I would like to interrupt tonight’s regularly scheduled programming to inform you about one of the best pre-season books out there, The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009. Friends of Fangraphs, the THT staff does incredible work on a daily basis and their pre- and post-season publications are among the best on the market. The book is billed as featuring everything one would need to win his fantasy championship, but fantasy or not, the information presented is still very valuable.

David Gassko recruited some of the best team-oriented bloggers to specifically write about their respective teams. Each writer penned an essay, answering numerous questions regarding playing time, outlook, and recap, as well as brief commentary on each member of the team. I happened to write the Phillies chapter.

In addition to the teamwide essays and commentaries, the Season Preview 2009 features THT’s own projections for the upcoming season, an injury outlook from expert Chris Neault, and information on rookies to look out for courtesy of fantasy guru Derek Carty. The Hardball Times has a sterling reputation for providing top of the line baseball analysis and the 2009 Season Preview belongs in any fan’s baseball book collection.

At the beginning of the off-season, the Arizona Diamondbacks reportedly offered Randy Johnson a contract for 2009 that would have paid him around $4 million or so. Realizing that it was a low-ball offer, he decided to pass, and the D’Backs told him to go find another employer. He ended up signing for $8 million to pitch for the SF Giants because he wanted to stay in the NL West and pitch close to his home in Arizona.

So, allow me to scratch my head and wonder why on earth the D’Backs would then turn around and guarantee that they’ll pay at least $8.75 million for Jon Garland. If you can figure out something that Garland is better at than the Big Unit, I’d love to know what it is.

Garland posted a 4.76 FIP in 196 2/3 IP last year, which made him a 1.9 win pitcher. Since 2002, he’s been worth 19.4 wins, due to his durability and ability to throw strikes. Johnson posted a 3.76 FIP in 184 IP last year, which made him a 3.8 win pitcher. Since 2002, he’s been worth 34.9 wins, due to his awesomeness.

The highest FIP Johnson has ever posted, in his entire career, is 4.29. That was back in 1990, when he was still trying to figure out how to throw strikes in the big leagues. Since 1992, he’s posted a FIP over 4.00 just once, when it was 4.27 with the Yankees in 2006. He rebounded in 2007 with a 3.20 FIP, and was among the league leaders again last year. Jon Garland has never posted a FIP below 4.00. Ever. Only once, in 2005, did he post a FIP (4.24) that was lower than the worst of Johnson’s career. At his absolute best, Jon Garland is worse than Randy Johnson at his absolute worst.

Deciding that you want Jon Garland instead of Randy Johnson is a disastrous decision. Yes, Johnson is old, but he’s still an excellent major league pitcher. Garland is a #5 starter whose best skill is not getting hurt.

In a market where good pitchers are signing for bargain rates, the D’Backs just paid non-bargain rates for a bad pitcher. Congratulations, Arizona, you’ve officially screwed up your entire offseason.

It is never easy to project the future for a prospect. It is even harder to predict a Major League career for a Los Angeles Angels’ minor league player due to the large number of offense-friendly environments that the club’s minor league affiliates play in.

Sean Rodriguez has put up some interesting power/speed numbers in the minor leagues, including 24 home runs and 16 stolen bases in High-A ball at the age of 21. His triple-slash line was .301/.377/.545. Those numbers placed him onto the prospect radar, but he was playing in an excellent hitter’s environment in Rancho Cucamonga.

The next season, the former third round draft pick hit just .256/.348/.427 with 15 home runs and 17 stolen bases in Double-A. He posted mediocre walk rates in both 2006 and 2007 of 9.4 BB% and 9.7 BB%. The strikeout rates were disappointing at 27.3 K% and 25.6 K%.

Rodriguez rebounded at Triple-A in 2008 and hit .306/.397/.645 in 248 at-bats. He banged out 21 home runs, but stole just four bases. The shortstop-turned-second-baseman earned a promotion to the Majors but he looked lost as his approach and plate discipline let him down. He managed a line of .204/.276/.317, along with rates of 7.7 BB% and 32.9 K%. His BABIP was .284 and his line-drive rate was 11.7%.

