Weighted WAR: Timelining (part 1) and Shortstop Rankings

So far in the weighted WAR series, we’ve introduced the weighting system and the schedule length adjustment, and most recently talked about positional classification of players. Now, we’ll shift back to the adjustments I’m making to WAR in this system, which means it’s time to discuss the elephant-sized landmine in the room: comparing players across eras, often referred to as “timelining”.

Opinions on timelining are widely varied. At one extreme, you have the frequent carping of retired players who have historically insisted that today’s youngsters couldn’t hack it in the old days; on the other, it's easy to find hyper-modernist commentators who claim Ty Cobb wouldn’t make it out of low-A ball today. There is, however, a common concept undergirding how the issue of timelining is addressed: it is usually taken as a question of how well a particular player would perform in a different era (what I think of as the time machine approach).

The time machine approach is sometimes attempted via statistical analysis, and when this is done, it will invariably show a significant upward shift in quality of play throughout baseball history. I am confident that those results are as accurate as can reasonably be expected. The issue I take with this analysis is that I think it’s attempting to answer the wrong question. And since we’re also looking at shortstops, let’s examine this question through the prism of the two primary candidates for the #1 ranking at the position: Honus Wagner and Alex Rodriguez, two men born just over a century apart (1874-1975).

The time machine method would ask, “how would Honus Wagner perform if you grabbed him out of 1900 and dropped him in 2000?” Advocates of this method (particularly those inclined toward the current-day players) will justifiably point to all of the disadvantages such a player would face, including but not limited to: unfamiliarity with changes in the style of play, seeing pitches like the slider and the splitter for the first time, facing players drawn from all over the world instead of a fraction of the US (both geographically and racially), and regularly facing fresh relievers in the late innings instead of exhausted starters. The more strident modernists will sometimes add a barb about how Honus would have a terrible time trying to handle the present-day game with his giant bat and primitive glove.

This last bit inadvertently lets in the other side of the argument. Yes, there are a number of new challenges facing modern players when compared to their past counterparts – but they have advantages as well. In the century between Honus and A-Rod, here is a non-exhaustive list of things that have inarguably improved for baseball players: medicine (general and sports specific), knowledge of nutrition and fitness (general and sports specific), travel conditions, quality of existing equipment (bats and gloves), invention of new equipment (e.g. batting helmets), coaching and scouting resources (human and technological), and financial stability (individual and league-wide).

My point is not that the game hasn’t improved in the last 100 years. It is that there are so many factors pulling individual players in both directions that the question of how Honus Wagner would have fared a century later is unknowable. Yes, if you made him use his old bat and glove, it probably wouldn’t go well. If you allowed him modern equipment, coaching, and medical care – particularly if the last of those was made available to him from birth? I wouldn’t be eager to bet against him.

All of which is to say, I find the time machine approach unwieldy at best. There is, however, one aspect of the discussion that strikes me as being more approachable. We may not know exactly how Honus would fare in A-Rod’s time, or vice versa. We definitely know that the set of opponents A-Rod faced was more optimized than Wagner’s was, because MLB spent the century between them getting better at putting the best players on the field. That is the aspect of timelining that I’m fully comfortable with, and the one that is adjusted for here.

Two questions, then. First, what aspects of player selection are adjusted for? There are a number of options here (the amateur and Rule 5 drafts, free agency, the player base increasing to cover new geographical areas), but only two that I have a firm enough grasp on to implement. First and most obviously, segregation. MLB infamously did not allow black (or otherwise non-white) players until 1947, with minority representation gradually phased in after that on a team-by-team basis. I’m treating that as occurring over a 20-year period from 1947-66, with the adjustment decreasing by 5% per year; this is an oversimplification, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable one. Second, MLB control of the minor leagues, which allows major league teams to promote the best players when they see fit rather than being at the mercy of a minor league owner not wanting to give up Babe Ruth or Lefty Grove just yet. To adjust for this, I used the percentages of MLB control of the minors estimated by Bill James in the New Historical Abstract. This starts at 0% in the 1870s, moves up slowly for a few decades, then leaps forward over the period between 1910-40 to near total control. It reaches 100% by 1970 and has remained there ever since.

Second, how is the adjustment implemented? I am of two minds about my method here – I really like the general concept, but am shaky on the exact math. The concept springs from this question: If MLB had been integrated and had control of the minors in, say, 1908, what would have been the effect on Honus Wagner? Well, some team would most likely have had burgeoning superstar John Henry Lloyd at shortstop, and there would have been a number of other new players in the league as well. Wagner, who was the best position player in the segregated majors that year, would have had more competition for that title – but he certainly still would have had a job, and would have been an excellent player. The direct effect of this hypothetical optimization of MLB’s player base would be to displace the bottom tier of the league – poor starters to the bench, bench players to the minors or elsewhere. In other words, the effect would be to improve the level of the worst players – or in statistical terms, it raises replacement level.

