Evaluating Jean Segura's Bat

Reports are that the Brewers have offered Jean Segura a contract extension despite the fact that he has played just over 80 games in the Majors. Segura's baserunning has been excellent in the Majors, with his defense depending on which system you use (and it is a small sample size). Either way, he is an athletic middle infielder that has the value that comes from that, but what about his bat? Rather than trying to break down minor league or small sample statistics, I looked at his Pitch F/X data to see what pitches he is having success with, and what pitchers are trying to do with him so far.

Here are the release points of the pitchers Segura has faced so far in the Majors, along with the official result of the pitch. This should be sorted by MPH, so the faster pitches should be overlaid on top when there are layers (for maximum viewing, click on the photos)

Below is the Spin and Speed chart for the pitches he has seen. Unfortunately, this is just a picture version, and posting the interactive page inside the post always causes loading problems for me. So if you would like to see that version, where you can hover over the details of each pitch, feel free to do so here. If not, here is the image version:

For a more traditional look, here is Segura's strike zone with the pitches and results:

Segura has seen 106 pitches over 95 MPH, and swung and missed at 7 of them. He has put 8 in play for outs, and 6 for runs scoring plays or hits (technically, non out plays). So he seems to be handling top notch velocity well. As you can see, pitchers are pretty balanced with him, but they really like to jam him in. Via Texas Leaguers, let's look at his spray chart so far in the big leagues:

As you can see, he is very likely to pull the ball in the infield, but not to the outfield. Most of his power actually comes going the other way, which is why pitching in on him makes sense. Of course, Miller Park is a hitter friendly park (105 three year park factor, 115 so far this year) and it is too soon to believe that home/road splits have any validity, so using Katron.org, we can look at his home spray charts from year to year. Here was Segura at home in 2012:

Here is Segura so far in 2013:

Comparing the three spray charts, not all of his power is coming at Miller Park. His other way approach does seem even more extreme at home, and all of his power is really in 2013, not showing any at home in 2012.

For a less cluttered look at Segura's strike zone, here are his average locations by result (I took out balls because the average ball was paradoxically in the strike zone, which obviously doesn't much sense from a visual standpoint)

Up and in is where he has the best success, while he is more likely to swing and miss on pitches on the lower outside part of the strike zone. Most of the called strikes are on the outside part of the zone as well. However, more of his outs came on the inside part of the plate and more of his hits come on the outside part of the plate. With this small of a sample size, there is a good chance that this is a BABIP thing, though it would make sense considering his power is mostly the other way. This makes his power on balls that are on the middle/up and inside part of the plate a little surprising though.

Because of the lack of pull power, we can probably rule out Segura being a serious home run threat, though the strength to hit the ball out, and not just in Miller Park, the other way is surprising. Perhaps this will lead to power further down the road, especially since plus plus velocity is not a problem and he can hit balls that are up and in well. He seems to be a pretty balanced hitter, taking a lot of breaking balls, and putting a lot of balls in play against righties. I think there are a lot of reasons to believe in Segura's bat, and depending on what the club thinks about his defense, this is a guy that it would make sense to take a gamble on and keep around long term.

Behind Jon Niese's Problematic 2013

In 2012, Jon Niese followed up a good 3.77 kwERA 2011 season and a (arbitration buy out) contract extension with a 3.79 kwERA season in 190.1 innings. However, his 2013 season has been a disaster so far, with a 5.46 kwERA, more walks than strikeouts. Reports say that he is dealing with a sore or injured neck. I wanted to see if this showed up in Pitch F/X data, and I thought this might show up in his release point, or location, so the following graph shows his average release point for 2012 and 2013, along with his average location of all pitches thrown:

Strangely, he was throwing the ball higher on average in 2012, the problem isn't that he can't keep the ball low this season, and he was working basically the same horizontally in the zone. With the release point, our release point comparison chart is not very helpful, as there is no pitcher that is a good comparison for Niese now, and the only one at his release point in 2012 was closest, though not real close, to Francisco Liriano. The big thing you notice though is that it has moved, which I think is more important. He is releasing the ball at a shorter height (even though he was already releasing the ball short height wise comparatively), and further out, which is almost never good move.

