Part One -- Game Details

                                 1  2  3    4  5  6    7  8  9     R  H  E
                                 -  -  -    -  -  -    -  -  -     -  -  -
    Minnesota Twins              0  0  0    0  0  3    0  1  1     5  7  1
    Atlanta Braves               0  0  0    4  1  0    6  3  x    14 17  1

    PITCHERS: MIN - Tapani, Leach (5), West (7), Bedrosian (7), Willis (8)
              ATL - Glavine, Mercker (6), Clancy (7), St. Claire (9)

               WP - Tom Glavine
	       LP - Kevin Tapani
             SAVE - none

   HOME RUNS: MIN - none
              ATL - Hunter, Justice, Smith

Part Two -- Players of the Game, WPA Style

David Justice: 19.2%
(redacted) (redacted): 10.7%
Kent Mercker: 10.2%
Jim Clancy: 7%
Ron Gant: 6.5%

Game Changing Moment -- David Justice's two-run homer off of Tapani in the bottom of the 4th, starting the scoring barrage. It increased their odds of winning by 19%.

Part Three -- If A Chili Davis Falls in the Woods and Hits Dan Gladden, Does Anyone Care?

I am sure when the Twins signed Gladden they were hoping to get the 1984 version who had a .384 BABIP with an OPS+ of 145. What they got was a below average left-fielder who occasionally had a mediocre year with the bat with inconsistent defense and baserunning. His WAR totals with the Twins were 1.2, 3.4, 1.4, -1.2, 0.8.  Not Delmon Young, but not exactly impressive for a guy who started over 120 games each year. It would have been nice to see Gladden primarily start against lefties, especially in 1991 when Randy Bush was mashing righties.

Gladden had a terrible year offensively in 1987, but he had a marvelous World Series that pretty much won people over. He was perceived to be solid defensively and a good lead-off man. Tom Kelly liked getting his bench players a lot of playoff time and probably realized Gladden was the weakest of his outfielders, so Gladden would often be the one to sit. But come playoff time, Gladden got all 24 starts, always leading off with his barely above .300 OBP.

In Game 5, Kelly decided to throw Chili Davis into the outfield, despite his bad defense and lack of playing time. Davis had been clutch so far and no doubt he wanted some spark against Tom Glavine. But instead of benching Gladden, he benched Mack, who had an all-star worthy season with a 140 OPS+. Mack in the first four games had four goose eggs, so I can understand the temptation. I'll give Kelly a pass on this decision.

What I want to know is, especially considering how bad Gladden was in 1990, how might the Twins have done had Gladden not been on the team in 91 and Davis had played the outfield the entire year?

Gladden was worth 0.8 WAR in 1991 in 511 plate appearances. Chili Davis, 3.3 WAR in 634 appearances. Chili was a full-time DH, but he had played a full season in the outfield in 1989, and about 50 games in 1990. I don't think durability would have been a huge issue in the outfield, but let's be conservative and say he goes on the disabled list once and loses 15 games. That brings his WAR down to about 3.0. In his past three seasons, Davis was a combined -25 runs for fielding. Let's be conservative again and say he posts -10 runs in a hypothetical 138 games defensively . That brings his WAR down to 2.0. Over one win higher than Gladden.

Now, we need to replace Davis's bats at DH. The Twins can easily do this with their bench. Randy Bush could be a permanent DH against righties. He notched a 1.1 offensive WAR in just 193 PAs. Again, let's be conservative and say any additional WAR he accumulates by having more at bats is negated by regression and batting against the occasional left-handed reliever. Against lefties, Gene Larkin and Pedro Munoz  (also much better hitters than Gladden) could have easily handled the rest of the starts and their terrible outfield defense would be erased by being replaced by Chili Davis's terrible outfield defense.

I'm certainly not adept at manipulating WAR numbers and the above scenario is hardly scientific, but I think it's pretty clear that the Twins still could have won the division, if not had a better record, without Gladden. They probably score more runs on offense and give up more on defense.

Perhaps with their young pitchers, having the better defense is a good idea. Giving Erickson and Tapani confidence and not relying so much on the bullpen (which wasn't quite as good as the rotation) is not a terrible idea. And certainly, if I was running the team in 1991, I probably keep Gladden around, too (batting him 9th and platooning). But other than the some very timely World Series heroics, I think it's pretty clear to me that Gladden was one of the least important factors on either team.