One Post wrote:
Jaw Breaker wrote:
One Post wrote:
Hatchetman wrote:
WAR is based on a bunch of assumptions and made up equations. so, no, its not "data."
"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?
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.
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.
Who the hell you think you're talking to? This is the Chicago Sports Fan Message Board. Most of us understand exactly what WAR is and are well aware of its strengths as well as its shortcomings, in particular its huge over-emphasis on defense.
If you look at these two players:
A: .317, .383, .581
B: .266, .351, .432
and you're actually going to tell me that Player B had a better year than Player A, I have to think you're just adopting an outre stance to act as if you're smarter than everyone else or you have some special knowledge that others lack.
And if defense is the thing that vaults Weak Hitter B past Slugger A, B had better be Ozzie Smith while A is Dick Stuart. Of course, we both know that isn't the case.
Incidentally, how can one use SABRmetric analysis to conclude that defense on the outfield corners is next to meaningless in certain arguments and then in other arguments use that same negligible defense to argue that some goof was actually better than the league MVP?