The release point issue seems to be a good explanation for his problems (or more accurately, the visual manifestation of his neck issue), but it may still be informative to check in on his stuff:

This season:

He may have topped out at a little higher velocity (8 pitches over 94 MPH in 2012 at 4 different parks, just one so far in 2013), the general velocity is basically the same. The big difference is the spin. He has thrown just one pitch so far this year around 250 spin, while he had quite a bit (really, the big difference is that there just isn't the 200-250 spin range) around that area in 2012. So he is getting less spin on his fastball (and maybe his changeup). This suggests that he is getting less overall movement and rotation on the ball. So perhaps, even though his velocity is about normal, he isn't throwing the ball with the same stuff that he had in 2012, though I think the release point change (which could be caused by the neck hurting) is a much bigger deal than the lack of spin, or even the location of his pitches, as it lets hitters see the ball a little better and "flattens out" his pitches.

Scouting Report: Noel Arguelles

Noel Arguelles signed a 5 year 7 million dollar deal with the Kansas City Royals after defecting from Cuba. This means he is on the 40 man roster. Arguelles had a shoulder injury that cost him 2010.
This year, he has been brutal in his first shot in AA, striking out just 10.4% of batters, and walking 12.6 % of batters. His ground-ball rate is below average and his line drive rate is higher than league average. This all leads to a SIERA of 5.90 and FIP of 5.38. That FIP is the worst in the Texas League out of qualified pitchers. So what is going on with Arguelles? Is he a lost cause? Or is there still something there that gives you hope that he will be able to make it to the Majors and live out his contract? I watched his start against the Tulsa Drillers (Rockies AA) to see if I could find out.

At 6-4 220, the tall lefty has a high leg kick in his delivery. With a fastball that was just at 91 MPH (Scouting reports that I read say that the fastball is usually about 92 MPH), it provides a bit of deception, but could also throw off his mechanics. He was very fastball heavy in this outing. The pitched stayed high, but he could jam lefties with it. In his career he really hasn't been anymore effective against lefties than his righties (perhaps suggesting that this approach hasn't been effective or he hasn't been doing it often). In fact, this year, he has reverse splits, meaning he has been worse against lefties.

His curveball stayed way too high too often and wasn't very impressive.when he gets it down. Overall, it looked okay. Tim Torres took him deep and Troy Tulowitzski (on rehab assignment) nearly took him out in the first inning. Because the ball stays so high, he was giving up a lot of fly-balls. Keeping the ball in the park is actually something he has done reasonably well, with a below league average HR/FB% and HR/Contact%. It really helps when he can locate his fastball low.

I went back and watched his previous start as well against Frisco (Texas AA). In his Frisco outing, he threw the curveball a lot, especially to Engel Beltre. His command didn't look like a pitcher that has walked more batters than he struck out, and he looked like a pitcher with a better strikeout ability than his numbers. You can see what the Royals saw in him when you watched this outing. He had a really impressive inning in the first, as he struck out Beltre, Leury Garcia, and Jurickson Profar all in a row. His fastball velocity looked better than average.

I see several reports (mainly from before he signed) of a good changeup (that was better his curveball) but I never saw it when I saw him pitch. Some reports I read were worried about his ability to miss bats. This does make sense with the stuff he displayed when I saw him. It seems that it is all going to depend on his curveball. If he can control it and throw it low (after setting it up with his fastball) one could see him as a potential decent MLB starter. However, he is pretty far away from doing this.

