Introduction
This True Team idea is based off of a Twitter conversation with Jason Wojciechowski about True Teams. This past season, Grant Green - a prospect in the Oakland Athletics organization - was moved from shortstop to center field because his defense wasn't good enough. However, Billy Beane told Green that the purpose of this move was that Cliff Pennington was blocking him at short. I snarkily replied that "Cliff Pennington is a True Athletic. Can't move him from short."
We often hear about a player being a True Yankee, but what about the rest of the teams? I'll run through each team in alphabetical order.
Many of the players on these teams will be current players, just because they haven't had the opportunity to go elsewhere just yet. The average amount of current players per team is nine.
History
Here are the links to the previous posts in this series:
Angels | Astros | Athletics | Blue Jays | Braves | Brewers | Cardinals | Cubs | Diamondbacks | Dodgers | Giants | Indians | Mariners | Marlins
Method
1. The player must have played for the team in question for their entire career, as found by the "C" column in the Franchise Encyclopedia on baseball-reference. The reason for this is simply to make the data gathering process as simple as possible. Unfortunately, this strict rule leads to the omissions of players such as Willie Mays and Hanley Ramirez.
2. Players are ranked based on fWAR for batters and rWAR for pitchers (this is based on the relative ability to gain these values. Plus, pitcher WAR is not available on Fangraphs as far back as it is on baseball-reference.)
3. Pitchers are defined as starting pitchers if they have started more than 60% their career appearances.
4. For hitters, the position they play on the All-True Team may not have been their main position in real life, but they must have played there at some point in their career.
5. If two players are similar in overall WAR, their length of career will be the deciding factor as to which one makes the team.
6. A 25-man roster will be chosen for each team. This includes a starting player for each defensive position, five starting pitchers, five relief pitchers and seven bench players. These bench players will be the seven best remaining players.
7. A Mr. Team may be chosen if their career WAR is greater than 30% of the total All-Team WAR. There will be nine Mr. Teams chosen.
Results
| Position | Player | WAR |
| C | Ron Hodges | 6.7 |
| 1B | Ed Kranepool | 11.6 |
| 2B | Ruben Tejada | 1.6 |
| SS | Jose Reyes | 33.4 |
| 3B | David Wright | 39.3 |
| LF | Nick Evans | 0.6 |
| CF | Esix Snead | 0.1 |
| RF | Bruce Boisclair | 1.2 |
| SP | Mike Pelfrey | 5.7 |
| SP | Dillon Gee | 2.4 |
| SP | Jonathon Niese | 1 |
| SP | Chris Schwinden | 0.1 |
| SP | Randy Sterling | -0.2 |
| CL | Bob Apodaca | 5.1 |
| RP | Jeff Innis | 3.9 |
| RP | Pedro Feliciano | 3.9 |
| RP | Scott Holman | 1.3 |
| RP | Rick Baldwin | 0.8 |
| BENCH (1B) | Daniel Murphy | 5.4 |
| BENCH (1B) | Ike Davis | 4.9 |
| BENCH (C) | Josh Thole | 2.8 |
| BENCH (SS) | Ron Gardenhire | 1 |
| BENCH (RP) | Bob Myrick | 0.7 |
| BENCH (RP) | Bill Hepler | 0.7 |
| BENCH (RP) | Bill Wakefield | 0.6 |
| TOTAL | 134.6 |
Conclusion
Team Established: 1962
Total Team WAR: 134.6
Total WAR Rank: 24/30 teams
Mr. Met: N/A. The best player on the team is David Wright who comes in just below the 30% threshold. With the removal of Reyes, Wright shoots up to over 38% of the team total.
Team MVP: David Wright, 39.3 WAR.
Number of Active Players: 11. This is two more than the average for all true teams.
Free Agent: Jose Reyes. Reyes is very likely not returning to the Mets next year. With his absence, Gardenhire becomes the starting short stop and Lucas Duda joins the team.
Players That Just Missed (90% of Career on Team): Bud Harrelson (92% of PA, 23 WAR on NYM), Cleon Jones (99% of PA, 23 WAR on NYM),Craig Swan (99% of IP, 12.6 WAR on NYM),
I thought the Mets would fare much better in this exercise than they did. There aren't many solid players on the "Just Missed" list either. They have had some good players, but those players didn't stick around for very long. You know, kind of like Jose Reyes.
There won't be many conclusions drawn here, but feel free to discuss this team in the comments. Anyone I missed, any surprises, any memories of specific players?
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