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 | Mets | Nationals (Expos)
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 | Chris Hoiles | 26.6 |
| 1B | Dode Criss | 1.9 |
| 2B | Brian Roberts | 29.8 |
| SS | Cal Ripken | 99.7 |
| 3B | Brooks Robinson | 94.6 |
| LF | Dick Kokos | 6.3 |
| CF | Milt Byrnes | 8.3 |
| RF | Nick Markakis | 20.1 |
| SP | Jim Palmer | 63.5 |
| SP | Carl Weilman | 19 |
| SP | Scott McGregor | 17.5 |
| SP | George Baumgardner | 4.3 |
| SP | Brad Bergesen | 2.9 |
| CL | Jim Johnson | 7.1 |
| RP | Mark Williamson | 5.3 |
| RP | Cliff Fannin | 4.3 |
| RP | Ernie Wingard | 3.1 |
| RP | Ernie Koob | 1.7 |
| BENCH (2B) | Rich Dauer | 15.5 |
| BENCH (C) | Matt Wieters | 7.4 |
| BENCH (OF) | Gus Williams | 5.2 |
| BENCH (OF) | Al Schweitzer | 2.3 |
| BENCH (OF) | Chito Martinez | 2.2 |
| BENCH (SP) | Sig Jakucki | 2.5 |
| BENCH (SP) | Ken Dixon | 2.4 |
| TOTAL | 453.5 |
Conclusion
Team Established: 1901
Total Team WAR: 453.5
Total WAR Rank: 10/30 teams
Mr. Oriole: N/A. The player with the highest WAR total is Cal Ripken, with only 22% of the team total. Brooks Robinson is "Mr. Oriole," but it doesn't come up that way with this set of rules.
Team MVP: Cal Ripken, 99.7 WAR.
Number of Active Players: 5. This is four fewer than the average for all true teams.
Players That Just Missed (90% of Career on Team): Brady Anderson (96% of PA, 37.9 WAR in BAL), Mark Belanger (99% of PA, 40.5 WAR in BAL), Harlond Clift (92% of PA, 46 WAR in BAL), Paul Blair (93% of PA, 43 WAR in BAL), Dave McNally (99% of IP, 22.1 WAR in BAL), Tippy Martinez (90% of IP, 6.3 WAR in BAL), Barney Pelty (98% of IP, 16.4 WAR in BAL),
Another solid team put up by a long-standing franchise. The Orioles just barely crack the top-10 as they have a few weaknesses on offense and very little pitching depth. The addition of a few of the "just missed" players would definitely improve this team by a large amount.
I'm glad to see Nick Markakis on this team as well. He is the starting right fielder for the All True Team of My Heart.
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?
Read about the Orioles on SBNation at Camden Chat!
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