Could you address the fact that the Yankees wouldn’t make the playoffs without Robinson Cano, who by at least one measure (bWAR) had a better season than Cabrera?
One might also point out that the Tigers wouldn’t make the playoffs without Verlander either, who also had a higher bWAR than Cabrera.
How about their value to their own team winning games? Just to throw the number out there, Trout is by far the major league leader in WAR - he’s been worth 10.7 wins over a replacement player. Cabrera is at 6.8 (behind Cano). It doesn’t make sense to give Cabrera bonus points based on the division his team is in, the seasons his teammates had, and the fact that BA and homers and RBI are the stats someone decided to use in box scores generations ago. Trout helped his team win more games than Cabrera despite the fact that he didn’t even get called up until the end of April.
Would one of Trout’s champions explain, concisely, what WAR means?
I’m already on the record as supporting Trout, but I have always found WAR (and comparable stats like VORP) to be pretty useless.
I know, I know, in theory, WAR would be an incredibly valuable stat if it really proved what it’s supposed to prove. I’m just not at all convinced that it does any such thing.
Similarly, Win Shares OUGHT to be a very valuable stat, but I’m not at all convinced IT tells us what it’s supposed to, either.
And worse yet, I’m frequently unconvinced that many of the people who cite WAR really know what it means, either.
So by all means, tell us what WAR means, how it’s computed, and why it’s better than the oldfangled stats we grew up with.
Please stop making this meaningless assertion. It doesn’t help your argument. Nobody plays to win their division either. (We’re pretending the players all want to win and nothing else matters, which is of course a fiction.) They play to win the World Series, which you do by making the playoffs, which you do by winning games in the regular season.
WAR is the number of wins a player produces over a “replacement” player. A replacement player is defined as the lowest level major-league player at that position.
For hitters, it is calculated via linear weights for each outcome for an at-bat. So, we first determine the relative value of outs, singles, doubles, etc. as well as non-hitting statistics like baserunning and defense (defense is by far the most troublesome part, and pretty much the entirety of the difference between various “flavors” of WAR). Then we convert that to runs created (after accounting for ballpark effects). Then we compare to a replacement level of runs created at that position and convert runs to wins.
Pitchers is done similarly, but for pitcher’s component stats (strikeouts, walks, HRs, etc).
You can find lots of information re: Baseball Reference’s version here - http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml
Finally, to bring this back to the current discussion, every single Triple Crown winner of the past has won WAR for position players, often by a significant margin. Cabrera is unique in that he is pretty much worthless on the bases and not good at defense. Trout is excellent in both regards.
But let’s ignore WAR, if you want. We can even ignore defense. Which “traditional” set of stats do you value more - BA/HR/RBI or OBP/Runs/SB. Because Trout leads Cabrera in all of the latter.
I’m not denigrated Cabrera here at all, and if you want to give him bonus credit for the TC I’m fine with that too (although not for making the playoffs - I just hate that argument). But I find it ironic that Trout does all of the things “we” say we want in a ballplayer - gets on base, runs extremely well, plays great defense - and yet we instinctively reward the poor-defending non-running slugger.
Simply, it’s a position-adjusted measure of a player’s hitting, baserunning and defense.
Slightly more complicated, it’s a position-adjusted measure of a player’s hitting, baserunning and defense as compared to the league average to show how valuable a player is compared to having to replace him with an average replacement-level player.
Even more complicated, it’s a position-adjusted measure of a player’s weighted Runs Above Average, Ultimate Base Running ability, and Ultimate Zone Rating (defense) that compares a player to the league average to show how valuable a player is compared to having to replace him with an average-level player.
You can see how it’s calculated by adding wRAA, UBRand UZR. It’s better than the oldfangled stats because… well, we can break that down by stat if you’d like:
Let’s focus on the Triple Crown stats, in order from most useless to slightly-better-than useless.
