Ryan Perry swapped for Collin Balester

The Tigers traded Ryan Perry to the Nationals for Collin Balester

Balester had a -.3 WAR in 2011, and a -.6 WAR for his career. He has a 2.22 PE for his career, with a 2.34 Adjusted PE mostly as a reliever with 22 starts mixed in earlier in his career. His FIP - is 128 with a BABIP of .295, and he has struggled massively with homers at 1.67 HR/9IP. SIERA is a little nicer to him with a 4.28 career number, and he has slightly more groundballs than flyballs. He isn't arbitration eligible yet.

Perry had a -.4 WAR in 2011, but has a .7 career WAR. He has a .76 PE, with an adjusted PE of .97, all as a reliever. He has a career FIP - of 99, and SIERA of 4.28 (mysteriously the same as Balester's). He has done a good job avoiding the long ball, with a .78 HR/9IP. He has a higher walk rate that Balester and a very similar groundball rate. He is arbitration eligible. Perry is, according to most metrics, the better pitcher. Even though his salary will probably be higher than Balester's, I think the Nationals win this trade.

Andres Torres-Angel Pagan trade

The Giants traded Ramon Ramirez and Andres Torres to the Mets for Angel Pagan.

Ramon Ramirez had a .8 WAR in 2011, and a WAR average of 1.2 in the past 3 years. He is arbitration eligible this offseason, so his salary for 2012 is not updated. However, WAR suggests he is worth 3.6 million according to the Halladay Standard (he made just over 1 million in 2011).

Andres Torres had a 1.3 WAR in 2011, and a WAR average of 2.57 over the past 3 years. He is also arbitration eligible, who made 2.2 million in 2011. According to the Halladay Standard, he is worth 7.7 million, which is certainly more than he will receive in 2011.

Angel Pagan on the other hand, had a .2 WAR in 2011, and a WAR average 2.87 over the past 3 years. He made 3.5 million in 2011, and is arbitration eligible for 2012. He is worth about 8 million according to the Halladay Standard.

So just according to WAR (and salary), the Mets seem to have won this trade.

Hong-Chih Kou: Arbitration

MLB Trade Rumors projects Hong-Chih Kuo getting 2.5 million dollars in arbitration. All Kuo would need to do is get a .83 WAR to meet the Halladay Standard. In his 7 seasons, he has a 4.1 WAR, or 1 WAR every 71 innings. So one would think if he pitches normally, he will get that .83 WAR in about 60 innings. In his 5 real seasons (excluding his first year, where he pitched just 5.1 innings), he averages about 57.1 innings, meaning that is very doable. However, 2011 was hardly a normal year for Kuo. He had a WAR of -1.4 despite only throwing 27 innings. He had a PE of 1.161 (which is not good for a reliever, gave up a .395 OBP, and a horrific TR of 3.3. It is hard to get by these numbers and it is tempting to scream "get rid of him". However, like most things in life, things are more complicated that this. His adjusted PE actually sits at -3.899, which is late inning type efficiency. He strikes out a ton of people at 10.62 K/9IP. He struggled with BABIP in 2011 at .323 (career .289), and that didn't help things. The big problem he had in 2011 was walks. He walked 7.67 BB/9IP, compared to his career average of 3.91. This is really strange. Very rarely do walk rates jump like this. Before the season ended, he went in to have elbow surgery. This is probably the best explanation, but it also makes health a serious concern going forward. When someone has an ERA of exactly 9, it is hard to tell people that he didn't actually pitch that bad. He did have a SIERA of exactly 4. He wasn't that bad I promise. The Bill James projections have his numbers returning to some kind of normality in 2012, giving him a -4.22 PE and a FIP of 3.2. I would pretty much agree, as long as Kuo is healthy and that is a big question. We have to realize that Kuo has basically no trade value after his terrible ERA 2011 and elbow problems. This is why it is smart for the Dodgers to hang on to him.

