BASEBALL WAR, What Is It Good For? (Absolutely Nothing)

Baseball has a statistic for everything, and baseball people love their stats.  Every time you watch a show like MLB Tonight or Baseball Tonight, there’s inevitably going to be a Peter Gammons or a Tim Kurkjian speaking in code, spewing out this vast array of different numbers that are difficult to understand.  MLB Network even has a new show called Clubhouse Confidential, where Brian Kenney and Harold Reynolds get into an old-school/new-school debate.

Of course, Old School vs. New School really went head-to-head in last year’s AL MVP race.  On one hand, you had Mike Trout, the sabermetrician’s dream.  On the other was Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera.  Fortunately, the writers got it right and awarded the MVP to Cabrera.  Trout’s WAR wasn’t enough to sway the voters over the more traditional numbers.  Nor should it have.  Because of all the “stats” that I disdain the most, WAR is right up there with OPS.  I hate both of these made up “statistics,” and I hate it even more that they’re the be-all, end-all point used by some statheads to prove the validity of their argument.

Let’s start with OPS.  OPS stands for “on-base + slugging,” and it has really become en vogue over the past couple of years.  I understand the idea behind wanting to combine these two numbers into one thing.  It shows a guy’s ability to get on base while also hitting for power.  But here’s the problem (and why I hate OPS so much): the way OPS is determined is entirely wrong.

People come up with it by simply adding the two numbers together.  If a guy’s on-base percentage is .300 and his slugging percentage is .500, then his OPS is listed as .800.  But it’s not.  On base percentage is hits+walks+hit by pitches divided by total plate appearances.  Slugging percentage is total bases divided by plate appearances.  So, OPS is then hits+walks+hit by pitches+total bases divided by plate appearances.  A single counts as a hit for on-base  percentage purposes, but is also one total base for slugging percentage purposes.  That’s why you can’t simply add the numbers together.  You’re counting a single twice.  Once as a hit (in OBP) and once as a total base (in slugging).  The formula should be total bases+walks+hit by pitches.  Until they realize that and start figuring it out correctly, I’m not going to be jumping aboard the OPS bandwagon.

But OPS is nowhere near as ridiculous as WAR.  WAR stands for “Wins Above Replacement.”  What does that even mean?  The “replacement” is a hypothetical Quadruple-A player (the key word here is hypothetical).  There isn’t even a standard formula to calculate it.  In other words, it’s completely arbitrary.  That’s one of my biggest problems with WAR.

The sabermetric community loves this “stat” because it factors things like baserunning and defense in with the standard counting statistics to determine a player’s “true value to his team.”  But there’s no real, tangible way to measure a player’s defense.  The WAR people have developed their various fielding metrics, such as defensive runs saved and ultimate zone rating, but again, these stats are totally arbitrary.  Bottom line is there are way too many subjective elements that go into WAR for it to be considered a credible metric.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not entirely opposed to all of these new-school statistics.  WHIP, which has become very popular in fantasy baseball, is incredibly useful.  Walks+hits per inning pitched.  In other words, how many runners a pitcher puts on base per inning.

Likewise, I’m a big fan of BABIP, which stands for “batting average on balls in play.”  It takes strikeouts out of the equation.  Some guys, especially power hitters, strike out a lot.  That’s why they end up hitting .220 every year, even though everybody knows they’re actually a much better hitter than that.  The thing I like about BABIP is that it has just as much value for pitchers as it does for hitters.  How often does he get outs other than via strikeout?

Sabermetrics has its proponents, and they’re not going to go away.  I understand and accept that.  But if I had to pick a side, I’d have to consider myself “old school.”  Proponents of sabermetrics have tried to find a way to determine a player’s value beyond the traditional numbers.  I give them credit for trying.  And some of it is definitely worthwhile.  Just not enough.