WAR Grids
I’m pleased to announce that Joshua Maciel’s original WAR Grids are now automated for you to create your very own. Also a big thanks to Dave Allen for his help.
Here’s what one looks like for the top 25 WAR leaders since the year 2000.
click to make big
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
A MA ZING. Being able to visualize this data without having to pull down the data sets and do it ourselves is fantastic!
what do the numbers across the top of the graph mean?
Those are a player’s age.
Quick question — how do you decide on position qualifying? I noticed A-Rod topped both the SS and 3B leaderboards for the 2000’s, using his stats from both positions in each case.
THAT’S WHY HE’S ONE OF THE TOP 5 PLAYERS EVER
This is sick!
And because 2 comments just aren’t enough… a cool addition woudl be the option of arranging the columns by year, rather than by age — though I suppose that could be problematic for year ranges beyond ~30.
Seconded.
Agreed.
Chase Utley…still underrated by most.
I was thinking the same about Rolen. He is WAY up there.
A-rod is so close to Pujols only because Pujols debuted in 2001. Anyone else not suspect Chipper to be that high?
Also because he was forced to move off SS when he was still a top-notch defender at the position. Two or three more years at SS and it probably wouldn’t be quite as close.
If you take his last three years before going to 3B and do a 3-2-1 weighting, then you have to subtract 0.95 WAR per year [inc the first year] to get his ‘projected’ WAR to be close to his actual WAR over the last seven years.
If we assume that with staying at SS, a 0.5 WAR decrease over those years would have been a better estimate for a 28yo superstar, then it means he’s lost 12.5 WAR thus far…
Impossibly cool.
How about Jeff Kent, averaging 5 War a year from 2000-2008. Better than I would have thought.
Gotta say, these are neat… but not terribly useful.
I think the only real useful thing this offers is getting a nice quick look at density of value early/mid/late in a career. Otherwise… this is far inferior to the just the actual numbers… no?
I didn’t mean for this to be whiny either, new stuff is always awesome. Thanks, Dave. I just remember reading the original article, squinting my eyes and thinking “hmm, this chart isn’t really telling me a whole lot here….”
7 years of Barry Bonds is still worth more than 10 years of everyone else on this chart, except for Albert Pujols? Am I reading this correctly? If so, absolutely incredible.
The single greatest statistical four year stretch in the history of baseball.
Roids are awesome.
Haha, Bonds really spoiled looking at a player card for me. No one’s numbers will come close to that in a long time.
I hope you’re wrong Bubba. I don’t think you’ll be wrong, but I hope you are.
It’s pretty amazing that Ted Williams put out 140 WAR while still missing three seasons between the ages of 23 and 27.
This is a great tool, except I don’t see any pitchers on here. Is it even meaningful to compare hitter WAR vs. pitcher WAR?
Definitely, though hitters do accrue rather more of it… The best pitchers and hitters in a season are often comparable, but pitchers are a lot less consistent and generally wind up with less total WAR.
Not sure why they’re not on there.
Yes, please include P as one of the available positions. Or is there a separate tool for pitchers?
Because currently, Fangraphs WAR for pitchers only goes back to 1980.
…but that wouldn’t matter for a graph covering 2000-10.
Several of these players need asterisks next to their names
I’m using a Samsung Galaxy S phone, and they’re completely blurry…
It shouldn’t be so long as you remember to embiggen and then zoom in like a few times. I just did it on my Samsung Intercept. Mind you, when you zoom in you will loose a lot of the meaning, but it shouldn’t stay blurry.
It’s just a big chart.
Embiggen?? I’m not sure that’s cromulent…
Joe Torre and Mark Mcgwire have the same career WAR. Am I the only one surprised by this?
Well, this is just peachy. I love data visualizations of all types and this is a good one.
If you extend the range into the wayback machine, it puts the lie to Barry Bonds not being a hall of famer because of steroids. If you simply throw away his age 36 and older seasons he’s still got the numbers to make it in. We’ll see how Pujols ages, but he’s got the potential to be in the top 5 ever. Amazing..
Just looked up the totals for 1Bs for the past 5 years and the difference between Pujols and the number 2 guy Miguel Cabrera is the same amount as the difference between Cabrera and the 15th highest guy Adam Laroche. That’s crazy.
These are fantastic! Love the spread of data all in one place.
Would be really nice to be able to mix and match certain teams or players (rather than having to pick one or all teams/players). Not sure how hard it would be to do that though. Also, even though the pitcher WAR is not listed, pitchers still show up on the grid. I’m assuming it is accounting for their offense and fielding but not their pitching?
Considering that offensive skill and defensive skill have different age curves, could we have the ability to filter between the two?
Roger Connor is credited with 15 WAR for his age 28 season, according to WAR Grids:
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/wd_all_2010_1871_50_30_1_13_2011.png
It looks like his age 27 and 28 years were accidentally combined.
Not a big deal, but you might want to check for similar errors.
Awesome reference tool, by the way. Great way to visualize peak value.
Excellent visualization tool. The most obvious thing the chart on this page illustrates is the ground Ted Williams lost due to military service. Sure he might have been injured had he been playing those 5 years but I can’t imagine his service time was a picnic either. Could he have been the best ever?
Oops. I meant the chart on the front page for the tool not this page.
Excellent charts. This is a great way to compare the peak values and career trajectories of players. I’m going to be spending lot of time looking at these. The only thing I would change would be the colors. It’s hard to distinguish between 5,6 and 7 for example. Rather than just having green, I think it would be easier to read if it was like weather charts with red for hot and blue for cold and different shades in between.
Greatest tool ever… Please add the pitchers from 1980 until now. We can get the pre-1980 pitchers when they become available.