Very interesting. Thanks! On the whole, I've always been a little skeptical about the WAR stat.
The broadcast last night had the top AL WAR players by position. I don't remember anything except that Alex Gordon was the leader in left, and had a high relative number. So, I look up his batting stats this year and they are solid, but nothing spectacular. So, I am to assume he is a defensive star? That's a stretch for me, but that is just my prejudice.
At any rate, the stat evidently depends heavily on defensive stats, which based on my limited sampling of personal observations are pretty wanting.