Who Is the NL’s Most Irreplaceable Player in 2022?
Who is baseball’s most irreplaceable player in 2022? This doesn’t mean the most valuable player, and in terms of the playoff hunt, the hardest player to replace isn’t necessarily the best one. Some teams are either cruising to the playoffs or effectively eliminated in practice, if not in purely mathematical terms (hello, Tigers and Royals). To answer this question, I ran the updated ZiPS projected standings after Tuesday’s games and then re-ran the entire simulation with the assumption that each relevant player missed the rest of the season due to injury.
For the NL, ZiPS estimates that nine teams remain plausible playoff contenders, which I define as having a 5% chance of making MLB’s new 12-team playoff format. The exceptions are the Diamondbacks, Cubs, Rockies, Pirates, Nationals, and Reds. Seven of the nine remaining teams are above 50%, with only the Phillies (27%) and Marlins (8%) between a coin flip and that arbitrarily chosen 5% threshold. Let’s jump right into the NL’s top 10 list.
1. Corbin Burnes, Milwaukee Brewers, -11.0%
Burnes was always going to make this top 10 list, but Brandon Woodruff‘s ankle injury and Freddy Peralta‘s more significant shoulder injury push him into the top slot. The hit may even be more severe than the -11% listed here; ZiPS puts a lot of stock in Aaron Ashby’s presence, but any kind of forearm pain for a pitcher should lead fans to look sadly into the middle distance. Nobody on the Brewers comes even close to Burnes in playoff impact, so a nasty surprise here ought to make them very aggressive about picking up a pitcher. After all, we’re already into the Chi Chi González portion of the depth chart.
2. Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves, -9.0%
Ronald Acuña Jr. has a better projection than Olson, but ZiPS sees Atlanta’s options at first base to be relatively bleak. That was one of the team’s biggest questions back when Freddie Freeman was a free agent, and though Atlanta has patched together DH somewhat, all bets are off with a serious Olson injury. In the event he goes down, I expect it’s more likely that Austin Riley plays first with Phil Gosselin playing third than Adam Duvall or Eddie Rosario getting shifted to first, but since ZiPS isn’t a Gosselin-stanner, it thinks that’s only shuffling a hole around.
3. Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies, -8.5%
The Phillies have had a healthy rotation this year, with their front five making all but four of the starts this season. But it doesn’t take a lot to test this team’s rotation depth, and ZiPS is extremely unenthused by the prospect of Bailey Falter or Cristopher Sánchez stepping in for the rest of the season. Noah Skirrow possibly having a breakout season does raise ZiPS’ eyebrows a bit, but given his lack of real prospect status coming into the season, I doubt the Phillies would aggressively push him to the majors unless there was a superspreader event in the clubhouse.
4. Fernando Tatis Jr., San Diego Padres, -8.4%
The Padres have more than survived so far without the services of Tatis Jr., but that doesn’t mean that’s an experiment they want to keep trying, and San Diego’s high playoff probability contains the assumption that he is most likely to return sometime around the All-Star break. Having Ha-Seong Kim as a spare option, at least when Manny Machado is healthy, is a good thing, but Tatis Jr. would have been the best-projected player in baseball entering 2022 if not for ZiPS being suspicious about his health.
5. Bryce Harper, Philadelphia Phillies, -8.4%
Remember, the Phillies basically needed to sign Nick Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber because their outfield options were bleak, and this issue didn’t magically fix itself since April. Any outfield injury likely leads to a lot more Matt Vierling, who is a lot closer to his 2022 line than last season’s small sample .324/.364/.479 line. ZiPS does not see Mickey Moniak as even a decent emergency plan, leaving Philadelphia’s best option being a trade for someone like Tommy Pham, something complicated by the fact that the organization has had a lot of failures lately in player development.
6. Logan Webb, San Francisco Giants, -7.9%
ZiPS likes Jakob Junis, Sean Hjelle, and Gregory Santos as replacements who are safely above replacement level. Matthew Boyd was just shut down for another month due to a flexor strain, but he remains at least a theoretical possibility in August and September. Despite this depth, ZiPS is a big fan of Webb, so it sees his loss as being the most significant one the Giants could face. Carlos Rodón isn’t far behind, just missing the top 10, but ZiPS already assigned a higher probability to losing him to injury than Webb. None of the team’s position players come even close to making this list, a testament to how well constructed this roster is to combat nearly every eventuality.
7. Ronald Acuña Jr., Atlanta Braves, -7.6%
Acuña Jr. ranks surprisingly low based on the simple fact that Drew Waters exists. More playing time for Duvall or Rosario wouldn’t be an ideal situation, but like last year, it would be enough to get by, though quite obviously not the desired scenario. The baseball gods better not do this with Tatis Jr. not having played this season and Juan Soto trapped on an extremely lousy team.
