Seasons most over or underrated by WAR

[1905 Giants]

Im talking about seasons that are either under 4 WAR but were better or over 6 and should be lower. This isnt a criticism of WAR in particular, but every stat has its blindspots.

[Bothrops Atrox]

I would say any submission should include which particular aspect of WAR is believed to be "causing" the incorrectness.

[1905 Giants]

I would say any submission should include which particular aspect of WAR is believed to be "causing" the incorrectness.

Agreed on that BA.

[1905 Giants]

I'm going to try one first (forgive me if I'm wrong), but Carl Y. 1967 (12.5), This season has the fourth highest WAR of All-Time, and I wonder why. Certainly it was a great year, but top-4 all-time confuses me. Roger Hornsby 1924 is right below him, when Hornsby hit .424 and his dWAR wasn't all that bad. Maybe I just misunderstand the impact of the season or the math involved?

[GiambiJuice]

Aaron Nola's 10.2 WAR season a couple years ago.

Same year, same league, same division...

Nola (10.2 pWAR)
212 IP, 173 ERA+, 0.98 WHIP, 224 K, 58 BB

deGrom (9.9 pWAR) - 217 IP, 218 ERA+, 0.91 WHIP, 269 K, 46 BB

Nola had an excellent year but nothing about it screams '10 WAR', a total that has been reached by just a small handful of pitchers in the last 40 years.

So many great peak pitchers from the last 40 years have NEVER had 10 pWAR in a season, including (to name a few) Greg Maddux, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Roy Halladay, Curt Schilling, Johan Santana, and Max Scherzer.

In the last 40 seasons it has only been accomplished by six pitchers, including Nola:

Roger Clemens (1990, 1997)
Randy Johnson (2001, 2002)
Dwight Gooden (1985)
Pedro Martinez (2000)
Zack Greinke (2009)
Aaron Nola (2018)

[jjpm74]

I would say any submission should include which particular aspect of WAR is believed to be "causing" the incorrectness.

Rick Reuschel's 1977. The aspect is that using his WAR to say he is a HOFer causes me agita.

[willshad]

Irv Young, 1905. 20-21, 106 ERA+, 9.9 WAR.

Mediocre-pretty good pitchers who pitch a lot of innings for bad teams seem to be vastly overrated by WAR.

[GiambiJuice]

Irv Young, 1905. 20-21, 106 ERA+, 9.9 WAR.

Mediocre-pretty good pitchers who pitch a lot of innings for bad teams seem to be vastly overrated by WAR.

As WAR is a counting stat it doesn't surprise me that a mediocre pitcher can rack up a lot of WAR when they pitch 378 innings in a season. That's part of what baffles me about Nola's 10-spot. He only pitched 212 innings, with excellent but not historic run prevention, and still reached a total that's never been reached by Maddux, Kershaw, etc.

[dgarza]

Rick Reuschel's 1977. The aspect is that using his WAR to say he is a HOFer causes me agita.

Home/Road splits plus Wrigley Effect?

                              
Split    W L W-L%  ERA GS    IP
Home    12 4 .750 2.50 17 122.1
Away     8 6 .571 3.05 20 129.2

1977 Chicago Cubs Statistics

Park Factors: (Over 100 favors batters, under 100 favors pitchers.)
Multi-year: Batting - 111, Pitching - 112
One-year: Batting - 113, Pitching - 114

[GiambiJuice]

I'm going to try one first (forgive me if I'm wrong), but Carl Y. 1967 (12.5), This season has the fourth highest WAR of All-Time, and I wonder why. Certainly it was a great year, but top-4 all-time confuses me. Roger Hornsby 1924 is right below him, when Hornsby hit .424 and his dWAR wasn't all that bad. Maybe I just misunderstand the impact of the season or the math involved?

To be fair, Yaz played 161 games in '67 while Hornsby only played 143 in '24. So Hornsby beats Yaz by more than a full win per 162, which is not insignificant.

WAR/162:
1924 Hornsby - 13.82
1967 Yastrzemski - 12.58

Also worth noting:
1924 NL average .283/.337/.392
1967 AL average .236/.303/.351

Hornsby still dominated his league more than Yaz did, no question, but not quite to the full extent that the difference in their raw numbers would indicate.

[1905 Giants]

To be fair, Yaz played 161 games in '67 while Hornsby only played 143 in '24. So Hornsby beats Yaz by more than a full win per 162, which is not insignificant.

WAR/162:
1924 Hornsby - 13.82
1967 Yastrzemski - 12.58

Also worth noting:
1924 NL average .236/.303/.351
1967 AL average .283/.337/.392

Hornsby still dominated his league more than Yaz did, no question, but not quite to the full extent that the difference in their raw numbers would indicate.

As I conceded, I could be wrong. '24 was still one Hell of a season.

[Chadwick]

This seems more appropriate for the Statistics forum than the History forum.

[jerrylu42]

I guess maybe some of Bonds' seasons were overrated? There are possible ones such as his 1987~1989 seasons.

[Stolensingle]

Nola is one of the fairly uncommon pitchers that is evaluated completely differently by FG and BBRef. At FG, he produced only 5.4 WAR in 2018, 8th in MLB. Part of the reason he was valued higher at BBRef is because they use RA/9 primarily. FG lists RA/9, but makes adjustments to it. Nola had 7.8 RA/9 WAR at FG, but he was docked 1.8 WAR for BIP, and 0.6 WAR for LOB, resulting in a net of 5.4 fWAR. Only Blake Snell had a higher total of BIP + LOB than that, 3.3.

Using the 7.8 WAR value for RA/9 at FG, Nola was tied for third, but still trailed well behind deGrom, at 9.6, and Snell at 8.1. So the adjustments to RA/9 don't account entirely for the discrepancy with BBRef.

[Toledo Inquisition]

While I hate to say anything positive about Barry Bonds, some of his later seasons are probably too low. Intentional base on balls are excluded from the wOBA average. There are two general type of IBB....one setting up GIDP and one where the manager "fears" the hitter. Of course some of the "fear" bleeds into the setting up GIDP component, but it is applicable. Since many of Bonds' IBB were a component of "fear", that is a legitimate skill (albeit caused by chemicals)...but still a resultant of Bonds' himself.