Mike Moustakas is the best homegrown player on the Royals World Series team.
Throughout this baseball season, one of the prevailing narratives about the World Series Champion Astros was how they built their team with homegrown talent, much of which came as a result of a three-year stretch from 2011-2013, where the Astros won 56, 55, and 51 games, losing 100+ games each season en route to three last-place finishes. The same could be said about the 2015 Royals, and the 2016 Cubs, both of whom built their teams through the draft, with the Cubs topping out at 75 wins and bottoming out at 61 wins from 2010-2014, while the Royals never won more than 75 games from 2004-2012, losing over 90 games all but the 2008 season.
This got me thinking; of the past four World Series Champions, all of whom were built on the back of homegrown talent, which team received the most value out of the players they developed?
In this study, homegrown talent will be defined as players who made their major league debut with their respective clubs they won the World Series with. Additionally, they had to be on the World Series Roster to be included.
2014 Giants
Buster Posey 5.3 WAR
Madison Bumgarner 5.3 WAR
Pablo Sandoval 3.4 WAR
Brandon Crawford 3.3 WAR
Jean Machi 1.7 WAR
Joe Panik 1.1 WAR
Ryan Vogelsong 1.1 WAR
Andrew Susac 1.0 WAR
Brandon Belt 1.0 WAR
Sergio Romo 0.4 WAR
Hunter Strickland 0.3 WAR
Travis Ishikawa 0.3 WAR
Matt Duffy -0.1 WAR
Tim Lincecum, -0.8 WAR
Juan Perez -1.0 WAR
Total: 22.3 WAR
2015 Royals
Mike Moustakas 4.4 WAR
Eric Hosmer 3.6 WAR
Alex Gordon 2.8 WAR
Salvador Perez 2.3 WAR
Jarrod Dyson 2.2 WAR
Yordano Ventura 1.8 WAR
Danny Duffy 1.5 WAR
Kelvin Herrera 1.4 WAR
Paulo Orlando 1.0 WAR
Luke Hochevar 0.3 WAR
Christian Colon 0.6 WAR
Raul Mondesi 0.0 WAR
Total: 21.9 WAR
2016 Cubs
Kris Bryant 7.7 WAR
Anthony Rizzo 5.8 WAR Kyle Hendicks 4.9 WAR
Addison Russell 4.3 WAR
Javier Baez 3.4 WAR Wilson Contreras 1.8 WAR
Albert Almora Jr. 0.7 WAR
Hector Rondon 0.4 WAR
Carl Edwards Jr. 0.2 WAR
Jorge Soler 0.2 WAR
Kyle Schwarber -0.1 WAR
