2009 Replacement Level: Right Field

As most of you know, the Win Values we present here on FanGraphs are wins above a replacement level player. Replacement level, essentially, is the expected performance you could get from a player who costs nothing to acquire and makes the league minimum. That’s the baseline that players add value over – performance over their no-cost substitute.

However, I know examples can be extremely helpful, so starting on Monday, we began looking at some players who currently personify replacement level, and what their respective organizations should expect from them in 2009. We’ve already covered catcher, first base, second base, shortstop, third base, left field, and center field. We’ll do the pitchers tomorrow. For now, we finish off the positions.

Right Field

A few of the LF guys could be listed here as well, as we noted that there’s significant overlap between the two corner OF spots.

Laynce Nix, Cincinnati, .338 wOBA
Jeff Salazar, Pittsburgh, .332 wOBA
Trot Nixon, Milwaukee, .337 wOBA
Chris Aguila, Unsigned, .324 wOBA
Brad Wilkerson, Boston, .312 wOBA
Jacque Jones, Cincinnati, .313 wOBA
Emil Brown, Unsigned, .322 wOBA

That’s a projected .325 wOBA for the group – nearly as good as the projected offensive level for first baseman. Besides Jones and Brown, though, it’s mostly a collection of below average defenders.

((.325 – .330) / 1.2) * 600 = -2.5

-2.5 offense, -5 defense, -7.5 position adjustment gets us -15 for this group, and I could be talked into a lower defensive rating for these guys, considering most of them are aging and well past their primes. So, after the little hiccup in center field, it looks like we’re right back to the -15 to -20 range for all the rest of the positions.