What is WAR?

We have now covered many of the metrics that help us evaluate both pitchers and position players. While it is useful to pick apart all of the different facets of a player’s game, it can be just as useful to understand a player’s value as one, all-encompassing number. That’s is where WAR comes in, or Wins Above Replacement.

WAR Explained

If you remember the metric wRC+, it’s main function is to help us put a player’s entire offensive output in context with one number. WAR essentially serves a similar purpose, while incorporating fielding and baserunning for position players. Pitchers have their own version of WAR as well.

What makes WAR unique is that it represents the number of wins a player is worth to their team. While this can be a murky concept, WAR is based in how many runs a player influences, which are then converted to wins, depending on the run scoring environment of that season. Thus, the player earns more or less WAR based on their performance as the season goes along.

The amount of wins a player is worth is relative to a replacement level player, or in other words a “AAAA” player. This refers to someone who is above the talent level of being in AAA, but is not able to consistently perform at the Major League level.

Different sources in the game of baseball have slightly varying formulas for calculating WAR. A couple of the most popular are FanGraphs (fWAR) and Baseball Reference (bWAR). Although there are other sites that house their own “WAR” stat, these are the two most publicly used. Most teams however have their own calculations of WAR where they prioritize their most valuable metrics.

When interpreting WAR, keep in mind that it is a counting stat. So, the more games played will generally lead to higher WAR totals. Take a look at this chart to see a general breakdown of what types of players earn how many Wins Above Replacement over a full season.

Summary

WAR does a great job of measuring how many more wins a player adds to an organization when assessing your roster. In baseball, 1 win is equivalent to a dollar amount in a given season. For example, in 2021 a 1 WAR player was worth approximately $8-9 million. This type of valuation helps when negotiating contracts and during the salary arbitration process. 

Adding a 4-win player to your team can be the difference between your team making the playoffs or not, and is an integral component in roster construction.