Minnesota Twins had no All-Star caliber players according to WAR
I love WAR. The statistic. Sure, the formula is complicated, but I like being able to judge everyone on a team based on a single number. Numbers can lie sometimes, don’t believe the name of that ESPN show, and should always been taken with a grain of salt, but by looking at WAR, the Minnesota Twins didn’t have a single player at an All-Star caliber throughout the entire 2015 season.
WAR, wins above replacement, is an attempt to measure how many wins a player is worth compared to say a team’s Triple-A player, someone that would naturally take the major league player’s spot. The scale shows that if a player has an eight or higher they are a MVP caliber player, five and over is an All-Star, two and up is a MLB starter, from zero on up is a reserve in the majors and if you are in the negatives, well, you should be replaced.
The highest WAR for a Twins player was 3.2.
The top 12 via Baseball Reference looks like this:
- Eduardo Nunez – 1.5 WAR
- Mike Pelfrey – 1.5 WAR
- Joe Mauer – 1.5 WAR
- Ervin Santana – 1.6 WAR
- Tyler Duffey – 1.6 WAR
- Phil Hughes – 1.8 WAR
- Eduardo Escobar – 1.9 WAR
- Miguel Sano – 2.1 WAR
- Eddie Rosario – 2.2 WAR
- Brian Dozier – 2.4 WAR
- Trevor Plouffe – 2.5 WAR
- Kyle Gibson – 3.2 WAR
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For a comparison, the Chicago Cubs top 11 were all above a 1.5 WAR. The top three Cubs were ridiculous. Kris Bryant at 5.9, Anthony Rizzo at 6.2 and Jake Arrieta at a remarkable 9.0 WAR.
So the Minnesota Twins have a long ways to go and sure it’s not exactly fair to compare the Twins to the team now favored to make the World Series out of the National League, but those Cubbies are going to be good for a long time and eventually the Twins will need to meet or best them.
The usual suspects were at the top of the list for the Twins, except for Mike Pelfrey, the bottom dwellers were interesting, too. The worst pitcher when looking at WAR for the Twins was Ricky Nolasco at a -0.8. The worst batter was a -2.2 for the Twins and that was Danny Santana at a -2.2 in 91 games of play.
The most interesting thing about the bottom of the WAR standings was the man in second to last place: Torii Hunter at -0.8.
How easy it to get a positive WAR, though? Eric Fryer was a 0.2 for the Twins.
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