8. Nolan Arenado, St. Louis Cardinals, -7.1%
Like Tampa Bay, St. Louis rarely ranks highly in this exercise. But ZiPS has been much less excited about the team’s depth in 2021 and ’22 than in past seasons. Helping is that ZiPS still isn’t giving up on Paul DeJong and thinks a scenario in which Tommy Edman is at third and DeJong back as the shortstop is not really that frightening.
9. Aaron Nola, Philadelphia Phillies, -7.1%
Nola appears here for the same reason that Wheeler does: Philadelphia’s rotation depth is basically a trade or an emoji shrug. The Phillies ought to be highly concerned that Nola only has a 2023 club option and there’s no flood of imminent pitching past Mick Abel. Losing him to free agency after 2023 would be a massive blow to the franchise.
10. Manny Machado, San Diego Padres, -7.0%
Machado leads the league in WAR, but the Padres have a decent playoff cushion, and Tatis Jr. simply projects as the superior player. I know “decent playoff cushion” is something that was written about the Padres last season, but their rotation depth hasn’t been nearly as tested as it was last year, and Jake Arrieta is safely retired.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
If we assume that Brendan Donovan takes over as the everyday 3B, does Arenado still make this list?
Or perhaps I should ask, “Should Arenado still make this list?”
Personally, I think the Cardinals would be in bigger trouble were they to lose Flaherty (yet again), Mikolas, or Wainwright for the rest of the season.
I am not convinced Flarhety matters much; they’re here without him and he’s looked very bad in his tuneups (SSS, sorry). Mikolas or Wainwright, yes, but I’d be curious how much zips trusts Jack at this point in the season, with the injuries piling up on him recently and not being the dominant force he was in that one brilliant 2nd half.
My guess is that ZIPS isn’t trusting Donovan yet, and that it’s still giving DeJong more credit than he probably deserves at this point.
I agree though, a loss of pretty much any position player probably isn’t going to damage the Cards nearly as much as the loss of any starter, or for that matter any one of Helsley, Cabrera, and Gallegos.
If I’m reading correctly, ZIPS is pegging him as about a 2-2.5 WAR player over a full season, which seems like a pretty good amount of trust already. Great plate discipline and contact ability, Madrigal-ian lack of power, versatile defensive player who may or may not be particularly good at any of those positions. Feels pretty fair.
I’ll be damned. ZIPS is actually even higher on him than that since that 1.1 fWAR projection for the rest of the season is based on only 60 games played, which I think I’d take the over on.
A question: is it assumed that the other Nolan (Gorman) is no longer a candidate to step in at 3B? I thought the whole reason for moving him to 2B was the assumed invulnerability of the incumbent there. But if Arenado gets a long-lasting flat tire …
Note that I am somewhat more bullish on Flaherty than some. He still has that pitcher’s body, even with a few patches on it, and he may have been rushed back (partly at his own urging) too quickly while the “pitchability” part (what a hideous word!) is still coming around. We’ll see.
> He still has that pitcher’s body
Also relevant, how attractive is his wife? Does it show he has “ace” confidence, or are these items nearly irrelevant and add more bias and noise than signal?
That’s also a possibility, but given that Donovan has already played a few games at 3B, while Gorman has played nothing but 2B and DH since being called up, I think Donovan would be their first choice at 3B if Arenado were to go down.
Arenado -> Donovan is about a 1.5-2.5 WAR drop, which is crucial on their spot on the win curve. Donovan looks like a pretty solid average player, but Arenado is a (lesser) star.
Yes, but Donovan is still an above-average MLB player who once again won’t have a permanent spot on the field or in the lineup once O’Neill returns in a couple of weeks. The downgrade from Arenado to Donovan is still quite a bit less than it is between Mikolas and whoever would take his spot in the rotation (or the other guys on this list), not to mention the downgrade the bullpen would then take if the Cardinals had to use either Pallante or Hicks as that rotation replacement for the rest of the season rather than just until Matz returns.
I think this is a more interesting set of races than the AL. The Mets and Dodgers are basically guaranteed to make it to the playoffs in some way (thanks expanded playoffs!) but the positions of the Padres and Braves both have enough upside to potentially take the division crown while also being fragile enough that they could fall out entirely. The Giants and the loser of the NL Central race are strong contenders for the last two spots, but the Phillies seem pretty well primed to challenge for a spot as well. Which means you’ve got:
Mets and Dodgers making the playoffs almost certainly but may not win the division
Padres, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals have enough upside to win the division and enough downside to fall out of the playoffs entirely
Phillies having a decent shot of making the wild card.
