Bay's Signing Boosts a Flawed Club

In Jason Bay, the Mets get the middle-of-the-order bat they desperately needed while assuaging a fan base hell-bent on acquiring big-name talent at any cost.

Bay, as you might have heard, is a right-handed slugger with classic "old player" skills. He strikes out often and doesn't boast high batting averages, but his ability to take a walk and hit for power make him one of the best offensive outfielders in baseball. Bay's .921 OPS last season lead all AL OF's, and his prodigious pull-power should fit well in Citi Field, an expansive park that's actually quite kind to sluggers with Bay's swing path. His troubles with breaking balls are well-documented, but he can rope a fastball with the best of them.

While Bay provides ample value with the bat, his glove is enough of a problem to call into question the prudence of Mets GM Omar Minaya, who handed the 31-year-old Bay a contract valued at $82 million over five years. Sophisticated defensive metrics, such as UZR and Fielding Bible, rank Bay among the worst left-fielders in baseball. Now, as Keith Law pointed out, Fenway's quirky confines have a tangible effect on these defensive ranking systems. A 314 foot fly ball to LF is a 'can of corn' in 29 other MLB parks, but in Fenway it's a wall-ball double if not a round-tripper. UZR hasn't yet adjusted for this phenomenon, making Red Sox LF's inherently underrated. Which means Bay, like Manny before him, probably isn't quite as wretched as the metrics suggest, though it's still a stretch to call him adequate. Bay was able to mask his defensive limitations 81 games a year, but his deficiencies with the leather quickly became apparent in some of the AL's bigger ballyards (Seattle, Oakland, LA). And now that Bay's left to patrol the expanse of Citi Field -- not to mention the rest of the NL East, which houses huge parks in Atlanta and Florida -- his limited range, feeble arm and bulky knees should turn the visiting-half of home games into a Ringling Brothers act.

So we know the Mets forked over a bunch of money to a one-way player masquerading as a major league outfielder. But how much is Bay worth annually? Did the Mets overpay? Let's find out.

First, when determining the value or "worth" of a player, it's important to explain what teams are actually striving for: replacement wins. In the course of a major league season 4,860 games are played. 2,430 of those games are won, and 2,430 are lost. Further distilling the schedule, a team of rag-tag replacements can be expected to win, at minimum, 48 games*. Which means on the eve of Opening Day 2010 you can etch in stone 48 W next to each team's name in the standings. So with an additional 1,440 wins out of play (48 wins x 30 teams), that leaves 990 "replacement wins" (2430 - 1440) to decide who's playing in October and who's booking tee times with Tiger at the Playboy Club.

Estimating the amount of money major league teams pay for these valuable replacement wins is tricky, but it can be done. First, you take the total money spent on payroll (2.67 billion) and divide that amount by the number of replacement wins (990). That gives us 2.31 million, which won't get you very far in the free agent market. I'll let someone much smarter than I explain the rest of the process.

*since WWII, only three teams have failed to win 48 games in a season: the '52 Pirates, the '03 Tigers and, you guessed it, the '62 Mets.

Courtesy of Fangraphs:

If you want to compete in the market for available wins, you have to know what the going rate for a win is, and the easiest way to calculate that is to look at the free agent market. Let’s look back at 2007, for instance. 90 free agents signed major league contracts last winter, ranging from Alex’s Rodriguez $275 million deal to Josh Towers‘ $400,000 contract with the Rockies. The sum of those 90 contracts paid out $396 million in 2008. To figure out what the average cost per win of a 2007 free agent was, though, we need to know how many wins that group was worth.To calculate this, I did a three year weighted average of their win values, then multiplied that value by .95 to factor in aging and estimate what teams considered a player’s true talent win rate for 2008. In total, I came up with 88 wins, or $4.5 million per win. That’s what major league teams were paying for a marginal win last winter, so for 2008, that’s a players dollar per win value as listed on the site. I re-did this for all years going back to 2002, and the dollars per win for each are as follows:

