Your research is to use a stat, WAR, that only recently became available to compare players’ seasons from decades ago.
Nobody had Arky Vaughn’s WAR when they voted.
Irrelevant; Vaughn still beat Hartnett on the all counting stats that were available at the time. AVG, H, HR, R, RBI, OBP, SLG...pick your poison.
That being said, WAR is still an imperfect measurement. Baez is better than Matt Capenter defensively and as a baserunner and it’s not remotely close. But Carpenter has a higher WAR due greatly to walls.
I get the obp importance, but there is no way he has been more valuable when he is so flawed in so many categories: glove, arm, baserunning.
All stats that aren't counting stats are imperfect, it's just a question of
how imperfect they are. WAR is pretty good, but has flaws (bWAR has Cain as the NL MVP!) But this makes my point: When you have a cluster of players with similar WARs, it's fine to look at other factors that might differentiate their seasons when considering the MVP.