The obvious question then is, how much does replacement level change? Frankly, I cannot claim to have a systematic answer. I toyed with the adjustment until it felt right, eventually settling on half a win (per 600 plate appearances) for segregation and half a win for minor league control. This adjustment shifts gradually as mentioned above. For Wagner’s aforementioned 1908 season, it’s 0.95 wins per 600. By the time you reach Arky Vaughan’s peak in the 1930s, it’s down to 0.65. The half-win barrier is cleared in Phil Rizzuto’s 1950 MVP season, and by the time Zoilo Versalles takes an MVP of his own 15 years later, the adjustment is all but gone, down to 0.035.

What are the overall effects? Here are the top 18 shortstops in career bWAR (not adjusted or weighted WAR) and their respective timeline adjustments:

Player	Years	bWAR	Timeline
Honus Wagner	1897-1917	131.1	-20.7
Alex Rodriguez	1994-2016	117.7	-0.4
Cal Ripken Jr	1981-2001	96.1	-0.6
George Davis	1890-1909	85.2	-17.7
Arky Vaughan	1932-48	78.0	-8.1
Robin Yount	1974-93	77.6	-0.5
Luke Appling	1930-50	77.6	-10.5
Ozzie Smith	1978-96	77.1	-0.4
Bill Dahlen	1891-1911	75.4	-17.4
Derek Jeter	1995-2014	72.0	-0.4
Alan Trammell	1977-96	70.7	-0.3
Bobby Wallace	1894-1918	70.5	-16.0
Barry Larkin	1986-2004	70.2	-0.6
Pee Wee Reese	1940-58	68.4	-7.1
Ernie Banks	1953-71	67.9	-3.7
Joe Cronin	1926-46	65.0	-9.6
Lou Boudreau	1938-52	63.3	-6.7
Jack Glasscock	1879-95	62.0	-17.0

The older stars lose 20-30% of their career value; midcentury players are around 10% or a bit more for those with lower peaks, and modern players have little if any adjustment.

This method is far from perfect; obviously it would be preferable to have some basis for the magnitude of the adjustment beyond just looking at whether the results seem correct. But even with that sizable caveat, I think having the adjustment worked in is better than nothing. Ultimately, the adjustment discussed here results in a fairly steady increase in the number of members of the various top-100 positional rankings over time, which gives it at least a veneer of sanity.

On to the shortstops! Here are the currently active shortstops who rank in the top 100 in weighted WAR, or might reasonably hope to join the top 100 soon:

Player	Rank	Years	WAR	aWAR	wWAR	2024 WAR	Rank Change
Francisco Lindor	20	2015-24	49.6	51.1	41.6	6.9	+6
Carlos Correa	24	2015-24	44.6	46.6	38.6	3.7	+3
Xander Bogaerts	31	2013-24	40.7	42.5	34.7	1.2	+2
Corey Seager	39	2015-24	36.9	39.3	33.0	5.0	+16
Trea Turner	41	2015-24	36.2	39.4	32.9	3.0	+10
Trevor Story	55	2016-24	30.9	33.0	29.6	0.7	+2
Brandon Crawford	58	2011-24	29.5	33.0	28.0	-0.2	+1
Javier Baez	72	2014-24	25.3	28.2	24.9	-1.1	+1
Dansby Swanson	77	2016-24	23.5	26.9	23.8	4.0	+28
Fernando Tatis Jr	88	2019-24	21.7	24.9	22.9	2.6	+14
Willy Adames	104	2018-24	21.5	23.7	20.8
Tim Anderson	121	2016-24	14.7	21.3	19.3
JP Crawford	131	2017-24	18.5	20.3	18.2
Chris Taylor	134	2014-24	17.0	20.1	17.8
Bo Bichette	135	2019-24	17.6	19.2	17.7
Miguel Rojas	147	2014-24	17.6	19.5	16.4
Gunnar Henderson	151	2022-24	16.3	16.3	15.9
Bobby Witt Jr.	167	2022-24	14.7	14.7	14.4

Note that Witt is not directly below Henderson on the active player list (I skipped Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Jose Iglesias, and Ha-Seong Kim); I added him to head off the obvious question of where he stands on the heels of his 9-win 2024 season. Neither he nor Henderson is in the top 100 yet, but “yet” is doing a lot of work there. If either youngster comes close to repeating his 2024 season, he is likely to join the top group next year; if they regress to “merely” All-Star level, it might take all of 2 or 3 years.

Swanson and Tatis joining the top 100 make for an even 10 active shortstops in the group, despite a couple of retirements. With a solid collection of players on the edge as well as several recent callups who aren’t on the Witt/Henderson level but have still been very good, shortstop is looking quite nice moving forward.

