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**PVNICK** · 12-03-2012, 09:42 AM

Konetchy was a very good player in his time and place. Its possible, though I did not look, that he was on the shortlist for best player in the NL a few times in the 1910s. That being said, and as much as it has been ridiculed to do this, a 138 OPS+ player v. a 123 OPS+ at 1B or COF without enormous intangible, baserunning and defensive differences is going to win out every time assuming similar PA. When does Delgado get to battle King Kong rather than the poor citizen's of Tokyo?

**willshad** · 12-03-2012, 11:52 AM

Seems odd to me how Delgado's WAR total is so low. Most anyone would admit he is a borderline HOF candidate, and yet 40.4 WAR would imply that he was about 4 or 5 all star type seasons away from compiling HOF value. he should be well above a guy like Konetchy.

**Yankillaz** · 12-03-2012, 11:56 AM

Originally posted by PVNICK View Post

Konetchy was a very good player in his time and place. Its possible, though I did not look, that he was on the shortlist for best player in the NL a few times in the 1910s. That being said, and as much as it has been ridiculed to do this, a 138 OPS+ player v. a 123 OPS+ at 1B or COF without enormous intangible, baserunning and defensive differences is going to win out every time assuming similar PA. When does Delgado get to battle King Kong rather than the poor citizen's of Tokyo?

As soon as he gets rid of all of them...

**Ben Grimm** · 12-03-2012, 12:32 PM

Originally posted by willshad View Post

Seems odd to me how Delgado's WAR total is so low. Most anyone would admit he is a borderline HOF candidate, and yet 40.4 WAR would imply that he was about 4 or 5 all star type seasons away from compiling HOF value. he should be well above a guy like Konetchy.

It's one of those things about WAR that somebody can explain to me 'til they're blue in the face, yet I'll never understand.

Looking at BB-Ref, his #4 comp is David Ortiz. During Ortiz's last eight seasons, he played from 5-10 games at 1B (interleague) a season and compiled a (-10) dWAR during that span. Delgado was playing 1B every day during his final eight years and he had a (-9.5) dWAR. This makes zero sense to me.

**westsidegrounds** · 12-03-2012, 02:04 PM

Originally posted by willshad View Post

Seems odd to me how Delgado's WAR total is so low. Most anyone would admit he is a borderline HOF candidate, and yet 40.4 WAR would imply that he was about 4 or 5 all star type seasons away from compiling HOF value. he should be well above a guy like Konetchy.

Do you dare to question WAR?

**BigRon** · 12-03-2012, 02:19 PM

Konetchy was a good player. However, his talents were probably better matched to the later game. Had he been born 10 or 15 years later he probably would have been one of the game's leading sluggers- sort of like Delgado.

Based on how their careers played out I give Delgado a modest win, but Konetchy may have been just as good- just not at the right time.

**Jackaroo Dave** · 12-03-2012, 04:50 PM

Originally posted by Ben Grimm View Post

It's one of those things about WAR that somebody can explain to me 'til they're blue in the face, yet I'll never understand.
Looking at BB-Ref, his #4 comp is David Ortiz. During Ortiz's last eight seasons, he played from 5-10 games at 1B (interleague) a season and compiled a (-10) dWAR during that span. Delgado was playing 1B every day during his final eight years and he had a (-9.5) dWAR. This makes zero sense to me.

Ben, dWAR may not be very well named. You might do better just to think of it as duhWAR, or dumbassWAR, and just look at what it's made of and not worry whether it's REALLY defensive wins above replacement. It has two parts:
1. The fielding runs component, rfield, which is only glove work and all the glove work. For David Ortiz's 46 games at first he has a total of -2, i.e. 2 runs below average (not replacement). Prorating, that would have him at about -6, 6 fielding runs below average for a year. I have no idea if that's accurate, and neither does anyone else, but it's not crazy, like 10 runs above average or 50 below.

2. The position runs component, rpos, which basically irons out the differences between OFFENSIVE values of the various DEFENSIVE positions. David is rated 105 runs below average over this span, which means, prorated for playing time, there was about a 13 run/year difference between what DH's hit and what everybody in general hit. So in a sense, David's absence of defense is being counted against him indirectly.

These add up to -107 runs, which when converted to wins is about 1/10, a little over -10 runs.

Delgado's similar score comes from a larger number of negative fielding runs and a smaller number of negative position runs, since he played a lot more first base and didn't play it very well, and he only DHed a little. He averaged about -4 runs a year for his fielding, but did not get dinged as heavily for his position, because AL DH hit better than NL first basemen.

You can quarrel with the details, or object to, say, the way position differences are ironed out, but it's not nutty on the face of it.

1. The names are not very illuminating and some are actually misleading.
2. The explanations are sometimes cryptic and full explanations are hard to find.
3. Some posters, obviously not Ben or wilshad, are resistant to the entire enterprise, and that makes it all the more difficult for them to understand it. Who can blame them? Why go to all that work to understand something you don't take seriously anyway?
4. There are real problems and difficulties: a. Choices had to be made and reasonable people could have chosen alternatives. b. The data, especially for defense, is not in the best of shape, and some of it is proprietary, so we are asked to take things on faith when we have reason to be sceptical.

