A few months ago I looked at the negative WAR teams accumulated from 2004 to 2008. Since the 2009 season is over, it is time to look at how teams did this year at limiting the amount of negative WAR players on the field. If a player played for two teams this last season, I only took the partial seasons that were negative. Fangraphs only has combined WAR, so if a player had a negative value for one team and larger positive value for another I did not find these instances. My final numbers might be a little less negative than they should be because of this limitation. Here are the results with comments and table of exact values after the jump:
| Hitting/Fielding | Pitching | Total | |
| Padres | -3.8 | -6.8 | -10.6 |
| Royals | -7.3 | -1.0 | -8.3 |
| Nationals | -1.9 | -4.5 | -6.4 |
| Brewers | -1.0 | -4.4 | -5.4 |
| Astros | -2.6 | -2.6 | -5.2 |
| Indians | -2.5 | -2.6 | -5.1 |
| Cubs | -3.6 | -1.3 | -4.9 |
| Orioles | -1.9 | -2.9 | -4.8 |
| Braves | -3.9 | -0.8 | -4.7 |
| Mets | -2.6 | -1.9 | -4.5 |
| Mariners | -2.7 | -1.6 | -4.3 |
| Diamondbacks | -3.1 | -1.1 | -4.2 |
| Angels | -3.3 | -0.8 | -4.1 |
| Athletics | -3.5 | -0.6 | -4.1 |
| Pirates | -1.7 | -2.3 | -4.0 |
| Cardinals | -2.6 | -1.3 | -3.9 |
| Twins | -3.2 | -0.6 | -3.8 |
| Reds | -1.1 | -2.4 | -3.5 |
| Phillies | -1.3 | -2.1 | -3.4 |
| White Sox | -2.9 | -0.3 | -3.2 |
| Yankees | -1.4 | -1.6 | -3.0 |
| Blue Jays | -1.5 | -1.5 | -3.0 |
| Giants | -2.1 | -0.8 | -2.9 |
| Tigers | -1.8 | -1.0 | -2.8 |
| Rangers | -1.5 | -1.2 | -2.7 |
| Rays | -1.5 | -1.0 | -2.5 |
| Marlins | -0.7 | -1.5 | -2.2 |
| Dodgers | -0.7 | -1.1 | -1.8 |
| Red Sox | -0.9 | -0.6 | -1.5 |
| Rockies | -0.9 | -0.3 | -1.2 |
Thoughts:
- The Padres' lack of leadership, because of the team changing hands, could easily have been a major cause of their numbers.
- The Royals don't have have the excuse of the Padres; Dayton Moore just doesn't know how to evaluate position players. The Royals' Jose Guillen was the ML leader in negative WAR with -2.0. His personal total was worse than the position player total for half the teams.
- The negative WAR of the Padre pitching and Royals hitting were each more than the total of any other team.
- I know some people considered the Rockies lucky to make the playoffs this year, but giving up only 1.2 wins probably helped.
- The most negative WAR accumulated by playoff team was 4.1 WAR by the Angels. The three smallest scores (Dodgers, Red Sox and Rockies) all made the playoffs.