How Bad has Brennan Boesch Been This Year?

A poster at MotownSports.com (TigerBomb13) asked today who had the most negative Wins Above Replacement (WAR) ever and was wondering whether Tigers right fielder Brennan Boesch had a chance to fall that far.  According to Baseball-Reference.com, there have been two players with -4.1 WAR since 1901: Jim Levey of the St. Louis Browns in 1933 and Jerry Royster of the Atlanta Braves in 1977.

How bad was Levey?  He batted .195/.237/.241 with a 24 OPS+ while playing 152 games at shortstop.  He actually did not lose any points for his defense (+0.1 defensive WAR) but he was so horrible offensively and played so much that he still hurt his team enough to be tied for number one.  Not only does Levey share the top (bottom) spot on this list, he also had the seventh worst WAR ever in 1931.

Royster was a little better offensively than Levey batting .216/.278/.288 with a 46 OPS+ as a utility infielder/outfielder.  You would think that a player who played five different positions would be a valuable piece on a roster.  Unfortunately, he did not play any of those positions well and accumulated -2.0 WAR with his defense alone.  Royster was not always that bad and managed to build a 16-year career getting as much as +2.1 WAR with the Padres in 1985.    

Boesch has not yet reached the depths of Levey and Royster, but is currently last in the majors with -1.8 WAR thanks to a .232/.269/.346 batting line and a 67 OPS+.  As awful as he has been offensively , he has been just as bad defensively costing his team an estimated 10 runs with his glove.

Boesch probably won't play enough to challenge Levey and Royster if he continues at the same pace, but has a legitimate shot of breaking the Tigers record.  Jerry Morales accumulated the most negative WAR ever with -2.7 in 1979.  Boesch is seventh on the list and the worst in the past four decades. 

I don't want to single out Boesch for all the Tigers struggles this year though.  After all, Tigers fan favorite Ryan Raburn is in the bottom 20 with -1.5.  In case anyone was wondering, Delmon Young is looking pretty good in comparison at -0.8.  That's -4.1 WAR from just three players which tells us a lot about the Tigers season.

What if the Tigers Had an Average Second Baseman?

Just about every Tigers fan is aware that one of the team's biggest problems in the disappointing first third of a season has been the second base position.  They have gone through four different second basemen so far - Brandon Inge, Ryan Raburn, Ramon Santiago and Danny Worth.  Inge proved to be unsuitable for the position and was released.  Raburn was demoted to Triple-A Toledo after a brutal start offensively.  Santiago and Worth are currently sharing the position with little success.    

David Berri, author of  Stumbling on Wins and Wages of Wins Journal asked me a question about the second base situation today.  He wanted know how many more wins the Tigers would have to this point if they had an average second baseman.  One way to answer this question is to use the FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric. 

All four Tigers keystone players have contributed negative WAR:

Raburn -1.2
Santiago -0.4
Worth -0.4
Inge -0.3

So, that means the Tigers have had four players at one position who have contributed less than what you would expect from the least acceptable player a team would normally play at a position.  It's pretty hard for a team to have four players below replacement all at the same position.  You would think that one would would reach zero WAR just by accident. 

Anyway, the Tigers have combined for -2.2 WAR at the position which is by far the worst in the majors.  This says that if the the Tigers had a replacement level player at second base instead of their own motley collection, they would have won an estimated two more games.  An example of a replacement level second baseman this year has been Gordon Beckham of the White Sox.  He is batting only .228/.280/.391 with around average fielding, so it's not too much for a fan to expect replacemnt level performance.

David's question was a little different though. He wanted to know how many more wins they would have with an average second baseman rather than how many more they would have with a replacement level second baseman.  An average player is worth about 2.0 WAR over the course of the season.  We are only a third of the way into the season, so divide that by three to get 0.7 WAR.  An example of an average second baseman this year is the Pirates Neil Walker who is batting .272/.326/.364 with close to average defense.

Based on the above data, the difference between an average second baseman and what the Tigers have had this year is about 2.9 WAR (2.2 + 0.7) which is a lot for two months of play.  Thus, if the Tigers had an average second baseman, they would be about three wins better which would put them one game above .500 and two and a half games out of first place.  That's still not great, but it would have put them in a little better position than they are now.

