Comments for Revisiting Bill James' "Baseball's Best Player" at http://wezen-ball.com , comment 1 to 8 out of 8 comments http://wezen-ball.com Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:19:41 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://wezen-ball.com/2010-articles/january/revisiting-bill-james-qbaseballs-best-playerq.html#comment-261 Nice to see Al Rosen get some love. - Bobcat Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:22:19 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2010-articles/january/revisiting-bill-james-qbaseballs-best-playerq.html#comment-259 That's a great question, TCM. I can't recall off the top of my head how WAR accounts for that. I'll try to ask Sean Smith, who does the Rally WAR database (that I used), what he says about that. It's a good observation, though. (In the 1991 example, who would benefit more if league strength was accounted for? Cal or Barry?) - lar @ wezen-ball Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:59:47 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2010-articles/january/revisiting-bill-james-qbaseballs-best-playerq.html#comment-258 Hey Lar, this was really instructive. Look at the disparity between Bonds and the rest of the league at his peak!!! That's an amazing graphic. I do have a couple of questions though, related to WAR, your determination for "best baseball player," and strength of opposition. How does WAR account for the presumed talent discrepancy between the AL and NL in seasons where there was no interleague play? For instance, in '91, Cal and Barry are very close. But since the Orioles and Pirates were restricted to playing in their own circuits, it actually tells us nothing about these players in relation to each other. You could make a similar argument for Carew/Schmidt/Morgan in '77. Does WAR assume parity between the leagues? I know you're not definitively trying to answer the question, and that this is a fun exercise, and that no statistic we could use is going to perfectly account for all the variables, but I'm curious about this relatively important distinction between the 1904-1996 eras and the 1997-2009. - The Common Man Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:20:25 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2010-articles/january/revisiting-bill-james-qbaseballs-best-playerq.html#comment-257 That was an awesome post. I'm sure you put a lot of work into it, it sure looked like it, and it really paid off. Great job. Incredible to see 10+ WAR seasons when you have Zobrist this year topping the league below 9. - wahbjo01 Mon, 04 Jan 2010 04:48:52 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2010-articles/january/revisiting-bill-james-qbaseballs-best-playerq.html#comment-256 Thanks for explaining that. - Cyril Morong Sun, 03 Jan 2010 17:48:43 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2010-articles/january/revisiting-bill-james-qbaseballs-best-playerq.html#comment-255 Thanks, guys. Glad you liked it. Cy, the weighting is done on a simple 40-30-20-10 scale (with 40 being the current year and 10 being 3-years ago). Let me know if you have any other questions... - lar @ wezen-ball Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:44:21 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2010-articles/january/revisiting-bill-james-qbaseballs-best-playerq.html#comment-254 I have nothing to add but: This was a highly entertaining and informative blog post. I really enjoyed it. Et cetera, et cetera. - dmac Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:49:22 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2010-articles/january/revisiting-bill-james-qbaseballs-best-playerq.html#comment-253 Great job. I really like looking at a list like this and I have bookmarked it for future reference. How was the weighting done? By PAs in each year or just more recent years getting a greater weight? - Cyril Morong Sun, 03 Jan 2010 10:19:30 +0100