John Bowker to go to Japan

The Phillies have released John Bowker so he can pursue a career in the NPB. In 622 PA (about a full season), Bowker had a .283 OBP, .664 OPS, 3.31 PAPP, and .61 PPG. Through the NPB metric, he is projected to have a .316 OBP and a .06 Simple WAR. In his Major League career, he had a 74 OPS +, with 3.6 Runs Created per a game. His Secondary Average was .216, and an Isolated Slugging of .150. He was an average home run hitter and good flyball hitter, but a below average walker. He saw an average amount of pitches per plate appearances. This all added up to a Offensive Winning Percentage of .374. Defensively, he was horrible at first base, and had an above average fielding percentage in the outfield, but got to a lot less balls than an average outfielder according to range factor. In total, it is estimated that he saved 5 runs above average in his career, mainly because of his outfield play. Assuming he plays above average in the outfield in the NPB, and his projected just above replacement offense, he would certainly be worth the equivalent of 1 million American dollars (because most NPB teams can pay about 1 million dollars per 1 WAR as we saw in the Lastings Milledge article).