Wow, look at Juan Pierre's swp/WAR ratio: unsightly much? This is probably a perfect storm of one metric drastically overvaluing (probably due to steals being worth 30 swp each) and one metric drastically undervaluing (probably because of the lack of extra base hits, which we all know produce lots of runs). He was the AL's fourth highest scoring left fielder to Delmon Young by just 1 swp, which is funny because the best and second best (by far) left fielders came from the East and West respectively: Carl Crawford of the New Big Contract and Josh Hamilton of the MVP honors.
Like Pierre, John Buck was another "True Wild Card" candidate: fourth place in the league in terms of stats. The Twins' Joe Mauer was obviously the best, the Red Sox's Victor Martinez was next (although he will be playing next season with the Tigers), and then the Angels' Mike Napoli (who actually spent the majority of his time at first base... no one has to know...). Billy Butler was likewise the fourth best first baseman, but his case is slightly different because the four teams actually feature five first basemen: Detroit's Miguel Cabrera is #1, his runner-up, Paul Konerko, serves as the AL Central's DH, the Yankees' Mark Teixeira led his division, and Butler is sandwiched between him and the A's' Daric Barton.
Despite his Wild Card berth, Nick Swisher amassed the third best swp as a right fielder, behind Jose Bautista and Shin-Soo Choo, but just edging out Bobby Abreu in the West. Same circumstances for B.J. Upton, who again fell behind his Central and Eastern center field counterparts (Alex Rios and Vernon Wells respectively), but finished ahead of Torii Hunter (again from the West and again playing for the Angels).
It's deja vu all over again for Alex Gonzalez despite the fact that he split his time between leagues: behind Derek Jeter (Yankees, East) and Alexei Ramirez (White Sox, Central), but ahead of Cliff Pennington (A's, West). Aaron Hill somehow finished ahead of Orlando Hudson in swp (but behind Robinson Cano and Howard Kendrick), despite failing to crack even a single WAR. Much better choices would be Chone Figgins (1,364 swp / 2.0 WAR) or even the injury-shortened season of Ian Kinsler (1,351 swp / 2.7 WAR).
Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees was the third best third baseman, but like first base, he is out of five players of his position represented. Strange piece of trivia: all three of the AL's top third basemen came from the East: Evan Longoria from the Rays, Adrian Beltre from the Red Sox (East's DH), then A-Rod. Michael Young (who may be moving to DH to make room for aforementioned Beltre when the Rangers sign him), and Jhonny Peralta fell far short.
David Ortiz was one of two full-time DH's represented - the other being Vladimir Guerrero, an erstwhile right fielder. What's the difference between these two? The Red Sox picked up Ortiz's option whereas the Rangers declined Guerrero's. He remains unsigned at the date of this writing.
Starting pitchers are a little easier to rank because there aren't any positions to deal with; it's just straight stats right down the line. The top three Wild Card starters come from the West: Gio Gonzalez (A's), Colby Lewis (Rangers, late of Japan), and Ervin Santana (Angels). Gio would be the #2 starter for the Central and the #5 starter in the East - the only Wild Card starter to crack a spot in the Eastern rotation. Any of the next three (starter #4 is Toronto's Ricky Romero, representing the East) could pitch #5 for the Central team. The Wild Card's #5 starter, Matt Garza, is the lowest scoring pitcher to make it into one of these Divisional rotations.
Mariano Rivera's age seems to have finally caught up to him, as he only pitched well enough to be a True Wild Card candidate. Rafael Soriano (Rays), Joakim Soria (Royals), and Rookie of the Year Neftali Feliz (Rangers) surpassed the great Mo. He narrowly surpassed Jonathan Papelbon, who had a rotten year by his standards. We'll have to wait and see if he can regain extra-human status next season.
Oh boy relief pitchers. I wanted to do a study on them specifically, but that's going to have to wait until after the imminent announcement of who gets into the class of 2011 of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Is it wrong that I'm more excited about these ultimately meaningless announcements than I am about the entire Football/Basketball seasons combined?
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