This morning, Buster Olney took to twitter to offer some more thoughts on WAR, which I think we can surmise is not his favorite statistic. At the risk of making a habit out of responding to Buster’s twitter messages with FanGraphs posts, I did have some thoughts about a few of the things he mentioned, and those thoughts are longer than 140 characters, so I’m putting them here. The subject is worth discussing anyway, and hopefully we can articulate some points about WAR and various other metrics in a way that helps bridge gaps that may currently exist. At least, that’s my goal.

Let’s start off with Buster’s comments:

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Last week, the Houston Astros put Wandy Rodriguez on waivers, giving teams until Tuesday afternoon to make a claim on him. At the time, Jon Heyman noted that only “some fool” would put in a claim, given the amount of money he’s still owed on his contract. This isn’t to pick on Heyman, since he’s hardly been the only writer talking about Rodriguez’s burdensome contract and how Houston should be happy to be rid of their obligation to him going forward.

Through it all, I’ve sat here and scratched my head trying to figure out if we’re all talking about the same Wandy Rodriguez here, because the one that I’m aware of is a pretty good pitcher.

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Justin Verlander is apparently dead set on making the rest of the 2011 season not that interesting. First, he decided to end any speculation about who might win the 2011 Cy Young Award by leading the league in nearly every pitching category you can think of, and then, he decided to help his team win enough games to make the AL Central race something less than a heated contest down the stretch.

Sure, there’s still more than a month of baseball left to play, but the Tigers have now opened up a 5 1/2 game lead over the Indians and White Sox, and recent injuries to the Tribe (most notably Travis Hafner’s potentially season ending foot problem) leave them looking like a bit of a long shot at this point. The Tigers haven’t won the division just yet, but assuming that they’ll join Texas, New York, and Boston in the playoffs is a decently safe bet at this point.

If we work off the assumption that those are the four likely playoff teams in the AL, then the interesting question becomes whether winning the AL East is a good idea or not. New York and Boston are currently slugging it out for the division title, but the loser is basically guaranteed the wild card spot, and so all they’re really playing for is home field advantage and the right to play the division winner with the lesser record in the first round.

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Over the next few days, you’re going to read an awful lot about how Jered Weaver left money on the table to re-sign with the Angels and pitch close to home. That is almost certainly true, since he probably could have commanded a significantly larger deal had he stayed healthy through 2013 and hit the free agent market, where prices for pitchers of his quality are significantly higher than the $17 million per year he just agreed to. But in addition to his desire to stay close to home, Weaver also knew that re-signing with the Angels was in his best long-term interests, because he’s pitching in one of the best environments possible for his skillset.

More than anything else, the defining characteristic about Jered Weaver is that he’s a fly ball guy. In fact, he’s one of the most extreme fly ball pitchers in all of baseball. Since the start of the 2009 season, the only starter who has generated fewer ground balls than Weaver is Ted Lilly – Weaver is 73rd out of 74 qualified pitchers in ground ball rate.

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Jacoby Ellsbury is having a terrific year, and has been one of the best all-around players in baseball this year. He’s been one of the main reasons the Red Sox have rebounded from a slow start, and is rightfully getting attention as a legitimate MVP candidate. He should absolutely be part of that discussion.

Over in the National League, though, Shane Victorino is performing at the same level and, at least by my perception, is getting roundly ignored. This should not be. Let’s put them side by side, shall we?

Ellsbury: .314/.369/.508, .387 wOBA, 142 wRC+, +11.2 UZR, +6.2 WAR
Victorino: .313/.390/.536, .406 wOBA, 157 wRC+, +6.5 UZR, +5.7 WAR

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Earlier today, Matt Klaassen praised the Tigers for being aggressive in their pursuit of a division title over the winter. This afternoon, Dave Dombrowski continued to add to his roster down the stretch, as he picked up Delmon Young from the Minnesota Twins in exchange for two minor league players. Given the kind of production that the Tigers have gotten from their outfielders this year, it’s not that surprising that they’d be in the market for an upgrade.

Given how poorly Young has played this season – and, really, throughout almost all of his disappointing career – there aren’t many contenders in baseball for whom he would represent a legitimate option as a regular player. His .292 wOBA is the worst of his career, and is especially lousy for a corner outfielder who also hurts you defensively. Young was quite a bit better last year, however, and has shown power in years past. We should expect that he’ll hit better down the stretch than he has to date in 2011, and if he does, he might actually represent an upgrade over what the Tigers have been getting from their right fielders.

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