2002 – $2.6m / win
2003 – $2.8m / win
2004 – $3.1m / win
2005 – $3.4m / win
2006 – $3.7m / win
2007 – $4.1m / win
2008 – $4.5m / win

Bill James and some astute fans on Baseball Fangraphs project Bay to be worth 30.7 runs next season, or 3.1 wins (10 runs = 1 win). To put a dollar figure on Bay's 2010 value, we'll simply multiply his projected performance (3.1 wins) by the market rate for a win ($3.5 million in this miserable economy). Which makes the answer to our initial question -- how much is Jason Bay worth annually? -- $10.85 million.

The Mets are overpaying slightly for Bay's services next season, but an extra $5 million for a big market club like the Mets won't hamper the franchise going forward. In the successive years of Bay's contract, however, that $5 million in lost value likely will balloon to a more cringe-inducing figure as Bay enters his decline phase and inevitably moves to 1B because he can't handle the outfield without a clown car.

The Mets added a nice hitter here, but paying $16 million per season to a one-way player on the wrong side of 30 isn't the type of move that should inspire feelings of confidence from a dedicated fan base, as it's not going to vault a flawed team up the totem pole. The Mets still have several issues to address, particularly in their starting rotation, which boasts one front-line pitcher and a host of question marks, resulting from injuries (Maine), inconsistency (Pelfrey) and incompetence (Perez).

Why Beltre is a No-Brainer

This off-season, I fully expect Angels leadoff man Chone Figgins to garner most of the free agent buzz at third base. Figgins, 32, is coming off a career year both at the plate and in the field. He posted a high on-base percentage (.395), dazzled with the glove and ran around the bases like Secretariat at The Belmont.

But another AL West third baseman strikes me as the better play for a club desperately seeking a power infusion and top-notch defense.

His name is Adrian Beltre.

When discussing Beltre the first thing that comes to mind is his glove. For numerous reasons – subjectivity in categorizing hit type (line drive, fly ball, etc), ball speed, defensive positioning – Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), a metric that determines how many runs a fielder saves or costs his team relative to a league average defender at his position, can’t be trusted entirely. But both UZR and the Fielding Bible have reached a pretty strong consensus on Beltre’s defensive ability: he’s tremendous, and somewhere around 12-15 runs above average.

So, if Mike Lowell bounces back and regains some of his range at third, how much of an upgrade does Beltre represent? I’m unaware of the team’s numbers and medical reports, of course, but it wouldn’t shock me one bit to find out Beltre’s a dozen runs better with the glove, probably more, as Lowell ranked dead last in virtually every respected defensive measure (UZR rated him 10 runs below average, while Fielding Bible was equally unkind).

Offensively, aside from his outlier contract year in 2007, Lowell has pretty consistently posted a batting line (.338 OBP/.465 SLG roughly) which translates to 4-5 runs above the average hitter. Beltre, on the other hand, has displayed similar on-base skills and more power while doing his work in a pretty tough hitters’ park, Safeco Field, which massacres right-handed batters. Beltre's park-adjusted runs above average (RAA) numbers typically have rested in the +8-10 area.

His shoulder and groin injuries from this past season aside, Beltre’s three-year splits average out to .327 OBP and .468 SLG, or an OPS+ of 108 – 4 percent higher than Lowell’s output. By performing a crude ballpark adjustment using Baseball Reference’s park averages, we can expect Beltre’s Fenway batting line to reach .339/.488 -- or 10 runs above average – provided his offensive skills haven’t tapered off. Should Beltre fail to realize his three-year splits, he’s still Lowell’s equal with the bat and more than a win better on defense.

If you need further proof, Fangraphs recently conducted a study comparing Beltre’s slugging percentage on fly balls hit at Safeco Field to fly balls hit on the road, as well as the angle of those balls in play. What they found, unsurprisingly, was Beltre hit for more power away from cavernous Safeco. But it was such a significant disparity that, in Dave Allen's words, makes Beltre "in many other ballparks... an above average offensive player. He has the chance to be a solid free agent signing once again.”

