Tuesday, September 10, 2013
WAR misconclusion
In this thread, there was this comment:
Then WAR isn't really measuring value over replacement level. It's an indispensible prerequisite to the concept of WAR that the (anticipated) production of the replacement level player in all three phases be identifiable and identified in a way that makes sense.
That is a false conclusion. His second sentence is correct, and actually, very well articulated. The key point is this:
identifiable and identified in a way that makes sense
And this is done by comparing the performance against the league AVERAGE player. This is the key part of the WAR framework as I've shown it many times. Everything is compared to the average, every little component. Heck, you can even break out the HR and BB and whatever, and compare it against the league average. Everything.
Then, at the end, you compare the total of all these components relative to average, and apply an overall average-to-replacement level adjustment. It's at the PLAYER level, not the component level.
And therefore the conclusion is that WAR *is* measuring against the replacement level... it's the replacement level player.
?