56.17 Postseason WAR by position analysis

[Bob Breum]

My goal every season is to achieve 3.0+ WAR at each position. Fangraphs publishes the following WAR chart:

Scrub 0-1
Role Player 1-2
Solid Starter 2-3
Good Player 3-4
All-Star 4-5
Superstar 5-6
MVP 6+

I conduct this postmortem after each season to identify those areas where I fell short. Here's this season's results:

Catcher: 4.5 WAR. Calvin Johnson was major FA target for me, largely because of his pitch framing. Johnson rewarded my confidence with a career season, earning 4.4 WAR in 109 starts, and starting for the Johnson League in the All-Star game. I believe that Johnson made our pitching more effective. He's 35 with Normal injury proneness. He's signed for three more years, followed by two team option years.

First base: 1.6 WAR. First basemen need to hit especially well to reach 3 WAR, as they are not going to earn any significant value from defensive WAR. Surprisingly, my best player at this position was 40-year-old Quant Kouros, who earned 1.0 WAR at 1B in only 46 starts. His starts were generally against LHP, as he has a large platoon split. He hit .303/.369/455 against LHP for an OPS+ of 132. Our efforts against RHP were less successful, despite signing FA LH slugger Aarnoud Budding. After hitting 136/122/181 OPS+ in the three previous seasons, Budding managed a meager .234/.298/.429 for a 102 OPS+ in his first season with us. Signed for two more years, we have to believe that he will regress closer to his recent mean.

Second base: 3.7 WAR. Long time Blazer Lineu Aldo hit in line with his career average, earning 3.6 WAR at the position with a 122 OPS+. He led the league with 36 SB in 39 attempts. He's rated 8 at 2B, providing roughly average defense at the position (-0.9 ZR in 125 starts). He's set to retire as a Blazer, signed for three more years. He's 36 with Normal injury proneness.

Third base: 6.8 WAR. Eduardo Gonzalez turned in a career year, well above his strong career averages of .283 BA/31 HR/122 OPS+. This season he hit .302/.366/.594 with 40 home runs and 106 RBIs, good for 165 OPS+, 6.5 WAR, and an All-Star berth. He's signed for one more year. He's 35 and Durable.

Shortstop: 0.9 WAR. This was one of three positions that was a season-long struggle. The plan was to play Mauro Soto, hoping that he could avoid embarrassing himself at the plate while providing Gold Glove defense, and that this would translate into 2-3 net WAR. His glove was more or less as advertised, but we gave up on him 54 games in, after he recorded negative 0.5 WAR and a 26 OPS+. We played eight different players here as we searched for an answer. We settled on Miguel Martinez, who is really more of a 2B than a SS, but he hit for a 122 OPS+ for us and earned 1.5 WAR in 75 games at the position. He's not a long-term solution, so the search for a SS will continue in the offseason.

Left field: 3.0 WAR. Our platoon here performed well. Ramao Saturnino earned 2.3 WAR as the LH-hitting member of the platoon, and 38-year-old Ricardo Ruiz added 0.7 WAR against LHP. Both offer solid if unspectacular defense. Saturnino is signed for another season. Ruiz is a FA.

Center field: 2.9 WAR. This was a major concern before the season began, but our efforts to upgrade our CF defense while maintaining decent offense at the position were largely successful. We started the season with a platoon of LH-hitting Jorge Rincon and switch-hitting Bill Morley. With Morley being fragile, we were reluctant to play him full-time. Naturally, Rincon was injured several times, missing about two months, while Morley stayed healthy all season. Rincon earned 2.1 WAR in 76 starts, stealing 13 bases in 14 attempts, and posting a near-league average OPS+ of 94. Morley earned 1.2 WAR in 53 starts, while also hitting near league average 91 OPS+. We hold team options for both of them.

Right field and Designated Hitter: -0.6 WAR (RF) and -0.8 WAR (DH). These positions were an unmitigated disaster. We signed Pedro Huerta to play DH and traded for Shirai Matsumoto to play RF, both of them in a platoon role versus RHP. Each had an offensive profile that we thought would play well in our park. Huerta has a long track record of solid offensive production, including 139 and 144 OPS+ over the previous two seasons. A right-fielder by trade, Huerta hit a career worst .237/.271/.416, earning negative 0.1 WAR in 115 starts, mostly at DH. Matsumoto topped that, hitting a career worst .219/.283/.337, earning negaive 0.6 WAR. Huerta is signed for three more years, and we can only hope that he, like Budding, regresses toward his career mean. Matsumoto is a FA.

In summary, we still need a shortstop. We have little choice but to hope for bounce-back seasons from Budding and Huerta.

[trmmilwwi]

I like this way of viewing things. Good stuff!

[trmmilwwi]

Forgot to add, I was in on the bidding for Soto in the offseason and was sad that he chose Montreal's offer over mine. I was hoping he would have a good year regardless but obviously he didn't. It'll be interesting to see if his bat does anything as things continue.

Glad Johnson is doing well, love him as a player.

[DaveB]

I <3 Morley and Matsumoto. It hurt when I traded both. Glad to see Morley performed well for you.

[Trebro]

Really great analysis!

[RonCo]

Nice run down

[Krathan]

I enjoyed this recap.