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Luckily, “replacement level” has entered the general baseball parlance, but the concept of Wins Above Replacement, while worthwhile, doesn’t quite help us in most of our conversations. Generally speaking, when we’re discussing teams and players working to improve their organization or their individual performances, we’re not talking about elevating them from “replacement level” to playoff-bound (team) or All-Star (player).
The Giants, for instance, aren’t looking to field a roster of replacement level hitters — they’re already doing that — but instead want at the very least league average hitters.