To find explanations for the stats on BBREF, including a couple of articles on WAR and comparison of flavors of WAR got to www.baseball-reference.com/about. This is where all the explanations are, but links to it are not in obvious places. www.baseball-reference.com/about

**willshad** · 12-03-2012, 05:10 PM

Originally posted by westsidegrounds View Post

Do you dare to question WAR?

I just definitely think that the stat is unfair to sluggers who are there for their bat and not their glove. it appears to me that a great hitting, poor fielding first baseman who hits for a 140 OPS+ will fall well below a good fielding third baseman, even if the third baseman is an average hitter. This would indicate that fielding is actually more important than hitting, regardless of position.

For example, Adrian Beltre, at age 30, already had more WAR than Delgado had for his entire career. At that point, he had also played about 600 less games, with an OPS+ 33 points less. Sorry, but 600 more games, and an OPS+ 33 points higher is a HUGE amount of offense. There is not enough defensive and positional credit in the world to make up that difference.

But it's not just third basemen. Somehow, John Olerud, a significantly worse hitter than Delgado, ends up with with 14 more WAR for his career...putting him at borderline HOfer status. Because he played defense better at a position where no one cares about defense?

I'm not saying that first base defense is useless. If two first basemen are close in offense, I will give the edge to the defensive wizard, for sure. But it in no way should mean the difference between a HOFer and a non Hofer. It should also in no way be able to put Olerud so far ahead of Delgado, despite Delgado's 10 point OPS+ advantage. From the above examples, I can infer that had Delgado been great in the field, his WAR would have been well over 60, or even close to 70, for his career.

**Jackaroo Dave** · 12-03-2012, 05:49 PM

Originally posted by westsidegrounds View Post

Do you dare to question WAR?

Delgado is a marginal HOF candidate. I think the comp with Konetchy is a good one. There are ten first basemen whose careers overlap with Delgado's with ops+ > 130, and some of them--Bagwell, McGriff, Texeira, Pujols, can field too. He was a terrific hitter, but a poor fielder and base runner, and terrific hitters were not that rare in his era. I think WAR has him pegged about right; the unusually high level of offense at first base is tough on his WAR, but on the other hand, you could say that the era was very kind to players like him.

(edit: Just saw wilshad's post above. If Delgado had been a third baseman, he would be an easy hall of famer. The positional difference is arrived at pretty mechanically. Who knows how fielding is converted into ultimate zone runs, but positional runs seem pretty straightforward, although subject to variation beyond the player's control.

In 1983, Keith Hernandez replaced Dave Kingman as the Mets first baseman in June. Projecting their defensive runs to a full season for each player, Hernandez had about a thirty defensive run advantage, or about 3 WAR.

If you look at the advanced fielding stats and see the number and kinds of plays Hernandez made that Kingman didn't, it doesn't seem out of line at all.

I think we are seeing the pendulum swing back, and with better accounting, we have a better idea of the importance of defensive value, which, frankly, has been pretty much ignored at the corners until recently.)

**Sockeye** · 12-03-2012, 06:11 PM

Seems to me the win shares above bench (WSAB) is usually a better indicator than WAR in these matchups. Anyone else agree?

In this case Delgado - 161.2, Konetchy 128.1

**BigRon** · 12-03-2012, 06:20 PM

Originally posted by Sockeye View Post

Seems to me the win shares above bench (WSAB) is usually a better indicator than WAR in these matchups. Anyone else agree?

In this case Delgado - 161.2, Konetchy 128.1

It is extremely unpopular here but I, for one, have always attached at least as much, and often more, significance to Win Shares (WS) and WSAB than WAR. It doesn't surprise me that Delgado has a WSAB edge, but it doesn't change my opinion posted earlier- that, in a more recent era, Konetchy probably would be on at least equal footing with Delgado.

**Jackaroo Dave** · 12-03-2012, 06:31 PM

Originally posted by BigRon View Post

It is extremely unpopular here but I, for one, have always attached at least as much, and often more, significance to Win Shares (WS) and WSAB than WAR. It doesn't surprise me that Delgado has a WSAB edge, but it doesn't change my opinion posted earlier- that, in a more recent era, Konetchy probably would be on at least equal footing with Delgado.

Just glancing at a Hardball Times comparison of the two, http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/ar...s.-win-shares/ it seems that WAR treats good fielding better than Win Shares, hence Win Shares above Bench. This seems to fall into our defensive value theme, since even James, who put a lid on defensive win shares, called Konetchy the best fielding first baseman of his era, which is saying a whole lot. So that seems to draw the line in a clear place.

**Cowtipper** · 12-04-2012, 06:11 AM

Ed Konetchy is a darkhorse guy that I kind of support for the Hall of Fame. He has the grey ink of a Hall of Famer, he was great defensively (despite what WAR says) and he could steal bases. Delgado was a one-dimensional power hitter in an era of power hitters. I went with Konetchy.

Ed Konetchy	42.86%	3 votes
Carlos Delgado	57.14%	4 votes

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Ed Konetchy vs Carlos Delgado

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