Forman: My answer to “I don’t like how complicated WAR is and how it is constantly changing”
From SABR member Sean Forman at Baseball-Reference.com on March 29, 2013:
Some of the common critiques of the Wins Above Replacement framework include: 1) Why do FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.com have such different numbers, 2) How can we trust it when the numbers change, and 3) How can we trust it when I can’t calculate it?
For the first question, our announcement today of a consistent replacement level between FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.com has done a considerable amount to bring our two methodologies into alignment at least on the question of how big of a basket of WAR to hand out to players each year. Previously, FanGraphs allotted nearly 300 additional WAR due to a much lower replacement level. Our meeting in the middle has erased this difference to zero.
For the next two questions, I would point to a very widely quoted and very widely used statistic from economics, Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Here is the Wikipedia article on Gross Domestic Product. I’m going to argue that WAR is essentially GDP for baseball.
Read the full article here: http://www.sports-reference.com/blog/2013/03/my-answer-to-i-dont-like-how-complicated-war-is-and-how-it-is-constantly-changing/
Related link: FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.com are unifying definition of ‘replacement level’
Originally published: March 29, 2013. Last Updated: March 29, 2013.