Joe seems to me to be one of the players who gave the illusion of being a near all-time great due to his flash numbers (HR and RBI) but who really wasn't all that great.

The dude was in the top 5 of MVP vote getters twice, top 20 a total of 8 times, 5 time all-star, 2 time silver slugger, played 16 seasons with a total WAR of…….19.5

Carter was absolutely horrific in the field, posting a negative WAR for the year 5 times, vs posting a WAR above 2.0 only 4 times. One of his all star seasons, he ended with a WAR of -.7. His best offensive year, his OPS+ was only 124, he finished his career with a lifetime OPS+ of 105.

Really amazing to look back at some of these guys with modern analytics and see how overvalued they were because of their dingers.

GrapevineAg said:

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My $.02... he may not be HOF-worthy, but he certainly doesn't belong in the "worst baseball player" grouping, not even if you say he's the best in that group. He was well above average, and his 1993 WS game 6 homer was awesome - I remember it like it was yesterday. Sure he was a better hitter than fielder, but so are a lot of guys.

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I taped that baseball game and brought it to my summer camp to watch when I was just a kid, bought a Blue Jays cap just because of him.

And obviously Joe Carter is a good player, no doubt about that, I just meant with the amount of accolades he has. Seriously 8 times in the top 20 MVP and 2 times in the top 5? His career WAR is below Royce Clayton, who played like 4 less seasons. It's mind bending because I considered Joe Carter a fringe HOF'er

My first time getting the gift of baseball cards was 1987 with the TOPPS set for the 1986 season. Joe Carter had a monster 1986 campaign for the Indians - 108 runs, 200 hits, 36 doubles, 29 HR, 9 3B, 121 RBI, 29 steals, and hit .302. I had no idea who he was because we didn't even have cable back then.

I don't believe in WAR, so my viewpoint is slanted away from yours in terms of how good a player he was. His average never approached .300a gain, but his production was off the charts - 11 straight seasons with 21-35 home runs, and 10 of 11 seasons with at least 98 RBI, the only one lower being the reduced 1995 campaign. His home run makes him a legend, and he was productive with the Blue Jays into his late 30s. 396 HR / 231 SB is hardly a not-good career.

2 World Series rings and he had an OPS of .983 vs the Braves in the 1992 series and .810 against the Phillies in '93.

This illustrates to me how messed up WAR as a metric really is.

Anyway, it was comparing Mookie Betts to Ronald Acuna Jr. this season and Betts had a higher WAR. Not by much, like 8.1 to 8.0, respectively. Maybe there's a margin of error in the calculation but I can't buy that the MVP race or WAR should be anywhere close based on their respective stats.

Acuna leads in all major offensive categories except maybe RBI. Substantially higher BA and OPS, more HR, more R, more H, more steals, significantly fewer K, etc. And yet Betts had a higher WAR.

Acuna vs. Betts comparison