WAR and how it relates(or doesn't) to the MVP case for Judge and Altuve

Seems like Bill James recently wrote an article about WAR, and how even though it stand for wins above replacement, it doesn't really account for wins. Instead it is really about 'runs above replacement', and predicting possible future performance, rather than reflecting this past year performance.

The way this relates to Judge/Altuve is that from a statistical perspective the Yankees and Astros had around the same overall WAR, but the Astros ended up with 10 more wins. The question then becomes whether or not these additional 10 wins should impact WAR or not (it currently does not). The argument from Bill James and some others is that Altuve was clearly the more valuable player due to his team having a lot more wins than the Yankees, and also performing much better in high leverage situations.

Anyways, I found the following articles quite interesting regarding this topic, and am always happy to see any articles further affirming Altuve's status as best in baseball.

Joe Posnanski's take:



Bill James original article:
https://www.billjamesonline.com/judge_and_altuve/