Update:

I was just discussing with this post with Mr Berri and decided to take it one step further.  What if the Tigers had an average player in right field instead of  Brennan Boesch and Don Kelly?  The Tigers have been -1.7 WAR in right field.  Add 0.7 (for an average right fielder) and we see that the Tigers could be 2.4 WAR better with an average right fielder.  Suppose we round that up to three wins.  Now, the Tigers have six more wins with an average second baseman and average right fielder.  That would put them in first place. 

Tigers Strong in Right Historically

Today, I'll finish my historical Wins Above Replacement (WAR) series using Sean Smith's WAR database to rank Tigers right fielders. Other parts of the series including an explanation of WAR can be found in the WAR folder.

With three of the top seven WAR among all position players, right field is the Tigers strongest position,historically. Al Kaline is the leading right fielder and has the second highest WAR (91.0) behind Ty Cobb. Following Kaline are Harry Heilmann (65.7) and Sam Crawford (65.7). The top ten right fielders are listed in Table 1.


The Tigers right fielders also rate well by WAR per 600 plate appearances (WAR600) taking four of the top nine spots among all Tigers position players. Table 2 shows that the leading right fielder is Heilmann (4.84 WAR600) edging out Kaline (4.77). The next two spots belong to Crawford (4.50) and Roy Cullenbine (4.49). Cullenbine had three very good seasons for the Tigers averaging 109 walks per year with a .416 OBP from 1945-1947

Table 1: Top Ten Tigers Right Fielders by WAR

Player	PA	WAR
Al Kaline	11,448	91.0
Harry Heilmann	8,128	65.7
Sam Crawford	8,646	64.8
Kirk Gibson	4,718	25.6
Jim Northrup	4,885	19.7
Vic Wertz	3,198	15.5
Roy Cullenbine	1,938	14.5
Magglio Ordonez	2,784	13.6
Pete Fox	4,217	11.0
Goose Goslin	2,204	9.1

Table 2: Top Five Tigers Right Fielders by WAR600

Player	PA	WAR600
Harry Heilmann	8,128	4.84
Al Kaline	11,488	4.77
Sam Crawford	8,646	4.50
Roy Cullenbine	1,938	4.49
Magglio Ordonez	2,268	3.49

Cobb and Everyone Else in Center

Today, I'll continue the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) series using Sean Smith's WAR database to rank Tigers center fielders. Other parts of the series including an explanation of WAR can be found in theWAR folder.

The fact that Ty Cobb dominates Tigers center fielders with 153.7 WAR (Table 1) comes to no surprise to anyone. What is interesting is that no other player has accumulated that many WAR for one team. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds have more total WAR than Cobb but their WAR was more divided among different teams.

Following Cobb are Chester Lemon (27.6 WAR), Curtis Granderson (19.2) and Jimmy Barrett (14.9). If you are unfamiliar with early Tigers history, Barrett was an original Tiger playing 589 games from 1901-1905. He is considered by some historians to be the first Tigers star.

Table 2 shows that Cobb leads by a huge margin in WAR per 600 plate appearances (WAR600). His 7.8 WAR is almost twice as high as Granderson (4.02), the second place center fielder. It may surprise some fans that Granderson has the 17th highest lifetime WAR600 among Tigers.

Table 1: Top Ten Tigers Center Fielders by WAR

Player	PA	WAR
Tyrus Cobb	11,824	153.7
Chester Lemon	4,629	27.6
Curtis Granderson	2,867	19.2
Jimmy Barrett	2,589	14.9
Hoot Evers	3,054	12.6
Mickey Stanley	5,401	11.9
Heinie Manush	2,293	11.8
Barney McCosky	2,674	11.3
Gee Walker	3,206	11.2
Ron Leflore	3,532	11.1

Table 2: Top Five Tigers Left Center by WAR600

Player	PA	WAR600
Tyrus Cobb	11,824	7.80
Curtis Granderson	2,867	4.02
Chester Lemon	4,629	3.58
Jimmy Barrett	2,589	3.45
Heinie Manush	2,293	3.09