WAR Leaders By Division

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Top current 2013 Wins Above Replacement (baseball-reference version) totals in each of the six divisions, after the jump.

AL West
Mike Trout 6.3
Felix Hernandez 5.4
Josh Donaldson 4.8

AL Central
Miguel Cabrera 6.5
Chris Sale 5.4
Max Scherzer 5.0

AL East
Manny Machado 5.3
Jacoby Ellsbury and Chris Davis 5.1

NL West
Clayton Kershaw 6.2
Paul Goldschmidt 5.2
Carlos Gonzalez 4.9

NL Central
Carlos Gomez 6.4
Andrew McCutchen 6.2
Joey Votto 5.3

NL East
David Wright 5.6
Matt Harvey 5.3
Andrelton Simmons 4.6

The numbers for NL pitchers reflect their combined pitching and hitting WAR.

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Jacob

11 years ago

Nice. Don’t you love it that Trout and Miggy are back at it again?

After taking Rivera deep once more, Miggy’s averages are nearly back at their highest point of the year.

He now sports a 203 OPS+, which would be the highest in the AL since Frank Thomas (’94) or George Brett (’80), not coincedentally both seasons that lasted about 110 games – Brett’s due to injury, Thomas due to the… You know what.

Trout has been even hotter, boasting a Bondsian OBP (.575) and SLG (.720) for August so far.

MikeD

11 years ago

Reply to Jacob

Interesting that Rivera had dominated Miggy before this series, where Cabrera now has hit two HRs against Rivera. That said, this is Rivera’s traditional bad week or so. He has them once or twice a season which causes the media starts writing The End is Nigh. It never is. His command had been off the past few says and he tossed meatballs. Even V-Mart took him deep.

As for Trout, he remains the best player in the league. Miggy will win the MVP again and no issues with that. Just a beast of a hitter.

11 years ago

Reply to MikeD

Mike D – Rivera his the highest H/9 and HR/9 of his career as a reliever. His only worse year was his rookie season. He’s obviously still one of the “best in the business” but I think it’s also clear that he’s not as dominant as he once was. Which is to be expected when someone’s 43 years old. Will be interesting to see if the Yankees start giving some save opportunities to Robertson, who I assume is the “closer in waiting”. I kind of doubt they do that though personally I think they’d be best off focusing on their… Read more »

mosc

11 years ago

Reply to Ed

Course, before a week ago he had given up 2HR in 42.1 IP for a very poor 0.43 HR/9. I mean, it’s a wonder they even gave him the ball at all on August 9th! Can you say small sample size?

He’s clearly as dominant as he ever was. He brought a 1.60 ERA into august.

11 years ago

Reply to mosc

Mosc – You’re right that he’s clearly as dominant as ever if you’re willing to ignore the data that says otherwise. You clearly want to. But it doesn’t change the truth.

And the last I checked 44.1 IP is a larger sample size than 42.1. Not by much but still larger.

mosc

11 years ago

Reply to mosc

One of the most common manipulations of statistics is to wait for a rare event and then immediately bias the analytics by only talking about them immediately after the rare event. You basically pick your window in a way that favors your analysis rather than letting the data tell the story.

You can watch him pitch and see his stuff is basically what it was two years ago.

Editor

John Autin

11 years ago

Reply to mosc

Even before the 3-BS streak, Mariano was allowing a .244 BA, the 2nd-highest of his relief career, and a 1.12 WHIP, which he’s exceeded just once as a reliever (1997). His line-drive rate is up to 16% of ABs this year, compared to 13.1% for 1995-2012, and 14.5% for 2011-12. His pop fly rate is way down, 3.4% of ABs this year, compared to 6.9% for 1996-2012 and 8.4% for 2011-12. When he hits his spots, Mo is still devastating. But I see him missing the target more. The HR pitches to Miggy and V-Mart Sunday were meatballs, higher than… Read more »

mosc

11 years ago

Reply to Ed

I am not sure Robertson will close regularly. Not that I don’t think he’s excellent, just that he throws a lot of pitches. He’s much better suited to use based on pitches in his last appearance and days off than the score. I mean obviously you favor times when he’ll be most effective but closers typically get work in bursts. Setup men can be more distributed through the season which I think is a better fit for the high pitch/inning type like Robertson. There are other good candidates in the Yankees pen. Mark Montgomery and Dellin Betances (v2.0: short inning… Read more »

Editor

Bryan O'Connor

11 years ago

Reply to Jacob

Interesting that Cabrera still leads Trout in b-r’s version. Fangraphs tells us that Trout passed him in mid-July and never looked back, building a 7.8 to 7.3 lead at this point.

UZR is lukewarm on Trout’s defense (+2.3), but Total Zone thinks he’s had a dismal year (-12 DRS). So we know he’s somewhere between Austin Jackson and Raul Ibanez in the field.

Editor

Bryan O'Connor

11 years ago

Here’s how fangraphs would rank them:

Trout 7.8
Hernandez 5.3
Donaldson 4.8

Cabrera 7.3
Scherzer 4.8
Mauer 4.4

Davis 5.5
Machado 5.0
Longoria 4.9

Kershaw 5.3
Goldschmidt/Gonzalez 4.8

McCutchen/Gomez 5.7
Wainwright 5.1

Wright/Harvey 5.7
Ian Desmond 4.0

Pretty similar, but with Mauer, Wainwright, and Desmond switching with Sale, Votto, and Simmons. Pretty great MVP race going on in the NL.

Editor

Doug

11 years ago

It’s unlikely now with David Wright’s injury, but the Mets might have become just the 3rd sub-.500 team with two players having 8+ WAR (B-R version).

The only teams with this distinction: the 1987 Red Sox (Clemens, Boggs) and 1964 Dodgers (Drysdale, Willie Davis). Interestingly, both were pennant winners the previous season.