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I will also add that all star appearances, RBI, homers, OPS, steals, MVP voting are ALL flawed. However, I am not depending on one stat to make or break my case. When Carter is better in 90% of stats and watching th em both in action one was better. Plus in terms of baseball history he is more relevant.

Okay, one last time.

WAR is a comprehensive stat that takes into consideration offense and defense and calculates how valuable you are compared to a replacement level player.

None of your offensive stats take into consideration defense.

Overall Gordon was the better player and to argue otherwise is simply ignorant.

WAR is a flawed stat. Even the founder of it Will James will admit as much. It’s goal is to be comprehend it it is not for more reasons than I can state. Google flaw in WAR stat or if you have a good understanding of statistics (not baseball stats) but actual statistics find out how WAR is made and the underlying assumptions and behind the math decisions you can poke holes throughout.

Alex Gordon played LF literally the position with the least defensive relevance. Stop acting like he was a SS he was actually a bad 3B with a good arm converted to LF. Dude had maybe 3 high quality above average seasons. If you can point to more please tell me. MOST of his seasons were garbage in a garbage team

To say that anyone could put up his Toronto numbers well he was the 4 hitter on. Steam with 2 HOF. Alomar and aging Winfeild. Are saying he is a product of Grubrr and Olerud. Also he was putting up the same number in Cleveland Yes he swing at everything and didn’t hit for a high average. He also stole bases and didn’t K a lot for a power hitter. I am not saying he was the greatest ever. Saying he was very good and better than Gordon.
Man after had a 9 season stretch of 30 homers 100 RBI and like 20 steals. Gordon wished he had one season like that.

You are incredible. I bet you are one of those guys who thinks Earth is flat. Another interesting thread destroyed by you and your flawed “logic”. Congrats!

Back to the topic. Pretty much the only player I am waiting for is SS Gossage. I don’t think anyone else will make my team. Maybe starting pitchers Hersheiser, Vida, Newhouser..

Ok troll if you are going to talk [censored] please explain my flawed logic. Nobody as insulting anyone. Not sure why you are bringing that douche energy. Here are the points to my argument please point to the one that is flawed

You should not use a single stat to determine players ability. You should use multiple stats. This is a premise used by real life statisticians

WAR is a very flawed stat. The inventor of WAR says as much. There are many poor assumptions. I am not alone in this MLB doesn’t use the stat. You can’t find an incentive based contract that uses it either.

Carter is better than Gordon in every offensive stat but WAR. By other less objective measures it still informative measures like all Star appearances and MVP finishes he is superior. These are facts

I concede that Gordon is a better fielder. However, I am saying that given LF is the least important defensive position that it doesn’t rally add to the case. Especially because most corner OF are there primarily because their offense. I don’t see how the statement is even controversial.

The point is WAR, even if it is a singular stat, is better than the stats you're referring to (I.e. RBIs (meaningless), SBs (almost as meaningless), All star appearances (utterly meaningless)).

OPS-wise Carter and Gordon are easily comparable with neither having elite-production seasons and both ranging seasonally in the 700s or low 800s).

Defensively they arent remotely comparable.

You're missing the point that it is extremely difficult to provide additional wins into WAR and dWAR as a left fielder, but Gordon did. Meanwhile, Carter actually played under replacement level and actually cost his team games with his defense...

Why do you think Keith Hernandez' career dWAR is 1.3? Because although he was a great fielder, it is very difficult to provide additional defensive wins as a 1B. The fact that Gordon was able to produce 8.6 defensive wins based on dWAR as a left fielder is actually very impressive and shows that he actually had a net-positive impact there (unlike Carter).

Lastly, Bill James (not Will) is not the creator of WAR but win shares. He criticises WAR sure but how about you go to him and present your analysis between Carter and Gordon based on RBIs, stolen bases and all star appearances... Wonder what he would say to that....

We just disagree about the use of WAR as a singular stat. I think that ANY singular stat RBI, homers, BA etc is not as good as a full statistical analysis. I am not using ONE stat. When triangulating the data which any statistician on the planet would say is a better method of analyzing data than looking at any one stat you get a better idea of the player. Here are some facts

Carter is better stats in the following:

Homeruns (career, single season, per AB),
RBI (career, single season, per AB),
Steals (career, single season, per AB),
hits (career, single season, per AB),
Triples (career, single season, per AB),
Runs (career, single season, per AB),
BA (career)
Slugging (career, single season) - number of .500 SLG season
OPS (career, single season) - number of .800 OPS seasons
OPS+ (career)
All-Star selections
Top 10 MVP selections

Gordon played a great LF and a horrible 3B

WAR is a not a perfect stat. Here are a few articles that touch on it
WAR article
lThis WAR article touches other aspects of it that might directly impact this comparison

Here is an example of how BAD a stat WAR can be and you can find TONS when you start to look. Take a look at 1994 Carter
G AB R. H HR. RBI. SB BA. OBP. SLG. OPS
1994 34 TOR AL 111 435 70 118 27 103 11. .271 .317 .524 .841

I think its fair to say that a season like this that got him a top 10 MVP finish and an all star selection is not something that any typical replacement player could have pulled off. Clearly baseball people realize it was a great season thus the All Star selection and MVP votes. Those are good numbers. But according to WAR this won't even get you an extra win as the WAR for this season was 0.7. This is in large part due to his -1.6 dWAR. Wow such a bad dWAR you would think he was making tons of errors. Nope only 2 errors. So I guess he was missing balls? Really? won't get into how that is measured in WAR but it is VERY subjective.