As for the direction of his power, it’s mostly concentrated to left-center and hard left-field. After reading their study I couldn’t help but think it should’ve been titled “Why The Red Sox Should Sign Adrian Beltre.”

Using Marcel’s 3-2-1 salary projection system, Beltre would rightly command $13.5 million per season on the free agent market. That takes into account his dismal 2009 season with the bat (.304/.379), when he was still overall a more valuable player than the Red Sox’ incumbent.

While Figgins’ defense is exceptional, the brunt of his offensive value stems from A) his newfound ability to get on base at an elite level (which may or may not be sustainable) and B) his legs. He’s certainly one of the more underrated players in the game, but if the Red Sox front office truly wants to improve its offensive production away from Fenway Park – a problem resulting from drastic home/road splits throughout the lineup, particularly in the power department -- it can ill-afford to supplant Lowell’s bat (.335/.384 on the road) with Figgins’ career .097 ISOp. That doesn’t fix the problem. As past studies suggest, adding a low OBP, high slugging player to an OBP-heavy lineup provides more value than simply signing another high OBP, low slugging guy, like Figgins.

Conclusion: Beltre looks to be a two win upgrade over Lowell. With him and the newly acquired Marco Scutaro manning 3B and SS, respectively, the left-side of the Red Sox' infield will have made significant strides in the run prevention department.

N.L. East Should Be Great

In a division featuring the defending World Champions, a team with baseball's 2nd highest payroll and another with perhaps the game's best young rotation, it's easy to forget about the Atlanta Braves. After all, the Braves haven't been to the postseason in four years, and last year they finished with just 72 wins, their worst showing since 1990.

In the offseason, GM Frank Wren, looking to vault Atlanta back to the top of the standings, made pitching a priority. After failing to complete a deal for Padres starter Jake Peavy and then losing out on free-agent A.J. Burnett, Wren traded for White Sox starter Javy Vazquez, signed veteran Derek Lowe to a four year deal worth $60 million, and plucked starter Kenshin Kawakami from Japan.

And now the Braves, who for so long rode its elite pitching to 15 consecutive division titles, find themselves just four games out of the NL East, with perhaps the Senior Circuit's best pitching staff.

Vazquez, who fell into manager Ozzie Guillen's dog house on the South Side, has been a revelation in Atlanta. Among NL starters, Vazquez ranks 9th in ERA (3.04), 2nd in K's (125), 1st in K/9 (10.55) and 3rd in the ever-important K/BB ratio (5.43).

The rest of Atlanta's rotation has been almost as impressive. Jair Jurrens ranks 8th in the NL in ERA (2.93). Lowe has struggled but is unbeaten within the division. Tommy Hanson hasn't allowed a run in his last 20 innings and beat both the Red Sox and Yankees in successive outings. Kawakami has a 3.18 ERA in his last 10 starts. And the back end of the bullpen, with co-closers Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano, prevents opposing teams from mounting late-inning rallies.

Entering today, the Phillies, Mets and Marlins and Braves are separated by just four games in the ultra competitive National League East. While close in the standings, each team has chosen distinct paths to achieve success.

The Phillies, who last year captured their 2nd World Series title in franchise history, sit atop the division despite considerable struggles from its starting rotation, whose 5.21 ERA ranks dead last in the NL and 28th in MLB, ahead of only Baltimore and Cleveland. But like last year, the Phillies have relied on one of the game's most potent lineups to carry their team. Among NL clubs, the Phillies rank 2nd in runs (391), 1st in slugging (.450) and 1st in OPS (.786).