Nationals sign Edwin Jackson

The Washington Nationals have signed starting pitcher Edwin Jackson to a 1 year 10 million dollar deal. According to Fangraphs, Jackson has averaged a WAR of 3.73 over the last 3 years. Jackson is usually known for being pretty inconsistent, but that seems to be a misnomer when looking at key pitching stats, as his last 3 WARs have been 3.6, 3.8, 3.8, with FIP - of 96, 91, 89, with a little more variance of Adjusted PEs of 1.14, .09, and 1.22. With Jackson, he has pitched in so many different places that we should know what kind of pitcher he is without even using ballpark adjusted metrics. He has done an okay job keeping the ball in the ballpark in his career with a .99 HR/9IP rate. He has really improved his groundball rate over the last two years, with 1.55 and 1.4 GB/FB ratios in 2010 and 2011 respectively. He throws just a touch under 95 on his fastball on average, and has had very nice walk rates over the last 3 years. His SIERAs have been funky over the last 3 years, disagreeing with his FIPs big time. This is just a 1 year deal, so its not a long term risk. 10 million dollars actually seems slightly low according to Fangraphs WAR, and this seems to be a pretty poor deal for Jackson. This is not only a great deal for the Nationals, but it makes me wonder why 29 other teams weren't making this offer.

Athletics sign Jonny Gomes

The Athletics signed Jonny Gomes to a one year 1.1 million dollar deal. He split 2011 between the Nationals and Reds and posted a .7 WAR, worth 2.1 million dollars according to the Halladay Standard. Over the past 3 years, Gomes has averaged a .3 WAR (worth 900,000 dollars) with a .297 BABIP in that time. Offensively, he has a .329 OBP, 106 OPS +, and .330 Secondary Average. He is an above average home run hitter, with an ISO of .209, walks slightly above average, and has a 3.84 Pit/PA. So basically in every offensive category Gomes is slightly above average. Defensively, its a whole other story. His fielding percentage and range factor are both way under average. Depending on which metric you trust more, Gomes has cost his teams 46-40 runs more than an average fielder would in his career. Using runs created, we can measure (we did this in the Jack Cust article) how many runs and wins Gomes will be worth for the Athletics. According to Runs Created per Game metric, Gomes is worth .59 runs per game (technically he has a 5.3 Runs Created per game metric, but that assumes an offense of 9 Gomes', here I am isolating it to 1 Gomes'). Since he has played 428 games in the outfield, he will cost his team a run more than average about every 10 games. An average offensive player would create 65.3 runs in 140 games, while Gomes would create about 82.6 runs, or 17.3 runs more than an average player. Defensively in this time (assuming he never plays DH), he will cost his team 14 runs more than average. This is all a long way of saying that Gomes is worth 3.3 more runs a year than an "average player". There are two ways to look at this, I believe. One way makes Billy Beane and the Swinging A's look like geniuses, and one way makes Gomes' agent look like a genius. First, Beane might point out that the average MLB player salary is 3.1 million. Gomes is slightly better than average, and yet will be playing for a third of that salary. Gomes needs a new agent. Gomes' agent might try to save his job by pointing out that according to the Halladay Standard (a standard we have relied on heavily in this blog), Gomes is worth just $900,000, and so he is making 200 thousand extra dollars. It all depends on which metric you rely on more.

The Howie Kendrick extension

Howie Kendrick has signed a 4 year 33.5 million dollar extension with the Angels. Over the past 4 years, Kendrick has posted a 10.9 WAR, or 2.7 WAR per season. If Kendrick performs at the same level for the next 4 years, he will has a WASP of 3073, right around the Halladay Standard. However, in the last year of the deal, he will be 31, which is usually past the prime for a baseball player. It is not that Kendrick can't perform at a high level, or even the level he has been performing at, it is just unlikely he will be as good at age 31 as he is at 27. This makes a contract that is seemingly border-line like this one, much less attractive. Defense usually regresses quicker than offense, and Kendrick relies much more on offense than defense (just 1.7 D-WAR in his career). He is a solid defender, with a positive D-WAR every year in his career except 1. Offensively, he has a career .329 OBP and 105 OPS +. His offensive winning percentage is .495, with 4.8 Runs created per game. As those statistics point to an average offensive player, his secondary average and ISO point to something a little worse than average. He is an under average home run hitter, well below average walker, and slightly above average extra base hitter. He is an extreme groundball hitter, and sees just 3.63 Pit/PA. To me, it appears that Kendrick is really just a slightly above average player with a lot of flaws. I think the Angels overpaid a bit for him, but it is a good long term deal for Kendrick himself. If I was an Angel fan, I would really start worrying about how my team is overpaying a bunch of guys, and wonder how they are going to manage salary in a couple of years.

