Quote:
Originally Posted by bnorth
I will honestly say I do not understand WAR. I will say stats can be used to make any case you want. The baseball-reference page linked to earlier shows Ted Williams at 14. Anything that does not show Mr Williams as the best ever is flawed IMHO.
EDIT: To add I think saves is the most over rated stat.
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WAR is cumulative, so Ted is hurt by losing nearly 5 prime seasons to military service. If he had played those years, he'd be in the top two or 3 with Ruth and Cobb.
Here is a link to fangraphs where they explain how they formulate their version of WAR and all the stats that are included :
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/
ETA: older players may not be getting the full credit (or discredit) for their defense as the stats available back then are not nearly as good as the newer, more accurate one's, so take that into consideration as well.