Next we have the upstart Florida Marlins. With a young lineup featuring, among others, one of baseball's most dynamic players in Hanley Ramirez, and a rotation comprised of fireballers Josh Johnson, Chris Volstad, Andrew Miller and Ricky Nolasco (3.52 ERA, 186/42 K:BB ratio in 212 IP last year), the Marlins entered this season with heightened expectations, a popular dark horse chosen by baseball pundits. This season, despite being outscored by 24 runs, the Marlins sit just one game back of the Phillies, having gone 9-4 in their last 13 games. The Fish rank 5th in the NL with 362 runs scored, but have relied heavily on ace Josh Johnson. The 24-year old ranks 4th in the NL in ERA (2.76), 7th in strike outs (97), and 2nd in quality starts (14), one behind Dan Haren.

And finally the Mets, who are three games back despite suffering a rash of debilitating injuries. As of today, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado are out, as are pitchers John Maine and setup man J.J. Putz. Playing in cavernous Citi Field, the 2nd worst hitters yard in baseball to Petco Park, some Mets players have had to completely revamp their approach at the plate. David Wright, who has averaged 29 HR's per season since becoming a full-time player in 2005, has just five long balls in 2009, but ranks 2nd in the NL in batting average (.341), 3rd in OBP (.432) and 5th in doubles (23). And unlike last year, when Metropolitans relievers poured gasoline onto every smoldering rally, the bullpen has held late-inning leads. Mets relievers rank 5th in the NL in ERA (3.70), 5th in save percentage (67%, tied with the Brewers) and 6th in OPS against (.712).

At this juncture of the season it's tough to pick winner, as each team has glaring holes. The Phillies need a front-line starter (Bedard?), the Mets need to get healthy and find a serviceable starter (Penny? Garland?), the Marlins could use another bat and a reliever (Saito? Street? Valverde?). The Braves, who rank 13th in the NL in runs scored and 24th overall, desperately need a right-handed power bat (Jermaine Dye says hello, same with Matt Holliday).

If you held a gun to my head and asked me to pick a team, I'd probably say the Braves. With that pitching staff they can beat anyone in the game, and they have the chips to deal for whomever they want.

Random Thoughts

1) Today, for the first time since May 27, 2008, Dice-K made it through a start without allowing a walk. Think about that for a second. 

2) Remember in April when I wrote that Mike Lowell was having an overrated season, and eventually his limited range, lack of patience and penchant for GIDP's would come back to bite the team? *pats self on back

3) Can someone institute a petition to request McDonald's to bring back its "two hash browns for $1" deal? Those golden-brown, grease-laden pieces of Heaven make for the world's best (and healthiest) breakfast. Imagine two hash browns washed down by an Arnold Palmer. I think I might faint. 

4) Which travel option makes the most sense? Paying $195 for a roundtrip, 7-hour train ride to Washington D.C., or ponying up $161 for a roundtrip, one-hour and 45 minute Jetblue flight to Dulles, on which I have my choice of 40 cable channels and hundreds of XM satellite stations. Why does anyone ride trains again?

5) Jessica Biel AND Elisha Dushku took in Saturday night's Sox-Rangers game. Dear.God.

6) How badly do I not want to see Kobe win a title? I'll put it somewhere between "spinal tap" and "nuclear holocaust" on My List of Things I Hope Not to Experience.

7) During the Dave Matthews Band concert at Fenway -- I know what you're thinking and, look, Willie Nelson opened for him -- a 12 oz Miller Lite went for $8.25. I'm beginning to think this wasn't a wise investment. 

8) Is it just me, or has anyone else ever wondered how a person becomes a ticket scalper? Are there certain qualifications for this job? Are they innate, or can these virtues be taught? The way I see it, to become an enterprising scalper you need all of the following:

a pair of dirty sweatpants (preferably gray)

a matching hoodie

3-week facial stubble

a BUM or Champs Sport windbreaker (cannot have been purchased after 1995)

a thick, indigenous accent

the ability to discreetly mutter the phrase "anybody need 'em" for 6 hours a day

a friend whose name ends with the sound "EE" -- Joey, Donnie, Danny, Murphy

most importantly: absolutely nothing exceeding a G.E.D. 

