Friday, January 20, 2006

The Replacements vs the Royals

I was wondering how a team made up of players from the remaining free agents would stack up against the projected starters for the Kansas City Royals. To conduct the experiment - I'm picking 8 position players, a DH, 5 starting pitchers and a closer. I will then compare what their win shares were last year vs what the win shares were for the projected starters for the Royals (using the MLB depth chart). First the replacement team:

C: Bengie Molina 15
1B: Frank Thomas 3
2B: Desi Relaford 2
SS: Alex Gonzalez 13
3B: Alex S. Gonzalez 6
LF: Terrence Long 9
CF: Richard Hidalgo 5
RF: Sammy Sosa 4
DH: Mike Piazza 13

Starter 1: Roger Clemens 25
Starter 2: Jeff Weaver 13
Starter 3: Wade Miller 4
Starter 4: Pedro Astacio 4
Starter 5: Jamey Wright 4

Closer: Uggie Urbina 5

The above replacement team had 110 win shares. The starters for the Royals according to their MLB site depth chart would have 143. No knock on the Royals but if I was a KC fan I'd be looking at another 100 loss season. I know that a good portion of the replacement's win shares came from Clemens but it should also be pointed out that a number of the other players were hurt much of last year which is why their win shares are so low. I'm also sure that if I spent more time I could come up with some better choices than Sammy Sosa and a few others.

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