Another thing to add is, if this is a snub, who is the one who snubbed him? The answer: his fellow players and Texas manager Ron Washington. They are the ones who chose Mauer over Willingham. I think I'll defer to their judgment.

What I really want to see if Nick Blackburn groove "fastballs" over in the inner-half of the plate to Trevor Plouffe in the HR Derby.

I think too much has been made of the Willingham-Mauer comparison. They're not competing against each other. If there's an injustice here, it's not because Mauer "took Willingham's spot," especially since they don't play the same position. No, the injustice here (such as it is) is only that teams out of the spotlight only get all-star representatives because there must be one from each team. How many players deserving of being called elite have been passed over because they play somewhere other than the coast? Willingham isn't even close to the best example....

Love you frightwig, but I could hardly care less about half-season fWAR samples. Nobody takes partial-season UZR scores seriously; why should we put stock into a metric heavily weighted by them?

 

I didn't realize that in-season WAR figures had been declared meaningless. Even full-season UZR scores can fluctuate a lot from year to year, which makes it a suspect gauge of a player's real defensive abilities. People still do seem to put a lot of stock in season-end WAR totals, though. Anyway, does anyone really think that Plouffe's defensive ratings have been unfair to him?

 

Now, if you care only about half-season bat production, you could make a case that Plouffe should be next in line if another 3B reserve spot opens up. But, even if that's your sole standard, I don't think he really deserves to take the only reserve spot from Miguel Cabrera.

I didn't realize that in-season WAR figures had been declared meaningless. Even full-season UZR scores can fluctuate a lot from year to year, which makes it a suspect gauge of a player's real defensive abilities. People still do seem to put a lot of stock in season-end WAR totals, though.

Perhaps there's some deeper lesson to take from all that...

Perhaps there's some deeper lesson to take from all that...

Yes, and that lesson is "WAR and UZR should not be used as predictive tools".

 

Which is not their intended purpose. WAR and UZR are evaluative tools of past performance. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

The same way you don't put much stock into a guy's weekly OBP, you don't put much stock into a half season of WAR or UZR. They're not accurate at that point; there simply isn't enough data from which to draw a meaningful conclusion.

Yes, and that lesson is "WAR and UZR should not be used as predictive tools".

 

Which is not their intended purpose. WAR and UZR are evaluative tools of past performance. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

The same way you don't put much stock into a guy's weekly OBP, you don't put much stock into a half season of WAR or UZR. They're not accurate at that point; there simply isn't enough data from which to draw a meaningful conclusion.

Amen. That's my one big complaint about the "moneyball" mindset some people have - statistics always tell you past performance; they make no promises about future performance. Use it as one tool to make baseball decisions, but never have it be the only tool you use when forming a team.