Fire and Ice

I realize all my posts have been about baseball, so I thought I'd take a few lines to wax poetic about the restaurant Fire and Ice. If you've never been, I highly recommend it. And if you're a college student, or an Emerson College graduate whose school identification card lists no graduation date (why don't they do this??), you can eat anything you want on Monday's for $10. It's college night, and it rocks. 

Anyhow, the restaurant features ample selections -- burgers, chicken tenderloin, fish, fruit, sausage and salad-bar type counters teeming with various kinds of pasta -- all at your fingertips, or more aptly your hands. Instead of ordering your meal, you simply walk up to the salad-bar counters (what are these things called?) pile the raw food onto a plate and walk it over to a massive, oval shaped grill located in the center of the room. The chefs, usually a sprightly bunch of late-20-somethings unafraid of creeping on random girls, throw your food onto the grill and cook it entertainingly -- usually they twirl spatulas in the air, or better yet frisbee-toss cheese slices onto your burger while standing 5-feet clear of the intended patty. 

After devouring your first plate, the cycle repeats. 

I'm Lazy But Here's an Update

Because of my semi-busy schedule I haven't updated my blog in nearly a week. Earlier today I endured an agonizing two-hour rain delay and killed time by eating oyster crackers in the press box. Mercifully, the game was called at around 4:00 PM, when it was clear to everyone involved that the precipitation would not subside. 

Making news on an otherwise slow news day was the announcement from Detroit Tigers President and GM Dave Dombrowski that the Tigers will not trade superstar slugger Miguel Cabrera should the team sputter in the early going. Already reeling from the economic crisis (some reports claim the team has lost upwards of 12,000 season tickets this year), the Tigers were rumored to be dangling Cabrera, who's currently in the 2nd year of his 8 year $152 million contract. 

Should the Tigers reverse course and put Cabrera on the trading block, the Red Sox are expected to be among several teams interested in the 2008 AL home-run leader. 

In case you missed it, Tim Wakefield tossed another gem today, allowing just one run in 7 innings as the Sox dismantled the Twins, 10-1. Wakefield, coming off a near no-hitter in Oakland, scattered 5 hits and struck out 4. According to my computer screen, Wakefield's knuckler was indeed dancing, as he continually baffled the Twins with butterflies breaking as much as 14 inches vertically while moving nearly a foot to either side. 

Wakefield Truly One of a Kind

You know how the phrase "he's way ahead of his time" is used to describe revolutionary figures who redefined their crafts? Babe Ruth smacked 60 home-runs during an era in which teams, several teams, accounted for less. A young fighter named Cassius Clay bloviated and jived with such remarkable rhythm decades before rappers and look-at-me athletes emulated his style. And Marty McFly, at the unforgettable Enchantment Under The Sea dance, made his guitar do things about which Jimy Hendrix could only dream. 

You know who's another revolutionary figure? Tim Wakefield. No, Wakefield hasn't reinvented the pitching wheel, nor has he altered the batter-pitcher duel. But perhaps as impressively, Wakefield, with his 65 MPH butterflies flickering to the plate, producing off balanced and untamed swings from the opposition, has extended a quirky subset of pitching long in danger of extinction. Of course, I'm talking about knuckleballers. 

Since 2000, when knuckler Tom Candiotti called it quits after 16 years in the big leagues, only eight knuckleball pitchers* besides Wakefield -- R.A. Dickey, Ryan Jensen, Jared Fernandez, Cody McKay, Steve Sparks, Dennis Springer, Charlie Zink and Charlie Haeger --  have appeared in the big leagues. Their collective results are less than inspiring. 

*I've defined knuckleball pitchers as hurlers whose primary weapon is the knuckler. Pitchers who may have dabbled with the knuckleball for a pitch or two did not qualify.

