The baseball statistic WAR stands for Wins Above Replacement. It's become one of the best ways to value the overall contributions of a baseball player. As its definition explains, it determines "how many more wins a player is worth than a replacement-level player at his same position (e.g., a Minor League replacement or a readily available fill-in free agent)" -- taking into account baserunning, batting, fielding and a whole bunch of other important factors.

It's hard to argue that a player's WAR should be higher or lower because, well, it's calculated using math. Math usually doesn't lie.

But what if you're the actual replacement player? They surely know how much they're worth and how much more valuable the talented player they’re replacing is to the team.

Take Cleveland Indians backup third baseman Mike Freeman and Cleveland Indians starting third baseman José Ramírez.

Yes, Ramírez is a 3.0 fWAR player, while Freeman sits at 0.0 fWAR. How can you not take the replacement player's word in a stat that calculates wins above replacement player?

Maybe we should start taking polls from every star's replacement player at the end of the season to find out if they're really worth what the math says they're worth.