example, take Bill Dahlen and Frank Thomas, who both ended up with 75.9 WAR using the methods on B-R. Frank Thomas got there by putting up lots of 6.x and 7.x seasons in his prime, while Dahlen got there with a bunch of 3.x seasons later in his career. IMHO there's not much question that Thomas was a much better player.

[Left-handed Badger]

I'm betting Dahlen was the better defensive player though.

[Chicagofan76]

Originally Posted by Jason Moyer

I wouldn't put Abreu in the hall of fame, but he was certainly a better player than Jim Rice or Andre Dawson, and not far off of Ichiro (although he should get extra credit for having to play in Japan, obviously without that they aren't as close).

Bobby Abreu isnt close to those 3....Ichiro has played 10 seasons and is already a HOF er Dawson has far more Hr then Abreu over 200 more. he doesnt have as many H or Hr as Rice. 200h 271 hr isnt a hof and never will be

[mikev]

BB-Ref uses TotalZone as its defense component for WAR instead of UZR, which makes it less accurate IMO, but still UZR is not that great albeit the best we've currently got.

Long story short, until Hit-f/x is rolled out to every park, pretty much all defensive metrics have to be taken with a grain of salt, which will affect WAR numbers.

Like I said though, it's still the best we've got right now.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by mirrf

Bad Bill Dahlen at #42? Sure, he has ~2500 hits with ~550 steals, but #42? A .272 career hitter with little or no power?

Above Gwynn? A similar type player with 60 point higher batting average and 500 more hits.

If you say it's a different position and/or better fielding, then why is he ranked loads better than Ozzie Smith. ~2400 hits, 580 SB, .262 ave

Looking at one particular stat doesn't really do it. Even if that stat is a combination of other stats.

It doesn't work that way. Bill Dahlen compiled more than half of his WAR numbers before 1900. Considering WAR is about how much you perform within the league, you can compile much more WAR with the same talent level in an easier league.

[Jason Moyer]

Originally Posted by Left-handed Badger

I'm betting Dahlen was the better defensive player though.

WAR takes that into account, though, which is why Ichiro has had bigger seasons than Abreu has, even though Abreu was a better offensive player in his prime.

As far as Abreu vs Rice/Dawson goes, he could do everything they could, except he also stole bases and drew 100 walks a year like clockwork. Really comparing him to Dawson is interesting because they were both great players in their 20's. Maybe Bobby needs to have a totally random 40+ homerun season as an old man and win an MVP award without being one of the 50 best players in the league.

Jim Rice being in the hall of fame will always make me laugh when he was basically the 4th best outfielder of the 70's and 80's Red Sox, and the 3 who were better than he was will never get within an inch of sharing that honor.