Bob Ryan on baseball's WAR

How does using replacement value as the baseline negatively affect the precision of the metric?

 

That's not what you argued, Dick. You compared arguing with the usefulness of replacement to complaining about the existence of zero. There is a significant difference between the two, one you refuse to acknowledge.

 

It's a distinction without a difference. Zero provides a baseline for measuring something. RickStain's example was temperature. There's no real reason that what we think of as zero degrees has to be zero. It's arbitrary. At least replacement level isn't exactly arbitrary. It purports to represent something. And even if it doesn't represent it in pinpoint fashion - because that would be impossible - it serves its purpose by giving us a baseline to measure everyone against. Like zero.

 

Your problem is your looking for something instead of some things.

OPS is flat. The world is round.

You object to the Jeffrey Hammonds argument, but you present no logical rationale for the objection. No stat is perfect and no "SABR head" would suggest anyone make value judgments based on any one stat.

 

I guess I don't know how narrowly you define "SABR head," but WAR was the entirety of the argument for Trout against Cabrera.

I believe the term you used for dissenters was Morganites.

 

WAR was the shorthand for the argument. That argument was that positional scarcity and defense made him more valuable.

 

I don't use those types of terms. I describe people as they are. WAR absolutely was not the entirety of the argument for Mike Trout over Miguel Cabrera.

How important is WAR to this argument or this one or this one.

 

And baserunning.

[/tryingdesperatelynottogetsuckedintoo]

 

I amend my statement. The columns you link are all cases that were made for Trout. Compelling cases, but ultimately those writers knew the thing was subjective.

The ones I'm talking about -- Passan's stands out most prominently but I know there were others, and certainly the chatter on here -- were the ones calling Cabrera voters idiots. And those were about WAR.

 

Passan was a whiny baby about that. And I often like his stuff

 

"Zero Celsius, zero Fahrenheit." Drops mic.

Oh hell, RickStain beat me to it.

 

So are there any other prominent Trout voters who called voters idiots? Or even non-voters who were partial to Trout? I'll grant you Passan (and even Keith Law, just on principle), because I do remember that whiny column about "stubborn" Cabrera voters that he wrote in November.

Or are we citing some random college kid's post at FanGraphs or BTBS or SB Nation?

Because I also remember Dave Cameron and Nate Silver and Joe Posnanski and Rob Neyer and Brian Kenny and Jonah Keri all laying out a pretty reasonable and strong case for Trout, statistically and through narrative, without much name-calling (and sometimes without even bringing up WAR.) Did they bring up Cabrera's well-known weaknesses in the field and on the bases? Of course. Did they call Cabrera supporters idiots? I'd like to see proof that anyone with any significant standing in the sabermetric community was using those type of mean-spirited tactics in the MVP debate.

We can all find idiots on Twitter and on blogs who say stupid shit all the time. But that doesn't mean the "saber heads" were in lockstep and bashing anyone who thought different.