AL West Divisional All-Stars

Finally, some teams to which we can relate! In the Year of the Pitcher, check out how many A's are present on the offensive end...

Two! Two A's! Ah ah ah!

(That was Count von Count from Sesame Street, by the way...)

Yes, just two, and pretty near the bottom of the lineup, but they are the only two representatives from teams not the Angels or Rangers. Two more A's appear on the team, one starter and one reliever, the latter surrounded by THE ENTIRE TEXAS RANGERS BULLPEN! I mean, seriously, right? I know they went to the World Series, but were their relievers really THAT badass?

As far as holdovers from last year, only a pair of Angels in the Outfield (haha, remember that one?): Bobby Abreu and Torii Hunter. Abreu didn't even have to compete with Ichiro this year and took the right field spot outright. Last year's top two pitchers - Hernandez and Weaver - returned for another go-round, as did three relievers: the '010 Rangers' two Darren O's (although Oliver pitched for the Angels in '09 and O'Day's time was split with the Mets) and Craig Breslow.

Notice how last year's bullpen was dominated by the A's in not quite as dramatic a way that this year's is dominated by the Rangers. Also notice how both teams featured the AL Rookie of the Year in the Closer's spot. Strange how these things match up...

All this talk about the bullpen draws focus away from the sad sad state of the offense in this division. Looking for some oWAR above 4? Josh Hamilton's your man, and no one else. Even Vlad Guerrero, with his impressive swp-measured stats, couldn't crack a measly 3 wins above replacement. The starters make up for it, as you won't find a starter with a WAR below 4.

Only one more team to go after this one. As I near the end of this project, I find it hard to keep track of the scope of it and what it all means. With the AL Wild Card I'll also do some big picture wrapping up in general. I don't know how much all you readers out there in readerland are absorbing of any of this, but it sure was a fun way for me to spend the offseason. Much more productive than agonizing about who's going to sign the next big free agent...

AL Central Divisional All-Stars

With the completion of this list, I will be 3/4 of the way through the Divisional All-Stars project. Starting to get a little burned out on the lists? Me too, kind of. When dealing with so many fantastic players, there becomes less and less to say about each one of them in terms of commentary. For the AL Central, I'd like to focus on repeat honorees, folks who were good enough to make the list two years in a row. But first, the raw numbers:

Right away we can see some of the best hitters to appear in this project followed directly by some of the very worst. Not that guys like Jhonny Peralta are bad athletes - he was just rewarded with a new contract from the Tigers - but put him up next to some of his competition (Evan Longoria, Adrian Beltre, Alex Rodriguez, Michael Young), and it's easy to see that we're dealing with one of the weaker divisions in the sport right now.

As far as holdovers, there's only six: three batters, one starter, and two relievers. At the plate, we have Mauer, Cabrera, and Choo, with the supporting cast around them just as lackluster as this year's bunch, minus the DH spot, of course (last year occupied by Michael Cuddyer, spending most of his playing time in right field). On the mound, Verlander is the starter to appear on last year's team, although Danks did headline last year's AL Wild Card starting staff. The two reliever Matt's (Thornton & Guerrier) showed up on both teams.

A weak offense, the loss of both Zack Greinke and Cliff Lee from the rotation; this AL Central is but a shadow of its former self. Consider the WAR of their starting staff: four 4's and a 3, compared to the AL East's four 5's and a 3. The story of Francisco Liriano's comeback is an inspiring one, but great teams are made by great players, not great stories.

I must admit, I'm a little baffled by what makes a high WAR score. If it were strikeouts, Verlander would be way ahead. Pavano has a big lead in complete games. Danks didn't seem to do anything that special. I don't know what crazy algorithm they've got going, but it escapes me. However they're calculated, they sure make the Royals look smart for locking up Joakim Soria for a multiyear deal - as I hinted at last time, he scored the most WAR of any reliever in the game.

While comparing these teams to one another, I found myself wishing that I had access to some fancy simulation software, where I could plug in all these players and their stats, and "watch" what would happen if they faced off in a fictional Playoff situation. Then I realized that such software does in fact exist - in the form of video games on our most powerful consoles!

