season, finishing first with a WAR of 8.2, to Altuve's 7.5. Based on Baseball-Reference's calculation, Altuve had the edge, 8.3 to 8.1. However, in James's words, the usage of WAR in this particular MVP argument was "...nonsense. Aaron Judge was nowhere near as valuable as Jose Altuve…. It is not close. The belief that it is close is fueled by bad statistical analysis.” He goes on to say that WAR,“...is dead wrong because the creators of that statistic have severed the connection between performance statistics and wins, thus undermining their analysis.” He goes on to point out that Judge performed worse than Altuve in critical situations, such as the late innings of close games, and that WAR does not properly take this into account. Alternatives to WAR Some sabermetricians "have been distancing themselves from the importance of single-season WAR values" because some of the defensive metrics incorporated into WAR calculations have significant variability. For example, during the 2012 season, the Toronto Blue Jays employed an infield shift against some left-handed batters, such as David Ortiz or Carlos Peña, in which third baseman Brett Lawrie would be assigned to shallow right field. This resulted in a very high Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) total for Lawrie, and hence a high rWAR, which uses DRS as a component. Ben Jedlovec, an analyst for DRS creator Baseball Info Solutions, said that Lawrie was "making plays in places where very few third basemen are making those plays" because of the "optimal positioning by the Blue Jays". Another fielding metric, Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), uses the DRS data but excludes runs saved as a result of a shift. Jay Jaffe, a writer for Baseball Prospectus and a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, adapted WAR for a statistic he developed in 2004 called "Jaffe Wins Above Replacement Score," or JAWS. The metric averages a player's career WAR with their seven-year peak WAR (not necessarily consecutive years). The final number is then used to measure the player's worthiness of being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by comparing it to the average JAWS of Hall of Fame players at that position. Baseball-Reference's explanation of JAWS says, "The stated goal is to improve the Hall of Fame's standards, or at least to maintain them rather than erode them, by admitting players who are at least as good as the average Hall of Famer at the