Russell Martin: Arbitration

The Yankees catcher Russell Martin made 4 million dollars in 2011 while posting a 1.3 WAR, a 3076 WASP, close to the Halladay Standard. Over the past 3 years, he has averaged a 1.33 WAR, worth around 4 million dollars. In 2011: Martin had a .324 OBP, 92 OPS +, and 1.704 O4S. He did this despite having a .252 BABIP, much lower than his career average of .295. For Martin, there really is a story of two careers. His first three years, he had a .311 BABIP, .373 OBP, OPS + of 109 and .554 offensive winning percentage (averaging a WAR of 3.33). His last 3 years, he has a BABIP of just .275, .341 OBP, OPS + of 88, and .434 offensive winning percentage. There are two ways to look at this I believe, so before looking at some of his other metrics I will lay out two possible theories: 1. Martin, Catching in 142 games a year for 3 years, simply wore down, like we have seen with Joe Mauer (and as I argued, will happen to Alex Avila if the Tigers don't change how they manage him, and with the signing of Gerald Laird as the backup, I don't have much hope) or 2. Martin has just been unlucky with BABIP over the past 3 years. If 1 is true, then it is time to run away from Martin as fast as you can before his salary increases, but if 2 is true, then Martin may be due for a breakout and may actually be undervalued. In the first 3 years of his career, he had a 3.9 Pit/PA, while it dropped to 3.81 Pit/PA in the last 3 years. So he went from above average to about average, a relatively dramatic shift in Pit/PA. He walked 11.6% of the time and homered 2.4% of the time in his first 3 years. Over the last 3 years, he has homered .3 % less and walked .1 % less, hardly dramatic changes. His GB/FB ratio over the last 3 years has been .98, and hit line drives 19% of the time, while he actually had more groundballs and less line drives his first 3 years. So it would appear that Martin is somewhere in between his first 3 seasons and his last 3 seasons. That is, he is better than he has been over the last 3 years, but not quite as good as he was when he first broke into the majors. Why this happens to be is hard to say, and could have several explanations. With that in mind, he is probably worth around 4 million dollars, and perhaps a little more. He will probably get more than this in arbitration, and even though the Yankees are by far the most inefficient team in baseball, they should try to move him.

Shaun Marcum: Arbitration

Marcum had a 3.3 WAR in 2011, and that his average WAR for the past 3 seasons played. According to the Halladay Standard, that is worth about 10 million dollars. Marcum made almost 4 million dollars in 2011. So according to WAR and WASP, he is very undervalued. In 2011, Marcum had a .22 PE, and an adjusted PE of .41, pretty solid. He had an excellent TR of 10.05, and a FIP - of 98. However, his SIERA argues he is due for regression at 3.91, and at first look his BABIP (.261) looks like Marcum was very lucky. However, he has a career BABIP of .269, and with such a large sample size, it is hard to argue that he should give up a higher one. He does give up more flyballs than grounders, but a large percentage (16.2% in 2011 and 11.7% in his career) of those stayed in the infield. Bill James' projections have his BABIP going up to a .284 and he also has him giving up more home runs in 2012 (he gave up .99 HR/9IP in 2011, but has given up 1.23 HR/9IP in his career). James has Marcum actually improving overall, racking up a -.11 PE, and .38 adjusted PE. So if James is right, and I think he is being mean to Marcum if anything with the higher BABIP etc., then Marcum would be worth over 10 million dollars in 2012. Since it seems unlikely that Marcum would get that much in Arbitration, it would be absurd for the Brewers to trade him.

Chase Headley: Arbitration

Chase Headley had a 2 WAR in 2011 and a 2.03 WAR average over the past 3 years. This is worth around 6 million dollars according to the Halladay Standard. He made about 2.3 million in 2011. Not a good defender, -1.1 D-WAR for his career, but had a 1.5 D-WAR in 2010 (since this is the outlier, we have to basically throw this out). Has a career OBP of .343, .392 Slugging (1.764 O4S, or On Base Percentage time 4 plus slugging, giving OBP the importance over Slugging that Paul Depodesta gives it, an average O4S would be about 1.69, while Prince Fielder would have a 2.1 O4S for his career), and a 97.42 PPS. In 2011, his numbers were even better, with a .374 OBP, .399 Slugging, (1.895 O4S), and 102.14 PPS. So are his better numbers, specifically his better OBP, something we can expect from now on, or are they fluky in any way. Since he has a good OBP and is an under average home run hitter, his BABIP for his career is pretty high at .339. In 2011 it was even higher at .368. He did this despite having a lower ISO than career average at .110, and hitting about the same amount of groundballs and extra base hits. This clearly shows that you cannot count on the BABIP of 2011, and in turn you cannot count on Headley's very good OBP and career high Batting Average (I don't care about Batting Average but other teams do) for 2012. This means that he is probably valued more than he is actually worth. This means that, if all possible, the Padres should trade him. His salary won't get ridiculous in arbitration, so the Padres can decide to keep him if the package isn't there, but it makes a lot of sense (and if the rumors are true, they are at least thinking about it) for the Padres to move Headley and make a team overpay.

