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Ovder the top, Doc and Matt. Over the top!
Love these two paragraphs from Matt:
"I also believe that value metrics need to be presented in scientific notation, including the uncertainties, if you're going to think of yourself as a scientist. I think UZR has a very high uncertainty. All UZR values should be +/- a LOT until you start building a large sample. That may be why Chone Figgins' 4 WAR only happened every once in a while...his types of skills may have high uncertainty and be heavily context-driven at the same time.
In fact, I'm fairly "certain" that soft-skills WAR heroes like Gutierrez, Figgins and E. Chavez, when collected together on one roster, fail as often as they do at least in part because those WAR values are highly uncertain so you can't bank a high stoploss and the failure rate year to year is higher."
It would be interesting to do a bit of research and determine just how many UZR-WAR guys a lineup could field at one time and still be viable/potent. Could you afford to have a Belanger and a batless Paul Blair? Probably doesn't work in the NL, minus a terrific staff, because you then have 3 "outs" in the lineup. In essence, can the rest of your bats make up for 3 Mendoza-line players?
And I still think that UZR is too subjective. UR depends on the leap of faith that a particular player got that ball, but that few others would. But it is dang hard to factor in positioning and jump, among other factors. A hit, however, is a hit.....not subjective at all.
The more I look at WAR and UZR the more I think managers long ago figured out that you maximize your corner bats and your SS/CF gloves and you have a neat arrangement. If your CF has + bat, too...then you're off to the races.
UZR doesn't change that......and WAR doesn't factor in WHO the replacement for a team might be. If Montero breaks an ankle tonight, his replacement isn't (probably) a replacement level player. So, to some degree, Montero's WAR is higher than it should be in real life.
I'm done, because I'm afraid I'm mucking up great posts by you guys.
moe