Baltimore Orioles found their shortstop of future with Tim Beckham
By Jon Giles
The WAR Argument
Since Tim Beckham has been in Baltimore, the shortstop has accumulated 0.9 WAR in just seven games. We have to go way back to June 10, 2016, to see that production equaled out of the position.
WAR Production out of Baltimore shortstops since June 10, 2016 |
|
| 2017 Ryan Flaherty | 0.1 WAR |
| 2017 Ruben Tejada | -0.3 WAR |
| 2017 Paul Janish | -0.5 WAR |
| 2017 JJ Hardy | -0.7 WAR |
| 2016 JJ Hardy (Post 6/17/16) | 1.9 WAR |
| 2016 Manny Machado (6/10/16 – 6/16/16) | 0.4 WAR |
|
Total Production |
June 10, 2016 – July 31, 2017
0.9 WAR
In seven games, Beckham offered the same value as the 213 games worth of shortstops before him.
That’s 213 games of utter deficiency.
That’s 213 games where Manny Machado cried silently to himself because of the lack of production, daily crouching beside him. In fact, if it wasn’t for Manny playing a month and a half at the 6 position last year, the offensive woes go back even further.
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In 2015, The Orioles managed a total of -0.4 WAR out of that position. Prior to that, JJ managed to maintain a slightly above average production back to 2012, hovering around three wins each year.
While one position does not make a team (see: Mike Trout’s absence), having a black hole in the lineup can and will hurt the team. It’s Beckham’s production that has allowed each other member of the once-explosive lineup to relax the slightest bit more. Batters are aiming for gap shots to score base runners, not just hitting lonely solo home runs.
These grand comparisons don’t stop once you move away from shortstops. Tim Beckham has the highest WAR in all of baseball since his move to the Inner Harbor. Moreover, his seven game WAR accumulation is greater than the entire season’s worth of production out of Adam Jones (0.9), Chris Davis (0.7), Hyun Soo Kim (-0.4), and Mark Trumbo (-0.5) combined.
Each of those players have career offensive numbers better than league average and were considered key cogs in a machine that has faltered without their bats.