[nateberkopec]

This is really neat. I love the idea of applying sabermetrics to historic generals.

However, one failure of this approach is that it assumes that the numbers of soldiers given for ancient battles is accurate. The Greeks will tell you that the Persians came with millions of soliders, but that just wasn't even possible given the state of military logistics at the time.

So, look at the #4 general in the article, Khalid ibn al-Walid. As an example data point, the article on the Battle of Yamama (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yamama) says he fought at nearly a 4:1 disadvantage, and as far as I can tell, the only source for these numbers is the Quran. Much like how the Greek sources love to tell you how big, bad and numerous the Persians that they defeated were, how great is God's glory if the army of God is steamrollering equal or smaller size armies?

I'm not sure how the author could account for this. IMO this underweights more recent and well-attributed generals such as Napoleon or Wellesley.