It's time to brace for baseball's annual debate over the merits of WAR, the game's relatively newly embraced statistical toy. In other words, welcome to post-postseason play, and get ready for an outcry if Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout isn't named the American League's Most Valuable Player.
Though few of even the most ardent fans fully understand it, most have now at least heard of WAR. For those late to the table, it stands for the number of wins above a replacement-level player for any given player -- and in the eyes of many, it has become the gold standard for individual rankings. The one thing we do know is that, by any measure, the WAR statistic has given us another way to judge -- in other words, another way to confirm that players we knew were good are, in fact, good.
There is a formula for determining WAR, but unlike traditional numbers such as batting average, on-base and slugging percentage and earned run averages -- the old time stats some have not-so-gently phased out of the discussion -- it is not easily defined. That is at least a significant part of the problem.
