Weighted WAR: Uncounted Factors and Right Field Rankings

The Weighted WAR series to date has covered the weighting system, schedule length, positional classification, timelining (in two parts), negative seasons, Negro League play, and (uncounted) pitching value. With weighted WAR now completely introduced, it’s time to go over the things that the system does not consider which might reasonably be included in an all-time ranking. More specifically, we’ll discuss four factors: war credit, minor league credit, additional non-MLB play, and postseason play.

War credit is extremely common in all-time rankings; you can find any amount of speculation on how many home runs Ted Williams would have hit if he hadn’t missed most of five years to military service across two conflicts. The natural corollary is also a sensible consideration – the league was significantly weakened by player absences in wartime, and adjusting for the quality of play is sensible. I seriously pondered over discounting wartime play when I added the expansion adjustment, and decided against it for a simple reason: if you discount wartime play but don’t give war credit, you suppress the players in the ‘40s even more than the missing time for the stars already does. (Contrariwise, if you give war credit but don’t discount the scores of the players still in the league, you assume there were more wins to be had than the number of teams allows.)

What would war credit and a wartime discount look like? One of the benefits of a database of over 2000 MLB players, selected by a consistent (if arbitrary) standard, is that it gives you a sample to examine for questions like this. I checked every player in the database who was active on both sides of one of the three major time-lost wars during MLB history (World War 1, World War 2, and Korea), and sorted each of their wartime seasons into one of three categories: missed entirely due to military service, missed partly (at least half the season) due to military service, or not missed (played at least half the season, or absence was due to non-service reasons). Here are the fractions of significant position players available to MLB in each affected season:

WW1 (1917-19): 99%, 84%, 99%

WW2 (1941-45): 99%, 90%, 70%, 48%, 44%

Korea (1951-53): 97%, 95%, 98%

Were I to implement a wartime discount, it would resemble the expansion adjustment. The 1945 season was missing over half of the league’s stars; replacing 56% of the league is effectively equivalent to a 9-team expansion in a 16-team league (except possibly even more severe, since a similar fraction of the players who would normally be added in an expansion would also be in the army).

As for war credit? Let’s look at a player from our featured position, right field. In this case, Enos Slaughter is the highest-ranked RF to miss multiple seasons due to wartime. Here are his WAR numbers from 1941-47:

Season	WAR	aWAR
1941	3.0	2.6
1942	6.8	6.3
1946	4.7	4.1
1947	3.9	3.4

Total of 16.5 adjusted WAR over four years, average of a bit over 4. I would tend to reduce the average a bit to compensate for injury risk, and also introduce a bit of variance (since it matters for the weighting system, and it’s unlikely a player would put up three identical years in a row). If you give Slaughter a 4.5, a 3.5, and a 3.0 for his missed seasons, that adds up to 11; his overall weighted WAR would increase from 38.5 to 42.5, and he would slip barely inside the top 25 right fielders.

I do think that war credit is reasonable, and would use it in compiling my own all-time ratings; I chose not to use it here, because my goal was to see what results would come from using officially recognized stats, and war credit departs pretty substantially from that realm.

Minor league credit tends to be discussed less often than war credit, because it’s less common for minor league play to come when a player is at his absolute peak, as (say) Joe DiMaggio was in the mid ‘40s. But it can still be a substantial factor for players who were blocked from promotion (Phil Rizzuto) or whose talents weren’t fully appreciated by their parent organization (Edgar Martinez) or both (Wade Boggs). In this case, our example will come from a bit further down the rankings: #90 right fielder Gavvy Cravath.

Cravath was a native of California, which in modern times is a great place to start a baseball career. But in the first decade of the 1900s, it was a good way to be isolated from MLB eyes for an extended period. Cravath’s first five documented professional seasons came for the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League; leaguewide stats aren’t available for comparison on Baseball Reference, but he appears to have been at least a respectable hitter by deadball standards, and his age-26 season in 1907 (.303 BA, .441 SLG) finally drew enough attention to earn him a shot with the Red Sox. Cravath hit pretty well in 1908 (.256/.354/.383 doesn’t look like much, but the 1908 AL as a whole hit .239/.294/.304), but was traded to the White Sox in the offseason, played sparingly, and ended up back in the minors. He hit quite well for Minneapolis over the rest of 1909 (.291 BA, .409 SLG), then spent the next two years stomping all over the American Association’s pitchers (.505 SLG and 14 HR in 1910, .637 SLG and 29 HR in 1911). He was summoned by the Phillies in 1912, and Cravath and the Baker Bowl proved to be a match made in heaven, as he led the NL in homers six times between 1913-19, along with a variety of other offensive categories.