Defensively, Rodriguez made just two errors at second base in 423.2 innings. He showed average range for a second baseman and could improve as he becomes more comfortable with the position.

He is not going to hit for a high average in the Majors, but Rodriguez has the potential to hit 15-20 home runs and steal as many bases. From a comparison standpoint, he is not all that different from former Blue Jays and Cubs (along with a collection of other teams) shortstop Alex Gonzalez, who retired in 2006. He managed 10 or more home runs in eight of his first nine seasons and also stole 10 or more bases four times. Gonzalez’ 14-year career line was .243/.302/.391, with rates of 9.1 BB% and 25.0 K%.

That’s about what you can expect from Rodriguez, with perhaps slightly higher on-base and slugging percentages, unless he does something Gonzalez never did – make adjustments. With some instability in the Angels’ infield, it is a great time for Rodriguez to make a play for a regular gig. The club has no set regular at shortstop or third base, and second baseman Howie Kendrick has not played more than 92 games at the Major League level in the past three seasons. That said, Rodriguez has his work cut out for him; he is noticeably absent from the organization’s depth chart, which makes one wonder just how valued he is in the system.

Our thoughts here on Bobby Abreu are not exactly news. At this stage in his career, Abreu is a solid hitter on the decline who plays poor defense at a corner outfield position. There are several players who fit this description still available on the market, which supply and demand in economic theory suggests will drive down their price. Add onto that how teams are seemingly becoming more fiscally responsible this winter and it comes as no surprise that Abreu’s desired 4-yr/$60 mil or whatever deal is terribly unrealistic.

Jerry Crasnick reported yesterday that Abreu would “be willing to settle” for deals similar to Raul Ibanez and Milton Bradley. The latter two signed deals hovering around 3-yr/$30 mil. Ibanez, though perhaps lesser of a hitter, is a solid comp for Abreu, as both are getting up there in age, losing offensive value, and watching their defensive values drop from bad to awful.

When Adam Dunn, six years younger and more productive offensively, is struggling to land a multi-year deal, the likelihood of Abreu signing an Ibanez/Bradley deal again is very unrealistic. Then, today, reports surfaced that Abreu would be willing to accept a 1-yr deal. I’m not sure how this qualifies as a conscious decision from Abreu. He has to accept a 1-yr deal if he wants to play baseball in the major leagues this season. Nobody is going to sign him to a multi-year deal in this climate.

Perhaps he and his agent can feel better about themselves since taking the initiative makes it appear as if they have arrived at this conclusion, but they were forced to accept a 1-yr deal. As a rightfielder, Abreu projects to around +1.45 wins. As a DH, closer to +1.9 wins. The positional adjustment for DH is stiffer than it is for corner outfielders, but Abreu’s terrible defense added onto the adjustment comes out worse than the DH adjustment.

As a corner outfielder, his fair market value for a 1-yr deal is $6.5 mil. At DH, $8.6 mil. I can see him signing a 1-yr/$10 mil contract, but things could easily go the other way based on what happens with Dunn, Manny Ramirez, Garrett Anderson, and Ken Griffey, Jr. No matter how one chooses to dissect Abreu’s eventual signing, if he signs for anything more than $6.5 mil as a corner outfielder, he better exceed his projection for the sake of the team. The best bet for any interested parties is to put him at the DH spot where his lack of defensive ability can be hidden.

The Twins avoided arbitration with Jason Kubel yesterday, signing him to a two year contract that the Star-Tribune claims is for about $7 million and contains a team option for 2011 that is worth $5 million. So, the deal is either 2/7 or 3/12 for Kubel’s final two years of arbitration or his two arb years and his first year of free agency. Most people will probably consider that a good deal for the Twins – getting a useful bat under team control for reasonable prices without a long term commitment.

I’m not so sure. As R.J. noted this morning, the Pirates just signed Eric Hinske to a one year deal worth between $1 and $2 million. In what world is Jason Kubel a significnatly better player than Eric Hinske?