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).

Cubs resign Reed Johnson

The Cubs have resigned Reed Johnson to a 1 year, 1.15 million dollar deal. In 2011, he had a 1.3 WAR, and has a .63 WAR average over the last 3 years, which is worth about 1.9 million dollars. Defensively he is not very good, at a -.6 career D-WAR, -.1 in 2011. While his fielding percentage is above league average, he doesn't make many errors, he doesn't get to many balls either, with a well below average range factor. BaseballProjection says that he cost his team 4 runs more than an average fielder. Offensively, Johnson had a .348 OBP, 122 OPS +, and .130 ISO with a gigantic .394 BABIP. Obviously those statistics are pretty useless, as his 1.3 WAR is not something you can expect to repeat. That certainly taints the .63 WAR average over the last 3 years, as his 2009 and 2010 WARs were both .3. Over those two years, Johnson has an OPS + of 84, and OBP of just .309 with a BABIP of .310. These are pretty abysmal offensive numbers as evidenced by his 4 runs created per game and .426 offensive winning percentage in those two years. In his career, he has walked just 4.8% of the time, and is an under average extra base and home run hitter. Even at such a small low risk contract, the Johnson signing doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It would have been much better if they had been able to bring him back on a minor league deal.

White Sox trade Jason Frasor

The White Sox traded Jason Frasor to the Blue Jays for Myles Jaye and Daniel Webb.

Frasor will make 3.75 million in 2012, and had a 1 WAR in 2011. Over the last 3 years, he has a WAR average of 1.13, which would be a WASP of 3319, slightly above the Halladay Standard. He had a -1.03 PE (-.54 Adjusted PE) in 2011, with a career PE of -.978 (-.975 Adjusted PE). His FIP - was 100, which is about league average in 2011. SIERA liked him quite a bit more, at a 3.56, but for just the second time in his career, he gave up more flyballs than groundballs. This could explain why his BABIP was slightly higher than usual (.304 against a .288). He also gave up the most HR/9IP since 2006, a further sign of some kind of regression. It is worth noting, however, that he pitched well if the BlueJays in the first half, but pitched poorly (a 0 WAR) with the White Sox after being traded at the deadline. For whatever its worth, the Bill James projections have him at a 3.69 FIP for 2012.

Jaye has spent 1 short season in rookie ball, making 9 starts in 13 appearances after being drafted in the 17th round. There he had a -1.63 PE, had a decent walk rate but gave up 1.2 HR/9IP.

Daniel Webb has only pitched in A-ball, and has pitched mostly as a starter. He has been pretty bad, with a PE of 3.37. He has kept the ball in the ballpark and hasn't walked too many batters, but still has a BAA of over .280, despite having a reasonable BABIP. He was a hitter in college at Illinois, and had a .903 OPS, which would translate to a .653 OPS in the MLB according to our college metric. So it seems it was the right choice to change him to a pitcher, but it is not like that experiment is going real well either.

So the White Sox get two pretty inconsequential minor leaguers without too much promise (Jaye is certainly better than Webb though), while the Blue Jays get a slightly overpaid apparently regressing reliever. I guess the White Sox have a small advantage in this trade because they cut payroll, but I don't like this trade for either team really (although if Frasor returns to form, it could be advantage Blue Jays). 