Ryan Spilborghs: Arbitration

The Colorado Rockies' Ryan Spilborghs has a -1.2 WAR in 7 year career, with a -1.8 WAR in 2011. He did that while making nearly 2 million dollars. His career O-WAR is 1.8, while his D-WAR is -3.0. For his career, he has a .345 OBP, .768 OPS, 2.72 PAPP, and .83 PPG. In 2011, his numbers weren't near as good, he had a .283 OBP, .588 OPS, 3.48 PAPP, and .5 PPG. Why exactly was 2011 so bad? His BABIP absolutely killed him at .260 in 2011, compared to his career .319. However, there is a larger story than just BABIP luck. He hit way more groundballs than usual at a 1.34 GB/FB ratio. His ISO was also down drastically at .095, because he hit way less extra base hits than usual at 5.8% and homered just 1.4%. This makes you think that his bad BABIP was earned, and something is clearly not right for Spilborghs. He hit just 16% line-drives instead of his normal 20%. The most steady offensive statistic did stay steady, as his Pitches per plate appearance was 3.95 compared to his 3.97 career number. This is above league average and even with his terrible OBP, he still had a 91.22 PPS (he has a 96.11 PPS for his career). That is decent, but not overwhelming or good enough to make you ignore other numbers. Spolborghs simply was not the same player in 2011 as he had been in other years, and was one of the worst players in the league. At 32, it could be that his skills are just diminishing. With a salary that is going to be at least 2 million dollars, the Rockies have to see if they can move one would think, but there may not be anyone who wants him.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia: Arbitration

Salty made $750,000 in 2011,  and posted a .7 . WAR (worth 2.1 million according to Halladay Standard). He had a career high in Plate Appearances, and his other real full season was in 2007 where he had a .1 WAR. It would be a pretty big jump in arbitration to go from 750,000 to 2.1 million but I am certainly no expert at guessing how much a player will get in arbitration. In 2011 for the Red Sox, he had just a .288 OBP, with a .737 OPS. The good news is that he was a pretty good slugger at .450 slugging percentage. He also had a 1.21 PPG, but a 3.088 PAPP. He was horribly inefficient but had some pop. His secondary average was .285, while his PPS was 91.85. In his career, his Runs Created per game was just below average at 4.2, and his offensive winning percentage is .434. He has a .307 OBP, .712 OPS, and 91.99 PPS. He hasn't consistently had the power he had in 2011, with a career PPG of .98 and a .161 ISO (he had a .215 in 2011, it is hard to tell if that is fluky or whether he just loves Fenway. The Ballpark in Arlington where he used to play is a very great hitters ballpark, so the latter seems unlikely). He has a .322 career BABIP, even though he had a 2011 BABIP of .304, there is perhaps hope it will return to form. More likely, this career BABIP was fluky anyway. His Secondary Average is mediocre at .246. Salty is a horrible defender with a -1.4 D-WAR in his career and a -.6 WAR in 2011. He also had that weird incident in 2010 where the Rangers couldn't bring him up because he suddenly couldn't throw it to the pitcher. We should probably not read too much into that, but it gives you concern about his mental makeup. In 2011, Salty was absolutely terrible at the start of the year and picked it up as the year went along. He is an above average power hitter, but a way below average walker. The strikeouts will irrationally turn away people as will the low batting average. Because of this it is hard to know what his trade value would be, but certainly some team would see a catcher with some power and ignore the flaws. And there are flaws, the low OBP and high PAPP is very concerning. He is under average overall. The only hope is that his solid pitches per plate appearance (3.91 in his career, 3.95 in 2011) and slightly above average PPS will turn into a better OBP (read more walks). This is possible, but probably unlikely considering the decently large sample size of Salty's career. I don't think you can count on Salty and (obviously if he gets the 2.1 million or more) I would try to trade him.

