The Temptations, (and more famously, Edwin Starr) would have you believe it’s good for “absolutely nothing.” Baseball fans know it’s good for measuring value above a certain mark, “replacement level,” as it were. What’s replacement level?
Replacement Level
Replacement level is defined as a baseball team comprised completely of such players would yield a .294 winning percentage, or, a 48-win season out of 162 games. Perhaps not coincidentally, a 48-win season is 33 wins below .500, and there are 30 major league teams. What that means is that if you add all the WAR together from the major leagues, you would come up with 990 (let’s call it 1,000 for simplicity's sake).