This spring, a collection of Major League Baseball's best players compete in the World Baseball Classic before returning to their teams. But what if they didn't return? What if the stars of Team USA -- or the Dominican Republic -- stayed with their national teams for a 162-game schedule? What would happen? How would they fare? Let's test them against the defending world champs, the Chicago Cubs.
Given this scenario, players in the WBC will play out the season for their international squads, so the Cubs lose Javier Baez and Hector Rondon -- as they are playing for Puerto Rico and Venezuela, respectively. To test the teams, we'll use FanGraphs' depth chart projections to determine performance.
Catcher
Team USA has a big advantage here as Buster Posey and Jonathan Lucroy are two of the game's very best at the position. At catcher, Posey is worth 4.3 WAR (wins above replacement). Lucroy comes in at 3.4 WAR for the 2017 season. As a result, we will give more playing time to Posey and come up with a combination worth 5.7 WAR. For the Cubs, Willson Contreras should see most of the time behind the plate this season, with Miguel Montero playing a decent amount, but combined they add up to only 3.2 WAR, putting the Cubs in a sizable hole.
Dominican Republic: Welington Castillo, 1.5 WAR
First Base
Paul Goldschmidt of Team USA is fantastic, and Eric Hosmer will get some playing time, but that duo doesn't match up to the Cubs' Anthony Rizzo, who leads all first basemen in projected WAR this season, and the Cubs' 4.9 WAR beats out Team USA by more than half a win.
Dominican Republic: Carlos Santana, 2.8 WAR
Second Base
Team USA has a bit of a predicament on its hands as Daniel Murphy and Ian Kinsler have nearly identical projections this season -- right around 3 WAR. We'll go ahead and split their playing time down the middle and end up 3.3 WAR. On the Cubs' side, they no longer have Baez available to split time with Ben Zobrist. Manager Joe Maddon's original utility star, Zobrist will play the bulk of the season at second base and record 2.9 WAR.
Dominican Republic: Robinson Cano, 3.8 WAR
Shortstop
Team USA and the Cubs are also evenly matched at shortstop. Brandon Crawford takes the bulk of the playing time at shortstop for Team USA, with young Astros third baseman Alex Bregman playing a utility role on this team. Their 3.9 WAR barely edges out the 3.7 WAR put up by the Cubs' Addison Russell, 23. He might not get mentioned alongside Carlos Correa, Corey Seager and Francisco Lindor, but Russell had 3.9 WAR last season with a slightly below-average bat. If he improves his offense even a little, he will be a star.
Dominican Republic: Manny Machado, 6.1 WAR
Third Base
The Cubs have an advantage here despite big expectations for Team USA's Nolan Arenado. After a long season for the Cubs ended in a championship, Kris Bryant got married in the offseason, making his decision to bypass the WBC reasonable. Team USA's loss is the Cubs' gain, as Bryant, needing to nearly match his 699 plate appearances last season to make up for the loss of Baez, helps the Cubs to a 5.9 WAR projection compared to a still-great 4.7 WAR projection for Nolan Arenado and Bregman.
Dominican Republic: Adrian Beltre, 4.1 WAR
Outfield
Team USA is bringing just four outfielders to the WBC, and three of the four have pretty extensive experience in center field. Manager Jim Leyland might have a tough time explaining to Adam Jones and Andrew McCutchen why they aren't playing center over a player who has played left field most of his career, but Christian Yelich is the pick here for center field ,with 4 WAR projected this season. His Miami Marlins teammate Giancarlo Stanton will get most of the time in right, with McCutchen seeing a lot of time in left and Jones filling in everywhere. All told, Team USA comes up with 11.9 WAR.
The outlook for the Cubs is not nearly as promising. If Jason Heyward had met expectations last season with another 4-5 WAR campaign, he would be right up there with Stanton as one of the best right fielders in the game. But after a disastrous season that included a 72 wRC+, which was the worst among MLB outfielders, Heyward's projections expect a bounce-back, but only up to about 3 WAR. That is the highest projection in the outfield for the Cubs as Kyle Schwarber's bat is solid, but his glove falls short. In center field, Jon Jay and Albert Almora Jr. barely muster 1 WAR. Overall, the Cubs' outfield projects for a decent 7.1 WAR.
Dominican Republic: Jose Bautista, Nelson Cruz, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco, 9.8 WAR
Position Player Tally: On the position player side, thanks to big margins at catcher and in center field, Team USA totals 33.7 WAR, ahead of the Cubs (27.7) and Dominican Republic (28.1).
Starting Rotation
Because of pitch counts and a March schedule, the WBC allows teams to carry more pitchers than a staff would usually need in order to cycle through the tournament's rounds. Per WBC rules, some pitchers will appear in multiple rounds, while others won't. We'll take only those starters who will be allowed to pitch in more than one round, plus the next best starters, up to five. For Team USA, that means Chris Archer (4.2 WAR), Marcus Stroman (3.2), Danny Duffy (3.1), Tanner Roark (1.9) and Drew Smyly (2.8). That is a good rotation, but it doesn't quite match what the Cubs bring to the table in Jon Lester (4.5), Jake Arrieta (4.1), Kyle Hendricks (3.3), John Lackey (2.9), and the fifth starter combo of Mike Montgomery (1.2) and Brett Anderson (0.7).
Dominican Republic: Johnny Cueto (4.3), Carlos Martinez (3.5), Ivan Nova (2.4), Bartolo Colon (2.0) and Edinson Volquez (1.6)
Bullpen
The United States has Andrew Miller, David Robertson, Nate Jones, Brett Cecil and Luke Gregerson. Those five relievers project better than the San Diego Padres' rotation, so it is near impossible for any one team to match them. The Cubs have Wade Davis and Koji Uehara, but with Hector Rondon out, Carl Edwards Jr., Pedro Strop and Justin Grimm don't have the depth of Team USA. The Cubs' 4.5 WAR is half of Team USA's 9.1 WAR.
Dominican Republic: Dellin Betances, Jeurys Familia, Alex Colome, Hector Neris, Fernando Rodney, Santiago Casilla (7.2 WAR).
Overall Tally: The Cubs end up with 49 WAR, and on paper that makes them a 95-win team -- nearly identical to the Dominican Republic's potential.
But neither comes close to Team USA's 58 WAR. Over the course of a 162-game season, the depth Team USA has at all positions plus an impossible-to-beat bullpen would put the squad in a position to withstand any injuries by plugging in another All-Star, something no team -- not even the Cubs -- can afford to do.