• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Mike Trout on pace for greatest season in MLB history

80 homers, .410 batting average and 165 RBI ?
 
I LOVE Mike Trout but this is totally insane. Bonds from 2001-04 is ridiculously better. Most of the 20s for Ruth were massively better. Ted Williams had a six year period surrounding his service in WWII that were incredibly better than how Trout has started this year.

I'm sure there are dozens of other seasons better than this one. Making this statement should end the use of WAR as a viable "stat".

Edwin Starr was correct.

 
Bonds was a first ballot, 95+% Hall of Famer BEFORE roids.
 
“If statistics don’t prove what i believe to already be true, then they are bunk”
 
Bonds was a first ballot, 95+% Hall of Famer BEFORE roids.

true - however you specifically mentioned Bonds 2001-04 seasons, at which point he was on roids (and at which point he had already assembled a HOF resume)

“If statistics don’t prove what i believe to already be true, then they are bunk”

I'm a fan of advanced statistics, and WAR in general, but it is not an exact science

defensive WAR is never going to be exact - which is why the headline "greatest season in MLB history" is misleading

(not to mention we're ignoring Walter Johnson's 1913 16.4 WAR season - ERA+ of 259 in 346 innings, PLUS an OPS+ of 109 as a hitter)
 
In 2001-04, pitchers were using steroids as well. However, whether Bonds was on rodis or not has less than nothing to do with his alleged WAR during those years.

Again, I LOVE Mike Trout. He's this generation's Mickey Mantle (and I saw Mickey Mantle). It is totally irrational to say that Trout's first 45 or so games this year can possibly compare to Bonds' four year stretch. There is no way any legitimate statistical concept that can compare Trout's .431/.600/1.031/OPS+ 182 to Bonds' worst year of those four .529/.749/1.278/ OPS+231.

nor can Trout's numbers be compared to Ted Williams. Ted had SEVEN years better than this one .497/.615/1.112/OPS+189

We're not even talking about Ruth, Gehrig, Mays or others.

WAR is total BULLSHIT and this week's stance shows it clearly.

Trout is an all-time great talent, but there is no rational or reasonable formula that can say his start this year is close to the greatest years of all time.
 
It's a formulaic idiosyncrasy obviously. Trout is not having a better year than Betts or Machado (who is playing ss).
It's impossible to compare favorably with a guy who homered once every 6.5 at bats, no matter how limited his defense or baserunning.
 
#rjdoesntunderstandstatistics

I used actual stats of players for over twenty years and Trout was inferior to all of them. KingW brought up two players who are having much better starts than Trout is THIS year.

#rjgetsthatWARisBS

There's always an excuse as to why WAR doesn't work...it's not perfect...there are idiosyncrasies...there are as many excuses as there are posts...
 
Last edited:
Such a strange stance to be so passionate about and really out of touch with what's going on around the league. Like what is so, so bullshity about this?

"Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is an attempt by the sabermetric baseball community to summarize a player's total contributions to their team in one statistic. You should always use more than one metric at a time when evaluating players, but WAR is all-inclusive and provides a useful reference point for comparing players."
 
A stat should also be equally usable no matter which player and what team he's on. It's far more difficult for a team like the Pirates to replace Cole or McCutcheon than it would be for a rich team to replace a player. It's also far more difficult to replace an elite C, SS or 2B than it is to replace a LF, RF or 1B.
 
ERA is not “equally usable.” The problem is that you make no attempt to understand WAR and make no cogent criticism of it.
 
Honestly you make no attempt to understand even simpler concepts of sabermetrics, like batter vs pitcher matchup data or “hot hand” data. Just admit that you don’t understand them, and that you have no interest in anything that doesn’t confirm your own beliefs.
 
Honestly you make no attempt to understand even simpler concepts of sabermetrics, like batter vs pitcher matchup data or “hot hand” data. Just admit that you don’t understand them, and that you have no interest in anything that doesn’t confirm your own beliefs.

I have been looking at batter vs. pitcher match-ups since the 1960s. The same is true for "hot hand". You couldn't be more wrong.

Of course, many basketball stat geeks say the "hot hand" doesn't exist.
 
It's far more difficult for a team like the Pirates to replace Cole or McCutcheon than it would be for a rich team to replace a player.

This is not relevant to measuring how good a player is.

It's also far more difficult to replace an elite C, SS or 2B than it is to replace a LF, RF or 1B.

This is accounted for in positional weightings.
 
I am not an expert on sabermetrics by any measure, The problem with WAR, as I understand it, is that the measures used and statistics generate an estimate of runs. Runs are then transformed into wins. Ten runs are made equal to one win. Huh? How much weight does the difference in a player's BA over the his real or mythical replacement have in generating team wins?

I also always think of Wally Pipp, whose replacement player was Lou Gehrig, not some mythical average player who doesn't exist.
 
Back
Top