WAR Leaders So Far

[interloper]

Thought 25 games might be a good place to start looking at where guys are stacking up in the WAR dept. Still very early, but it'll be fun to track as the season progresses and see how much things change. 

These numbers include last night's (5/5/22) game. I'm using bWAR. And I left some players off if they only have a few games played. 

Position Players

1.1 Mullins
0.9 Santander
0.7 Hays
0.7 Mateo
0.2 Mancini
0.1 Mountcastle
0.1 Urias
0.1 McKenna (AAA)
-0.1 Chirinos
-0.3 Owings 
-0.3 Gutierrez (DFA)
-0.3 Bemboom
-0.3 Odor

My take: no big surprise for the top and bottom position players with Mullins, Santander, and Hays leading the pack, and Owings, Odor, and Bemboom dragging at the bottom. Great to see Mateo that high this early - he's been very solid and I have no issue leaving him at SS this season. I was maybe a little surprised to see Odor that low, but his -0.4 dWAR is killing him. Speaking of dWAR, Mateo leads the team with 0.4, followed by Mullins and Urias at 0.3. Kind of interesting - it's almost as if the O's should have found a decent 3B and had Urias playing 2B, thereby negating Odor's bad dWAR at that position! Mountcastle went from -0.1 to 0.1 based on last night's 2 homer game. Mateo also saw a big jump after last night's game. 

Pitchers

0.9 Lopez
0.6 Perez
0.6 Zimmermann
0.5 Tate
0.4 Akin
0.4 Bautista
0.2 Means (Out for season)
0.2 Watkins
0.2 Lyles
0.1 T. Wells
0.0 A. Wells (Out for season)
-0.1 Baker
-0.1 Krehbiel
-0.2 Bradish
-0.3 Baumann (AAA)
-0.4 Fry
-0.4 Lakins

My take: Pretty cool to see Lopez lead the pack here. He's been excellent as the closer and really pretty unhittable with a stunning 0.951 WHIP. Of course, the career WHIP is 1.523 so let's see if he can keep it up. But for now he looks like a totally different pitcher. Perez has still yet to be scored upon, so it's no surprise to see him up there. And Zimmermann has been our best starter, clearly. The rest of this list is going to change a lot as guys get into more games. No surprise to see Baumann, Fry, and Lakins at the bottom. One thing to note so far is a welcome lack of churn in the pitching department. It's coming, I'm sure, but the only churn has been the last pitcher roster spot (Baumann, Lakins, Diplan briefly, soon to be Allen, etc.) and some IL moves. Nice to see some guys establish a footing for the moment. 
 

[sportsfan8703]

Mateo is doing it with Defense and base running. If the bat ever comes along watch out. Although in his 200 PAs with us, in 57 games, he has a .709 OPS. 
 

We really need Urias to find his magic from last year with the bat. 

[interloper]

22 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Mateo is doing it with Defense and base running. If the bat ever comes along watch out. Although in his 200 PAs with us, in 57 games, he has a .709 OPS. 
 

We really need Urias to find his magic from last year with the bat. 

He's been one of the unluckiest guys on the team so far. That coupled with his home run last night - you hope it's coming. If not, he's an excellent utility IF down the road at least. 

Agree on Mateo. He's also put a lot of good swings on the ball lately with little to show for it. But I'll take a .700ish SS with good speed and defense all day.

[TommyPickles]

Man, how about Cionel Perez?

10 games, 0.00 ERA.

I think the "Perez to Tate to Lopez" combination is a nice way to close out a game.

[Frobby]

These numbers are pretty volatile this time of year.   I looked at Mateo yesterday and he was at 0.3.   One nice day with a triple and a homer and he’s at 0.7.    A good day can bump you up .4-.5 rWAR any time of year, but it’s more noticeable early in the season because it’s a bigger fraction of the total WAR the player has accumulated.   Yesterday Mateo was on pace for a 1.8 WAR season, now he’s on pace for a 4.2 WAR season.   That doesn’t happen once the season is a bit further along.   

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, TommyPickles said:

Man, how about Cionel Perez?

10 games, 0.00 ERA.

I think the "Perez to Tate to Lopez" combination is a nice way to close out a game.

I’m always worried that this will be the day that Perez’s command goes walkabout, but it really hasn’t happened yet.  Four walks on the season, scattered over four separate outings.   

[Yossarian]

3 minutes ago, TommyPickles said:

Man, how about Cionel Perez?

10 games, 0.00 ERA.

I think the "Perez to Tate to Lopez" combination is a nice way to close out a game.

If Bautista can learn how to pitch and locate his stuff, add him to that list.   The raw tools are there - he just needs time and work with a coach

[interloper]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

These numbers are pretty volatile this time of year.   I looked at Mateo yesterday and he was at 0.3.   One nice day with a triple and a homer and he’s at 0.7.    A good day can bump you up .4-.5 rWAR any time of year, but it’s more noticeable early in the season because it’s a bigger fraction of the total WAR the player has accumulated.   Yesterday Mateo was on pace for a 1.8 WAR season, now he’s on pace for a 4.2 WAR season.   That doesn’t happen once the season is a bit further along.   

For sure, I noticed Mateo as one of the biggest jumps after yesterday's game. That said, I don't expect the hitter rankings to change all the much until Adley gets here and hopefully wedges himself in there with Mullins and Hays, etc. 

Pitching-wise, it's fun to see the closer be up at the top for now. With the low amount of innings the starters are going to pitch this year, it might be hard for a SP to really cement himself at the top of that list. But Zimm and Lyles have a shot. Not sure G-Rod/Hall will have enough time to get there but we'll see! 

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

Thank you for posting, great info!