Steve Sailer

Similarly, WAR proves in hindsight that Mike Trout's predecessor Mickey Mantle was a great, great baseball player, a statistical insight known in 1957 only to every single nine-year-old boy in America.

So I think what you're saying is SABRmetrics is better at evaluating ordinary rather than extraordinary players.

LOL. Very true. But, sometimes fans and sports writers are wrong. Miguel Cabrera won MVP over Trout twice when he clearly should not have. I'd let him have it in the triple crown year, simply for sentimentality. But Trout put up 1.7 more WAR in the next year--1.7!!

I spent 15 years getting the hell beat out of me by press and the baseball establishment for saying crazy things like "I think Ron Cey is actually a better player than Steve Garvey." I didn't do that for ANY reason other than that I thought it was true.

Garvey was my favorite player as a kid, & the Dodgers were my team. I knew Cey was a good player too but I underestimated the value of a walk & how they create runs. Walks were something leadoff guys TRIED to do, & 8th players hoped to do w/ 2 outs (so the P would not lead off).

If a metric puts only big names at the top it's boring. But if it's all surprises it's probably crazy. To be interesting it aught to have both Babe Ruths and Walter Johnsons up there.

Here's Baseball Reference's Wins Above Replacement all-time list: Babe Ruth Walter Johnson Cy Young Barry Bonds Willie Mays Ty Cobb Hank Aaron Roger Clemens Tris Speaker Honus Wagner Stan Musial Rogers Hornsby Eddie Collins Ted Williams Not many surprises for pre-analytic fans