Wins Above Replacement (WAR)

Wins Above Replacement (WAR)


For full details on Wins Above Replacement (WAR)  and its calculation, see our explainer page and the "Further Discussion" links here:

Notes on WAR

Combined position player and pitching WAR

At the top of each major league player page on Baseball Reference, a WAR figure is displayed. This is the player's position player WAR combined with their pitching WAR. For example, Babe Ruth's WAR of 182.6 is a combination of his 162.2 WAR as a position player and 20.4 WAR as a pitcher. 

 

There are some less obvious players who have both position player and pitching WAR. For example, Brandon Crawford had two appearances as a pitcher towards the end of his career and generated -0.1 WAR on the mound. His career WAR of 29.4 (displayed at the top of his player page) is therefore just below his 29.5 WAR as a position player that is displayed in the Standard Batting table.


oWAR + dWAR does not equal WAR

Offensive Wins Above Replacement (oWAR) is the same statistic as position player WAR except with the fielding component removed. Like WAR, oWAR contains a positional adjustment.

Defensive Wins Above Replacement (dWAR) is a statistic that combines both the positional adjustment and the fielding component of WAR.

WAR does not equal oWAR + dWAR as both oWAR and dWAR contain the positional adjustment. Summing them would double count this.


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