Lastings Milledge goes to Japan

The Yakult Swallows of Japan have signed Lastings Milledge to a $570,000 (converted to American currency) dollar contract. The average NPB salary is $420,000. According to Gen Sueyoshi (you can see the post here: http://yakyubaka.com/npb-salaries/2011-yakult-swallows-salary-report/ and follow him on twitter @gwynar), the Swallows had a payroll of 2491.1 Million Yen, or 32 million dollars in 2011. The NPB season is 144 games, so a "replacement team" (0 WAR players would win 32% of their games according to the official WAR calculus) would win 46 games. To win the Central League (the league that Yakult belongs) in 2011, Chunichi won 75 games. That seems like a goal-line, so a team expecting to win their league needs 29 Wins Above Replacement. So the Swallows have 32 million dollars to get those 29 Wins, so they can spend 1.1 million dollars per WAR. Therefore, at a salary of 570k, Milledge would need about a .5 WAR. So we will use Milledge's MLB statistics (along with his 2011 AAA numbers) and the metrics we have designed for NPB baseball to project Millddge's success. Milledge is a horrible defender, earning a -3.3 D-WAR in 6 seasons, or -.55 D-WAR a year. Depending on whether you trust BaseballProjection or BaseballInfoSolutions, Milledge cost his team 44 or 10 runs more than an average fielder in his career. With the bat, Milledge had a .328 OBP, .723 OPS, .94 PPG, 2.96 PAPP. This translates to a .361 OBP, .789 OPS, 1.43 PPG, 2.22 PAPP according to our Japanese metric. This is a 2.68 Simple WAR, and even with subtracting his -.55 D-WAR, you still get a 2.13 WAR, well worth the 570k the Swallows will give him. In 2011, he spent basically the whole year in AAA. He had a .364 OBP and .805 OPS there. Converted to Major League Statistics, this is a .318 OBP and .713 OPS, pretty replacement level, but it is a .351 OBP and .779 OPS projection for the NPB. This is pretty similar to what his MLB numbers stated. All in all, expect Milledge to make a pretty nice impact offensively in the NPB and turn out to be a nice signing for the Swallows.

The Royals sign Jose Mijares

The Royals signed reliever Jose Mijares to a 1 year $925,000 deal. He had a -.1 WAR in 2011, but a .77 WAR average over the past 3 years. This would be a good 1201 WASP. In his career, he has a PE of .32 and Adjusted PE of 1.29, as a reliever, which isn't very good. In 2011, it was a terrible 3.49, with an Adjusted PE of 3.78. Even more alarming, he walked as many batters as he struck out. His career FIP - is 100, but his 2011 was 122, and he had previously never had a SIERA of more than 3.71, but had an alarming 5.28 in 2011. The only real positive thing you can say about Mijares 2011 season was that he only gave up .73 HR/9IP. He gives up more flyballs than groundballs, but has average overall career numbers. Before 2011, he was above average, but he has only thrown 153.2 career innings. It could be the simple case of hitters figuring him out, which would mean that the Royals are in trouble. The biggest difference I can find is his difference in walks. He never had a walk rate close to that previously, so there were obviously control problems in 2011. It is hard to predict control and walk rates, but he did strikeout less batters and he threw far less strikes (less than 60% strikes in 2011). This has all the symptoms of either regression or lack of health. Is this something that is going to repeat in 2011? If it does, then the Royals basically flushed a million dollars down the toilet. If it doesn't, then I think this is a decent little move for the Royals.

