What is dWAR? Defensive WAR (dWAR): this takes only the player’s defensive contributions and positional adjustment into account in a WAR calculation. dWAR was created by Baseball-Reference. I am using this tool to look at Minnesota Twins players from 1961 thru 2023 to see what it determines as the best defensive Twins players by position for their entire Twins career. A player has to have played at least 51% of his games at that position to qualify. According to dWAR, Greg Gagne is the best defensive player the Twins have ever had.
Catcher – Butch Wynegar 9.0 Glenn Borgmann 4.1
First Base – Ron Jackson -0.4 C.J. Cron -0.4
Second Base – Chuck Knoblauch 8.6 Steve Lombardozzi 3.7
Third Base – Gary Gaetti 11.3 Nick Punto 8.6
Shortstop – Greg Gagne 12.4 Zoilo Versalles 8.6
Left Field – Lew Ford 2.0 Gary Ward 1.2
Center Field – Byron Buxton 7.6 Torii Hunter 6.2
Right Field – Max Kepler 3.0 Tom Brunansky 1.2
Pitcher – Camilo Pascual -0.1 Mudcat Grant -0.1
So what do you all think? Is dWAR a fair way to help determine the best defensive players? Here is a B-R Stathead link to the best defensive players in all of MLB from 1961 thru 2023, does this list make you a believer?