WAR

Sports abbreviation · Baseball

WAR
Stands forWins above replacement
CategoriesSports

WAR stands for Wins above replacement, a baseball abbreviation.

Sabermetric estimate of a player's total value in wins compared with a freely available replacement-level player, combining hitting, baserunning, fielding and positional adjustments, or pitching. About 2 WAR is a solid regular, 5 an All-Star and 8 or more an MVP-level season.

Example: His 8.1 WAR led all American League position players, thanks largely to his defense at shortstop.

Usage notes

Two main versions exist, bWAR from Baseball-Reference and fWAR from FanGraphs, which differ mainly in how they value pitching and defense. Babe Ruth tops the career lists. WAR is calculated, not observed, so analysts treat differences of less than a win as noise. Pronounced as a word, "war".

More baseball abbreviations

  • SLG – Slugging percentage
  • SP – Starting pitcher
  • SS – Shortstop
  • SV – Save
  • TB – Total bases
  • W – Win
  • WHIP – Walks plus hits per inning pitched
  • wOBA – Weighted on-base average
  • WP – Wild pitch
  • wRC+ – Weighted runs created plus
  • WS – World Series
  • XBH – Extra-base hits

See all 83 baseball abbreviations →

Edited by the AbbreviationList.com team. Spotted an error or a missing meaning? Contact us.