Orioles sign Endy Chavez

The Orioles continue to grab all the fringe players for the Texas Rangers as they signed Endy Chavez to a 1 year 1.5 million dolllar deal. Chavez had a .7 WAR with Texas in 2011, which would be a decent 2143 WASP with his new contract. So according to his 2011 performance, this is a good deal for the Orioles, but can they expect this performance again? It is hard to compare his 2011 season with previous seasons, because he suffered a pretty devastating knee injury and didn't even play in 2010. Because of this, I will operate under the assumption that his pre-2011 statistics are useless in predictive terms. In 2011, Chavez had a 1.718 O4S, 96 OPS +, and .184 Secondary Average. Despite a .321 BABIP, he had a 4.4 Runs Created and a .483 Offensive Winning Percentage. Assuming BABIP stabilizes at .300, expect most of those numbers to drop some, but not massively. Even with the hitter friendly Ballpark in Arlington, he was a below average home run hitter with a significantly low walk rate. He is a groundball hitter that doesn't hit many line drives and had a poor PPS of 82.87. He had a 0 D-WAR in 2011, despite once being a very good defender. If Chavez is able to repeat his 2011 season, then this is a pretty good deal for the Orioles. However, I don't think this is very likely.

Casey Blake signs with the Rockies

The Colorado Rockies have signed Casey Blake to a one year 2 million dollar deal.  Casey Blake had a .6 WAR in 2011 (which would be a WASP of 3333), with a WAR average of 3.23 over the past 3 years. This includes his 5.9 2009 WAR his career best both offensively and defensively. It is not surprising that 2009 also included his best fullseason BABIP as well. So we have to put some skepticism into his 2009 O-WAR (4.0), and it makes sense to just take his average D-WAR (.26, but 1.1 over the last 3 years). So how do we project him offensively? In 30 games at Coors Field (Colorado's stadium), he has a .368 OBP and .999 OPS, 2.48 PAPP, 1.47 PPG (a 3.85 Simple WAR). However, we can certainly argue that this is a short sample size and he won't be facing most of those pitchers because they will now be his teammates. In the past 3 years, he has a .342 OBP, 108 OPS + (.767 OPS), 2.85 PAPP, and 1.1 PPG, a 1.28 Simple WAR. If we average his career WAR with his WAR over the last 3 years along with his Coors numbers and Simple WAR over the last 3 years (along with his WAR last year), we get a 2.16 WAR, worth over 6 million dollars. He has a career offensive winning percentage of .510 with 5 Runs Created per Game. His Secondary Average is .277 and his ISO is .178. He is an above average home run hitter (which should serve him well at Coors), along with an average walker, and sees a whopping 4.18 Pitches Per Plate Appearance, giving him a 100.52 PPS. Free Agency can be a tricky way to build a team as most big name players are massively overvalued, however, there are always good deals out there. This is one of them, I really like this deal for the Rockies.

Cardinals sign J.C. Romero

The Cardinals signed reliever J.C. Romero for a 1 year $750,000 deal. Romero had a .1 WAR in 2011 (he split the season between the Phillies and the Rockies). He threw just 24 innings though, so it hardly seems to be a adequate sample size. Over the past 3 years, he has pitched 78 innings and has a .7 WAR over that time (.23 WAR a season, worth about $700,000 a year). Over this time, he has a .861 PE, pretty poor for a reliever, and has walked almost as many batters as he has struck out. His career PE (he has played in 13 seasons), is .852, almost exactly the same. So it is not as if there has been a regression. His career FIP - is 100, and his SIERA is 4.36. His TR fits in with the averageness of Romero at 8.31. The overall reaction to this deal should be a shrug of the shoulders. Romero is average at best, and $750,000 may be a little bit much for him, but its not like the Cardinals are shelling out big money for him.

The Casey McGehee trade

The Brewers traded Casey McGehee to the Pirates for Jose Veras.

Casey McGehee is coming off a terrible season where he had a .280 OBP and 69 OPS +. He had a -1 WAR, despite having a 3 WAR in 2011. He is projected (by MLB Trade Rumors) to make 3.1 million dollars in 2011, meaning he needs to have a WAR over 1 (or perhaps more for the low payroll Pirates). In 2011, he had a disastrous .223 BABIP, obviously a huge reason for his poor season. Overall, McGehee has a .320 OBP, 1.706 O4S, and 99 OPS +. These are pretty average, as well as his 4.5 Runs Created Per Game with a .494 Offensive Winning Percentage. His Secondary Average is .242, and his ISO is .161. These are about average numbers, the only thing that concerns me offensively is that he hit more groundballs in 2011 and less line drives. Maybe that is an anomaly, but this could partially explain the BABIP. Defensively, he isn't very good, with a -.2 D-WAR in his career, and a below average range factor and fielding percentage in 2011.