Runs Batted In: What’s the single most important factor for having a large amount of RBI? Having hitters in front of you in the lineup that get on base and into scoring position. NONE of that is dependent up on the RBI-earning player (well, other than RBI earned from HRs). So why is the RBI constantly being talked about? I honestly have no idea - it’s a completely worthless statistic. Player stats should measure an individual player’s performance, and burn off as much dependence on other players as possible. That’s what these “newfangled” stats try to do as much as they can.
Batting Average: Hits per At Bats - simple, right? Let me ask you a question - what constitutes an “at bat”? Why doesn’t it factor in walks? Being hit by a pitch? Hitting a sacrifice? Those seem pretty arbitrary, don’t they? Why not just “how often does he get on base”? That seems to be the point of hitting, doesn’t it? There are plenty of percentage-based stats that are more effective and comparable than Batting Average is, On-Base Percentage being just one of them.
Home Runs: We’ll never get away from this one. It’s not a bad stat - but it needs context. Why not HR rate? Why not Park-Adjusted HRs? Why not doubles, or walks, or runs, or any other counting stat? Because chicks dig the long ball. Doesn’t mean hitting a few more than the next guy necessarily makes you a better player.
Without looking up any definitions…
WAR attempts to capture a player’s total value relative to a mythical “replacement” player. There are slightly differing ways to determine how to calculate this, though everyone agrees on the general idea. Because of these differences, it’s important to make sure you’re comparing apples and apples. The two most well known and recognized WAR ratings are those calculated by Fangraphs (fWAR) and Baseball Reference (bWAR).
When we say “total value” for a position player, we are trying to include all of these things:
The numbers that go into the batting portion are the best numbers. More research has been done on hitting, and there is data available for a longer period of time. At this point, we have it pretty well down what helps you and what hurts you at the plate. Cabrera has had a very slightly better offensive season than Trout by most measurements. (Actually, after last night, fWAR gives Trout a very small offensive edge, but they’re functionally equal here, and both well clear of the rest of the AL.)
The numbers that go into the defense portion are a little bit fuzzier. In particular, the sample sizes are much smaller over time for fielding: 600+ PAs for hitting, far fewer opportunities in the field. We’re not look at errors here, either; we’re looking at stuff like “how many balls hit in his general direction did he field and turn into an out, relative to how many he should have?” It’s mostly agreed that single season defense numbers are good general indicators, but you shouldn’t get too worked up over specifics. There is also a positional adjustment baked into this number: a 3B is more valuable than a 1B, a SS is more valuable than either. Generally, Cabrera rates from a slightly below average to significantly below average 3B, while Trout is a significantly above average CF. Huge edge to Trout here.
The baserunning numbers are surprisingly good. Not necessarily as a predictor of future performance, but as a recording of what’s already been done. We know that stolen bases are X valuable, caught stealing takes away some Y of value, and runners take extra bases some number of times over the course of a season, which is worth Z. Cabrera, again, is slightly to somewhat below average here, while Trout is near the top of the league.
Once you add it all together, Trout ends up being 30 or 40 percent more valuable than Cabrera, largely on the basis of baserunning and defense. The only way you can even make the two of them close is by saying that these don’t matter at all, or that Cabrera is somehow comparable to Trout.
I think, at best, you can say that Cabrera’s batting has been slightly better than Trout’s batting. The fact that he leads in 3 specified categories is a curiosity. Is Cabrera’s season or his worth suddenly worsened by Josh Hamilton hitting 3 homeruns during the season’s last game?
Trout blows by him by virtue of being a “complete player”, something that old tyme voters valued as well. Well, they at least paid lip service to it when voting DiMaggio over Williams, they probably just hated Williams.
There have been several years past where the MVP award was taken literally and given to a player deemed to be of the most value to his team. The most glaring example I can remember was Mo Vaughn winning it in 1995 when Albert Belle was clearly head and shoulders better than anyone else playing baseball that season. The argument was that Vaughn was so much more valuable to the Red Sox while the Indians had other great players and if you removed Belle, they still would have been a great team. I’m not saying it’s a good argument, I’m just saying there is precident.
