Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
Link please. I don't think this is true at all.
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I get that people are skeptical. And on a side note, I don't like seeing a thread about something else (in this case, the HOF ballot) devolve into a WAR debate. But here goes...
Feel free to google "baseball war," as you'll probably find many links to many interesting articles. On the most basic level, Wikipedia's page on WAR includes some analysis including a link to a regression analysis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wins_Above_Replacement
The equations that Fangraphs and BaseballReference use are also on that page. They are not a secret recipe or behind a curtain, they are there to be enjoyed and criticized for both their attributes and faults.
In this recent story on MLB.com (note that WAR is not a stat recognized by MLB), the influence on front offices of teams are explored:
https://www.mlb.com/news/war-embrace...ces-c303484670
One takeaway from that MLB story: "At this point, though, every team in baseball is employing some sort of WAR calculation."
Basically, every team uses some evolutionary child of WAR, which probably got started in earnest 20 years ago (or so). It's not the ONLY assessment they use for player evaluations, but it is ubiquitous at this point.
So the masses of front office personnel, the minds at various websites like BR and Fangraphs and the sabermetric community in general has spent two decades honing and debating these things - this is what I'm talking about with WAR being vetted.