Side question – how did Brandon Crawford and Javier Baez, both of whom had negative WAR this year, move up in the rankings? Their scores, as you would expect, did not improve this year; they moved up ordinally because, as noted in the positional classification discussion, the 2024 season shifted Marcus Semien from SS to 2B, so everyone below him got a free nudge upward.

And now, for the verdict. Is the timeline adjustment enough to push A-Rod ahead of Wagner? Here are the top 25 shortstops by weighted WAR, plus numbers 30 through 100 by tens:

Player	Rank	Years	WAR	aWAR	wWAR
Alex Rodriguez	1	1994-2016	117.7	119.2	80.0
Honus Wagner	2	1897-1917	131.1	117.3	77.4
Cal Ripken Jr	3	1981-2001	96.1	98.4	67.7
Arky Vaughan	4	1932-48	78.0	73.0	56.2
Robin Yount	5	1974-93	77.6	79.0	55.8
Ernie Banks	6	1953-71	67.9	68.2	54.3
Ozzie Smith	7	1978-96	77.1	78.4	53.2
Alan Trammell	8	1977-96	70.7	73.8	53.1
Barry Larkin	9	1986-2004	70.2	71.9	51.6
George Davis	10	1890-1909	85.2	74.2	50.9
Derek Jeter	11	1995-2014	72.0	72.7	50.8
Luke Appling	12	1930-50	77.6	71.1	50.5
Lou Boudreau	13	1938-52	63.3	58.9	47.9
Pee Wee Reese	14	1940-58	68.4	63.5	46.8
Jack Glasscock	15	1879-95	62.0	60.4	45.9
Willie Wells	16	1924-48	43.0	59.3	45.4
Joe Cronin	17	1926-45	65.0	58.0	44.5
Bobby Wallace	18	1894-1918	70.5	61.2	44.1
Bill Dahlen	19	1891-1911	75.4	64.3	44.1
Francisco Lindor	20	2015-24	49.6	51.1	41.6
Bert Campaneris	21	1964-83	53.0	52.9	40.3
Jim Fregosi	22	1961-78	48.9	47.3	39.0
Nomar Garciaparra	23	1996-2009	44.2	45.7	38.9
Carlos Correa	24	2015-24	44.6	46.6	38.6
Miguel Tejada	25	1997-2013	47.1	47.4	38.0
Hughie Jennings	30	1891-1918	42.5	39.4	34.9
Al Dark	40	1946-60	43.8	40.8	33.0
Omar Vizquel	50	1989-2012	45.1	46.5	31.9
Roger Peckinpaugh	60	1910-27	45.6	35.6	27.6
Freddy Parent	70	1899-1911	36.1	28.8	25.1
Bill Russell	80	1969-86	31.5	31.3	23.7
Marty Marion	90	1940-53	32.0	27.2	22.6
Dickie Thon	100	1979-93	23.9	24.5	21.6

The list skews a bit older than the others we’ve seen so far, with 11 of the top 25 debuting before 1950; shortstop went through a drought of elite players from 1950-80. But the timeline adjustment is enough to put A-Rod on top.

The weighting system has some notable effects here as well; Banks would be #12 in adjusted WAR, but hurdles half a dozen players when his peak is accounted for. On the flip side, Omar Vizquel is #28 in adjusted WAR, one spot ahead of Garciaparra and 15 spots ahead of Hughie Jennings. Once the totals are weighted, he is left in the dust by both of them, and passed by 20 additional players.

Since we’re talking about timelining in this post, I was very tempted to replace Vizquel in the table with #51 George Wright, professional baseball’s first superstar. Wright obviously gets heavily timelined, but also benefits quite a lot from the schedule length adjustment; his initial total of 23.4 bWAR translates to 37.3 adjusted WAR, giving rise to a weighted score that trails Vizquel by a mere tenth of a point.

Also, shortstop has the most tightly packed bottom quartile we’ve seen so far, with only 3.5 weighted WAR separating #70 and #100; that’s how a good-not-great season like Dansby Swanson’s 2024 allowed him to move up 28 positions in the rankings.

Finally, keen-eyed observers may have noticed that I’ve been glossing over a couple of oddities in the tables above. First, if the segregation and minor league adjustments phase out by 1970, why do players like Ripken and Larkin still have non-zero timeline adjustments? And second, even more recent players like Garciaparra and Tejada didn’t play through any shortened schedules, so how are their adjusted WAR totals higher than their baseline numbers?

Our next two discussions will touch on these issues. Coming up next, we’ll hop across the keystone to explore the highest-rated second basemen ever, as well as the third part of the timeline adjustment to WAR: expansion.