Who's Better, Player A or Player B?

[Stolensingle]

According to baseball almanac, there have been about 18,000 MLB players, past and present. This means there are approximately 162 million possible pairwise comparisons, between every one of these players and every other one. Looking through this forum, I see that there are no more than 3-4 million threads comparing one player with another, so clearly we have a lot of work to do.

I suggest that we determine the WARs of everyone of these 18,000 players, then perform all 162 million pairwise comparisons. This will generate a database that anyone can access in order to see if, for example, Robin Yount was a better player than Derek Jeter. If the difference in WARs for any comparison is significant at the p < 0.01 level, then the discussion of that particular matchup will be considered closed. If the significance is not that good, then opening a thread for further discussion will be warranted.

Happy New Year, everyone. Or maybe the more appropriate first would be three months from now.

[willshad]

According to baseball almanac, there have been about 18,000 MLB players, past and present. This means there are approximately 162 million possible pairwise comparisons, between every one of these players and every other one. Looking through this forum, I see that there are no more than 3-4 million threads comparing one player with another, so clearly we have a lot of work to do.

I suggest that we determine the WARs of everyone of these 18,000 players, then perform all 162 million pairwise comparisons. This will generate a database that anyone can access in order to see if, for example, Robin Yount was a better player than Derek Jeter. If the difference in WARs for any comparison is significant at the p < 0.01 level, then the discussion of that particular matchup will be considered closed. If the significance is not that good, then opening a thread for further discussion will be warranted.

Happy New Year, everyone. Or maybe the more appropriate first would be three months from now.

I really do not think one stat, even an all-inclusive one, should be used as the be all and end all of discussion-enders. I can name many examples of guys who had much less WAR than another guy, and yet was still a much better player. Roy Campanella gets blown away by Chet Lemon's WAR total, does that mean we cannot inslut the great name of Chet lemon by even conversing about a comparison between him and a lowly 31.6 WAR guy like Campy?

[Jackaroo Dave]

But doesn't the set of WAR with the operation > form a partial ordering? So you wouldn't have to compare Babe Ruth pairwise with everyone, just to the player below him and let transitivity take care of the rest, and so on down the line until you got to, I don't know, Hal Chase or whover did the most to help his teams lose? So there'd be n-2 comparisons, rather than n^2?

I can't think your proposition is serious, Sir. I believe you are deliberately planning to waste our time.

Happy New Year

[drstrangelove]

This is easy enough to address.

[Stolensingle]

I can't think your proposition is serious, Sir. I believe you are deliberately planning to waste our time.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, everyone. Or maybe the more appropriate first would be three months from now.

Anyone read this? Anyone who understands WAR ought to be able to add one plus three.

[GiambiJuice]

The anti-science crowd will always ridiclue those who search for new knowledge and are open to learning new things and challenging their preconceived notions. It has always happened throughout human history and it will never cease.

[Jackaroo Dave]

Anyone read this? Anyone who understands WAR ought to be able to add one plus three.

Spring training.

[Second Base Coach]

According to baseball almanac, there have been about 18,000 MLB players, past and present. This means there are approximately 162 million possible pairwise comparisons, between every one of these players and every other one. Looking through this forum, I see that there are no more than 3-4 million threads comparing one player with another, so clearly we have a lot of work to do.

I suggest that we determine the WARs of everyone of these 18,000 players, then perform all 162 million pairwise comparisons. This will generate a database that anyone can access in order to see if, for example, Robin Yount was a better player than Derek Jeter. If the difference in WARs for any comparison is significant at the p < 0.01 level, then the discussion of that particular matchup will be considered closed. If the significance is not that good, then opening a thread for further discussion will be warranted.

Happy New Year, everyone. Or maybe the more appropriate first would be three months from now.

Good god man, this is already going on... check the "vs" threads. They are there all the time. To each their own I suppose.

[filihok]

This is sort of being done at Baseball-Reference

http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/elo.shtml

We decided to take Elo's work and apply it to the ranking of baseball players. Our player pool consists of all MLB players who meet at least one of the following career criteria:

For active players
1,100 Innings Pitched
3,000 Games + Plate Appearances
8 Career War
For inactive players
1,500 Innings Pitched
4,500 Games + Plate Appearances
10 Career War
All players have an initial rating of 1500 points. These ratings are then updated by randomly selecting pairs of players and having them "play" each other.

Good god man, this is already going on... check the "vs" threads. They are there all the time. To each their own I suppose.

You may have missed something in the OP