Quote:
Originally Posted by nat
You can use WAR to compare players between eras. Now, it won't tell you how Babe Ruth would do in today's game. You'd need a time machine to answer that question. But given what it took to win games in Ruth's time, it'll tell you how many victories above a replacement player he added to his teams. And given what it took to win games in today's game, it'll tell you how many wins above replacement ARod contributed to his teams, and those two figures can be compared.
And it's meaningful to compare them. Wins have value in the context in which they're produced - in particular, in the particular seasons in which they are produced. So WAR can help you figure out how much value Ruth produced for his teams, and how much value ARod produced for his. (N.B.: WAR doesn't actually measure value, but it can help with figuring it out.) Even if it's the case that if you put Ruth in a time machine he would only put up 7.5 WAR seasons in today's game, he still generated more value for his teams than ARod did for his.
And yeah, Trout is really really good.
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I agree with this to an extent. The one issue just comes down to defensive production and our ability to quantify it has improved a ton over the last 10 years.
The more back in time you go the less reliable defensive numbers are, so we might not have a very accurate picture of the value of some of these old timers.
That being said, WAR is still a great "thimbnail" number to use to compare players. It's not perfect, but few things are. It does a well enough job for casual comparison.