Even though that’s one fewer team that has a realistic shot of making the playoffs than in the AL, it seems a lot more fun than penciling in the Yankees and Astros in the Top-2 bye spots.
I think this methodology is interesting but also somewhat simplistic in the way it’s binary for playoffs and no playoffs. Like you said, the Mets and Dodgers are likely to make it, but an injury to someone may cost them a 1st round bye which is hugely impactful. A version of this with odds of making the WS would be really cool to see.
I think we agree. It’s one fewer team than in the AL but there’s a lot more shuffling around that could happen in the NL. A lot more. So yes, there could be interesting downstream effects on reaching the World Series (and by extension, winning it).
I don’t think the Mets are really that safe. The offense has overachieved their true talent level and really all of their good starters save for Bassitt are significant injury risks (Scherzer/Degrom/Carrasco/Megill). I think i’d put their odds of making playoffs around 90% and dodgers at like 98+%
I would agree, but 90% or higher seems really high to me!
Olson wouldn’t be as big of a loss without the Albies injury. Sliding Riley to 1st and Arcia to 3rd wouldn’t be a terrible setup
Well they survived Acuña’s loss last year so anything is possible
If Olson were out for the season, I could also see the Braves kicking the tires on Contrares at first base. Ozuna could shift back to pretty much full time DH and Rosario and Duvall can platoon left.
Exactly. We tried him in left; I am sure we’d try him at first. However, would we also try d’Arnaud at first on days that Contreras catches?
I also wonder why Zips loves Drew Waters so much. I don’t think he projects as a big league regular anymore, but apparently Zips disagrees. I hope Zips is right!
I’d say no. d’Arnoud needs rest. For example, you’d rather have him 75 percent at catcher and 25 percent on bench than 65 percent at catcher, 25 percent DH/1B, and 10 percent bench. d’Arnoud is not a bad hitter but his high value comes from catching. Contrares is still definitely below average behind the plate, though maybe he has gone from terrible to merely bad. His bat plays though, and if he could be passable at first, his bat should play there. If he’s still catching 25% then you can give him a few off days as well and either move Riley to first or Arcia.
Terrible approach and really not that much power… I was hoping he could carve out a Drew Stubbs profile but even that is looking bleak now.
Why is Ronald Acuna, Jr. on the list? Baseball is so much more than one player. Last year the Braves were 44-44 when he went down for the season. So what did they do, go 44-29 the ROS the win the WS. Last year’s Padres were touted as the hot pick with Fernando Tatis, Jr. in the lineup and their collapse was astonishing. So this year he falls off a motorcycle in the winter and the team is playing .620 baseball. Seriously now it is obvious that teams need outstanding players to win but as the great sage from the Bronx has said ten thousand times or more, “You can’t predict baseball Suzyn” because if we could we wouldn’t watch but only collect all those bets we would make. With all that said I can never consider a pitcher to be irreplaceable. The Mets are doing just fine thank you and every year teams find diamonds in the bushes, like John Schreiber.
So that’s a no on the Tatis/Acuna for John Schreiber trade offers then?
Why is this guy reading Fangraphs?
As far as I’m concerned, as long as you’re paying member you can say whatever nonsense you want.
In related news, while I generally appreciate bosoxforlife’s perspective, this doesn’t make any sense.
I am surprised so many can’t see the basis for my comment. With the possible exception of Jose Ramirez I can’t see any team having an indispensable player. Baseball is structured in a way that one player, while obviously important, just does not have the impact that a Steph Curry or a Tom Brady has. If these great baseball players were indispensable then the Braves could not possibly have improved so dramatically after Acuna was injured. Likewise, how can the Mets lose the 2 best pitchers in the game over the past several years and still be well in front of their division if deGrom and Scherzer are indispensable? I use John Schreiber as an example of the vagaries of the game which I see as support for my idea that nobody can possibly know who will be that indispensable part. He was a pickup off the Tigers scrap heap but has allowed an earned run in exactly 1 out of 22 appearances and has become a huge part of the Red Sox bullpen. It is not a coincidence that the Red Sox were 10-18 when he was permanently added to the active roster and are 29-13 since but it was impossible to predict that, just as it is impossible to predict just about anything in baseball.
Indispensable is not the same as most irreplaceable, and losing the most irreplaceable does not mean a team is inherently doomed. It is a stochastic process rather than a deterministic one.
The idea is which player creates the biggest hole in the team capabilities. Whether the team can find a way to survive without them is irrelevant. Some teams are deep enough to survive any loss while others need every single player to deliver just to stay alive.
