George Brett is the 15th most overrated player in history

I'll grab the pitchforks, you grab the torches.

4 months ago RoyalsRetro 18 comments 0 recs |

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Other former Royals on the list to be pitchforked include

Bill Buckner, Cookie Royas, Jermaine Dye, Hal McRae, Lou Pinella, and Jose Guillen.

by ks.cowboy on Jan 23, 2012 10:26 AM EST reply actions

I saw this and was thinking that was a shitload of players...

out of 50 for a team that is 1 out of 28+ and only in existence for a little over 40 years

I am the one who knocks.

by PhattStairs on Jan 23, 2012 10:23 PM EST up reply actions

So sick of WAR-mongering

I swear that there’s more to baseball than linear weights hitting statistics + UZR (or whatever defensive stat BR uses). But in their list of 8 possible reasons that their WAR-based measure would find a player overrated which includes items as strange as:

The player is given extra credit to make up for unfair blame he received for something else. Example: Bill Buckner

They fail to mention the possibility that WAR simply underrates the player. In fact, all of their reasons take it as assumed fact that WAR tells the true story.

by kcdc1 on Jan 23, 2012 11:41 AM EST reply actions

yeah

let’s go back to evaluating players based on batting average, home runs, degree of charisma displayed during media interviews, and the quantity and quality of the chicks they banged.

It is just a list using one method of analysis and meant for discussion to pass the time until pitchers and catchers report.

by Gopherballs on Jan 23, 2012 3:59 PM EST up reply actions

Yeah, I know that post not designed to be evil

I just get a little tired of people citing WAR as if it’s an infallible, catch-all metric. It happens all across the blogosphere whenever it’s time to discuss awards, FA signings, trades, extensions…..just about anything.

I don’t mind WAR; it’s a very good metric. I wish people would just put slightly little less faith in it.

by kcdc1 on Jan 23, 2012 4:28 PM EST up reply actions

WAR and its siblings get used the most because there is not really a better alternative out there

Or at least one that has been reviewed and gained relatively widespread acceptance — sorry Polk Points.

It is not realistic that every mention of WAR comes with a disclaimer rehashing the pros and cons of using it. A lot of the raging against WAR seems to come from arguments along the lines of WAR must be wrong because it does not like my favorite player or team or even better “I went to game and saw Yuniesky Betancourt hit a game-winning home run, so he must be good.”

In this particular instance, the author even included a paragraph on the limitations of his method.

by Gopherballs on Jan 23, 2012 5:39 PM EST up reply actions

You know, the original title of War and Peace was War, What is it Good For?

Absolutely nothing, UNGGGHHH!

by OnixConcepcion on Jan 23, 2012 5:46 PM EST up reply actions

I don’t mind using WAR for analysis like this. I’d be totally fine with it in this case if the author just mentioned the possibility that WAR understates a player’s value. Instead, he just mentioned a bunch of reasons that public perception might over-value a player as he assumed that WAR tells the true story. He explains the pitfalls of public perception with terms like “extra credit,” “not appropriate judged,” and “not representative,” but doesn’t acknowledge that where bWAR and public perception differ, it’s possible that public perception could be correct.

In this particular instance, the author even included a paragraph on the limitations of his method.

He does?

by kcdc1 on Jan 24, 2012 10:46 AM EST up reply actions

From the end of the paragraph explaining what he means by "overrated"

“So as you read the list below, keep in mind that it’s generated from these two data sets—the EloRater and bWAR—and that as with any stats, they have their limitations.”

So every article that mentions WAR has to include a bunch of disclaimers about WAR? Does that apply equally to articles that do not mention WAR so that they need to include a disclaimer that WAR exists and might disagree with the points made in the articles?

by Gopherballs on Jan 24, 2012 12:30 PM EST up reply actions

Also, they fail to mention one of the best ways to be found overrated by their system

Which is to be near Barry Bonds on the EloRater chart.

Their method finds a player’s eWAR (which they take to be the player’s standing in the world’s baseball minds) by averaging the WAR of the 6 players that are within 3 spots of the target player’s ranking on the EloRater chart. Bonds is ranked #25 on the EloRater chart despite his insane 172 career WAR. Of the 6 players that happened to include Bonds’s career WAR in their eWAR calculation, 3 found themselves among baseball’s top 50 overrated players.

Taking another player with a lot of career WAR but who got knocked down the EloRater list for steroid use, 2 of the 6 players within range of Palmeiro (at #144) were found to be among baseball’s top 50 overrated players.

by kcdc1 on Jan 23, 2012 12:11 PM EST reply actions

If Bonds were to fall 1 spot lower on the EloRater chart behind Cal Ripken with nothing else changing

He would be out of Brett’s comparison range, and Brett would instantly fall off the overrated list.

by kcdc1 on Jan 23, 2012 12:17 PM EST up reply actions

That's some serious eWar gravity well

that Bonds has.

Dear original authors: beware of non-uniform transformations applied to your data. If you don’t keep track of what you’re doing, you may just find that your results are mostly the effect of your analysis.

by 2X2L on Jan 23, 2012 2:31 PM EST up reply actions

That's a pretty devastating critique

Skepticism is a very useful approach to studies like these.

by KSinDC on Jan 23, 2012 5:26 PM EST up reply actions

right now...

I’m just an entry level Psychology major going through classes like Intro to Psych Stats and what not and there are so many flaws in so many studies…it angers me that these flaws end up doing harm to other studies with less flaws…but……………………

in Psychology (and all sciences) they use the term “convergence” to imply that all studies have flaws, but together all the studies lead to overall small progresses as science plods along…

therefore, I think there is nothing wrong with looking at where Brett is and discussing it, because we all know what he did to the mutherfucking Yankees! Boom, Yosted…peace out

I am the one who knocks.

by PhattStairs on Jan 23, 2012 10:31 PM EST up reply actions

did they account for the pine tar incident

that moves Brett up 5 nothces on the ‘coolness WAR’ scale, and everbody knows that the higher a players cWAR, the less possible it is for him to be overated.

by DickHowser4ever on Jan 24, 2012 9:53 AM EST reply actions

They might be right about Brett

He was a great player and a HOFer. No doubt. But he was the second best 3B of his time after Mike Schmidt, he never hit for huge power, and he was defensively mediocre. We may remember him as a little better than he really was.

"That fucking fucker of a general swears too fucking much." --Unnamed soldier about Gen. George Patton, 1943

by Juancho on Jan 24, 2012 10:00 AM EST reply actions

bWAR, which this article is using as the definitive measure of worth, has Brett #47 overall

and #3 among 3rd basemen (well behind Schmidt and just behind Boggs) or #4, if you include A-Rod.

EloRater, which this article uses as the measure of public perception, has Brett #22 among hitters and #2 or #3 among 3rd basemen (ahead of Boggs but behind A-Rod).

Those seem like pretty comparable ratings.

by KSinDC on Jan 24, 2012 3:08 PM EST up reply actions