Also, last year when the Red Sox missed out on the playoffs, Jacoby Ellsbury’s chances at the MVP award went from decent to zero for that simple reason. Verlander still have won it (and deserved it) anyway, but missing the postseason was a real clincher to rule out Ellsbury.
I’m going to guess that decision also a lot to do with the “Albert Belle was a huge dick and nobody liked him” rule.
Yes. It was pathetically obvious that the arguments people were making for Vaughn being more valuable were cover for not wanting to vote for the guy they despised.
Same holds for Teddy Ballgame not winning MVP either of his TC seasons.
I went back and checked the top WAR position players by league over the past few years. I’m not sure I see Nick Markakis as an MVP, or Ben Zobrist as a multiple MVP.
Eh, Zobrist would have been a pretty good MVP in '09. OBP over .400, quite a bit of power, quality fielding at several positions; I’d have no problem putting him third or fourth in the AL behind Greinke/Verlander/Mauer that year. Looks like fWAR has him a bit ahead of Mauer, but Mauer isn’t getting much of a defense boost (since catcher defense is one of the last great frontiers of we-aren’t-really-sure-about-the-numbers-yet).
Markakis was at his best in '08 it looks like. Bit of a weak year at the top in the AL, no outstanding candidate, though as a Sox fan I can’t complain about Pedey getting the award. A .406 OBP across 700 plate appearances - remember, WAR is in effect a ‘counting stat’, in that the math works so that you should get a higher number with more playing time - is really, really valuable for a team. The 6.3 fWAR that Markakis put up that year isn’t quite MVP level in a typical year, though, and would have been 2+ WAR behind the AL leader in most years. Even in that weak year there are still a couple pitchers and couple hitters with more.
Just highlighting this part to point out that Trout didn’t play all season and still has a pretty solid WAR margin. And since he was called up, IIRC, the Angels have the best record in the AL.
Jayson Stark weighs in with a pretty well-reasoned stance.
This is reasonable and fair, and it bears mentioning. I think that I can speak for everyone else who has posted in this thread about WAR (whose opinions I pretty much universally agree with) when I say that it would be a dumb idea to just look at the WAR list and say “this person should get MVP.” There are all kinds of contextual things that affect how we interpret a player’s performance - team success, steroids, “clutch” performances, etc. - and I don’t think anyone here disagrees with that. Also, WAR isn’t the be-all end-all stat. It’s not even the bleeding edge stat geek’s preferred weapon of choice anymore.
But what a number like WAR does do is give you a fair ballpark estimate of the big picture, and give you a reason to look again at stuff you might not have had any way of valuating the first time. You look at Cabrera’s triple crown and you know what the numbers mean. You look at Trout’s season and you say, hm, a guy who leads the league in adjusted OPS is having a fantastic offensive year, and a guy who steals 48 bases and gets caught 4 times is having a ludicrous year running the bases, and all those circus catches make it seem like he’s having a great defensive year, but it’s very difficult to get a sense for how good all that stuff is when you put it together. Like, I guess a guy who stole second literally every time he got on would be really valuable even if he never hit a home run. And a guy who just caught everything in center field probably saves a lot of runs over the course of a year, but who knows how much. Then you look at WAR and you realize that by its estimation, right now, today, in far fewer games, Trout has produced as much value as Willie Mays did in 1964, and more than Ty Cobb did in 1911.
And remember, WAR knows those guys were good! WAR agrees with you about most of the famous names. My opinion is that when you realize that, and you notice that this WAR gizmo tells you that there’s only been 20 position player’s seasons better than Mike Trout’s 2012 in the history of baseball, and the names associated with those seasons are Ruth, Bonds, Yaz, Hornsby, Gehrig, Mantle, Mays, Wagner, Ripken, Morgan, Musial… you should consider the possibility that Ben Zobrist had a better year in 2009 than you thought, and that whether or not he’s the most valuable player in the AL this year is probably not a dramatic enough question to be asking about Mike Trout.