Free Agent Watch: Cody Ross

Cody Ross registered just a 1 WAR in his overhyped 2010 season. He played better with a 1.6 WAR in 2011 (made 6.3 million, giving him a 3938 WASP, above the Halladay Standard). A 1.2 WAR in 09 gives him a 1.27 WAR average in the past 3 years, worth 3.8 million dollars. Ross has a very average career OBP of .323.  He actually had a career high in walks in 2011 (10.6%, just 7.3% in his career). .779 OPS for his career (.730 in 2011), 1.03 PPG in 2011 (1.09 PPG in his career), 2.83 PAPP in 2011, and 2.82 PAPP in his career. He is a flyball hitter, and an above average home run hitter, but has an ISO of just .195 (.165 in 2011, not really power hitting type). His career Secondary Average is .284 (.294 in 2011). He does have a career Offensive winning percentage of over 50%, and boasts an above average career PPS of 93.35, in 2011 it was even better at 95.64 (one would think it had to do mainly with his more walks). Had a .324 BABIP in 2010 (destroying any illusion that 2010 was some kind of breakout year), .279 in 2011, and .301 in his career. If he would have gotten his career BABIP in 2011, his OBP would have been .351 instead of .325, a considerable difference. This is how BABIP many times creates "inefficiencies". However, the career high in walks (going from someone who walked less than average to someone who walked more than average) is a little puzzling. Can someone change their hitting philosophy midway through their career (Ross at age 30)? Can someone go from impatient to patient? Or should we go ahead and assume that it is an outlier season, and have him marked down as walking 7.3% of the time. If we plug in a 7.3% walk ratio for Ross in 2011, his OBP falls to .312 (keeping the BABIP the same). This is the risk that one would be taking with Ross. He has that above average PPS cited earlier that one could fall back on, but is he worth 5 or 6 million dollars? No, probably not. However, the 3.8 million dollars WASP suggests seems reasonable.

Free Agent Watch: Erik Bedard

Erik Bedard had a 1.7 WAR in 2011, in which he split with the Mariners and Red Sox. He has a 1.67 WAR average in the past 3 years he has played in (he did not appear in the 2010 season), and has always had injury problems. He had an incredible PE of -1.4 in 2011, and with his FIP basically identical to his ERA, it is hard to call it fluky. His TR was less impressive, but still solid at 9.61. In his career, he has a -1.33 PE, and has been a consistent strikeout pitcher in his entire career. His career TR is 9.82, almost identical to his 2011 TR. Along with his high strikeout totals, he has an average BABIP of .300, a very good combination. He gives up less than a homer every 9 innings, doesn't walk too many batters, has a pretty good groundball ratio, and has a career FIP of 3.65. This all adds up to a very valuable starting pitcher. Because of his injury problems, he may be undervalued in free agency. There are not very many differences between his lefty/rightie splits, and he is basically a fastball-curveball pitcher. I like Bedard, and the metrics like Bedard, and he doesn't throw especially hard, which means more teams will ignore him than should. He is certainly worth the 5+ million that WASP suggests he is, but I wouldn't give much more because of his lack of ability to stay on the field.

The obligatory Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder article

Everyone who follows baseball knows, Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder will be free agents at the end of the season. In the past 4 years, Pujols has registered a 31.8 WAR, a 27.4 offensive WAR and a 3.8 defensive WAR. That means his average year (in the past 4 years) is 7.95 WAR, 6.85 O-WAR, .95 D-WAR. He is making 16 million dollars this year (with a 5.3 WAR) and has a WASP around the Halladay Standard at 3018. However, if he made 16 million in his average year, his WASP would be a solid 2013. His average year merits a 23.8 million dollar a year contract according to the Halladay Standard. Prince Fielder is a slightly different story. His WAR in the past 4 years is 15.9, 17.9 O-WAR, -2 D-WAR. He is making 15.5 million this year, (and with a WAR of 4.7) making his WASP pretty bad, at 5741 (Carlos Pena of the rival Cubs is slightly more efficient). His average WAR is 3.975, 4.475 O-WAR, -.5 D-WAR. According the Halladay Standard, his average season deserves 11.925 million dollars. Back to Pujols, since the minimum wage for Major League players is at $400,000, if he ends up making 23.850 million dollars, that would be equal to 60 minimum wage players. It would be nearly impossible to argue that Albert Pujols is worth 60 players, even minimum wage bubble players. Think about it, would you rather bring Albert Pujols to spring training, or 60 pre-arbitration major and minor league players?  The 60 players would only have to equal a .1325 WAR a piece to equal Pujol's production. Unless your a big money team with no worries about money or efficiency (especially because of injuries, can you imagine paying Pujols 23 million to sit on the DL because he tore up his knee in spring training?), it would be just goofy to sign Pujols to what he is worth.

