By Sam Reeves

This isn’t a political blog, this is in regard to the baseball advanced stat, WAR. What is WAR, exactly? It stands for Wins Above Replacement, which from the MLB dictionary means: “WAR measures a player’s value in all facets of the game by deciphering how many more wins he’s worth than a replacement-level player at his same position (e.g., a Minor League replacement or a readily available fill-in free agent).” In simple terms, it means is the player you currently have, better than what is waiting in the minors or a guy that is chilling at home waiting for a Major League team to give him a shot.

Still, what is WAR good for? How do you measure a guy like Andrew Vaughn’s WAR vs Tim Anderson’s WAR? Andrew Vaughn is a 1B, playing OF, so does his WAR take a hit, or does it increase? Look, I am sure there are the baseball nerds out there who can give you the exact answer you’re looking for, but that’s not what I’m here to do. So let me tell you how I think WAR works, and then you can go find out on your own.

I think WAR should be based on your teams W/L record with you in the lineup. Simple. So if the team wins 57 games with you in the lineup, and loses 24 with you in the lineup, your WAR is 33. Wanna know why? There is no replacement for you, during those games. So let’s take a guy like Gavin Sheets, he is playing RF to start a game, then the opponent brings in a LHP out of the bullpen and he is pinch hit for. The player who takes over, let’s say Adam Engel, strikes out. Then the team goes on to win the game. Does Gavin Sheets get .72 WAR and Engel gets .28 WAR? Yes. That is exactly how it should work.

Now for pitchers, it will work the same way. Their W/L record determines their WAR. As we all know, the only weigh to measure if a pitcher is good, is by their W/L record, and nothing else. You play to win the game, so if you lose the game as a pitcher, you didn’t play to win the game. So right now at this point in 2022, Michael Kopech is currently -1 WAR, because he is 1-2. Pitcher WAR will only count is you get a win or loss, not if you have a no decision. I don’t want no scrubs. You either are a winner, or a loser when it comes to pitching WAR. Reynaldo Lopez is currently a 3 WAR pitcher, since he is 4-1, so therefore he is pretty dang good.

I will be presenting my case to MLB, and lobbying for them to update Hall of Fame criteria, based on the new version of WAR, AWAR. The national nightmare will be over of players not having TWTW, and ball go far, team go far will matter more. If you want to make it in to the Baseball Hall of Fame, you better hope you’re a winner. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to change more useless things about baseball.