I haven't played a baseball game regularly since MVP '05 for the PS2... and by regularly, I mean obsessively. Heck, I'd still be playing it, if the lag created by plugging my older system into my schmancy new HDTV didn't make the game unplayable. Maybe if I gift myself a PS3 for Christmas, I'll consider buying one of the new games, adjusting the rosters, and setting in motion a simulated series. I'd feel like Aristotle's Unmoved Mover as I watched the pixelated teams that I created run and jump and swing and slide all over a computer-generated field.

Wouldn't that be exciting? Now I just have to decide which game throw my support behind: the MLB "The Show" series or the 2K_ series. Any suggestions from baseball gamers out there?

AL East Divisional All-Stars

Alright, time to forget about recent developments like the close of the Winter Meetings, the Golden Globe nominations, and the announcement of Time's Person of the Year, and jump right in to the American League Divisional All-Stars!

Not to always harp on this newfangled swp/WAR ratio I've started calculating, but let's start with our duo of overrated Yankees in the starting lineup. Mark Teixeira struggled to the lowest slash stats since his age 23 rookie season, but somehow put up good enough numbers (mostly through runs and walks - he had the lowest extra base hit percentage of his career) to rack up an impressive amount of points. Derek Jeter didn't necessarily earn his new $51 million contract, putting up an offensive win percentage below .500 for the first time ever since taking over as regular shortstop in 1996. Despite being a totally offensive-minded metric, swp seems to more accurately predict Gold Glove winners than valuable batters - both of the above players were recipients of the defensive award last season.

Now let's take a minute to marvel at Jose Bautista's season. 54 home runs OUT OF NOWHERE. 124 RBI to go with them. .86 BB/K ratio, compared to his career mark of .58. And all this with a .233 batting average on balls in play, which suggests that he was immensely UNlucky in terms of hits/outs this season. A season for the ages, just as next season will undoubtedly be in the running for one of the biggest season-to-season dropoffs of all time...

I lost many nights of sleep trying to determine who should occupy the DH spot: whether it should be the best runner-up out of all the position players or the best player who played the majority of his games as the DH. If there weren't two very good candidates, it would have been much tougher, but David Ortiz (2,017 / 13.9) gave Adrian Beltre a run for his money, especially considering just swp and also that as the DH his defensive prowess means less.

Overall, this team is remarkably economical with their swp. Aside from the two Yankees mentioned before and Carl Crawford - who had a remarkably impressive season, but played in an uncharacteristically deep position - not a single ratio above 500 on the lineup or the starting staff. Speaking of the starting staff, check out the league leaders included in that bunch: Sabathia in wins (21), Lester in K/9 innings (9.7), and Buchholz in adjusted ERA+ (187). The pitcher with the lowest WAR (Shaun Marcum) actually had the highest K/BB ratio of the bunch (3.65) - plus he just came back from a full season of not pitching, so we should cut him some slack.

Look at how much WAR likes setup man Daniel Bard: his 3.3 wins above replacement is the highest among all non-closer relievers. (It's also good for second overall among ALL relievers, tied with Brian Wilson and behind... well, you'll find out next time!) On the other end of the spectrum, look at how little WAR appreciates the unique talent of the swingman: David Hernandez, who started roughly 20% of his games, sits pretty with less than 1 win above replacement. Although we might find that's not the norm next week...

Also, as a point of trivia, check out Koji Uehara's swp/g: 20.1! As (technically) a reliever! He's an example of a fringe reliever: my criteria for distinguishing CL's from RP's is that a Closer must have appeared in at least 25% of his team's save opportunities (SVOpp's). Guess Uehara's percentage: that's right, 24.2%. At least WAR puts him in his place as far as effectiveness goes.

Next Week: AL Central.

NL Wild Card Divisional All-Stars

The Wild Card team features "the best of the rest" - players taken from all three NL divisions who didn't score quite enough points to be included in their division's all-star team. Doesn't mean they're not solid players, one and all. Here's the list:

The first thing I did when analyzing this list was to tally up which players came from which divisions, to see which division had the edge. And guess which one did? Not a single one! 21 players on the roster, 7 from  each of the three NL divisions. What are the odds!? (This is counting Ted Lilly just for the Cubs, since that's where he spent most of his time. Ditto with Dan Haren who actually spent the latter part of his season in the American League.) Pretty uncanny, eh? The East and the Central are pretty split in the batting and pitching, and the West dominates the bullpen.