If you believe in minor league credit, how much of it does Cravath deserve? 1909-11 seem fairly clear; he was a good MLB hitter in 1908 and again in 1912, and his minor league performance indicates that was the case in the intervening years as well. Pre-1908 is trickier; one could reasonably argue that he wasn’t really putting up impressive numbers until 1907, and prospects are often given a full season to establish their credentials before being promoted. If you give him seasons of 1.0, 2.0, and 2.5 adjusted WAR in 1909-11 (without adjusting his playing time or performance in the adjacent years), his score improves from 22.4 (#90 in RF) to 25.5 (#81).

Other non-MLB play follows the same logic as minor league play: if someone is playing at an MLB level but not in MLB games, I find it reasonable to consider that as evidence in his favor. That could include the Negro Leagues outside of the officially recognized 1920-48 period, or potentially college baseball in specific cases. The most notable option that applies to right field, however, is fairly obvious: Japan. Our sample player is equally obvious (no, not Reggie Smith, although he did also spend a couple seasons in Japan toward the end of his career).

Ichiro Suzuki was famously the first Japanese position player to make the jump to MLB, crossing the Pacific in 2001 at age 27. Before that, he spent nine years playing for the Orix Blue Wave of the Japanese Pacific League, hitting .353/.421/.522 over that time. There wasn’t much of a development period either; after mediocre part-time results at ages 18-19, Ichiro became a regular in 1994 and hit .385/.445/.550, winning the batting title by 35 points. He would defend his title every season he stayed in Japan, by double digits every time and with a maximum margin of 54 points in 2000. And when he showed up in Seattle, he kept doing most of the same things – hitting for high average, running the bases well and playing a brilliant right field.

Ichiro’s first three MLB seasons averaged 5.6 WAR; it seems reasonable to credit him with something like 4 WAR per year over five years pre-MLB, with variance introduced just as in the case of war credit. Doing this moves his overall weighted WAR total from 47.8 (RF #15) to 54.7 (#10). And I’m inclined to think that this adjustment is too conservative, if anything.

Finally, we come to the factor that probably has the biggest impact on player reputation of any of these: the postseason. And since we’re in right field, let’s look at Mr. October himself, Reggie Jackson. Despite Reggie’s sterling playoff reputation, his playoff batting line looks unimpressive at first glance: .278/.358/.527 is solid, but not overwhelmingly better than his regular season lines. There’s a bit of a trick here, though. In ALCS play, Jackson hit a paltry .227/.298/.380 in 45 games. In the World Series? 27 games, .357/.457/.755, 10 homers, 21 runs, 24 RBI. I’ve explored postseason stats at some length in the past, primarily dealing with weighting by game importance; if you do that with Reggie's basic hitting numbers, his adjusted playoff slash line is .290/.375/.586, gaining a cool 59 points of SLG. Per Baseball Reference, his career championship probability added is 0.633, which is an outstanding number.

How would that be applied? My inclination would be to multiply CPA by 10 and add it as another WAR total. In Jackson’s case, the resultant 6.3 would be his fourth-best score, and would move him up one place in right field and 11 spots on the all-time list of position players. If you go with weighted run expectancy added instead of championship probability, Jackson does even better, with an 8.7 that moves him up another half dozen positions and another notch in RF (at least until Al Kaline's also-solid playoff stats are considered).

All of which is to say, the numbers presented here are a starting point for discussion, not its conclusion. I find them enjoyable to work with (and to hopefully track on an ongoing basis – updating these numbers might become an annual exercise), but they are anything but definitive, especially given how close the players are to each other once you get past the top 20 or so at any position.

And now, for the last time, on to the positional tables! First, active players as of 2024 who rank among the top 100 in RF, or are within a reasonable striking distance:

Player	Rank	Years	WAR	aWAR	wWAR	2024 WAR	Rank Change
Mookie Betts	8	2014-24	69.7	73.9	59.3	4.8	0
Aaron Judge	17	2016-24	52.2	53.8	46.8	10.8	+11
Bryce Harper	25	2012-24	51.0	53.3	42.2	4.8	0
Giancarlo Stanton	29	2010-24	44.8	46.3	37.2	0.7	0
Jason Heyward	36	2010-24	41.7	44.1	35.3	1.1	+3
Juan Soto	44	2018-24	36.4	39.2	34.3	7.9	Pos Chg
Ronald Acuna Jr	79	2018-24	25.8	28.5	25.8	0.0	-1
Kyle Tucker	87	2018-24	23.1	26.1	23.6	4.7	+12
Max Kepler	111	2015-24	20.8	22.1	18.6
Teoscar Hernandez	125	2016-24	17.2	18.8	16.7
Joey Gallo	131	2015-24	15.5	17.7	15.9
Mike Yastrzemski	132	2019-24	14.3	17.4	15.8

