I don't believe that's true, and this would go back to my earlier point about people misusing the WAR stat.
The whole notion of positional adjustment is so you can compare WAR evenly between positions. In other words, WAR allows you to say that a 4 WAR 1B is equally valuable to a 4 WAR SS because the positional adjustment has been factored into their respective WAR calculations.
This is why the stat $/WAR exists, and why it's applicable across all positions.
Current $/WAR figure is around 7 mil. That puts Bourne's 2012 season at $42 mil value, vs Martinez's season of $28 mil value. So yes, WAR does state rather clearly that Bourne had 50% more value in 2012 than Martinez in 2014. Which is, surely, absurd.
Well, again, being 50% better doesn't exactly apply given the dollar value can go below 0 with negative WAR... but it doesn't really matter.
I was more trying to explain the reasoning behind the positional adjustment.
It's not saying Bourn's actual, on-the-field production was was 1.9 WAR better than Martinez. Take out the positional adjustments and the difference is more like 0.2-0.3 WAR. By sheer batting/stolen base contribution (wOBA), WAR has it that Martinez contributed about 44 more runs than Bourn. It's not disagreeing with your assessment of their batting contributions...
Have your qualms with the fielding component if you will (I'd agree with you and I tend to mentally halve any DRS/UZR number I see), but you're essentially arguing that batting is the only important thing in baseball and we should ignore fielding, baserunning, and the ease of replacing a player.
You can argue against how the first two are measured (perhaps the stolen base component of baserunning could be team-specific... but not really on bases gained or double plays avoided, and it's a bit silly to entirely discount a player like Bourn's speed contribution when compared to a lethargic runner like Martinez...) and the third point is a bit of a mental/philosophical point to grasp, but if anything I see a 4.3 WAR for Martinez and think, 'wow, that's a hell of a season for a 1B/DH'.
(edit: I see Discoverer largely covered this already, so cheers)
edit2: based on your second post, I can't entirely disagree, but I suspect we'll hit an impasse soon.
One point I'd definitely agree on is being wary of defense driven WAR totals. People should take multi-year samples into account when they can and/or be aware of DRS/UZR differences.
Couple quick points: the highest defensive run values you'll see are around 20, or 2 wins, and those tend to be rare. Again, I'd agree these should be tempered over multiple seasons, but defense driven high WAR totals tend to be the exception (and, who is to say a fielder can't contribute 20+ runs to a team in the field in a year?)
Revere got a whopping 2.6 runs from SB in Philly (0.9 with the Jays). The weight isn't as high as you suggest... Batting is still the obvious king the WAR calculation.
Your main example of Martinez v Bourn is a bit of an outlier given your point of view of not valuing defense at all, not valuing baserunning at all, and (I think?) disagreeing with the idea that it's harder to replace a CF or SS than a 1B/DH. I take your point, but you've found a pretty specific case.
