Sunday, August 5, 2012

More WAR on the shelf

The Blue Jays 15 inning loss on Friday night (Saturday morning) was interesting. Coco Crisp denied Blue Jays fans their first #weirdbaseball of the season with just minutes to spare. It happened on the west coast (decidedly no longer the best coast, after this incident), which meant some of us were up until three in the morning, happy that we turned down that Chapmans ball-top ice cream cone after dinner, only to be let down on multiple fronts. Coco's just straight up mean.

More importantly, both Colby Rasmus and Brett Lawrie were pulled from the game with apparent injuries. It turned out that Lawrie aggravated his rib cage in his first at bat, and Rasmus strained his groin in the later stages of the game. He was eventually pulled in the 12th inning. John Farrell held them out of Saturday's game, and both of them are now listed as day to day, with Rasmus possibly back in the lineup on Sunday. Lawrie's return date has yet to be determined.

With two more everyday contributors out of action, I thought, well... just... this:

Active Roster (Aug. 5 2012)
Disabled List/Injured DTD
Pitchers
WAR
Pitchers
WAR
Henderson Alvarez
0.2
Robert Coello
-0.1
Jesse Chavez
-0.2
Kyle Drabek
-0.1
Steve Delabar
0.0
Jason Frasor
0.2
J.A. Happ
0.1
Drew Hutchison
0.6
Casey Janssen
0.8
Jesse Litsch
n/a
Aaron Laffey
0.1
Dustin McGowan
n/a
Brad Lincoln
0.1
Brandon Morrow
1.6
Aaron Loup
0.3
Luis Perez
0.4
Brandon Lyon
0.3
Sergio Santos
-0.2
Darren Oliver
0.9
Catchers

Ricky Romero
0.3
J.P. Arencibia
1.6
Carlos Villanueva
0.6
Infielders

Catchers

Brett Lawrie
2.8
Jeff Mathis
1.2
Adam Lind
-0.2
Infielders

Outfielders

David Cooper
0.0
Jose Bautista
3.2
Yunel Escobar
1.8
Colby Rasmus
2.1
Yan Gomes
-0.1
Accumulated WAR
11.9
Adeiny Hechavarria
n/a
Kelly Johnson
0.9
Brett Lawrie
2.8
Omar Vizquel
-0.3
Outfielders

Rajai Davis
1.2
Anthony Gose
-0.3
Colby Rasmus
2.1
Moises Sierra
0.0
Designated Hitter

Edwin Encarnacion
3.5
Accumulated WAR
11.4


That's right. The accumulated WAR for the players on the DL or listed as day to day (therefore unavailable for action on Saturday afternoon) is greater than that of the entire active roster. That disabled list, y'know, the one with more WAR? That list includes two players who have yet to pick up a ball in the regular season whatsoever. Incredible.

What's more incredible is the ability that this team has to hover around .500 when a definitely smaller group of players with decidedly better statistics is unable to play.

The cherry on this inexplicable sundae is the pitching. The Blue Jays' pitching staff is carrying a FIP of 4.71 - tied for last in the league with the Rockies and Twins. Their accumulated WAR for the season is 26th place 4.4. Those are not the pitching numbers of a .500 team.

So, despite the disparity in WAR, despite Ricky Romero getting no run support (The Blue Jays scored a total of 4 runs in the six games Romero started in July), and despite playing the walk-off kings in Oakland, they won the game on Saturday afternoon. Again, incredible.

In the eleventh inning, Edwin Encarnacion scored the go-ahead run on an error, only after sliding into, and then scrambling around third base. He has been playing with a tender heel, and I for one shuddered at the thought of him getting injured to the point where he landed on the DL, especially after putting these lists together.

Imagine if he did get injured, imagine an active roster with an accumulated WAR of 7.9, while the DL sported a hefty 15.4. These damned Jays would probably go on a twenty game winning streak with a pitching staff led by Marcus Stroman if that happened.

Sidenote: I left the headers from the Blue Jays active roster that I used in the list above as is. Note the header: Catchers. Plural. There is only one there, and it's Jeff Mathis. The same Jeff Mathis that started Saturday's game on the bench and came into the game as a pinch-hitter. The same Jeff Mathis who as Sam Miller (@SamMillerBP) pointed out on twitter:


Baseball is just weird sometimes, even when you don't get ice cream.

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