eras committee candidates baseball HOF

GaryPassamonte · #1 11-10-2024, 03:22 PM

My main interest in baseball is the 19th century. I don't claim to know much about WAR, but it does seem to be unkind to players of the 19th century. How does WAR adjust for shorter seasons and a small ball style of play? Also, defensively, how are players who played before gloves were worn compared to later players who wore gloves. Walks were relatively uncommon, too. There are many other differences I could add. It just seems to me that it is virtually impossible to fairly evaluate players across eras when so many factors and strategies were different. There sure aren't many 19th century players on the top 100 WAR leader board.

Peter_Spaeth · #2 11-10-2024, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GaryPassamonte

My main interest in baseball is the 19th century. I don't claim to know much about WAR, but it does seem to be unkind to players of the 19th century. How does WAR adjust for shorter seasons and a small ball style of play? Also, defensively, how are players who played before gloves were worn compared to later players who wore gloves. Walks were relatively uncommon, too. There are many other differences I could add. It just seems to me that it is virtually impossible to fairly evaluate players across eras when so many factors and strategies were different. There sure aren't many 19th century players in the top 100 WAR leader board.

Kid Nichols ranks 4th among pitchers. Tim Keefe 15th.

G1911 · #3 11-10-2024, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GaryPassamonte

My main interest in baseball is the 19th century. I don't claim to know much about WAR, but it does seem to be unkind to players of the 19th century. How does WAR adjust for shorter seasons and a small ball style of play? Also, defensively, how are players who played before gloves were worn compared to later players who wore gloves. Walks were relatively uncommon, too. There are many other differences I could add. It just seems to me that it is virtually impossible to fairly evaluate players across eras when so many factors and strategies were different. There sure aren't many 19th century players on the top 100 WAR leader board.

WAR directly reduces the value for 19th century pitchers, because otherwise the lists would be dominated by them and their high inning counts. The shorter seasons lead to hitters having lower values of WAR naturally without the direct lowering it does to punish pitchers. Defensive values use a lot of assumptions to fill in missing datapoints, adding to the many problems.

I think WAR is useless for the 19th century, personally. 19th century baseball is pretty much 1/6 of professional baseball history, but rarely gets anywhere near 1/6 of the star credit or fame or attention, unfortunately.

Peter_Spaeth · #4 11-10-2024, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G1911

WAR directly reduces the value for 19th century pitchers, because otherwise the lists would be dominated by them and their high inning counts. The shorter seasons lead to hitters having lower values of WAR naturally without the direct lowering it does to punish pitchers. Defensive values use a lot of assumptions to fill in missing datapoints, adding to the many problems.

I think WAR is useless for the 19th century, personally. 19th century baseball is pretty much 1/6 of professional baseball history, but rarely gets anywhere near 1/6 of the star credit or fame or attention, unfortunately.

So do you think Nichols should be ranked higher than 4th all time? If not, how do you explain (genuine) why WAR doesn't seem to punish him the way you say it punishes others?

cgjackson222 · #5 11-10-2024, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G1911

WAR directly reduces the value for 19th century pitchers, because otherwise the lists would be dominated by them and their high inning counts. The shorter seasons lead to hitters having lower values of WAR naturally without the direct lowering it does to punish pitchers. Defensive values use a lot of assumptions to fill in missing datapoints, adding to the many problems.

I think WAR is useless for the 19th century, personally. 19th century baseball is pretty much 1/6 of professional baseball history, but rarely gets anywhere near 1/6 of the star credit or fame or attention, unfortunately.

As you know, WAR is a comparison vs. a theoretical replacement player. It doesn't compare across different eras or years.

So I am confused as to what you mean by "WAR directly reduces the value for 19th century pitchers".

Individual season WAR leaders ARE dominated by 19th century pitchers.
Just look at this list: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...h_season.shtml

ALL of the top 28 single season WAR leaders for pitchers were from the 19th century, with exception of 4 seasons (2 by Walter Johnson, one by Cy Young, and 1 by Dwight Gooden).

GaryPassamonte · #6 11-10-2024, 05:14 PM

It would seem that WAR elevates 19th century pitchers and devalues 19th century position players based on the last few posts?

