Obviously Stassi and Fisher wouldn't be on there. Then Luhnow could trade for a LHRP like Britton at the deadline.
i think it's a fairly reasonable way to summarize a player. But I think the effect a player has on a team is not plug-and-play, so measuring it as a # of wins it would contribute strikes me as really bizarre. If it really was that simple, the whole aim of the game would be to maximize WAR without regard to position/etc. The fact that we say "hey, we need to improve our bullpen" instead of "we need to add 2 WAR" is indicative that it's not as simple as adding up WAR to determine how many games a team would win. I also think, unlike things like OBP or SLG or OPS or whatever that are simple % formulas, WAR is a bit of an arbitrary construction. Some individual is determining what each component is valued at, and different sources measure it differently and can come up with different results. Which means, in a few years, WAR might be a completely different measure but still called WAR. I get what it tries to do and think it has value. I just think it's weird to use as a catch-all to measure a player and price a player ($8MM/WAR or whatever) given that its formula can change on a whim and a team's needs do not just align with generic WAR.
Well for the most part that's true: the goal is to maximize total team WAR. WAR already accounts for position. X offensive production at SS is worth significantly more WAR than X production at DH. And there's strong correlation between the teams with the most WAR and the teams in the LCS's. But I will point out something that I feel gets lost a lot. WAR is a retrospective stat; it wasn't ever meant to be used as a metric for FA or future performance. The different versions of WAR (Baseball Reference vs Fangraphs) account for that slightly differently, and one is thus slightly more predictive than the other, but either way they're based on backward looking evaluations.
If you can get WAR on the field, it is very plug and play. As xcrunner says, it is retrospective stat, but projected or expected WAR is not. Regarding position, WAR is one of the few stats that take it into account. If a team needed a shortstop, OPS of a 1B doesn't matter. WAR of CF doesn't matter for measuring how good he would be in the pen. However, if a team has an option of trading for reliever or a CF, a team can figure out which will help them more by finding the marginal expected WAR between the upgrade and current player being replaced in CF and the pen. The upgrade that provides the higher marginal expected WAR is likely to help more. WAR isn't everything as positions do need to be accounted. Fangraphs expected WAR on their depth charts does account for playing time based on who is on team. When they update to add Stanton, Gardner's expected WAR will take a hit. The team projected totals are more accurate for the top teams than the bottom teams except for when a thin team has a bad rash of injuries. Regarding $/WAR, most teams pay free agents (excluding those for less than $20 million) based on a linear relationship between dollars and expected WAR using an aging curve. Teams have their own WAR models which usually are not (edit) too different for the better players, but a half a WAR difference on backup makes a big difference in the cost percentage wise. It was either last year or the year before that something like 18 of the top 20 free agent deals were within 5% of salary expected salary using a linear $/WAR, length of contract, the Steamer projected WAR for next year, and future WAR estimated using Fangraphs standard aging curves. Until teams that amass lower team WAR totals start outperforming teams that amass more total team WAR regularly and teams stop paying for expected WAR based on a linear relation, I find it highly silly to consider WAR a dumb stat. Yes, we will find out that parts of WAR calculations are off and need to be corrected. Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean it isn't the most useful stat at evaluating individual true talent level and it isn't the most useful when projected at determining a player's impact on a teams future performance.
If you can get Yelich for Tucker and change; I think you have to do it. He is under contract for 5 more years and his time would extend through the Astros window of 3-5 years.
Yeah, just like Correa, Springer and Altuve, he is going to get the most money he can. I am sure the Astros will try to make a deal for his replacement next off season.
He's only player that has been in rumor mill that I'd trade Tucker as main piece. Bregman and Yelich would be a nice beginning to the next great club controlled core.