According to WAR, Brian Wilson was better than the guy who beat him in the NL West, Heath Bell. But the difference in swp is small; I don't know what accounts for the difference of 0.7 WAR. Maybe the beard factors in. Like I said, I don't understand what witchcraft goes into sabermetrics.

Also look at Edward Mujica's swp/WAR ratio. Unbelievable, right? First Gregerson, then Mujica. Suddenly the Padres' stellar bullpen isn't looking so impressive after all...

Working up, check out how Jonathan Sanchez, the Giants' No. 3 starter, headlines this Wild Card All-Star Team. Speaks volumes about the new World Champs, doesn't it?

But the team leader in WAR is NL East third base runner-up Ryan Zimmerman, which puts him in the running for the highest-valued swp in the league. Here's the top 10 ranking:

As you can see, Zimmerman sits at No. 7, good for 4th among position players, and 1st among non-catcher position players. (Catcher swp are notoriously overvalued, because replacement level catchers are such notorious light hitters.) I don't know what caused his points to be valued so highly, but I'll bet it hinges on that high slugging percentage, indicating a high number of extra base hits. If there was a stat stock market, I would envy the visionary who first bought stock in OPS...

Batting behind him in my fictional order, despite his higher swp total, is right fielder Hunter Pence, who sports some of the lowest valued points in the league - second lowest to Mark Reynolds. (I won't put the whole list up here - it's too depressing.) Sure enough, if we look at Pence's stats: low walk total and a SLG well south of .500. Maybe there's a correlation to be found after all.

Once I have all 8 of these teams done, I'll likely calculate an average swp/WAR ratio, and with 8 (teams) x 21 (players) + however many honorable mentions I calculated, I should have a pretty decent sample size of the best players in the game right now to see how the two metrics compare. Hopefully it'll be enlightening. I hate to think that I might be wasting my time with all these lists...

NL West Divisional All-Stars

At the risk of bombarding you, my loyal readers, with too many indecipherable numbers, I've added two columns to the NL West graph. They are the 2010 oWAR (offensive wins above replacement) and the swp/WAR ratio, which is exactly what it sounds like. Remember, a player with a lower ratio's points were valued higher than a player with a higher ratio - lower-ratio'd players got more for their points so to speak. This is all in the effort seeing how my silly method of player evaluation compares with the hottest minds in sabermetrics.

Right away I want to point out an inconsistency in the selection of the outfielders for this team. Andres Torres played primarily center field for the Giants, but he logged significant playing time at each of the outfield positions. Ditto Carlos Gonzalez, except with left field as his main spot. Seeing as we had two star outfielders without a fixed position, I picked the three outfielders with the highest swp and put them wherever they would fit. Had I stuck strictly with positions, Torres would have been left out and Andre Ethier would have taken his place in right. Here's how their two lines compare:

Torres: 1,828 / 2.9 = 630
Ethier: 1,755 / 3.7 = 474

As you can see, Ethier was more valuable in terms of both my newly included columns. (Defensively, it was a different story: 1.6 dWAR for Torres vs. -1.7 for Ethier. Yikes!) But I've thrown my lot in with swp, and that's how the story goes. Plus Torres is a better fit to bat leadoff than flash-in-the-pan Kelly Johnson.

MVP candidate Carlos Gonzalez (or CarGo as the fans have dubbed him) had an incredible season, but he had rather low-valued swp. That might be because power hitting outfielders are relatively easy to come by. See as an example his Rockies teammate shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who logged the same number of Wins Above Replacement, yet scored measurably fewer swp (due to an injury-shortened season).

But, wait, that logic can't hold, because isn't first base one of the deepest positions in terms of production? Then how come Aubrey Huff and (especially) Adrian Gonzalez had such highly valued swp? Maybe it has something to do with all the walks they drew. Maybe it's all the extra-base hits. Maybe there's just something about this sabermetrics movement that I don't understand.

What I do understand is that Mark Reynolds is way overrated, at least by traditional offensive measures. He's still better than average, but leading the league in strikeouts three years in a row? Makes you wonder if the Orioles front office (the team that just recently acquired Reynolds) has access to the latest evaluating measures.

