[cardcrimson]

I clearly don't understand WAR. How can you have a wins above replace higher than the total number of games in a season?

Those numbers above are "career" WAR numbers - i.e., the sum of a player's individual season WAR totals. What Career WAR doesn't capture very well are players who have an incredible peak period but careers cut short by injury (Koufax, Career WAR of 48.9), or tragedy (Munson, Career WAR of 46.1). It does give some insight into players who had a great period but then declined into a player who is closer to league average for a variety of reasons, such as Darryl Strawberry (who had two seasons with WAR over 6 before his personal problems destroyed his on the field performance) or Dave Parker (4 out of 5 seasons over 6 from 1975-79 before similar problems arose). If someone has a year with WAR over 7, that's an incredible season. For instance, Edgar Martinez's 1995 season where he hit .356, .479 OBP, 52 doubles, 29 HR, and 113 RBI - that was a 7.1 WAR season. Buster's 2012 season, .336 average, .408 OBP, 39 doubles, 24 HR, 103 RBI and catching - that was a 7.6 WAR season. Of course, Barry had some outrageous WAR seasons both early (1990 9.7 WAR) and late (2002, 11.8 WAR)...

No offense to anyone, but what a dopey stat.

[cardcrimson]

I clearly don't understand WAR. How can you have a wins above replace higher than the total number of games in a season?

Those numbers above are "career" WAR numbers - i.e., the sum of a player's individual season WAR totals. What Career WAR doesn't capture very well are players who have an incredible peak period but careers cut short by injury (Koufax, Career WAR of 48.9), or tragedy (Munson, Career WAR of 46.1). It does give some insight into players who had a great period but then declined into a player who is closer to league average for a variety of reasons, such as Darryl Strawberry (who had two seasons with WAR over 6 before his personal problems destroyed his on the field performance) or Dave Parker (4 out of 5 seasons over 6 from 1975-79 before similar problems arose). If someone has a year with WAR over 7, that's an incredible season. For instance, Edgar Martinez's 1995 season where he hit .356, .479 OBP, 52 doubles, 29 HR, and 113 RBI - that was a 7.1 WAR season. Buster's 2012 season, .336 average, .408 OBP, 39 doubles, 24 HR, 103 RBI and catching - that was a 7.6 WAR season. Of course, Barry had some outrageous WAR seasons both early (1990 9.7 WAR) and late (2002, 11.8 WAR)...

No offense to anyone, but what a dopey stat.