WAR -Season 26 Leaders

I've recently loaded all of the hitting and fielding stats for Hunter's position players from Season 26. I will posting a few items of interest from the spreadsheet, starting with Season 26's league leaders in WAR.

 American League:

1. Felipe Sosa 3B, Richmond - 8.3 WAR. Sosa, who manned 3b for Richmond, was far and away the WAR leader for Hunter. He the only player above 8 WAR. With above average defense (4th in Hunter) and a .334/.428/.581 slash line, it's a wonder he did not win the MVP award

2.Tim Ryan DH, San Juan- 7.3 WAR. Ryan was a DH, so he did all his damage with his bat, and boy was it a lot.  He had a .376/.467/.644 line and was the leader in wOBA at .454.  The AL MVP was a force to be reckoned with, but with a 1+ WAR difference from WAR leader Sosa, you could argue he should have been the runner up.

3. Gary Morton 3B, Tacoma- 6.2 WAR. Gary is a fine all around player that created good defensive value at 3B (3rd best in Hunter) and put up a .275/.331/.549 slash line.

4. Carl Ford 3B,St. Louis - 6.1 WAR. Carl was a middling 3B in the field, but he was a sterling batsman, posting a .318/.384/.517 line.  Third base is a very deep position in the AL, capturing 3 of the top 4 spots.

5.  Art Ackley 2B, Charlotte - 6.0 WAR. Ackley delivered above average D (10th in Hunter overall) and a .301/.386/.536 slash line for the Smokies.

6. Bingo Thames LF/2B, Chicago - 5.9 WAR. Thames is an oddity in the sense that he played 60 games at 2B, where he had no business playing (he is LH). He created a good amount of negative defensive value, which offset his bat to an extent. When he played LF, he played well, but interestingly, LF must have been deep defensively, because he comes up short compared to other LF. But his bat more than made up for this, as he hit .354/.435/.507

7. Derrik Tucker 2B, Norfolk - 5.9 WAR. Tucker is a natural 2B and produced slightly above average defensive value, which helped give him a small boost. His hitting line of .330/.392/.576 is where he made his largest contribution.

8.  John Yoshii CF, San Francisco - 5.8 WAR. No surprise that SF had one of their own in the Top 5. Yoshii produced a lot of value with his glove to go along with a .292/.361/.516 line. He had the single biggest boost from defense of anyone in the Top 10, posting a 50% higher defensive value than the next closest CF (Esteban Gomez of SLC).

9. Mickey Webster RF, Richmond - 5.7 WAR. Mickey, if we looked back, would surely be a perennial occupant of this list. Mickey does a lot of damage with the bat, posting a .300/.386/.552 in S26. Mickey is a brutal RF, costing his team a full win in the field (he ranked dead last among all RF in Hunter). He truly is a DH playing the field, evoking memories of Dave Kingman in the Wrigley OF.

10. Rondell Sadowski DH, Kansas City - 5.6 WAR. A second DH (or 3rd if you count Webster) to round out the top 10, Sadowski brutalizes pitching to the tune of .293/.390/.590.