Incorrectly, yes, but not necessarily inaccurate (or at least "not useless"). Defensively, most good/decent players seem to fall into the .5-1.5 win spectrum over the course of a season, well under what a good player will deliver in oWAR, which I think we can all agree is relatively accurate. That means, on average, that a player's dWAR swing will be something less than one win a season while their oWAR can easily swing from 0 to 6.0 or better. A small highlight that should be pointed out about dWAR is that the "replacement player" on defense is much better than the "replacement player" on offense so dWAR's ability to screw up WAR as a whole is limited in most cases while it still delivers a single "catch-all" stat to quickly measure a player's value. In 2014, the NL dWAR leader was Simmons at 3.9 (which I think we can all agree is absurdly high, though Simmons is an incredible defender). The AL leader in dWAR was Kinsler at 2.9. Compare that to offense where McCutchen led the NL with a 7.8 oWAR and Trout led the AL with an 8.7 oWAR. And that's why I'm skeptical of the outliers in dWAR, both good and bad. If the player slots into a dWAR around 1.0 over the course of a season, the inaccuracies of dWAR are marginalized. If that player slots into a dWAR around 3.0 while his oWAR is 2.5, then alarm bells should ring. WAR is a flawed stat but not necessarily a bad stat, especially considering the other stats we (don't) have at our disposal that are obviously better.