Inspired by Ground Ball With Eyes’ look at the 1992 Springfield Nuclear Power Plant Softball Team, I decided to take a look at how well Team USA’s World Baseball Classic team would do if they were playing a season of Major League Baseball. So, I decided to, similar to how GBWE took a look at SNPP by using WAR, I will do the same thing. Baseball-Reference puts a team of “replacement level” players as being about a 52-win team, so presumably by adding up all the 2012-season Wins-Above-Replacement-Level of Team USA’s players and then adding them to those 52 wins that a replacement level team would be getting.

And the result of this little bit of research is this: Team USA would, if participating in Major League Baseball, be the greatest team ever assembled, going 127-35 (or maybe 126-36, depends on how you round).

Now, obviously, this isn’t a perfect way of determining how good the team would be, and it uses a 28-man roster instead of the 25 to 40 players that would be on a real MLB roster during a season. And, of course, it’s unlikely that all of the players would get as much playing time as they did on their usual teams, since obviously they couldn’t all be starters or all be the closer.

Still, when you hear somebody talk about how disappointing Team USA is and how it lacks some stars, consider that this team would be a runaway division winner.

Go below the jump if you want to see the WAR of every member of Team USA.

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