A couple of all star teams

[Babe Adams]

This is an "all star" team of players signed by the Pirates as amateurs (or acquired from foreign leagues) in the NH/BC era. The stars are selected based on their calculated fWAR (because Fangraphs data is easy to sort) as Pirates. fWAR in parentheses:

Stallings - c (5.7)
Alvarez - 1b (6.6)
Frazier - 2b (9.0)
Hayes - 3b (10.1)
Mercer - ss (10.3)
Joe - lf (2.0)
Polanco - cf (6.0)
Bell - rf (5.0)
Kang - dh (5.8)

Cole - sp (15.4)
Keller - sp (9.7)
Taillon - sp (9.5)
Skenes - sp (4.3)
Kuhl - sp (3.6)

Same list for the years beginning in 1980:

Kendall - c (31.5)
Merced - 1b (13.7)
Walker - 2b (15.5)
King - 3b (12.0)
Mercer - ss (10.3)
Bonds - lf (48.4)
Marte - cf (24.8)
McCutchen - rf (47.4)
Bonilla - dh (20.6)

Cole - sp (15.4)
Maholm - sp (14.7)
Duke - sp (12.2)
Benson - sp (12.1)
Cordova - sp (11.9)

Matt Capps - rp (3.6)
Tony Watson - rp (3.4)

I think that I categorized everyone correctly?

[Ecbucs]

intersting, thanks for post

[Bobster]

I've never been a fan of WAR. It's imprecise and baseball fans can't calculate it. Zack Duke's fWAR as a Pirate (WAR as calculated by Fangraphs) is 12.2 but his bWAR as a Pirate (War as calculated by baseballreference) is 6.8.

Comparing that to Gerrit Cole's time as a Pirate, Duke is oddly close to Cole in fWAR (12.2 vs 15.4) but very distant from Cole in bWAR (6.8 vs 11.0). Other than his rookie year, Duke was awful.

I wouldn't go as far as to say, "War-what is it good for? Absolutely nothin." It does distinguish better players from lesser players by giving the better ones higher scores. But the eye test does as much.

Nevertheless, the original post here shows the vast deterioration of talent in the NH/BC era.

[Possum]

You need to look at the list and do some corrections as far as eras go.

[PooperScooper !]

I don't pay attention to those type stats. I like the old-fashioned ones I can spend some time at baseball reference looking up players, for sure

[Bobster]

You need to look at the list and do some corrections as far as eras go.

Possum, I was a little confused too. But the first list is just for the NH/BC era. The 2nd list is for all players signed by the Pirates as amateurs (or acquired from foreign leagues) since 1980. Only Cole and Mercer scored high enough to be ranked with the players since 1980.

[Bobster]

I don't pay attention to those type stats. I like the old-fashioned ones I can spend some time at baseball reference looking up players, for sure

I hear ya. A newer generation of fans wanted to quantify everything. Especially to definitively determine "who is better than who," which was always a popular debate among fans. So now we can "settle" that debate with an ambiguous numeric value. But it's not a value that fans can compute like BA or ERA. And the value changes depending on which source provides it. And the value represents a hypothetical outcome. Regardless of any math formula, there is no way to accurately determine how many more wins any given player is worth to his team than if he was replaced by a hypothetical AAA replacement. That's why they play the game.

But WAR can be somewhat useful in a post like Babe Adams provided above. Better players get better WAR values. And the 2 lists show the contrast between how players of those different eras compare in terms of general value to their team.