Jose Veras has been a career reliever, with a .7 WAR, with a .23 WAR average over the last 3 years, worth about $700,000. He had a PE of -2.95 in 2011, and an adjusted PE of -3.25. This is not quite with the elite relievers of the game, Veras is a very solid one. The ball is rarely hit hard off him with a career .257 BABIP, but he gives up about 1 HR/9IP and more flyballs than groundballs. He has a FIP - of 103, and a SIERA of 3.83. He is a decent reliever, but it is hard to argue that he is worth a decent position player. This is why I give the edge to the Pirates on this trade, as long as Casey McGehee bounces back in 2012.

The Dodgers versus the Angels

The Dodgers announced that they were giving Tony Gwynn (Jr!!!) a 2 year 2 million dollar deal. He had a 1.1 WAR in 2011, and a .9 WAR average over the past 3 years. This is worth 2.7 million a year according to the Halladay Standard, so this is actually a good deal for the Dodgers. However, there was something that caught my eye:

Jim Bowden of ESPN tweeted
Dodgers will pay Harang,Capuano,Ellis, Hairston,Gwynn,Treanor,Kennedy,Rivera,Uribe more than Angels pay Pujols this year
So here are their 2011 WARs:

Harang 1.9
Capuano 1.7
Treanor -.2
Kennedy .4
Rivera -.5
Uribe -.1
Ellis .9
Hairston 1.6
Overall: 7.6 WAR (including Gwynn above)

Pujols 7.1 WAR average over the past 3 years

I wrote a few months back that Pujols was worth about 23 million dollars, and that it doesn't even make sense to invest that much money in one player. So obviously the Angels paid too much money, and giving a player 10 years is ridiculous. However, it just shows the two totally different directions the two LA teams are going.

The Ben Francisco trade

The Phillies traded Ben Francisco to the Blue Jays for Frank Gailey.

Francisco had a -.9 WAR in 2011, and a .2 WAR over the past 3 years, meaning he averaged less than .1 WAR a year. Despite this, he made over a million dollars in 2011. Offensively, he has a .332 OBP, 1.758 O4S, and 103 OPS +. This is with a Secondary Average of .276, and an Isolated Slugging of .171. These are average/decent numbers. It is interesting to note that there was a discrepancy between offensive WAR and offensive winning percentage. While WAR rated him as a replacement hitter (0 O-WAR), offensive winning percentage had him at .479, above replacement level of .320. Normally I would take WAR over the winning percentage statistic, but it is hard to call a .340 OBP and 93 OPS + (his 2011 numbers) replacement. He is a slightly above average home run hitter, and walks around league average (as well as seeing about as many pitches as average). There isn't much impressive about Francisco on offense, but he is about average. Defensively, he is pretty bad, with a below average range factor (although an above average fielding percentage). According to "runs saved" he cost the Phillies 11 runs on defense last season.

Frank Gailey is a 26 year old pitcher who has never pitched about AA, and he wasn't very good there with a 2.9 PE, and a 1.8 Adjusted PE as a reliever. He struggled big time with homers giving up 1.2 HR/9IP. However, he was very good at the lower levels, earning a -3.07 PE for his minor league career. Overall, he hasn't struggled with homers, and for the Phillies, they have to hope that the AA numbers were because of a small sample size (30 innings).

Not a huge trade here, the Blue Jays get an average hitter that is a poor fielder, while the Phillies get a nice minor league pitcher who is old (for the minors). For salary reasons, I give the Phillies a slight edge.