Realistically, I'm not even writing this to you, but the other forum members, because I know nothing can make you change your mind.

Here is how baseball reference calculates defensive WAR:

W-L% = ((League Runs/Game / 2)^(Runs/Game involving Player))/((League Runs/Game / 2)^(Runs/Game involving Player) + ((League Runs/Game / 2)- Player Defensive Runs)^(Runs/Game involving Player))
DWAA = (W-L% - .5) * Games Played
DWRSE = Player Defensive Runs / ((2 * (league Runs/Game)^.715) - (2 * (Runs per Game involving Player)^.715))
DWAR = DWAA + DWRSE

How much do you think this has to do with how many errors Carter committed?

How valuable do you think a player that never commits an error but covers an area the size of a basketball is to a team?

You've decided that WAR is somehow an arbitrary stat but how about we put this thing to a vote here? How many people do you think will vote for Carter?

WAR tells much more about a player than any of those base stats used together. Gordon’s career is better than Carter’s, and only a true moron would think otherwise.

Driver when you don't have a good argument the classic move of unintelligent people is to name call. I disagree with Sefar, but he is smart enough to have an intelligent argument without an insult. But when we last had a WAR debate I asked if you have EVER taken more than 6 credits in Math or statistics, if you have EVER taken a undergraduate or masters level statistics class. If you have have even 60 college credits. I also asked if you have ever had to use stats or develop statistical analysis in ANY professional manner. I can answer YES to all of those and to me that is not a high bar. So before you call someone a moron you should look in the mirror.

Hopefully I have enough college math credit to qualify for a conversation about baseball stats, but I digress...

Most people would argue, as you have, that Joe Carter was a far superior hitter, and that offensive superiority over Gordon outweighs Gordon's defensive superiority over Carter. Fair enough. I've seen both these guys play and, based on my memories, I'd have thought that too. However, our memories/eyes lie all the time. Here's a slash line comparison:

Gordon: .258/.339/.413/.752
Carter: .259/.306/.464/.770

Now defense. By ANY metric available Gordon is the far superior defensive player. Fangraphs Def rating difference is +27.4 for Gordon to -175.7 for Carter. Baseball Ref dWAR is +8.6 for Gordon to -15.7 for Carter.

So, to recap, OPS is essentially a pick-em, especially since Gordon has a decided edge in the most important offensive category (OBP). Defense is a landslide in Gordon's favor. That's why the difference in WAR is pretty dramatic.

So if I'm an AL team and can DH Carter then maybe I'll take him. But if he has to play a COF position, Gordon will help my team more in the long run. Bottom line is Joe Carter was not nearly as good as we remember.

I very much appreciate you reiterating this. It's nothing that wasn't already stated on the previous pages, but sometimes repetition is helpful. It's definitely interesting that Joe Carter specifically has this tendency of making people view him through - in one way or another - tinted glasses.

No it was quite different in that they brought in the overall slash line and not JUST WAR.

I think Joe Carter is looked at positively because he was a very good player. I think the change in narrative about him is about the cult of WAR that has become popular especially amongst non-athletes since his retirement.

His poor WAR is silly on the face of it. The example I gave of his 1994 WAR illustrates my point.

Now you can have your new last word

Thank you for graciously offering me the last word.

This is what I stated two days ago:

"The point is WAR, even if it is a singular stat, is better than the stats you're referring to (I.e. RBIs (meaningless), SBs (almost as meaningless), All star appearances (utterly meaningless)).

OPS-wise Carter and Gordon are easily comparable with neither having elite-production seasons and both ranging seasonally in the 700s or low 800s).

Defensively they aren't remotely comparable.."

OPS (and the minuscule difference between Gordon's and Carter's career OPS) has been referred to several times in this thread.

You ignored that and instead referred to RBI's, stolen bases and all star appearances as some sort of a difference maker. Problem is, RBI's and all star appearances are useless when it comes to comparing players. Stolen bases have been clearly shown to be much less valuable than previously thought, this is why the overall number of stolen bases has steadily declined. Furthermore, Carter was never some standout speed demon, in his best year he had 31 stolen bases and was caught stealing 1/6 times (Rickey Henderson, who played at the same time, recorded more SB's in a year 23 times).

Considering the similarity of the OPS numbers between the two players, you essentially value the extra 10 stolen bases per year, regardless of how atrocious that player is as a fielder, over elite defense in LF.

This is another losing argument you simply were not able to let go off because "you are what you are".

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