Miguel Montero: Arbitration

Miguel Montero is coming off a career year in which he registered a 4.5 WAR, which would be worth 13.5 million according to the Halladay Standard. Over the past 3 years, he has averaged a 2.4 WAR, worth 7.2 million dollars. In 2011, he had a .351 OBP, .820 OPS, and 1.21 PPG. Even though he is a catcher, he played in 140 games in 2011. In his career, he has a .338 OBP, .789 OPS, and 1.02 PPG. So while 2011 was above his career norms, they weren't crazy or abnormal. His BABIP reflects this as well, as in 2011 it was .317, and .306 in his career. This means that overall you can't expect the year he had in 2011, but he is still a good hitter, especially for a catcher. His Secondary Average is .273, and his ISO is .179. He brings a .558 Offensive Winning Percentage to the table, and walks about league average. He has a 92.48 PPS, is a flyball hitter, and an above average power hitter. He is an under average catcher, but his offense more than makes up for it. He made 3.2 million dollars in 2011, which is obviously quite a deal for the Diamondbacks. Of course, it all depends on exactly how much he will make in arbitration, but more than likely there is no reason to move him.

Should the Braves trade Prado and Jurrjens?

The Braves have now let it leak that they are interested in trading both Martin Prado and Jair Jurrjens. Prado has a 2.1 WAR average over the last 3 years (worth 6.3 million) and is going to arbitration this off-season (he made 3.1 million dollars in 2011, a 1476 WASP). Despite injury problems, Jair Jurrjens has still managed to put a 3 WAR average together over the past 3 years, which is worth 9 million dollars. He too will be in arbitration and he made 3.25 million in 2011. With the Braves payroll, they can afford about 2 million dollars per ever Win Above Replacement. This means that Jurrjens is worth about 6 million dollars to the Braves, and Prado is worth about about 4 million. I am not an arbitration expert, so I don't know how much they will probably get, but this metric makes the idea of the Braves trading these two less absurd than I thought when I originally heard the news. Prado has a slightly above average OBP of .341, PPG of 1.03, 2.83 PAPP, and OPS of .775. All these numbers are above average or replacement, but not amazing. Prado's well known flexibility defensively is overrated, as he has a -.3 D-WAR for his career. His Secondary Average (.212), and ISO (.141) are very pedestrian and concerning. While his Runs Created per Game is 5.1 and his Offensive Winning Percentage is .540, he walks less than average. His PPS is nothing real impressive at 92.69. As for Jurrjens, even though he was heralded as one of the best pitcher's in the league while healthy, he had a 1.3 PE and 2.33 Adjusted PE, hardly one of the league's best. His career PE is .98, with an Adjusted PE of 1.46. As bizarre as it sounds, he has obviously been helped out by the Braves defense (with perhaps some luck as well). His career TR is 9.68, and in 2011 it was 10.23. This is pretty good, and Jurrjens seems to be a relatively valuable pitcher. I think for either one it depends on how much they get in arbitration, if they go above the numbers listed above, it makes sense to trade them. With that said, it is imperative they don't miss on the trade and get real value back.

Kyle Kendrick: Arbitration

Kyle Kendrick has a 2.1 WAR in 5 seasons. The crazy thing about this is that he had a 2.1 WAR in 2007. He then turned around and had a -1.4 WAR in 2008, and in 2011, his WAR was 1.1 (he made 2.45 million in 2011, a decent WASP of 2227). He has a horrible career PE of 4.43 and 4.97 adjusted PE. In 2011, things were a little better with a 2.3 PE and a 3.63 adjusted PE (4.26 PE and 5.33 adjusted PE in 2007). The lack of strikeouts (4.14 K/9IP) is striking, and he got away with a low BABIP (.261) in 2011 and his FIP was 1.33 higher than his ERA. He is the rare pitcher that throws less than 60% strikes, and his career TR is a lowly 7.15. In 2011 it was better at 8.96, and 8.65 in 2007. This means that his "best" year might have actually been worse than 2011. There is plenty to suggest his 07 season was pretty lucky anyway, as his FIP was 1.07 higher than his ERA and his BABIP was well below league average and slight below career average at .281. Despite being a groundball pitcher (1.37 GB/FB), he still struggles with the long ball (1.2 HR/9IP). His career RE 24 is -15.51, meaning he has given up 15.51 runs more than an average pitcher would. Kyle Kendrick is like the guy who has 4 really successful brothers (Worley, Halladay, Lee, and Hamels) but still can't get a job, and lives with his parents. He isn't going to be worth the money he is going to get in arbitration but one would have to imagine it would be hard to dump him. If any organization attaches any value to Kendrick, they are overvaluing him, his "good" years were clearly fluky, as shown above.

