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He was incredible, but I would still put Pedro Martinez' 6 years from 1998 to 2003 ahead of him.
i never understood why WAR and ERA+ are applauded as good stats to compare players of different eras...
all both those adjusted stats do is compare players to others of that season... so yes, a higher ERA+ or WAR is saying they were better compared to the players peers...
but that really hurts players whose peers are much better...
let me make a clearer point
if i take three pitchers(from any time period) lets say i pick Walter Johnson, Randy Johnson and Roger clemens... and lets assume they all played at the same time in the same league... then those three will be affected by eachother...
now if i take another three lets say Greg Maddux, Mike Mussina and tom Glavine- another three greats... but clearly Maddux is the best of the three...
both ERA+ and WAR would have a much bigger affect on Maddux's numbers than Walter johnson/clemens...
adjusted numbers are so weird because we use them to compare players of different eras... but it takes away all context to answer that question...
I see what you’re are saying but the league averages of a timeframe also reflect on the conditions(like the bigger K-Zone of the 60’s) and the run environment of a player’s timeframe. View attachment 396419
It would be more accurate to say that adjusted stats measure the level of mvp.
As all it measures is who is the best compared to that players peers.
I do applaud what war tries to do as it really tries to be an all inclusive stat. But again it may include everything but the replacement level stats used is based on the season played.
There is no stat out there that measures difficulty of sesson or level of play. For example, it is a well accepted belief that the 2025 NL is significantly better than the 2025 AL. But with better pitchers AND better hitters the league averages shouldn’t be too different.
Wouldn’t you make the assertion that 2 similar players, that playing for the NL should give them a bonus??
League averages include a lot of stats to compare to, especially currently with 30-teams. WAR or WAA makes a good sorted list. You’d need to have your own ranking system with valid numbers for weighted values to debunk another ranking system.
Pitching WAR by bbref, FanGraphs & Baseball Prospectus can really differ. I was looking at some BP updates and looked up some Kyle Freeland WAR. Freeland is 21st in fWAR with 0.8 and is 17th at Baseball Prospectus with 0.8 at bbref he is tied for 360th with -0.1
dont get me wrong.. i am still looking at stats like WAR... its the best all inclusive stat out there that is given...
there is a clear difference between comparing 2 players with not similar WARs... like lets say Aaron Judge and Jake burger...
i just dont trust the difference between players of different eras within a certain amount of WAR points...
Ive been thinking that instead of using a replacement player for WAR or the average player (ERA+, OPS+) it would probably be better to use a certain HIGH ranked for that stat...
maybe use the 10th best in the league... it would probably be more accurate because it is the better players that create the skewness of the era...
for example, Look at Mel Ott, he led the league 6 times in HR, but all those times he led the league he hit under 40 HRs... that is telling me that the league he played in was not a big HR league...