Just because teams need collective efforts to succeed doesn’t mean everybody is equally important. Baseball isn’t kindergarden, where “everybody is special” but instead like an orchestra where some are first violin and others “push air through the tuba” (with apologies to E.E. Smith).
Everybody has a role to play but some roles are more critical than others. Mop up guys in the bullpen serve a purpose but they are hardly candidates for “hardest to replace”. By contrast, losing a true ace can cripple a team’s penant run. There simply aren’t enough of those guys to go around and they are generally hard to impossible to fully replace.
Agreed, sadtrombone. Only landowners should have a vote!
Why Ronald Acuna Gr. name of sheets? Baseball is not just a player. Last year, Braves was 44-44 because he missed the season. What they did, they defeated 44-29 ROS and VS. Last year, Padre was considered the top scorer with Fernando Tatis Jr. in the team, and their downfall was significant. This is how winter motorcycles are this year, and this team played .620 baseball. It’s clear that the team needs good players to win, but as the great sage of the Bronx said a thousand times, “You can’t hit Susan’s baseball,” because if that’s the case, we should both bet on us. to do. Taking into account all the above, the thrower can never be considered irreplaceable. The Mets are good, thank you, and every year the team finds a diamond in the box, like Jon Schreiber.
Somehow, this paragraph makes more sense than the original post
What happened to Serbian?
Excellent troll comment. Well done
Taking a rough cut at something like WAR per game relative to Team WAR for 2022 so far…
Ke’Bryan Hayes, PIT
Josh Bell, WSN
Tyler Mahle, CIN
Tyler Stephenson, CIN
Brandon Drury, CIN
Willson Contreras, CHC
Paul Goldschmidt, STL
Manny Machado, SDP
Sandy Alcantara, MIA
(interesting – Cincinnati got 3 guys playing much better than everyone else)
what’s interesting is that if a similar article were written in March, deGrom almost certainly would have been at or near the top
If the Mets were only 1 or 2 games ahead in the standings instead of 4-5, I’d think that Scherzer going down would have impacted them a lot too. But it might take so much to knock them out of the playoffs at this point that Scherzer doesn’t really show up here.
They had Megyn stepping up.
He’s now questionable at best. Shoulder issues are not good.
Right now Atlanta fans should be feeling good; theyhave a shot once more.
This exercise is not only highly dependent on how good a team is (really good, but not amazing), but also the standings. If they lose a few more games in the standings, I’d guess that Lindor would pop up on this list.
I don’t know if Lindor would be there given that he’s having another underwhelming offensive season and they have a suitable backup in Guillorme. On that roster I would count McNeil, Alonso, and Nimmo as the least replaceable
By now odds of Lindor going back to “force of nature” status are very low.
He is what we see: a glove first SS with some pop and contact issues. Useful but hardly irreplaceable.
To be precise: quality of contact issues. His barrels and hard hit numbers are down consistently since 2020. Going on three seasons…
Fangraphs still projects Lindor as the most valuable player on that team and SS is much harder to replace than the positions those other guys play. Guillorme would actually slot in much better replacing McNeil as he’s not a real short stop. You’d seemingly have to believe that McNeil is not just as good as Lindor but actually better. The eye test and fans’ reaction always trust recent numbers more heavily, but there is a reason the projections don’t and it’s backed up by empirical data.
Good article. I shudder to think where the Phillies record would be without the DH, thus without Harper…..
If there were three DH slots, the Phillies would do much better!
“None of them.” – Phil Castellini
I think Goldschmidt should be high on this list because you know that even though they have better options, if he went down Pujols would be getting most of the at-bats.
No, once again it would Donovan getting most of that playing time, especially against right-handed pitchers. Pujols might get a few more starts against righties here and there, but that would be it.
As a Padres fan, while Arrieta is safely retired, Velasquez is not. PTSD from last year makes me cut any playoff odds for the Padres by 90%.
Either Zips or the author should probably know that a Harper injury would likely mean nothing for the Philly OF in 2022. He already has an injury and he hasn’t played OF in well over a month and probably is the DH for the rest of the year. Imagine if the late Joe Morgan had said something on air indicating he had no idea what position the reigning NL MVP played.
How is Arenado on here, but not Goldschmidt? STL has guys that can step in at 3B, but who do they really have other than Pujols that can step in at 1B?
As was mentioned a few comments earlier by Lanidrac, If they have a guy who can play a competent 3B, then they also have a guy who can play 1B.
Sad/Funny: The two articles that show up in the feed when you look at Bryce Harper’s profile are this one and, just 3 days later, “Bryce Harper’s Broken Thumb Could Derail Phillies’ Comeback“