Shin-Soo Choo: Arbitration

Shin-Soo Choo had a 1.3 WAR in 11, but still has a 4.67 Average in the past 3 years, which worth 14 million million. However, he only made just under 4 million in 2011. His career fielding percentage is below league average, as is his range factor (despite this he still has a career 2.5 D-WAR). He has a great career OBP at .384, an OPS of .856, a 1.36 PPG, and 2.42 PAPP. 2011 was bizarre, he struggled with different injuries and had legal problems and put up a .344 OBP, .733 OPS, 1.09 PPG, and 2.71 PAPP. These aren't bad numbers but they certainly aren't the numbers you are used to seeing with Choo. One would think that a .317 BABIP would be actually mean due for regression, but with Choo this doesn't seem to be the case. In his career, Choo has a .353 BABIP in a large sample size. A cynic might say that he has just been really lucky and is still due for regression. As far as that goes, he is an average groundball hitter, and an above average line drive hitter. Also, a greater percentage of his flyballs turn into homers than average, and he doesn't pop up in the infield near as much as the average hitter does. He walks 11.6% of the time, and is an above average extra base hitter. These things combined may explain the extremely high BABIP. The statistics definitely point toward injuries being the big problem for Choo in 2011, as they seemed to have robbed him of his power. He has a career Slugging of .473, but in 2011 he had just a .390, below league average. A similar drop in ISO (.182-.131) also occurred. All this shows that we can probably throw 2011 out, unless he hasn't recovered from those injuries. So the Indians can probably expect the 6.9 Runs Created per Game, and .652 Offensive winning percentage outfielder. He has a nice 98.15 PPS, and is an extremely valuable player. Barring health problems, expect Choo to be a monster again and for the Indians to get great value out of him as well.

Koyie Hill: Arbitration

The Cubs' backup catcher Koyie Hill is up for arbitration. Arbitration can't take money away from a player but perhaps it should. He has a career WAR of -2.7, and a WAR of -.9 in 2011. His career OBP is just .275, an OPS of .573 and a PPG of .53. These are about as bad as numbers get. His PPS is really pitiful at 82.161, and he walks below league average, at just 8% of his plate appearances. He is a groundball hitter, which probably leads to his less than league average BABIP at .286. His Secondary Average is just .178 and his Runs created per game is just 2.7. He has a laughable Isolated Slugging at .086 and just doesn't have anything good going for him.

This is why the Cubs aren't any good. They spend a bunch of money on a few aging free agents and then have tons of holes on their roster like Hill. Surely they can find a way to just jettison him from the roster.

Brandon Wood: Arbitration

The Angels were so sure that Brandon Wood would become a great player. In 173 games with LA (hardly a small sample), he had an OBP of .197. He had a .51 PPG and 4.62 PAPP for the Angels. This is historically bad. So the Angels finally gave up, and the Pirates picked him up. There he had a .277 OBP in 99 games, .64 PPG, and 3.29 PAPP. These numbers are still horrible. It is not hard to figure out why the Pirates collapsed. When you run guys like Brandon Wood out regularly, you aren't going to win. He had a -.6 WAR for the Pirates and a -2.5 WAR with the Angels. His PPS was just 87.8 in Pittsburgh, and he walks an embarrassing low 4.3% of the time. His career BABIP is just .240, which at such a large sample, just shows that he does not hit the ball with any kind of authority. To get a feel of just how bad Brandon Wood is, his offensive winning percentage is just .175. To show just how pathetic that is, a team with a .175 winning percentage would be the worst in history, at 28-134. It doesn't matter how much arbitration gives this guy, it is too much. The Pirates need to let him go.

