What A Replacement-Level Team Would Look Like

By Matt Eddy

For the second year in a row, White Sox third baseman Conor Gillaspie went unselected in our league's draft, despite having an abundance of at-bats both years. MMDA managers clearly are not impressed with the lefthanded-hitting Gillaspie's low-watt power (zero ballpark diamonds) and unremarkable fielding (4e16) at the hot corner.

Nobody seems to want Conor Gillaspie in the MMDA

This led me to wonder which other passable cards were passed over on draft day. That led me to wonder how competitive such a collection of draft leftovers might be, so I created a team out of our league's freely-available talent. This is the very definition of replacement level, for an expansion team picking up where the MMDA draft left off in round 12 could have acquired all these players at no cost.

Using the roster evaluator tool at the SOM World site, I plugged in the most logical draft leftovers to populate a 21st roster in the MMDA. Needless to say, this team would not be competitive for anything more than the No. 1 overall draft pick.

In fact, a 21st MMDA team would finish with an estimated 58 wins, according to the roster evaluator. Take a wild guess where the evaluator sets the minimum win total for even the least-talented team? That's right: 58 wins. In other words, even the worst team ought to luck its way into a win about 35 percent of the time.

The complete replacement-level team can be viewed below, complete with at-bats/innings totals and runs above average (RAA) estimates. I tried to build an actual team here, taking into account playing time and roster constraints, so I selected 15 position players and 10 pitchers. Naturally, finding competent up-the-middle players proved to be the most challenging.

Pos	vs LHP	AB	RAA	vs RHP	AB	RAA	Total
C	J.P. Arencibia	222	4.00	Hank Conger#	260	-5.30	-1.30
1B	Gaby Sanchez	290	5.00	Lyle Overbay*	296	1.90	6.90
2B	Brian Roberts#	348	1.80	Ryan Flaherty*	312	-2.50	-0.70
3B	Conor Gillaspie*	506	-3.40	Conor Gillaspie*	506	19.90	16.50
SS	Derek Jeter	634	-3.40	Derek Jeter	634	-0.90	-4.30
LF	Reed Johnson	201	2.50	Grady Sizemore*	381	4.90	7.40
CF	B.J. Upton	582	-1.60	B.J. Upton	582	-10.20	-11.80
RF	John Mayberry Jr.	168	6.20	Chris Denorfia	358	-2.60	3.60
DH	Ryan Ludwick	400	4.80	Chris Young	366	1.90	6.70
Pos	vs LHP	IP	RAA	vs RHP	IP	RAA	Total
SP	John Danks*	194	2.00			-5.80	-3.80
SP	Eric Stults*	176	-2.40			-2.20	-4.60
SP	Kevin Correia	154	-8.30			-1.80	-10.10
SP	Edwin Jackson	141	-15.80			-3.70	-19.50
SP	Ubaldo Jimenez	125	-6.50			1.60	-4.90
RP	Tommy Kahnle	69	8.10			0.20	8.30
RP	Jamey Wright	70	5.70			-1.00	4.70
RP	Jared Burton	64	4.10			1.60	5.70
RP	Bryan Morris	64	2.00			4.00	6.00
RP	Brian Schlitter	56	-0.10			4.10	4.00

The "Total" column reveals, as you would expect, that finding productive spare parts at first base, third base, the corner outfield and in the bullpen is possible even after the 12th round. If you're looking for a starter, a catcher, a shortstop, a second baseman or a center fielder, then you can forget it.