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) | Orioles | Padres | Phillies | Pirates | Rangers | Rays | Red Sox | Reds | Rockies | Royals | Tigers | Twins
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 Karkovice | 15.5 |
| 1B | Lee Tannehill | 17.5 |
| 2B | Alexei Ramirez | 12.7 |
| SS | Luke Appling | 84.7 |
| 3B | Buck Weaver | 25.4 |
| LF | Guy Curtright | 5.4 |
| CF | Happy Felsch | 24.3 |
| RF | Johnny Mostil | 26.4 |
| SP | Ted Lyons | 58.8 |
| SP | Red Faber | 55.2 |
| SP | Johnny Rigney | 19.1 |
| SP | Jim Scott | 22.4 |
| SP | John Danks | 19.2 |
| CL | Bart Johnson | 8.6 |
| RP | Dickey Kerr | 8 |
| RP | Gordon Maltzberger | 6 |
| RP | Bill Simas | 4.8 |
| RP | Luis Aloma | 4.3 |
| BENCH (SP) | Francisco Barrios | 7.7 |
| BENCH (SP) | Joe Benz | 17.2 |
| BENCH (SP) | Britt Burns | 16.7 |
| BENCH (SP) | Roy Patterson | 13.9 |
| BENCH (SP) | Monty Stratton | 9.5 |
| BENCH (SP) | Mike Sirotka | 8.7 |
| BENCH (SP) | Ted Blankenship | 8.5 |
| TOTAL | 500.5 |
Conclusion
Team Established: 1901
Total Team WAR: 500.5
Total WAR Rank: 8/30 teams
Mr. White Sock: N/A. Luke Appling only has 17% of the team WAR.
Team MVP: Luke Appling, 84.7 WAR.
Number of Active Players: 2. This is seven fewer than the average for all true teams.
Free Agent: Mark Buehrle was originally on this team as the third starting pitcher with 46.6 WAR. However, he signed with the Marlins and is now ineligible for this team.
Players That Just Missed (90% of Career on Team): Nellie Fox (92% of PA, WAR in CHW), Paul Konerko (97% of PA, WAR in CHW), Ozzie Guillen (90% of PA, WAR in CHW), Ray Schalk (99% of PA, WAR in CHW), Ed Walsh (99% of IP, 55 WAR in CHW), Wilbur Wood (94% of IP, 44.9 WAR in CHW), Joe Horlen (96% of IP, 22.3 WAR in CHW)
Since this team has so much depth at short stop (Appling, Weaver, Tannehill, Ramirez) I had to switch players around a bit to make them fit in the starting lineup. Tannehill only played 28 games at first, but both third and short were already occupied.
The team has much more pitching depth than fielding depth. The entire bench is full of starting pitchers. Francisco Barrios (SP, 7.7 WAR) would also make this team before Swede Risberg (SS, 6.4 WAR), the next best position player.
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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