Jerome Williams: Arbitration

.2 WAR (worth $600,000) in 2011 in 6 starts and 10 appearances (44 innings). Given a 150 innings, he would register a .68 WAR, which would be worth 2 million dollars according to the Halladay Standard. He has a 3.5 WAR in 6 career seasons, a .58 WAR average, worth 1.7 million. However, he was -.7 WAR in 2007 (in just 30 innings) so it has to be kept in mind that he can have flat tire seasons. In his career, he has a 2.59 PE, and in 2011 his PE was 1.99. His career TR is 7.88, in 2011 it was 8.76. So clearly 2011 was better than his career norms, but they still aren't very good numbers. This should quell any talk of a good stretch by Jerome Williams. FIP doesn't help him either as his 2011 FIP was almost identical to his career FIP (4.62-4.69). In fact, his career ERA is 4.20, while his career FIP is 4.69. That is really the difference between a serviceable pitcher and a nonserviceable pitcher. He doesn't strikeout many batters (5.48 per 9 innings), but he does get groundballs (1.42 GB/FB ratio), which can be an offset. He offsets this by giving up a ton of home runs (1.23 per 9 innings in 2011), and walks too many people. His BABIP was below league average (.291), but higher than his career average (.274). It is hard to interpret how that will play out. However, the Angels have to hope he doesn't receive anything in arbitration. If he is anything more than like $600,000, they should try to dump him. They probably won't get anything for him, but he is not worth keeping on the payroll.

Tyler Clippard: Arbitration

Tyler Clippard has a 6.1 WAR in 5 seasons. More importantly, he has a 6.4 WAR in 4 seasons in Washington, a 1.6 average. 2011 was Clippard's best campaign, racking up a career high 3.4 WAR. The best part? He made $443,000 in 2011 (a great 130 WASP). Clippard was originally traded by the Yankees to Washington for Jonathan Albaladejo, who had a -.1 WAR as a Yankee and didn't play in 2011. The Nationals payroll is $57,892,929. So they can afford 1.3 million for every 1 WAR (if they want to make the playoffs). So Clippard's 2011 season was worth 4.42 million to the Nationals. His career average is worth 2.08 million to the Nationals. His career PE is a nice -4, while his career adjusted PE (replace ERA with FIP) is still very good at -2.94. In 2011, his PE was an amazing -6.35, while his adjusted PE was -5.01, still very good. His career TR is 10.07, while in 2011 it was fantastic at 12.67. However, there are some metrics that could worry you. He is an extreme flyball pitcher giving up over twice as many flyballs as grounders, which leads to more home runs, as he has given up 1.18 HR/9IP in his career. His FIP in both 2011 and his career, is extremely higher than his ERA, and his BABIP is extremely low (.242 for his career, and .197 in 2011). Now with a pretty large sample size, this may be just who Clippard is and he can get away with it, or he could be due for a disastrous season. His strikeout totals (10 per 9 innings) would certainly suggest that this is just how Clippard is, but it can't be attractive that a late inning reliever has a weakness for the long flyball. However, he is still certainly worth 2 million to the Nationals, and since it is nearly impossible to fathom that he will receive that much in arbitration, the Nationals have no reason not to keep him around.

Peter Moylan: Arbitration

Peter Moylan's injury problems led to just a .2 WAR in 2011. He has an average WAR of .683, worth about 2 million dollars according to the Halladay Standard. He made 2 million dollars in 2011, and one would think arbitration would give him more money. He has a career -.949 PE, gives up a .324 OBP and .652 OPS. Lets on slightly less runners on than average, and gives up quite a bit less total bases and power than average (with very few homers). He walks too many batters, but he can make up for it with all the groundballs he gets. He has a really solid TR of 11.68, but his FIP is around 3.66 in his career (if you replaced his ERA with his FIP, his PE would be a positive, which is not a good PE for a reliever). It would seem if arbitration increases his salary (as it probably will), then the Braves should attempt to unload him. With his injury problems and questions about whether he will even be ready for Spring Training in 2012, they probably won't get a very good return for him, but their really isn't much sense in keeping him around for the money he will make.