McKay pitched just two innings for the Cardinals in 2004 and did not allow a run.  Ryan Jensen dabbled with the butterfly for a few years before returning to conventional form in 2005. Jared Fernandez, with just over 100 career big league innings a 5.05 ERA, hasn't appeared in the majors since 2006. Steve Sparks, after leading the majors in complete games (8) in 2001, accumulated a 5.38 ERA in the final 524 innings of his career, retiring in 2004. In his only three full seasons of work (1997, 1998, 1999) Dennis Springer posted an ERA+ -- the ratio of his ERA to the league average ERA, adjusted for ballpark. A 100 ERA+ is average -- of 90, 87 and 89, respectively. Charlie Zink made one start with the Red Sox last season and allowed eight earned runs in four and one-third innings. Charlie Haeger, in his only major league start in 2006, allowed five earned runs in just over four innings pitched for the White Sox. And R.A. Dickey, although still appearing in the big leagues from time to time, once allowed 6 HR's in three innings of work against the Texas Rangers. 

Which brings us to Wakefield, the only knuckleball pitcher in the last decade to sustain tangible success at the big league level. Drafted as an outfielder by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1988 Amateur Draft (8th round), Wakefield hit .189 in his first season of minor league ball with the Watertown Pirates (Single A). He was so bad the Pirates contemplated releasing him, which would have ended his career (if you're a minor leaguer who can't break the Mendoza line, there are no second chances). 

One day, however, Wakefield's fortunes and life forever changed. While playing catch with a teammate (or is it having a catch? I'm confused), a Pirates instructor spotted Wakefield throwing some variation of a knuckleball and thought the pitch, with some further refinement, might prolong the struggling outfielder's career. Twenty years later, with 179 wins and two would-be LCS MVP's to his name -- Wakefield was superb in the '92 NLCS against Atlanta, winning two games and allowing just 6 runs in 18 innings. In the '03 ALCS, Wakfield notched two wins and a 2.57 ERA in 14 innings, allowing a series ending walk-off homer to Aaron Boone. Both series went the full 7 games. -- Wakefield continues to shine. He stands just 27 victories shy of tying Roger Clemens and CY Young (192 wins apiece) as the winningest pitchers in Red Sox history. He baffled the American League in 1995 en route to a scintillating 14-1 start, finishing the season at 16-3 with a 2.95 ERA, the latter of which ranked 2nd best among AL starters (Randy Johnson lead the league at 2.48). 

Fittingly, after enduring a three game slide and a bitter 2-6 start, Wakefield put the rest of the Sox on his shoulders today, the ageless right-hander tossing a complete game in which he allowed just four hits, two runs and took a no hitter into the 8th inning. 

Wakefield simply bedazzled an Oakland lineup that so thoroughly dominated pitchers Jon Lester and Daisuke Matsuzaka the previous two nights. His performance couldn't come at a better time, as Manager Terry Francona, thanks to Matsuzaka's abysmal 1 inning 5 run performance, was forced to dip into his bullpen in the 2nd inning of last night's 12-inning affair. 

With all the talk about the Sox' considerable pitching depth -- Michael Bowden, John Smoltz, Clay Buccholz and Justin Masterson each provide the team with a viable option for the rotation should someone fall to injury -- Wakefield often gets lost in the shuffle.  He is a 42-year old knuckleball pitcher who has battled back, oblique and shoulder problems for the previous three seasons. But his performance today, when his team needed it most, speaks volumes to his ability and perseverance that allowed him to transform himself from floundering minor league outfielder into one of the game's most consistent producers. 

No, Wakefield is not ahead of his time. But he acts as a reminder of the game's glory days, a relic that inspires memories of doubleheaders, 10 cent hotdogs, two-hour game times and grainy footage. His story, and everything he now represents, reminds me of a Time magazine from Michael Jordan's second retirement. On the cover was a picture of Jordan's face, calmly stationed in front of a dark backdrop. Under the picture was a caption that read "We May Never See His Likes Again."