Right field provides possibly my favorite active player group, and not just because of the players themselves. In 2024, the very clear top 4 active right fielders all had at least reasonably productive seasons – but not only did none of them play right field as a primary position, they played four different primary positions this year: Betts at SS, Judge in CF, Harper at 1B, and Stanton at DH. (Left field managed to avoid making the list, despite being the obvious alternate spot for a right fielder.) Judge obviously leaped up the list far more than anyone else in a comparable position; he made Harper's highly productive 2024 look as though it didn't move him up the list at all. With Juan Soto shifting over from left, the active group of right fielders is remarkably tough to beat, even if they may or may not actually be playing the position at the moment.

Also, yes, there is only a 3-point gap between Soto and Stanton, and yes, that gap is filled with 14 players. If Soto even comes close to playing up to his contract this year (and stays in RF), his ordinal position is going to do a pretty solid Usain Bolt impression.

Finally, if you’ve been tracking the race for #1 overall, you may have been waiting for this list. Here are the top 25 right fielders by weighted WAR (plus the customary extra multiples of 10):

Player	Rank	Years	WAR	aWAR	wWAR
Babe Ruth	1	1914-35	162.3	157.0	104.3
Henry Aaron	2	1954-76	143.1	140.9	82.6
Stan Musial	3	1941-63	128.6	123.9	79.5
Mel Ott	4	1926-47	111.0	104.7	67.1
Frank Robinson	5	1956-76	107.4	105.6	66.6
Roberto Clemente	6	1955-72	95.0	93.1	64.9
Al Kaline	7	1953-74	92.6	90.6	59.6
Mookie Betts	8	2014-24	69.7	73.9	59.3
Reggie Jackson	9	1967-87	73.9	76.1	54.8
Larry Walker	10	1989-2005	72.7	74.3	54.2
Tony Gwynn	11	1982-2001	69.3	70.3	49.2
Dwight Evans	12	1972-91	67.3	69.8	48.5
Harry Heilmann	13	1914-32	72.3	64.1	48.3
Sammy Sosa	14	1989-2007	58.6	61.1	47.8
Ichiro Suzuki	15	2001-19	60.0	61.8	47.8
Paul Waner	16	1926-45	75.0	65.7	47.1
Aaron Judge	17	2016-24	52.2	53.8	46.8
Joe Jackson	18	1908-20	62.3	55.5	46.2
Dave Winfield	19	1973-95	64.1	65.6	45.7
Bobby Abreu	20	1996-2014	60.1	60.8	45.7
Reggie Smith	21	1966-82	64.4	63.6	45.6
Vladimir Guerrero	22	1996-2011	59.2	59.0	45.2
Gary Sheffield	23	1988-2009	60.4	63.0	45.1
Bobby Bonds	24	1968-81	57.9	57.0	44.3
Bryce Harper	25	2012-24	51.0	53.3	42.2
Elmer Flick	30	1898-1910	53.0	45.2	36.7
Rusty Staub	40	1963-85	45.8	45.8	34.8
Magglio Ordonez	50	1997-2011	38.8	40.0	32.7
Juan Gonzalez	60	1989-2005	38.6	38.8	30.4
Ken Griffey Sr	70	1973-91	34.7	36.8	27.4
Carl Furillo	80	1946-60	34.7	32.2	25.7
Gavvy Cravath	90	1908-20	33.1	25.7	22.4
Bake McBride	100	1973-83	22.8	23.5	20.0

Yes, Ruth wins overall. Yes, that is true even without his pitching value being counted. His peak is just too high; even with the timeline adjustment, he has EIGHT 10-WAR seasons (Bonds has three, an outstanding total in its own right but not enough to keep up).

Right field is utterly loaded with great players; Larry Walker, the #10 right fielder, would rank higher at every other position on the diamond. (Even if you move Musial, who is usually listed in left field in this sort of exercise, RF would still have 7 players in the overall top 35.)

And that’s a wrap on the weighted WAR series – at least for now. The 2025 season is coming, and I hope to have more new members of top 25, 50, and 100 lists to discuss by the end of the year.