Team fWAR Ranks without Top Players
Recently, I have been astonished by some of the numbers guys in the big leagues are putting up. Cal Raleigh has 35 home runs, tying him with the great Ken Griffey Jr. for the most home runs before the All-Star break in Mariners history. Aaron Judge is putting up another monster season. We are even seeing the breakout of Pete Crow-Armstrong and Riley Greene.
I started to wonder where teams would rank in fWAR if you removed their top player. What if the Yankees didn’t have Judge or the Mariners didn’t have Raleigh? After removing the team’s top player in fWAR, this is where the team’s rank.
All statistics are prior to games on 7/3
What I noticed after going through the data is things do not change a whole lot. The two biggest changes were to the Yankees and Mariners, who have the two best position players according to fWAR. There was only one other team that moved more than two spots, which was the Miami Marlins, who moved up three spots once Kyle Stowers was removed from the position group fWAR.
One of the sayings that I cannot stand from sports fans is, “If you remove ___ from the team, they are not a good team.” The data suggests that even if you remove Aaron Judge from the Yankees, they would still be a good offense. Sure, they would be different but so would every other team. The Yankees would have the 6th best position group fWAR in baseball without one of the best hitters the sport has ever seen. And the fact is, the Yankees currently do have a healthy Aaron Judge and the Mariners do have a healthy Cal Raleigh.
What did surprise me on this list is the bottom. The Royals position group having a negative fWAR if you remove Bobby Witt Jr. is shocking. And when you start to wonder if the Royals can get back into the mix of the AL Wild Card race, they certainly cannot do it if the supporting cast is not significantly better.
The other shocking thing was the Colorado Rockies. Everybody always talks about how hard it is to pitch in Colorado and the struggles the Rockies have had developing pitching with the elevation. But they have also struggled to develop position players. For a ballpark that supports offense more than any in baseball, the Rockies hitters do not take advantage of it. The data also suggests that the Rockies are a terrible defensive group as well.
The reality is removing a team’s best player is a pointless exercise. Unless an unfortunate injury occurs, teams get to compete with their best player. And even if you did remove a team’s best player, it probably wouldn’t change a whole lot.
You might think it’s pointless, as you said, but players do get injured. I’m sure the Mariners and Yankees are hoping that doesn’t happen. I feel teams are really affected negatively when they lose players. It can be a domino effect on the lineup.
It’s amazing to see just how valuable Bobby Witt is to KC. I mean obviously he’s their star and their best player, but it’s wild to think that they’d have a negative team fWAR without him.