Probably was a stretch to lump Braun with Gordon as world class LFs. Braun was no worse than average and probably a bit above on the whole.

Not sure what his play in RF last year has to do with his play in LF? You know those are two distinctly different positions right?

He's also the poster boy for the flaws inherent in WAR. A .260 hitter who slugs .430 and has less than twenty homers on an outfield corner is "more valuable" than Miguel Cabrera. Okay......

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Gordon had a 7.2 WAR in 2011 so last year wasn't even his career year.

Guy has a 28+ WAR for his career as a 30 year old. That's pretty good stuff.

JORR is the poster child for someone who has data contradict their uninformed opinion and then unscientifically attacks the data.

Nah, I didn't need James to tell me that, but judging by your body of work around here I figured you did...

Lots of touchy Cubs fans out there. I guess actually having expectations are getting to them.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

It's not scientific at all. It's not even data.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

So, One Post, you would rather have Kris Bryant puts up numbers that are closer to Alex Gordon over numbers like Miguel Cabrera?

Okay......

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burned...you got me there

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

WAR isn't data? Hmmm, I'd tell you to look of the definition of the word "data" in the dictionary, but you would probably tell me that dictionary isn't an actual word.

Just because you don't understand something JORR doesn't mean it isn't data. I don't have the foggiest idea about viscosity of liquids, but I know that the measurements of how viscous a liquid is, is in fact data.

WAR is based on a bunch of assumptions and made up equations. so, no, its not "data."

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Do I want Gordon's career over Cabrera's? No of course not. Do I find it implausible that a player who is a defensive savant in the OF and performs at a clip of about 20% better than the average player can be more valuable than a masher who is the equivalent of a corpse at 1b on a 162 game basis? No.

"Made up equations"? I'm not sure what that means.

Boy that Pythagerous, just a idiot making up equations. What a dufus.

H-man, you realize the assumptions and inputs are constant in computing WAR right?

You already lost.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Why don't you give yourself some rope and explain.

It's over. You lost.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

It's like the QB rating in football. It's a number based on people's opinions of what is important. The weightings given to the actual data (number of touchdown passes, completion %, etc.) are subjective.

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Anything that ever has Gordon over Cabrera is flawed and stupid.

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Elections have consequences.

Damn, I'll have to walk down to my bosses office and tell him to close up shop. He's been running this place for over 15 years using assumptions in his comparitive and predicitive models for financing, production, sales, etc. It's a shame we will have to close down the shop because Boilermaker Rick just says anyone using assumptions in measurement or predictive models has lost.

Well I guess in my free time I'll drive down to the Johhson Space center and tell them to board that place up as well. Those stupid rocket and planteary scientists always using assumptions in their models. Sure using assumptions has helped refine and eventually prove the factual certainty of many scientific laws, but if Boilermaker Rick says that using assumptions in measurement of predictive models has lost, I'm sure all of those Ph.d's down there will understand.

Good plan.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

so you work in a snake oil shop!

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

He certainly doesn't understand that the results of his models don't become fact simply because he says they do.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm going to respectfully disagree. The purpose of the qb ranking is to get to a number, that is the ranking. The ranking itself has no independant verification for its value. WAR is quite different. WAR attempts to quantify a number of Wins in excess of a baseline number. Although not accurate to 100% certainty, and thus itself an assuption, there is a general idea for how many runs create a win. So the general acceptance is that x number of runs, generates one win. We know what a win is worth because there are a finite number of them available 162.

Reading the above, this is about the crappiest of crappy explanations I can give, but hopefully it passably articulates why I think there is a huge difference between what WAR is attempting to measure, and what the QB rating attempts to measure.

In short what I mean is that there is a lot of certainty that x number of runs will produce a win, however, there isn't any guarentee at all that a QB rating of y will produce anythign other than a QB rating of y.

There are so many assumptions with WAR that the two major services that are used for WAR are often significantly different.

WAR is just a statistical model. There is no reason to believe it is right or wrong. If someone wants to buy into it then go ahead. I can promise you that when Theo and Jed are looking at how much to spend on a player they aren't doing anything more than a passing glance at the WAR of the player.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You know what I assume? 2005.

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2005.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

but.....but.....PECOTA!!!

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Kenny lost the 2015 "I use stats a lot" championship though.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

1907+1908

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I appreciate your self depreciating humor.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!