Bill James and his Sabermetric crew developed so many different stats starting in the 1980’s, and a lot of them are looked at and evaluated, but one advanced stat that stands out in discussions, is wins above replacement (WAR). The true definition is: the number of additional wins their team has amassed relative to the number of expected team wins if that player was substituted by a replacement level player; according to Sabermetrics. WAR is an attempt to sum up a player’s total contributions to his team. Besides WAR, there is runs created, BtRuns, OWn%, etc., that also help contribute to measuring help from that player to the team. When calculating WAR, one uses the following equation:
WAR=(Pruns-Aruns)+(Aruns-Rruns)
Usually the leader with the highest wins above replacement comes out to between 5.5-7.0, which means that they were worth up to 7 wins. Of course though being worth up to 7 wins is a lot, so to give a better example, the league average is usually around 3.8 or higher. When baseball analysts look into this valuable stat, they usually point out the players that have a WAR of 4.0 or higher, and state that those hitters/pitchers are team leaders in the win column that are key to a playoff race. When comparing different players in how much they can contribute to a team, WAR is very significant and can say a lot about a man’s value to a baseball team.
