Rarely is it the case that one baseball player can change the entire fate of his division. But it could happen when a star player leaves one contender for another, as Carl Crawford did, from the Tampa Bay Rays to the Boston Red Sox.
We can start by looking at the 2008 and 2010 Rays. In 2008, the team had a bunch of “stars,” including Crawford, and a few superstars. But just about every everyday player was “league average” or better, except for Ben Zobrist (who has since become a star) and Willy Aybar, still a “utility” player.
It was different with the 2010 contenders. Here, there were two superstars, Crawford and Evan Longoria, and two stars, BJ Upton and Zobrist. Other players, like Carlos Pena, Jason Bartlett, and Dioner Navarro had declined to league average or worse.
This means that in theory, the Rays really had little to lose with the departures of Pena, Navarro, or Bartlett because they can be easily replaced. (In reality, Bartlett, in particular, will be missed—not because he was objectively good, but because he and the Rays, “punched above their weight” in 2010, meaning that they were lucky to win 96 games, given their level of talent.)
According to FanGraphs, Crawford (and Longoria) are worth 6.9 wins above replacement (WAR) or nearly five wins above league average. Longoria and Zobrist are signed to long-term contracts, and Upton has two more “arb” years to go. Crawford, however, is GONE.
If you start Tampa Ray with a base of 94-96 wins and subtract Crawford’s five extra wins, you get about 90 for the Rays—a good number for only third place in the American League East.
In the meantime, Boston ADDS Crawford’s five extra wins to its 2010 base of 89, meaning that he brings the Red Sox to 94 wins BY HIMSELF.
And Boston traded four prospects for Adrian Gonzalez (about five WAR, three above league average), who probably takes the Red Sox above the Yankees‘ 95 wins in 2010. Assuming that players like Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, and Jacoby Ellsbury have fewer injuries in 2011, Boston could approximate 100 wins.
Once again, it should be a tight race in the American League East in 2011. But next year’s standings will likely flip from 2010 to the order of Red Sox, Yankees, Rays, with Carl Crawford being the single largest factor in that flip.
With some luck the Rays’ best shot could be for the wildcard, if they edge out the Yankees for the number two spot in their division.
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