Wins Above Replacement Player
Encyclopedia
Wins Above Replacement, commonly known as WAR, is a non-standardized sabermetric
baseball statistic that is used to show how many more wins a player would give a team as opposed to a "replacement level", or minor league/bench player at that position. While WAR values are scaled equally for pitchers and hitters, the result is calculated differently for pitchers versus position players: position players are evaluated using statistics for fielding and hitting, while pitchers are evaluated using statistics related to the opposing batters' hits, walks and strikeouts.
There is no clearly established formula for WAR. Sites that provide the statistic, such as Baseball Prospectus
, Fangraphs
, and Baseball Reference, all calculate it differently; however, all of these sites calculate the value of WAR using these principles, and each site publicly acknowledges their methods for calculating their individual WAR values.
Sabermetrics
Sabermetrics is the specialized analysis of baseball through objective, empirical evidence, specifically baseball statistics that measure in-game activity. The term is derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research...
baseball statistic that is used to show how many more wins a player would give a team as opposed to a "replacement level", or minor league/bench player at that position. While WAR values are scaled equally for pitchers and hitters, the result is calculated differently for pitchers versus position players: position players are evaluated using statistics for fielding and hitting, while pitchers are evaluated using statistics related to the opposing batters' hits, walks and strikeouts.
There is no clearly established formula for WAR. Sites that provide the statistic, such as Baseball Prospectus
Baseball Prospectus
Baseball Prospectus is an organization that publishes a website, BaseballProspectus.com, devoted to the sabermetric analysis of baseball. BP has a staff of regular columnists and provides advanced statistics as well player and team performance projections on the site...
, Fangraphs
Fangraphs
FanGraphs.com is a website run by Fangraphs Inc., located in Arlington, Virginia, and created and owned by David Appelman that provides statistics for every player in Major League Baseball history....
, and Baseball Reference, all calculate it differently; however, all of these sites calculate the value of WAR using these principles, and each site publicly acknowledges their methods for calculating their individual WAR values.