Kubel’s last two years show a pretty stable skillset – aggressive hitter with above average power, will take some pitches, and absolutely awful in the field. His wOBAs in 2007 and 2008 were nearly identical (.342 and .345 respectively) and are basically what we can expect from Kubel going forward. Heading into his age 27 season, Kubel is what he is – a guy with a decent bat and no defensive value. His career UZR in the OF is -18.9 in 1,375 innings, and the Twins seem to have recognized that he’s a full time DH for the rest of his career.

What’s a DH with a slightly above average bat worth? A little bit more than half a win above a replacement level player. In 2007 and 2008, Kubel accumulated a total of +1.2 wins in 983 PA. Given everyday playing time at DH, we can estimate he’ll be worth between 0.5 and 1.0 wins for 2009.

Compare that to Hinske (the guy who had to settle for a one year deal as a role player on a terrible team) – the offensive skillset is practically identical, but Hinske can actually play a competent 1B/OF. The offensive difference in their CHONE projections add up to 2-3 runs over a full season, but the defensive gap is clearly much larger. It’s hard to make a case that Kubel > Hinske.

Yes, Hinske’s five years older, but MLB is full of players with that skillset. Minnesota could have just used Hinske this year, then found his clone next winter, and so on and so forth. Same reward with none of the associated risk that goes with multiyear contracts.

I know, I know, it’s only $7 million over two years. But it’s a needless use of resources. The Twins budget isn’t that of the Yankees or Red Sox, so to contend, they need to maximize the return on all the dollars they spend. Especially in this economic climate, where good players can’t find contract offers, giving a multiyear deal to Jason Kubel doesn’t maximize the return.

Many teams will be labeled as “The new Rays” throughout this spring. The problem is the new Rays will not be competitive in 2009. Instead, this organization is still undergoing chances in its framework, necessitated changes based on a decade of incompetence thanks to prior management. This team dealt two of its starting outfielders last season for questionable returns. They’ve restrained from giving in to pressure to sign free agents, opting instead to amass young talent through trades, the Rule 5 draft, and the amateur draft.

By now you should know the team, it is the Pittsburgh Pirates, and if you were unaware of the change, then read on.

The popular opinion in Pittsburgh is that the Pirates need to re-sign Doug Mientkiewicz for reasons that extend beyond his win values. Recent reports link the Pirates to Eric Hinske. As a Rays fan, I’ve seen quite a bit of Hinske, and frankly I’m a bit befuddled on how he’s failed to attract much interest prior to the Pirates. Hinske came cheaply for the Rays last season — a non-roster invitee who would make 800k for appearing in the majors – and figures to come similarly cheaper in this market.

Hinske’s allure to the Pirates is undoubtedly his bat, willingness to come off the bench, and ability to play overall league average defense at the four corners. Mientkiewicz played first, third, and right field for the Pirates in 2008 and batted left-handed, there’s a clear match here, except potentially in price.

Over the last three years, the two are near mirrors – Hinske averaging ~0.97 wins and Mientkiewicz ~0.93. If the Pirates can land Hinske for any amount less than Mientkiewicz is asking, they should jump on it. Heck, if they convince Hinske to simply take Mientkiewicz 2008 salary of ~1.075 million he’ll get a pay raise and they’ll get a contract likely to succeed.

Yeah, Mientkiewicz is popular with the fans, and yes, they run the risk of looking “cheap”, even if they can use the money saved towards filling other holes, but kudos to Pittsburgh. In the past they probably would’ve overpaid for the qualities Mientkiewicz brings to the team, instead they’ll find those same qualities and at a price better suited for their situation.

More signings! More more more! We’re not even going to have a free agent market in the future because every player will get locked up through their age 30 season or beyond and with the rising intelligence of GMs across the league, the bottom will fall out of the market completely!

Okay, maybe not, but it’s not the most improbable thing that I will ever utter here. Anyways, on to today’s inking, Ubaldo Jimenez and the Colorado Rockies came to an agreement on at minimum a four-year deal with a pair of club options. If those are turned down, the deal covers Jimenez’s final two club-control years plus his first two arbitration years. The club options cover his final arbitration and first free agent year.

It is a little rare, though becoming less rare, to see long term contracts covering pre-arbitration years and we do not have a good framework like we have for the arbitration rewards, so for the time being, I am just going to assign those seasons a half million value. Therefore, the minimum of this contract, two club control and the first two arbitration years, adds up to one market year plus an additional one million dollars. If the club options are exercised then we add the final arbitration year (0.8) and a full market year, bringing the total market years to 2.8, still plus the additional million bucks.

