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.
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