The best MLB rosters of all time (Part 1/5)

Clickbait loves to do things like “Here’s a list of X. #1 will shock you!” This is … not that. I was curious what the best roster every Major League Baseball team could put together from its history was. (Using single-season WAR figures at each position.)

You will absolutely not be surprised by No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and so on. The first surprise on the list might be #5, but ultimately there aren’t a lot of shocks. Which is fine! Not every list has to be shocking. Sometimes it’s just fun. This is one of those.

My methodology:

• Baseball-Reference WAR figures.

• To qualify at a position, a player had to lead his team in games played at that position in a year. It means guys like Tony Phillips might not pop up, but … well, it’s hard to find a perfect methodology.

• The team: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF (yes they had to be different outfield positions), DH (which is actually just the highest WAR figure that didn’t make another position), five SPs, two RPs.

• Pitchers were designated as a starter if more than half their appearances in the season came as a starter, as a reliever otherwise. This actually didn’t come up much; the highest RP WAR figures generally came from guys who were exclusively relievers.

• Relocations don’t change anything. Twins numbers include players from the first Senators; Rangers numbers include players from the second Senators (well, theoretically, since none of them made it); Nationals numbers include Expos. If you want to do it for each franchise in each location, be my guest. I’m too lazy.

• All figures are since 1901, because a lot of old-timey WAR numbers get kinda silly. Don’t tell Old Hoss on me.

• Getting the leaders at starting pitcher for each team was very easy. Getting them at each offensive position was pretty easy. Getting them at reliever? That was harder. I will concede that there’s a chance I missed something in those, though I doubt it. It is very unlikely to make a significant impact on the rankings, though.

• Add up the respective WAR numbers and rank ‘em!

The best team (I ain’t gonna say it here, but you can probably guess) had more WAR just from its offense than the worst team (you’ll see shortly, also probably not a big surprise) total, which I just find interesting, frankly.

Anyway, there are five days this week, and 30 MLB teams divided by five days means we get six teams a day. Today: The bottom six.

30. Miami Marlins (cumulative WAR: 94.2)

C: J.T. Realmuto 2018/Ivan Rodriguez 2003, 4.5
1B: Derrek Lee 2002, 3.0
2B: Luis Castillo 2000, 4.5
3B: Miguel Cabrera 2006, 5.8
SS: Hanley Ramirez 2009, 7.4
LF: Cliff Floyd 2001, 6.6
CF: Marcell Ozuna 2014, 4.4
RF: Giancarlo Stanton 2017, 8.0
DH: Hanley Ramirez 2008, 6.7
SP1: Kevin Brown 1996, 7.9
SP2: Dontrelle Willis 2005, 7.3
SP3: Kevin Brown 1997, 7.0
SP4: Josh Johnson 2010, 7.0
SP5: Josh Johnson 2009, 6.7
RP1: Bryan Harvey 1993, 4.0
RP2: Armando Benitez 2004, 3.4

Only two teams (the Marlins and Angels) have never had a first baseman put up a 5-WAR season, and the Marlins max out at 3.0. That’s pretty shameful, frankly. The Marlins (unsurprisingly, given the team’s relatively short history) struggle at a lot of positions—they are one of only three teams with no 8-WAR season from a pitcher and also have the worst entries at second base, center field, and DH, with third base only second-worst. In other words, thank god for Hanley Ramirez and Giancarlo Stanton.

29. Tampa Bay Rays (cumulative WAR: 96.7)

C: Toby Hall 2005, 2.8
1B: Carlos Pena 2007, 7.2
2B: Ben Zobrist 2009, 8.6
3B: Evan Longoria 2010, 8.2
SS: Jason Bartlett 2009, 6.2
LF: Carl Crawford 2010, 7.0
CF: Kevin Kiermaier 2015, 7.1
RF: Ben Zobrist 2015, 4.6
DH: Ben Zobrist 2011, 7.6
SP1: Blake Snell 2018, 7.1
SP2: David Price 2012, 6.6
SP3: Scott Kazmir 2007, 5.8
SP4: James Shields 2011, 5.8
SP5: James Shields 2007, 5.5
RP1: Fernando Rodney 2012, 3.7
RP2: Grant Balfour 2008, 2.9

The list I use to find the position players only lists them by last names, and I absolutely could not remember who the catcher named Hall was until I clicked on his name. In fairness, nobody outside the Hall family has thought about Toby Hall in a decade, and at 2.8 WAR, he was comfortably the worst player to make this list (ha and Balfour are the only two players out of 480 total to make any team’s list with under 3.0 WAR). The Rays and Marlins are the only two teams to not reach 100 total WAR, so WTG, Florida.

