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The 2016 season was a necessary evil in the long, plodding course of a Major League Baseball rebuild. Even the kick in the pants provided by Ruben Amaro Jr. on his way out the door could not avoid the slop that constituted last season’s roster. That’s just the way she goes.
So in light of that, in order to fully take stock of that roster and to shed some light on the changes made by the front office since the season mercifully came to an end on October 2, I broke down the team’s performance on a position-by-position basis using wins above replacement figures courtesy of the lovely folks at Baseball-Reference.