Got a question for you baseball nerds. Does anyone still use HR, RBI, batting average, etc. to determine how good (or bad) players are nowadays?
Reason I ask is when I did follow baseball, all the talk was so and so is better because look at his RBIs or so and so is better because he hit .320 to the other guy's .265. It's what I grew up understanding and liking about baseball as a stats nerd. Looking at someone's baseball card and seeing his year-to-year HR totals and RBI totals and Runs totals. But now it seems the focus almost entirely is on these new numbers (WAR, OPS+, etc.).
Does anyone use those "old school" stats anymore?
Depends on how much of a nerd you are. I think the standard level of analysis uses OPS+, which is just on-base (batting average plus walks) plus slugging (how many bases you're getting when you get hits) as a function of league average (100 is league average). WRC+ is similar, but it includes a park adjusted factor.
I think some baseball analytics go a bit overboard with it though, because guys fill useful niches even if their OPS+ or WAR isn't necessarily special. For example, a guy who has an OBP of .350 with speed but zero power is a great leadoff hitter (such as Steven Kwan). A guy who is awful defensively but can hit 35 HRs a year and get a ton of RBIs is still a useful cleanup hitter (such as Nick Castellanos). WAR usually represents it pretty well but it can overrate or underrate niche players with specific roles that WAR either likes or doesn't like.
On the Pirates, I think Hayes is a terrific example of that, especially in his 2022 season. In that year, he only had a slash line of .244/.314/.345, which is a clearly below average hitter (88 OPS+). However, WAR absolutely loved his defense, to the point where he finished with 4.4 WAR in 136 games. That's insanely overrating him, he is simply not as good as his WAR suggests in that year. I think Triolo is another guy on the Pirates who WAR overrates due to his defense.