Emilio Bonafacio: Arbitration

Emilio Bonafacio had a 2.4 WAR in 2011 (worth 7.2 million according to Halladay Standard), he had a negative career WAR before that with the Marlins, Nationals, and Diamondbacks. Bonafacio had a career high in games and plate appearances in 2011. He put up a .360 OBP in 2011, along with a .753 OPS, 1.05 PPG, and 2.47 PAPP. In his career, he has been far less impressive: .328 OBP, .676 OPS, .94 PPG, and 2.77 PAPP. So is Bonafacio's great 2011 season an adjustment, simply the product of a full season, or pure lightening in the bottle. He had a career high BABIP of .372 in 2011, something that can't be expected to repeat. What if he reverts back to his normal BABIP of .339? It would seem (by dividing the his career BABIP/2011 BABIP and then multiplying the .911 answer by his 2011 OBP and getting .328) that he would revert back to an average OBP (which is also his career average). One would think that average would be slightly above WAR (since a "replacement player" is usually considered a minor league type player, not an average major league player). There is some stats that may go against this narrative though. For instance, he had just 1 home run through 923 PA before 2011, but hit 5 in 2011. So it would not be crazy to sit on the other side of the fence and insist that Bonafacio is simply hitting the ball harder. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle, there is no way that his 2011 BABIP is sustainable. He certainly has to be on drop-off watch. It is hard to believe he will be as successful in 2012 as he was in 2011. That doesn't mean he will be a bad hitter or anything, as his career PPS is 94.66, a pretty solid number. He is not a good fielder, but he can play any position besides pitcher or catcher. It is hard to imagine he will get tons of money in arbitration, so it still makes sense for the Marlins to keep him around, however, I would expect his trade value would be too high to be worth trying to acquire from the Marlins.

Taylor Buchholtz: Arbitration

Taylor Buchholtz has earned just a 1.1 WAR in 5 seasons. In 2011, he had a .4 WAR. Buchholtz is 30 years old, and will be a free agent in 2013 (He made $600,000 in 2011). Buchholtz is worth 1.2 million according to the Halladay Standard according to 2011 WAR. In 2010, he earned a .1 WAR with Blue Jays and Rockies. He has struggled with injuries, so perhaps this is inappropriate to calculate, but he only threw 12 innings in 2010 and 26 in 2011. If he pitched 200 innings in 2010 (with the same success), he would have earned a 1.67 WAR, and would have had a 3.08 WAR in 2011 using the same metric. It would be foolish to pay him expecting that, but it could make him underpaid, if only he can stay healthy. He had a -2.54 PE (all his appearances were as a reliever) in 2011, and a .66 in the same role in 2010. The small samples are certainly off-putting for one trying to gather statistics. As he is going into arbitration, it is hard to put a number on what would be too high for the Mets to want to keep him. It is also hard to measure what his trade value would be.

The Future of B.J. Upton

Rays outfielder B.J. Upton is Arbitration Elgible. In 2011, he earned a 3.8 WAR, which, according to the Halladay Standard, is worth 11.4 million. That production is about 1/11th of what is needed to win 95 games. For the Rays with a 42 million dollar payroll, they can only afford to spend 3.697 million on that kind his production. Upton made about 5 million in 2011, and will obviously make more in 2012, and he will be a free agent after the 2012 season.  Upton's career average is 2.41 WAR. That would be worth 7.24 million (but that factors in that his first two seasons were really unproductive). How much Upton actually receives in arbitration will really determine his trade value. There is a good chance he will still be underpaid and command a lot of value for teams. Upton's career numbers include a .342 OBP, .759 OPS, 1.37 PPG, and a 2.48 PAPP. These aren't overwhelming numbers, but they are solid. He has a nice Secondary Average of .334, but a not very good ISO of .159. He is really an average power hitter. His pitches per starter metric is pretty solid at 95.2. My hunch is that he is valued more than he is actually worth by many teams, because scouts have always really liked Upton. It makes sense for the Rays to trade him, if they are able to get a good package of players. He is a really nice player that most teams should want in their lineup, but the Rays are always in a pickle with these kind of players, it doesn't make sense to spend the money to keep them on their payroll. Instead, they have to try to move him to get pre-arbitration players that can contribute and make up for the lost wins. Considering that his 3.8 WAR was 1/11th of what is needed to make the playoffs, they can use 2 or 3 players to give them that production at a much cheaper price.