Anybody who knows me knows I have never been in favor of WAR and other sabermetric stats. As time has grown, I have gotten used to it. Even though stats like WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) and OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) are the most basic of sabermetrics, they are as important to the game now as ERA and Batting Averages. Any "expert" will tell you WAR was the greatest thing ever created. They say it isn't flawed and it is more acurate in telling how valuable a player is his team. And like I said, I have excepted it. I will no longer battle feverishly with a group of people who simple think I don't understand sabermetrics. I will no longer stress how with very few exceptions, players with good statistics (AVG, HR, RBI; Wins, ERA, K) have high WAR. I will never again state that sabermetric statistics are an overkill and use a bunch of formulas to state facts that we, as baseball fans, already know.
But I will argue this point with anybody: You cannot, under any circumstances, tell whether a batter is better than a pitcher or a pitcher is better than a batter. THEY ARE SEPERATE ENTITIES! I don't care how it says that Jose Bautista and Justin Verlander are tied atop the AL lead with 8.5 WAR. Or that Matt Kemp has a WAR of 10.0 and thats better than Ryan Braun's 7.7 and Clayton Kershaw's 7.5. The batting WAR and pitching WAR have to be seperated.
According to WAR, the better hitter is going to trump the better pitcher. An all-time offensive season will get more credit than an all-time pitching season. Lets look at Justin Verlander's 2011 season. An 8.5 WAR is excellent. But he was 24-5, with a 2.40 ERA, 250 K and a 0.92 WHIP in 251 IP. As good of a season for a pitcher in years and not something that happens every year.
Matt Kemp (.324, 39, 126) had a WAR on 10.0. Verlander's season was one of the all time great seasons for a pitcher, especially in the modern era. There is no way anybody can say that Matt Kemp had a better season than Justin Verlander. Nothing except for the WAR statistic that says Matt Kemp is more valuable a player than Justin Verlander. Thats why it needs to be seperate.
Kemp's season is duplicated every season by players like Miguel Cabrera, Jose Bautista, Adrian Gonzalez etc. Verlander's is not. Like I said, batters and pitchers are two seperate entities.
Keep WAR like it is. Sabermetricians have made for more to be analyzed today than ever before. But keep hitting stats seperate from pitching stats.
But I will argue this point with anybody: You cannot, under any circumstances, tell whether a batter is better than a pitcher or a pitcher is better than a batter. THEY ARE SEPERATE ENTITIES! I don't care how it says that Jose Bautista and Justin Verlander are tied atop the AL lead with 8.5 WAR. Or that Matt Kemp has a WAR of 10.0 and thats better than Ryan Braun's 7.7 and Clayton Kershaw's 7.5. The batting WAR and pitching WAR have to be seperated.
According to WAR, the better hitter is going to trump the better pitcher. An all-time offensive season will get more credit than an all-time pitching season. Lets look at Justin Verlander's 2011 season. An 8.5 WAR is excellent. But he was 24-5, with a 2.40 ERA, 250 K and a 0.92 WHIP in 251 IP. As good of a season for a pitcher in years and not something that happens every year.
Matt Kemp (.324, 39, 126) had a WAR on 10.0. Verlander's season was one of the all time great seasons for a pitcher, especially in the modern era. There is no way anybody can say that Matt Kemp had a better season than Justin Verlander. Nothing except for the WAR statistic that says Matt Kemp is more valuable a player than Justin Verlander. Thats why it needs to be seperate.
Kemp's season is duplicated every season by players like Miguel Cabrera, Jose Bautista, Adrian Gonzalez etc. Verlander's is not. Like I said, batters and pitchers are two seperate entities.
Keep WAR like it is. Sabermetricians have made for more to be analyzed today than ever before. But keep hitting stats seperate from pitching stats.
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