The Astros resign Humberto Quintero

The Astros, the same day they received news that catcher Jason Castro is out at least 3 months with another injury, resigned Humberto Quintero to a 1 year 1 million dollar deal. In 2011, Q earned a -.1 WAR, and has a .07 WAR average over the last 3 years, obviously not worth a million dollars. He has been a terrible offensive player, with a -2.1 O-WAR, .268 OBP, and 58 OPS +. His Secondary Average is just .120, and just .087 ISO. His offensive winning percentage is just .247, further solidifying him as a well below replacement hitter, and he is a liability in the lineup as well with a 76 PPS. Defensively, he is much better, with an above average Range Factor and average fielding percentage. He throws out 32% of runners, above the league average of 28%. His defense makes up for his offense enough to make him replacement player. However, he still isn't worth a million dollars, and for a team that is lacking in both talent and money one wonders exactly what the Astros (and their interim GM) are thinking.

Tigers sign Octavio Dotel

The Tigers signed Octavio Dotel to a 1 year 3 million dollar contract with an option year of 3.5 million with a $500,000 buyout. I will assume here that they will buy him out, so the contract is 3.5 million. Dotel had a .6 WAR in 2011 (a 5833 WASP with the new contract) and a .7 WAR average over the past 3 years (a 5000 WASP). He had a -4.04 PE and -4.31 Adjusted PE in 2011, so in that sense he pitched like one of the elite relievers in baseball. He had the lowest WHIP he had since 2003, but also had his lowest BABIP since 2005. However, he also had his lowest FIP since 2002, so its not like he was just really lucky. He pitched really really well. His TR also reflected that with a 10.42, along with a SIERA of 2.67. He did throw the lowest amount of pitches since 2007, but with no that could simply be how he was used. On the other hand, 54 innings (his 2011 total) is hardly a large sample size. The HR/9IP rate as well as the groundball rate are things that do concern me. Comerica Park can somewhat mask those rates, and Dotel has shown that those rates aren't that important as he has been dealing with them his whole career. Although this is more than I like to pay for relievers, this deal might not be bad at all. 

Pirates sign McLouth and Morales

The Pirates have signed Jose Morales and Nate McLouth.

McLouth signed a 1 year, 1.75 million dollar deal. In 2011, he had a .7 WAR, and a .6 WAR average over the last 3 years (a terrible 2010 plays into this). This is worth (according to the Halladay Standard) nearly exactly his new 1.75 million dollar deal. He is a terrible defender, with a -3.7 D-WAR for his career, and nearly half of his career O-WAR (7 seasons) came in 2008 (not incidentally, with the Pirates). In that year, he had a .356 OBP, .287 BABIP (his terrible 2010 season was tainted by a .221 BABIP and a relatively small sample size of 288 PA), and .497 SLG. It is hard to poke holes in those numbers, with a 125 OPS +. He has a nice career Secondary Average of .324, 5.3 Runs Created Per Game, and .542 Offensive Winning Percentage. However, the last two years, he has not Slugged very well with a .322 and .333 in 2010 and 2011. This could certainly be attributed to some of the injuries he has suffered, and a healthy McLouth would be expected to have a better Slugging. He is a flyball hitter, although he has less line drives than desirable. Overall, I think this is a decent deal, he was probably undervalued a bit in the market because of his health issues.

Morales got a minor league deal with a spring training invite. He has a career WAR of .6 in 252 PA. In this small sample, he has a .365 OBP, 89 OPS +, and .183 Secondary Average. His Offensive Winning Percentage is just under .500, even though he has a 4.8 Runs Created per game. All the positive statistics are really called into question by a .360 BABIP despite being a groundball hitter. He did walk above average, but most of his Major League Statistics are simply unreliable. Thankfully, Morales has 295 games worth of AAA games in the International League. There he had a .367 OBP, .772 OPS, .8 PPG, and 2.74 PAPP. Through the metric, he has an expected .321 OBP, 3.31 PAPP, and .4 PPG. This is an expected Offensive (Simple) WAR of -.6. Along with his -.1 D-WAR in his brief Major League career, it is doubtful that Morales will turn out to be anything. It is basically no risk though.