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
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 | Johnny Bench | 81.6 |
| 1B | Joey Votto | 22.8 |
| 2B | Bid McPhee | 51.4 |
| SS | Barry Larkin | 70.6 |
| 3B | Dave Concepcion | 44.8 |
| LF | Fred Odwell | 7.1 |
| CF | Bug Holliday | 16.2 |
| RF | Jay Bruce | 11.3 |
| SP | Mario Soto | 26.9 |
| SP | Harry Gaspar | 10 |
| SP | Johnny Cueto | 8.2 |
| SP | Gus Shallix | 2.4 |
| SP | Bill Dammann | 2.4 |
| CL | Hod Eller | 8.3 |
| RP | Tom Acker | 3.5 |
| RP | Buddy Lively | 2.7 |
| RP | Peaches Davis | 2.4 |
| RP | Arnold Carter | 2.1 |
| BENCH (2B) | Ron Oester | 11.1 |
| BENCH (OF) | Drew Stubbs | 8 |
| BENCH (SS) | Ike Caveney | 6 |
| BENCH (C) | Ryan Hanigan | 5.3 |
| BENCH (C) | Ray Lamanno | 4.3 |
| BENCH (OF) | Harry Craft | 4.2 |
| BENCH (OF) | Dain Clay | 4.2 |
| TOTAL | 417.8 |
Conclusion
Team Established: 1882
Total Team WAR: 417.8
Total WAR Rank: 11/30 teams
Mr. Red: N/A. Johnny Bench only has 19.5% of the team total.
Team MVP: Johnny Bench, 81.6 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): Joe Nuxhall (94% of IP, 25.4 WAR in CIN), Tom Browning (99% of IP, 19.7 WAR in CIN), Jim Maloney (98% of IP, 35.1 WAR in CIN), Johnny Vander Meer (96% of IP, 22.9 WAR in CIN), Pat Duncan (99% of PA, 11.2 WAR in CIN), Gordy Coleman (99% of PA, 9.6 WAR in CIN), Chuck Dressen (98% of PA, 11.2 WAR in CIN), Greasy Neale (98% of PA, 9.5 WAR in CIN), Billy Myers (97% of PA, 13.5 WAR in CIN), Woody WIlliams (96% of PA, 4.3 WAR in CIN), John Reilly (94% of PA, 21.9 WAR in CIN), Bubbles Hargrave (94% of PA, 20.4 WAR in CIN), Dusty Miller (93% of PA, 8.8 WAR in CIN), Sam Bohne (93% of PA, 9.6 WAR in CIN), Eric Tipton (93% of PA, 10.3 WAR in CIN), Ival Goodman (91% of PA, 21.5 WAR in CIN), Tommy Clark (91% of PA, 21.5 WAR in CIN)
Thanks to ClayMC in the comments for the "Just Missed" batters.
Of the players from the Big Red Machine, only Bench and Concepcion are eligible for this team. For the remainder of those players, here are their percentage of career plate appearances as a Red: Pete Rose, 78%; Joe Morgan, 44%; Tony Perez, 70%; George Foster, 64%; Cesar Geronimo, 88%; Ken Griffey Sr., 59%.
This team has the exact same total WAR as the Cleveland Indians True Team.
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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