Free Agent Watch: Jon Rauch

Jon Rauch had a .2 WAR in 2011,  and a .7 WAR average over the past 3 years. This is worth 2.1 million according to the Halladay Standard. Instead, he made 3.5 million in 2011. He has a very unimpressive .27 Career PE, and a terrible  2.64 PE in 2011. His Career TR is pretty good at 9.35, but the 7.46 TR in 2011 is pretty bad. He has had problems with home runs, giving up almost 2 home runs per 9 innings in 2011. His career FIP is very unimpressive at 4.03, and in 2011 it was awful at 5.26. He is not a big strike out pitcher for a reliever, but doesn't walk too many batters. The only reason it seems that Rauch has been able to stay in the league is that balls hit off of Rauch's bat don't turn into hits (a .279 career BABIP). However, his success or failure is totally independent of BABIP, as in 2011 his BABIP was .276. In 2010, his best year, his BABIP was .320. Rauch is certainly an oddball, and not because he is 10 feet tall and has a neck tattoo. He is a flyball pitcher, and yet is still paid millions of dollars. I am not real sure how you can trust Rauch to be at the back of your bullpen, and if you can't trust him at the back of your bullpen, why pay him 2 million? Rauch certainly isn't a terrible pitcher, and would fit in most bullpens just fine, but he has been relied on to be late inning guys for bad bullpens in the past few years. I don't see any reason why he isn't worth at least a million dollars, and can give you some innings. He isn't a split guy, he pitches to both lefties and righties about equally, and that can be pretty valuable.