WAR, and why to be WARY of it...get it?

See what I did up there? WAR, Wins Above Replacement, and wary, you know, cautious, careful...hey shut up. If you want your 0.00 back for reading this, then be my guest.

Now, if you're reading this, you should know that I am probably the biggest fan of FanGraphs for at least a 200 mile radius. I love everything they do. I love their writers, especially Dave Cameron, Jonah Keri and possibly my favorite, Carson Cistulli.

Anyways, FanGraphs has a beautiful Library that will serve you far more than my words here can describe WAR. Long story short, WAR tries to quantify the value of a player, any player, regardless of league, team or position compared to the AAA or bench player. Hence, the exact wording Wins Above Replacement (player). I won't get into the fWAR vs rWAR debate and differences here, as again, it can be found in much more clearly yet much less words at the FanGraphs site. Just go to it already. I'm going to keep plugging it until you do.

Anyways, the point of this post was inspired by this article. What I'm most intrigued by here is how the author cites WAR, notes UZR and then Total Zone metrics. He then goes on to explain the lack possibility of each system recording different findings, and then how MLB teams have their own systems, which could even further dilute, or clear, the muddled waters of defensive metrics.

I have no issue with Bill Barnwell, in fact I loved his article and look forward to many more, I just have an issue with WAR and UZR being noted in a publication and not noting the sheer volatility that can accompany each statistic.

Daric Barton was a 5.1 WAR player last year. To put that into some sort of perspective, Chase Utley was at 5.4 WAR, Jay Bruce at 5.3, Brandon Phillips at 4.3, David Wright at 4.0 WAR

Anything wrong with that picture? Lets move on for now.

In 2009 Franklin Gutierrez was an alien.

He had to be. He put up a 6.3 WAR. Six wins! SIX! That's the difference between playoffs and couch-sitting come October for a lot of teams. A 6 WAR season is impressive to say the least. How did he do that? He must have mashed, at least as far as one can mash in the SafeCo. Except he didn't really hit that well. Sure, a CF with a wRC+ of 105 in a full season is nothing to scoff at, but that cannot explain his value jump. And it doesn't. Gutierrez's massive jump in value, came from a huge up-shoot in his UZR, which reflected upon his WAR. In 2009, he was estimated to save 28.9 runs above replacement before you calculate what he did at the plate. The word you're looking for here isn't astronomical. That word wouldn't do his numbers justice that year. The word you want to use is assassin, because whenever Gutierrez was in CF, fly balls were sent there to die. In seasons accumulating over 400 PA Gutierrez's WAR is 2.3, 6.3, 1.9. Which one of these is not like the other?

Now that we've seen how a single season of UZR data can be absolutely distort that season's WAR, lets go back and look at 2010 Barton a little differently. He had a .3589 wOBA, wRC+ of 127. Well above league average on both accounts. Unfortunately, his WAR was also falsely inflated by saving 12 runs above average on defense. Unless Keith Hernandez died and was reincarnated as another first basemen, this time with even less power, then I think we've found our 5 WAR season outlier.

I'm not ripping on Barnwell, FanGraphs, numbers or anything like that. I just hate when a writer fails to convey the thought that even though it's a long baseball season, one year of UZR data, and by extension one year of WAR, is taken as gospel. I believe in the numbers, I really do. I'm just a little wary of them.