What if...the Mets and Phillies switched rotations?

Much like Uatu the Watcher I am a big fan of asking What if? questions, especially when it comes to baseball. Yesterday I wondered what would happen if the Mets and Phillies switched rotations. Perhaps this could happen in a world where Bud Selig ruled the MLB like a feudal warlord and was prone to meting out twisted punishments for his own amusement. I decided to run some numbers and see what would happen.

I did this using WAR. First I calculated the Mets team WAR which was 24.6 for position players and 7.7 for the starting rotation for a toal of 32.3. A replacement level team will win about 47 games so combined this gives the Mets a theoretical record of 79.3. Very close to their actual 2011 record.

Second I looked at the Phillies who had a team WAR of 47.5 (22.7 for positional, 24.8 for pitchers) which came out to a theoretical number of 94.5 wins, again relatively close to the their real record.

Now for the fun, lets switch the SP's.

With Halladay and the gang pitching for the Mets our team WAR becomes 96.4! Even better the Phillies now win only 77.4 games! The teams basically switch places. The Phillies are now in 4th place and the Mets are coasting into the playoffs. It really shows just how much the Phillies success is based so much on their starting rotation and just how hampered the Mets are by having a low end starting 5.

Below is a table with all the numbers:

	Position Players WAR	Pitchers WAR	Team WAR
Mets (reality)	24.6	7.7	79.3
Mets (with PHL SP's)	24.6	24.8	96.4

	Position Players WAR	Pitchers WAR	Team WAR
Phillies (reality)	22.7	24.8	94.5
Phillies (with NYM SP's)	22.7	7.7	77.4