Top 50 Wins Above Replacement
Last week, I looked at some of the players who were most recently elected to the MLB Hall of Fame and how they fit into the broader Astrology Baseball landscape. This time, I’d like to shift my focus slightly to the all-time Wins Above Replacement leaderboard (according to Baseball Reference). In the case of the top 50 in bWAR, the distinction is almost nonexistent, as only five players in that group have not been enshrined. Of these five, two are not yet eligible: Albert Pujols (#30 on the list, Capricorn) is still active, while Adrian Beltre (#41, Aries) has not been retired for the requisite five years (he last played in 2018). The other three have been frozen out because of their connections to performance enhancing drugs: Barry Bonds (#4), Roger Clemens (#8), and Alex Rodriguez (#16), who all happen to be Leos.
The late Hank Aaron ranks #7 overall in bWAR.
I entered the bWAR totals of the top 50 into a spreadsheet to calculate which signs are best represented among the top players in MLB history. You might ask why I didn’t START a project on Fantasy Astrology Baseball with this sort of exercise… but I wouldn’t be able to give you a good answer. It probably has something to do with recency bias (i.e. starting with the most recent season), or just a failure to look at the big picture. Either way, as we approach a decade’s worth of FABL seasons, now’s as good a time as any to look back at some of the top players of all time.
No sign has more players in the top 50 than Virgo, which sports nine. Predictably enough, those nine players have accrued the most total bWAR out of any sign (931.2), but in terms of average bWAR per player, they’re all the way down at ninth place. That’s not to take away from their top end, which sports arguably the greatest hitter of all time (Ted Williams, #14), two turn-of-the-last-century stars (pitcher Kid Nichols, #17, and second baseman Nap Lajoie, #23), the only player to win an MVP award in both leagues (Frank Robinson, #24), and the tallest pitcher to ever throw a perfect game (Randy Johnson, #29).
Johnson won his fourth Cy Young Award in a row in 2002 - his best year, both in terms of bWAR and fantasy points.
Directly behind Virgo in both number of players in the top 50 (seven) and total bWAR from those players (782.9) is Aries. Only three players eclipsed 100 total bWAR, but one of them has the most prestigious award for pitchers named after him (Cy Young, #3), another is the career leader in doubles (Tris Speaker, #9), and the third is one of the most cerebral pitchers to ever play the game (Greg Maddux, #27). I’ve already mentioned Leo’s top three above, but rounding out the six players they have in the top 50 are such greats as Christy Mathewson (#28), Carl Yastrzemski (#33), and Roberto Clemente (#37).
Even in the strike-shortened 1995 season, Maddux approached 3,000 points in HIS fourth Cy Young season in a row.
Two signs are tied with five players in the top 50: Taurus (led by Willie Mays, #5, Rogers Hornsby, #12, and Eddie Collins, #13) and Libra (which boasts Mickey Mantle, #21, and Mike Schmidt, #25). Three more signs have four apiece: Scorpio (Walter Johnson, #2), Pisces (Honus Wagner, #10), and Capricorn (Rickey Henderson, #19, although it’s quite possible that he’ll be caught by Pujols before the latter’s career is over). Of these five signs, Scorpio has the highest per-player average, followed closely by Taurus and Pisces – Libra and Capricorn are the only signs whose top-50 representative average less than 100 bWAR.
I know Mays has many more impressive seasons on his resume, but my databases only go back to the late 60’s so far.
While Aquarius only has two players in the top 50, they happen to be Babe Ruth (#1) and Hank Aaron (#7), meaning they have the highest bWar-per-player average by a margin of more than 40. Ty Cobb (#6) is the top Sagittarian of all time, another sign that only has two in the top 50. Lou Gehrig (#18) leads the way out the two Geminians in the top 50, although he does have a marginally cuspy birthday: June 19th, 1903 to be exact. Unfortunately, the helloastrology.com zodiac calculator only goes back to 1920, in which year that date fell within two degrees of the Gemini/Cancer cusp. I don’t know how to extrapolate that out, but I’d say it’s pretty safe to place the Iron Horse in Gemini.
Aaron’s versatility helped make the most of what were generally weak Aquarius lineups, even back in the 70’s.
Unless the stars shifted dramatically in the 17 years before the zodiac calculator takes effect (thus moving Gehrig up a sign), that means that my home sign of Cancer is the only one not to have a player in the top 50. Corner infielder Roger Connor checks in at 53, but he played his entire career before 1900 (1880 to 1897, mostly for the New York Giants). I’d say it’s ironic that the Internet’s foremost Astrology Baseball researcher has the sign that’s least-represented amongst the top players in MLB history, but I’ve spent enough time looking into the stars that I no longer believe in coincidences…
Next time, I’ll take us back to the present, with a post looking ahead to the Air Signs of the 2021 season. But after that, we travel back to 2010, which means we will have covered ten FULL seasons worth of Astrology Baseball. Time sure flies when you’re having fun…