Quote:
Originally Posted by One Great Matrix
Although...I do understand what you're trying to say.
I think the 2 posts I've sort of pointed out that WAR is a formula have been rather enlightening for me on how it is drastically different from most baseball statistics.
There may be an inherent problem with it, I don't know.
As much as I can appreciate what you said about the way in which Betts' WAR was adjusted, I noted something like that when the statistic was introduced AND BECAME WILDLY POPULAR...that's where I had some problems myself ...? Right off the bat. Wasn't something I really put into words but complaining about inconsistent WAR values is one example I guess of why I was disappointed with the way the stat became so popular.
Taking the time, I see what you mean but I'm not going to try and say it isn't a real stat. But it is a sort of rating, a concept, not a number that complements baseball, more like a stat concerning stats.
|
The jargon I learned in the 1990s to describe newer standards like WAR was "metric," meaning a measurement norm. And while WAR got to be a Metric, Batting Average and OBP remained "stats," maybe because they were easy for kids to calculate on the back of their scorecards. Sometimes I think the math nerds just wanted to clear the field of us amateurs.
The inputs into WAR may not be easy to understand immediately if we're used to traditional assessment norms, especially for those of us old enough to remember when we got our stats from the Sporting News and the backs of baseball cards, but WAR is a useful (if not the best) reference once you parse everything that goes into it. Plus the process of developing the new metrics when everything was shaking out was interesting just from a politics and personalities perspective.