Since WAR is a comparison measurement to a theoretical replacement player, wouldn't it be more relevant by comparing players who played within a small time, frame, such as a decade or so? Or maybe comparisons of players who played under similar rules and conditions? Comparing George Wright to Aaron Judge using the same set of valued factors can not be accurate. WAR obviously makes assumptions based on data that is not complete. We can mathematically come up with batting average, OBP, the number of walks, etc. The answer is absolutely accurate. WAR is a useful tool, but it is not an absolute answer because it is only as good as the formula(s) used to compute it. I'm sure the formulas have been adjusted and are a continual work in progress?

Peter_Spaeth · #7 11-10-2024, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

As you know, WAR is a comparison vs. a theoretical replacement player. It doesn't compare across different eras or years.

So I am confused as to what you mean by "WAR directly reduces the value for 19th century pitchers".

Individual season WAR leaders ARE dominated by 19th century pitchers.
Just look at this list: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...h_season.shtml

ALL of the top 28 single season WAR leaders for pitchers were from the 19th century, with exception of 4 seasons (2 by Walter Johnson, one by Cy Young, and 1 by Dwight Gooden).

I also don't understand the comment about pitchers with respect to career totals, since Nichols rates 4th, Keefe 15th, and Clarkson 19th.

FrankWakefield · #8 11-10-2024, 06:24 PM

The WAR Calculation

https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/

G1911 · #9 11-10-2024, 07:45 PM

WAR and the subcomponents use a moving baseline as the fundamental comparison, designed to account for a number of era differences and normalize to a comparable figure across eras.

The effect is to significantly lower 19th century pitching WAR, to make it comparable to other era's. It still comes out on top of the seasons list largely by virtue of the guys who were really 1 man rotations in a 2 man rotation era, but by a much smaller margin than it would otherwise. This is why Radbourn, who dominated for 678 innings, is far less than twice as valuable in war as Gooden who dominated in 276 innings.

Whether this is good or not depends on purpose and perspective. Obviously, a pitcher who leads the league in run performance rates and hurls 500 innings is innately more valuable than a pitcher who does it for 200 innings today, the value of a particular player at pitcher is much less today than it was then, as the game has changed and pitcher is no longer a one/two man show but a whole rotation with relievers. The position is equally, perhaps more important, today but the large roster of guys on the mound devalue any single pitcher. WAR attempts to contextualize the performance to the time in which that performance occurred - 19th century pitchers receiving the most punishment as a result, so that we point to a guy at #4 and a guy at #15 instead of a list much closer to the innings leaders list.

cgjackson222 · #10 11-10-2024, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G1911

WAR and the subcomponents use a moving baseline as the fundamental comparison, designed to account for a number of era differences and normalize to a comparable figure across eras.

The effect is to significantly lower 19th century pitching WAR, to make it comparable to other era's. It still comes out on top of the seasons list largely by virtue of the guys who were really 1 man rotations in a 2 man rotation era, but by a much smaller margin than it would otherwise. This is why Radbourn, who dominated for 678 innings, is far less than twice as valuable in war as Gooden who dominated in 276 innings.

Whether this is good or not depends on purpose and perspective. Obviously, a pitcher who leads the league in run performance rates and hurls 500 innings is innately more valuable than a pitcher who does it for 200 innings today, the value of a particular player at pitcher is much less today than it was then, as the game has changed and pitcher is no longer a one/two man show but a whole rotation with relievers. The position is equally, perhaps more important, today but the large roster of guys on the mound devalue any single pitcher. WAR attempts to contextualize the performance to the time in which that performance occurred - 19th century pitchers receiving the most punishment as a result, so that we point to a guy at #4 and a guy at #15 instead of a list much closer to the innings leaders list.

Not sure what you mean by WAR uses a �moving baseline� or that WAR �attempts to contextualize the performance to the time in which that performance occurred.�

Isn�t WAR a mathematical formula that compares players to their peers within a given season?

Where in the formula does it compare/contextualize to other years/eras?

The reason why Gooden�s season is worth so much was because it was so much better than his peers. Yet it is still barely in the top 30 seasons ever. The rest are basically all 19th century pitchers.

Pitching a ton of innings used to be common, so doing so did not by itself separate you from your peers.

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