I also understand that Ubaldo Jimenez was as impressive as Tim Lincecum was disappointing. I don't know if WAR takes into account park effects, but to give up just 10 home runs in high-altitude Coors Field is a feat of absolute mastery. Only two pitchers in the league (Roy Halladay and Adam Wainwright) had higher swp's, but no one could best him in WAR for pitchers. He was a bit wild, with a K/BB ratio dwarfed by Cy Young winner Halladay, but he's only 26 and looks to have several more great seasons ahead of him.

Tim Lincecum's season was a silly one: as you can see he's way down there in swp, whereas he was among the leaders in the last two years (where he won two Cy Youngs). He still piled on the strikeouts this year, leading the league for the third straight year, but I guess he just gave up too many hits and let too many runs score.

Just a word on a couple of over-valued relief pitchers: Heath Bell was one of the best in the game - you generally don't see a reliever with WAR above 3.0 - but seeing as swp highly overvalues the save stats (30 swp per!) it takes him a lot of points to get to one WAR. Conversely, someone like Hong-Chih Kuo, who pitched comparably, but didn't rack up as many prestige stats, has points that more accurately represent his value.

Just for a second, look at Luke Gregerson's swp/WAR ratio. Wow, right? It would take him nearly 1,300 swp to log 1 WAR! Looks like the Padres made the right decision trading him to the Marlins for a young center fielder - get the most you can for him while his traditional stats are over-valued.

NEXT: NL Wild Card

NL Central Divisional All-Stars

Going geographically, the NL Central stars are next:

(Does the center alignment of all the names look strange to you? It usually looks more professional, more "baseball," if the names are aligned left. And maybe if the stats were aligned right...)

Among these players - all of whom are among the best in the NL Central - we can recognize a few players who are among the best in the Game right now.

First of all, the 1B / DH / really just another 1B combination of MVP Joey Votto and MVP-runner-up Albert Pujols. Interestingly enough, you can see that the eventual winner was outscored in swp by the loser - and baseball-reference's version of WAR (wins above replacement, remember those?) agrees: 7.4 for Pujols, 6.9 for Votto. But here's the real kicker: when determining how swp relates to WAR, Pujols and Votto had exactly the same swp/WAR ratio.

Votto: 2,650 / 6.9 = 384
Pujols: 2,843 / 7.4 = 384

Coincidence...? YOU DECIDE!

Matt Holliday may very well turn out to be one of the game's best outfielders, but he doesn't do everything particularly well enough for him to be considered one of the greats. Rickie Weeks had a fantastic season, but he's been inconsistent because of injuries. Andrew McCutchen has the "tools" to become a star, but he's not quite there yet.

On the pitching side, Adam Wainwright has blossomed into an absolute staff ace. Four years since converting from a reliever, he's shown that he has the staying power to lead a competitive rotation. Roy Oswalt pitched like one of the best in the game during his 11 starts for Philadelphia... but he didn't pitch nearly that well for the Astros, or overall. If Chris Carpenter once was one of the best in the game, he's not pitching like it now.

Given what's out there now, Carlos Marmol certainly looks like one of the top 6-8 closers in the game right now. Evan Meek had a deserved All-Star season as a rookie, but we know how volatile the middle relief position can be... or we soon will be.

One more thing of note: a possible catching snub - of defensive whiz Yadier Molina in favor of more offensively-minded Geovany Soto. The race was reasonably close: Soto had 1,157 swp with Molina at 1,058. We all know that swp takes no account of defensive stats... so when comparing swp to WAR, I've used only offensive WAR. Molina, the fan-voted All-Star starter by a landslide, picked up 1.7 defensive WAR in '010. Soto, who struggled mightily last year, but bounced back after slimming down, is sitting pretty at 0.0 - he is exactly a replacement level defensive catcher. But in terms of offense, Soto's 3.2 oWAR blow Molina's 1.4 out of the water.

One has to admit: when factoring WAR into swp, a clear winner emerges. Soto actually had the lowest swp/WAR ratio of anyone on this NL Central team:

Soto: 1,157 / 3.2 = 362
Molina: 1,058 / 1.4 = 756

The next highest is Evan Meek: a middle reliever whose swp isn't inflated by saves:

Meek: 990 / 2.6 = 381

Then come Votto and Pujols with 384. What this means is that swp scored by players with low ratios are somewhat undervalued and points scored by players with high ratios are overvalued. What does that mean, in the big picture? I haven't the slightest idea. Ask me again next off-season.