28. Colorado Rockies (cumulative WAR: 104.0)

C: Chris Iannetta 2008, 3.2
1B: Todd Helton 2000, 8.9
2B: D.J. LeMahieu 2016, 5.3
3B: Nolan Arenado 2019, 6.7
SS: Troy Tulowitzki 2007, 6.8
LF: Ellis Burks 1996, 7.9
CF: Charlie Blackmon 2017, 5.5
RF: Larry Walker 1997, 9.8
DH: Todd Helton 2004, 8.3
SP1: Kyle Freeland 2018, 8.2
SP2: Ubaldo Jimenez 2010, 7.5
SP3: Pedro Astacio 1999, 5.9
SP4: Jhoulys Chacin 2013, 5.8
SP5: Joe Kennedy 2004, 5.6
RP1: Gave White 2000, 4.5
RP2: Steve Reed 1995, 4.1

It’s no big surprise that the ‘90s expansion teams make our bottom three (and three of the bottom four), if for no other reason than sample size. The Rockies have the second-worst catcher and second-worst center fielder, and unsurprisingly hover near the bottom at starting pitcher, but are reasonably respectable elsewhere, especially thanks to Helton, Walker, and (surprise!) Ellis Burks. And man, Freeland’s drop from 8.2 WAR in 2018 to -0.8 in 2019 is just an all-timer.

27. San Diego Padres (cumulative WAR: 105.7)

C: Gene Tenace 1979, 5.9
1B: Adrian Gonzalez 2009, 6.9
2B: Mark Loretta 2004, 6.0
3B: Ken Caminiti 1996, 7.6
SS: Ozzie Smith 1980, 5.1
LF: Greg Vaughn 1998, 6.3
CF: George Hendrick 1977/Steve Finley 1996, 5.8
RF: Tony Gwynn 1987, 8.6
DH: Dave Winfield 1979, 8.3
SP1: Kevin Brown 1998, 8.6
SP2: Randy Jones 1975, 7.5
SP3: Dave Roberts 1971, 7.5
SP4: Ed Whitson 1990, 7.0
SP5: Bruce Hurst 1989/Ed Whitson 1989, 6.5
RP1: Trevor Hoffman 1998, 4.1
RP2: Greg Harris 1989, 4.0

Maybe the funniest thing of this whole thing for me: Ozzie Smith makes it onto the Padres team but doesn’t make it onto the Cardinals one (we’ll get to that later). Of course, Ozzie was good in his brief Padres tenure and the team has had the worst shortstop history in the league (come onnnnn, Fernando Tatis Jr.), so it’s not a huge shock when you think about it, but it’s still pretty funny. Other than that, there aren’t a lot of standout notes here. The Padres have had some monster pop-up pitching performances over the years, though not a lot of long-term successes.

26. Arizona Diamondbacks (cumulative WAR: 110.0)

C: Miguel Montero 2012, 4.5
1B: Paul Goldschmidt 2015, 8.3
2B: Ketel Marte 2019, 7.2
3B: Matt Williams 1999, 4.1
SS: Nick Ahmed 2018, 4.4
LF: Luis Gonzalez 2001, 7.9
CF: A.J. Pollock 2015, 6.9
RF: Justin Upton 2011, 5.5
DH: Luis Gonzalez 1999/Jean Segura 2016, 6.4
SP1: Randy Johnson 2002, 10.7
SP2: Randy Johnson 2001, 10.1
SP3: Randy Johnson 1999, 9.1
SP4: Curt Schilling 2001, 8.8
SP5: Curt Schilling 2002, 8.6
RP1: Byung-Hyun Kim 2002, 4.0
RP2: Archie Bradley 2017, 3.5

The Diamondbacks were, against all odds, maybe the most difficult team to do this with, because as a team they have insisted more on moving up-the-middle players around than any other team. It didn’t change the numbers really, so much as the divvying up of those numbers. Anyway, the D-Backs give us our first and second double-digit WAR numbers in Johnson’s 2001 and 2002, and they’re the only team with multiple pitchers with 10-plus WAR until we get to the top 15. That’s a testament to the ridiculous Johnson/Schilling tandem Arizona had for a while, but also an indictment of the team’s offensive weapons over the years that their pitching could rank that well and the D-Backs are still bottom-five overall.

25. Texas Rangers (cumulative WAR: 111.1)

C: Ivan Rodriguez 1997, 6.5
1B: Mark Teixeira 2005, 7.2
2B: Ian Kinsler 2011, 7.0
3B: Adrian Beltre 2012, 7.2
SS: Alex Rodriguez 2002, 8.8
LF: Josh Hamilton 2010, 8.7
CF: Josh Hamilton 2008, 5.5
RF: Ruben Sierra 1989, 5.9
DH: Alex Rodriguez 2003, 8.4
SP1: Mike Minor 2019, 7.8
SP2: Ferguson Jenkins 1974, 7.7
SP3: Lance Lynn 2019, 7.5
SP4: Ken Hill 1996, 6.6
SP5: Charlie Hough 1985, 6.3
RP1: Jim Kern 1979, 6.1
RP2: Jeff Zimmerman 1999, 3.9

If I had done this before last year, the Rangers would have had Matt Harrison on the dang list. Such is how much the Rangers have historically struggled with their starting rotation before that random Mike Minor/Lance Lynn explosion last year. Hamilton makes it at two positions (I really thought he played more center in his MVP 2010, but he was predominantly the left fielder by then). And man, Alex Rodriguez’ Rangers tenure was brief but absolutely remarkable.

(Coming Tuesday: Teams 19-24, including a lot of the middle era of expansion.)