MLB HOF - Too Big or Too Small?

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by rats60

WAR is totally subjective. BB Reference uses ERA to determine WAR for pitchers. Fangraphs uses FIP. Fangraphs thinks Bob Veale was worth 8 WAR in 1965, better than Juan Marichal's 6.8. Baseball Reference thinks Juan Marichal was worth 10.3 WAR and Bob Veale was only worth 4.0. Which one is correct? How can you trust something that has so much variance? What do the error models look like for these two formulas? Imperfect has to be the understatement of the year.

To me….that’s not WAR being variable. Within either model, you get pretty good consistency.

But comparing two completely different things that happen to be called the same thing and expecting consistency is nuts. Even then, in most cases I’d guess the two models generally agree, although as you point out there are cases where there is wide discrepancies.

I use BB-R WAR because I’ve used that site since close to the beginning. FanGraphs is a great site I’m sure…but every time I go there it makes my head hurt. Too much advanced math for me!