Blake Dowson
In the NBA, the “Sixth Man” is glorified to the extent there is an award for the best bench player in the league.
That spot, that role, is so important to each franchise that it often is bestowed on a player who could crack the starting lineup on most teams. Jamal Crawford, three-time Sixth Man of the Year award winner, is a good example of this and will be used as reference often in this article.
It’s much the same in baseball, how important it is to have players on the bench who can contribute on any given day in any situation. It takes a special player with the right kind of makeup to be able to accept a role of coming off the bench, but the right guy can spark a team.
Javier Baez of the Chicago Cubs is the perfect example of this. Baez does things on the diamond that at times don’t seem possible (slides, bare-handed throws, hitting balls out of the park that the catcher would’ve had to dig out of the dirt, etc.) and brings up the argument: Could Baez be considered among the best non-starters in sports, with the likes of Crawford, or possibly as the best?
When you look at the numbers — not batting average but things such as wins above replacement — things get pretty interesting.
First off, comparing baseball players to basketball players is not exactly apples to apples. The baseball world uses WAR (wins above replacement) as its official “value” stat, and basketball uses VORP (value over replacement player.) To compare the two equally, you multiply a basketball player’s VORP by 2.7 to calculate what his WAR would be.
Another hurdle to jump is that both players came off the bench, thus playing odd minutes. To compare them in this argument, we’re going to calculate what each player’s value would be if he were getting starter’s minutes.
Now that we know the conversions and what the goal is, let’s get to number crunching.
Jamal Crawford
Crawford has won the Sixth Man award three times (2009-10, 2013-14, 2015-16). His best statistical year of those was the 2009 season when he played for Atlanta, in which he averaged 18 points per game.
In that season, Crawford had a VORP of 1.8 and played 2,460 minutes. Kevin Durant, who led the league in minutes, played 3,329. If you add the extra 24 percent of minutes that Durant played more than Crawford, Crawford’s VORP would theoretically jump to 2.37 if he played the same, and his calculated WAR would be 6.4. That’s a big number, considering a WAR of 5 is what an all-star would post in any given year.
In each of Crawford’s final two award-winning seasons, however, his numbers have dipped. In the 2013 season, he posted a VORP of 0.8, and using the same conversions as we did in 2009, his calculated VORP would come to 1.19 with a WAR of 3.22.
This past season, he actually posted a VORP of -0.3, converting to a VORP of -0.44 with the added minutes with a WAR of -1.19.
Javier Baez
Baez’s year isn’t over, so we first have to calculate what his numbers would look like at the end of this season if he continues along with the same production, and then convert that to if he was an everyday starter.
Considering we used Durant (a perennial MVP candidate) as the comp for Crawford, we’ll use Kris Bryant’s use compared with Baez, because Bryant is probably the leading MVP candidate in the National League this season.
Baez has played in 112 games this year (of 129) and started 76. He has 356 plate appearances this year, compared to Bryant’s 568. Baez’s offensive WAR this season is 1.3, while his defensive WAR is 1.5, adding up to 2.8 total WAR.
If you give Baez 38 percent more at-bats to this point in the season (the number he’s behind Bryant) his WAR to this point in the year would be roughly 4.5.
To put that into perspective, that would place him in a tie for fifth in the NL in WAR to this point, right with Freddie Freeman and Anthony Rizzo.
If Baez continued on with the remaining 21 percent of the team’s schedule with the same production, his WAR would theoretically come out to roughly 5.7.
Simply put, if Baez was in the everyday lineup, he would be worth almost 6 wins over a replacement-level player over the course of the year. That’s a big number.
Comparing Baez and Crawford
Crawford’s 2009 season was incredible for a player coming off the bench, but he has never really come close to replicating that season. For that reason, I think we should look at that season as an outlier. Likewise, his 2015 season in which his WAR was -1.19 should also be seen as an outlier.
His 2013 season seems to be the norm, with his 3.22 WAR projection after adding on starter’s minutes.
The sample size is much smaller for Baez, looking at just this one season. But that is the argument, whether this season he is the better bench player.
His play — and his numbers — speak for themselves. Put Baez in the starting lineup every day, and he would be extremely productive.
Use him off the bench, and he becomes one of the biggest weapons in the Bigs.