Yankee fans all year have been lamenting how beat up their team has been, and wondering just how good they could have been if everyone was healthy. I decided I wanted to find out, so I turned to good ol' BBref for a little hunting to figure out how many games better the Yankees could have been this year, given full health of their proposed starting lineup (and a few variations within). Using WAR, I wanted to figure out how many games the Yankees would have expected to win.

But before I started, I had to lay myself some ground rules:

1. I used only the player who played the most games at each position for this test.
2. For the injured players I was looking at, I looked at their WAR from 2012, as well as their WAR in the two years prior. If there was an observable upward or downward trend, I would continue that for the WAR I assigned them below.
3. For players playing this year but not 2012 (due to injury or being a bench player), I used their WAR from 2009-2011 the same way I had for 2010-12 in the previous point.
4. For bench players/platoon players, I only used those who played in 55 games OR had a minimum of 100 PAs.
5. I chose only to use starting pitchers and any reliever who made 55 appearances OR pitched 70 Innings.

And let me answer some questions before we start, too.

What is WAR?

WAR stands for "Wins Above Replacement", and is a way to universally compare players based on a number of statistics. But it all boils down to wins. In this stat, the 'stereotypical' replacement team will have about a .320 winning percentage in a season, which is somewhere between 48 and 56 wins (to account for variance). A team with a WAR of 40 has the potential to win 40 more games than a replacement team, so somewhere around 88-96 wins.

Why did you choose the restrictions you did?

On every team, there are plenty of bench or platoon players who get into the game often enough to make a significant impact. I chose 55 games/100 PAs/70 innings because they are fairly solid numbers for a bench player/relief pitcher in a given season. Sure, there are plenty of relief pitchers who get fewer than 55 appearances or 70 innings of work, but in the interest of choosing those relievers with the most impact on the club (and partially out of laziness not wanting to find and include another dozen names), I chose a cutoff.

What am I supposed to take from this post?

Take whatever you want from it. I did this as a personal project after conversations with a number of Yankees fans who were disappointed that this was a 'lost year' due to all the injuries. It was interesting to think how much better a team could have potentially been, had they not been routed by injury, and it may be a good jumping-off point if anyone else wants to use this with their own team. But in the end, it's a harmless 'what could have been' thought experiment. There are so many variables that can't be accounted for, so it's impossible to say whether these stats would have even held up.

STARTERS

Just with the starters alone, there's a startling difference.

In 2012, the total WAR of 9 starting players was 27.7

In 2013, the total WAR of 9 starting players was 12.7

BENCH/PLATOON PLAYERS

I'll have two charts, one for 2012 and another for 2013, since their positions and number of players don't necessarily match up.

2012

* ^{Ichiro Suzuki earned 1.7 WAR with the Mariners before being traded to the Yankees in 2012}

2013

STARTING PITCHERS

Both years did have a sixth starting pitcher who started 12 games, the pitcher included after the line breaks.

The WAR from the starting rotation dropped from 13.8 in 2012, to 9.3 in 2013. Now let's see about the bullpen.

THE BULLPEN

2012

2013

ADDING IT ALL TOGETHER

The total WAR for starters and oft-used bench players in 2012 tops out at 50.6.

The total WAR for starters and oft-used bench players in 2013 tops out at 30.9.

The Yankees in 2012 won 95 games, and so far in 2013 have won 82 going into their final series, a difference of 13. But this just shows how much the Yankees have fallen from last year. The point of this research was to see how much higher the Yankees' WAR could have been if their intended starting lineup for 2013 was healthy. With that in mind, let's take a look at what the 2013 starting lineup should have been, along with their 2012 (or extrapolated 2012) WAR, and then in the final column, the WAR of the player starting in their place for comparison:

* ^{Player did play for a majority of 2013 season}

IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR

Thanks for reading, and I hope there's something in here that you could take away from this post. Feel free to of course discuss below, and let's go Pirates!