How much should CJ Wilson make?

C.J. Wilson, the Left-handed Ace for the Texas Rangers, looks to be the top pitching free agent this season. He is expected to get really big money, and I want to take a look at how much he is worth statistically. I'll start by assuming that Roy Halladay is the standard for performance and pay (baseballplayerssalaries.com has him at "worth it", with a slightly better percentage of performance than team salary according to their metrics). He is making 20 million dollars this year with a RAR of 59 and a WAR of 6.5. This gives him a WASP of 3076. C.J. Wilson's WASP is currently 1562 (with a salary of $7.5 million and a WAR of 4.8). While WASP can't really help calculate the amount of years a player deserves (and that is a big sticking question in baseball, especially pitchers, because of guaranteed contracts), but using the Halladay standard on WASP, C.J Wilson is worth about twice as much as he is making. A $15 million dollar deal would be reasonable, remember that number when we get to the Winter Meetings.

The Nick Swisher Trade

Before the 2008 season, Mr. Moneyball himself sent Nick Swisher to the Chicago White Sox for Ryan Sweeney, Gio Gonzalez, and Fautino De Los Santos. Swisher spent a grand total of 1 year with the White Sox (he currently plays for the Yankees) and had just a .332 OBP with 24 bombs and 69 rbis, with a WAR of -.8 (he made 3.6 million that year). After the season, he was dealt to the Yankees (along with Kanekoa Texeira) for Wilson Betemit, Jeff Marquez, and Jhonny Nunez. Texeira never pitched in the big leagues for the Yankees (although he has appeared in games for the Mariners and Royals) so we will throw him out. Betemit had just 1 terrible year with the Sox, with a WAR of -.4 with a salary of 1.3 million. In Nunez and Marquez's short time with the Sox (neither are in the organization anymore) they each registered a -.1 WAR (because neither of their salaries were disclosed, we will assume it was the minimum $400,000, and we will do this again later on Santos). The four players drew $5,700,000 from the White Sox and posted a combined -1.4 WAR, giving them a combined 19380 WAR and Salary Per. The Athletics story looks much happier. Fautino De La Santos made his major league debut this year and has pitched pretty well with a 3.54 ERA and a .2 WAR (his salary is not released so we will assume $400,000). Since joining the A's in 08, Sweeney has posted a WAR of 6.7 (further salt in the wound, his WAR was negative as a member of the White Sox) and has received $2,625,000 in salary in that time. Gio Gonzalez has racked up a 6 WAR while collecting $1,635,000 from the Athletics. This gives the 3 a total of 12.9 WAR (meaning that those 3 guys alone have won 13 games for the Athletics, while the White Sox players lost games for the team). Adding their salary together and dividing it by their WAR gives them an incredible 361 WASP (they have a value similar to MVP candidate Jacoby Ellsbury). Both in overall performance and value, this was an extremely lopsided trade towards the A's. I guess there is a reason they wrote a book and made a movie about Billy Beane

The Brad Ziegler-Brandon Allen Trade

After the trade deadline, on this blog I graded some of the key trades at the deadline. This one between the Diamondbacks and Athletics I found interesting, because I like the reliever Brad Ziegler, and thought it was a good get for the D'Backs, but felt like that letting go of 1st Baseman Brandon Allen might hurt them, especially in the long run. Well we have some results a month after, and it seems like my suspicions were actually not only fulfilled, but exceeded. Since joining the Diamondbacks, Ziegler has a WAR of .1 (even though he has an ERA of less than 2, it is really hard for a reliever to rack up a big WAR in so few appearances, so please do not get the impression that I am saying Ziegler is bad, or even that the trade is necessarily bad). His salary this year is 1,250,000 but since he is only playing for the Diamondbacks for the last 2 months of the regular season, we will shrink it to 412,500. For the WASP (WAR and Salary Per, see my previous post) we would shrink it to 412.5 and divide it by .1 to get a 4125 WASP as a Diamondback. Brandon Allen is making 400,000 a year, so about 120,000 for his two months as an Athletic. With a WAR of .3 since the trade (higher than Ziegler's WAR since the trade), his WASP is 400 which is stunning (around the same as Ellsbury's WASP for the season). This is all subject to change though, and we will see how it goes.