In an effort to better visually display the projections, I put them all in a chart this time around, reproduced below. As I have mentioned, I have three main methods for coming up with pitcher projections: I take CHONE and Marcel straight from here at FanGraphs, and I complement those by looking at the pitcher’s tRA* from the past year from StatCorner to see if that indicates anything divergent to the other two.

In Ubaldo’s case, Marcel and CHONE form a bracket on projection between 2.3 and 3.1 wins for 2009. On the deal without the club options that means that a fair value deal, under the assumption of $4.5 million per win, would come in between $10.3 and $13.5 million, while the Rockies are actually on the hook for just $10 million. With the club options exercised, fair market would dictate $27 to $36 million while Colorado would be forced to pay just $22.75 million.

Add another data point that teams are continuing to get great deals in locking up their young talent and avoiding arbitration and getting a few market years in well.

So far, we’ve looked at a couple of teams who were less successful than we would have expected at turning their win values for 2008 into on the field wins, mostly due to situational hitting and pitching. Boston and Texas both played better than either their records or their RS/RA would show, and that should be encouraging to their respective fanbases with regards to 2009.

On the flip side, though, there’s the Minnesota Twins. They traded away Johan Santana, watched Torii Hunter and Carlos Silva cash in via free agency in other cities, and yet still managed to improve from 80 wins in 2007 to 88 wins in 2008, turning themselves into a surprise contender for the AL Central. If we were to use the standard deviation from pythag, we would simply concede that the Twins were a legitimate winner, as their 89 pythag wins was right in line with their 88 actual wins.

However, their team win value total for 2008 was just 80.5 wins. Based on the context-neutral performances of their players, they were a .500 ballclub, mostly due to an offense that just wasn’t that great. Their 12.8 batting runs above average was 9th best in the American League, but they were 3rd in the AL in runs scored at 5.09 runs per game.

Just like as before, let’s take a look at the situational context.

Bases Empty: .697 OPS, 11% below average
Men On Base: .811 OPS, 4% above average
Runners In Scoring Position: .826 OPS, 6% above average
Bases Loaded: .837 OPS, 2% above average

When a single wasn’t going to be worth much, the Twins didn’t do much, hitting like a band of Triple-A infielders. When they had a chance to drive men in, though, they turned into a pretty nifty bunch of run producers. Because their offensive distribution was so heavily skewed towards hitting in situations that would produce runs, the team ended up finishing 3rd in the AL in runs scored despite an offense that simply wasn’t that good.

While watching your team capitalize on a huge portion of their run scoring opportunities is exciting, it’s not a great recipe for success. If the Twins want to keep winning in 2009, they’re going to have to just hit better, rather than rely on turning up the offensive jets only in certain situations.

Former Atlanta Braves prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia has a little more press behind his name but, when the dust settles, Taylor Teagarden could very well be the Texas Rangers’ No. 1 catcher for the 2009 season.

Teagarden, 25, burst upon the Major League scene in 2008 by powering out six home runs in only 47 at-bats, which helped him achieve a slugging percentage of .809 and an ISO of .489. This is also the same catcher that maintained a .300 batting average while hitting 27 home runs between High-A and Double-A in 2007.

The most encouraging part about Teagarden’s potential is that he used to be considered a poor offensive player who would make a living in the Majors based solely on his work behind the plate. Don’t believe me? Take a look at his scouting report from Baseball America, which was written prior to the 2005 draft:

“The best defensive catcher in the draft, Teagarden has exceptional skills behind the plate… The consensus is that he could handle defensive responsibilities in the Majors right now… The question with Teagarden always has been how much he’ll produce at the plate, and he picked up the tag of a light-hitting catcher in high school.

Teagarden laid those concerns to rest almost immediately after being taken in the third round of the amateur draft out of the University of Texas. He hit .281/.426/.635 in 96 short-season at-bats after signing late in the year (He was a Boras client).

Unfortunately, Teagarden blew out his elbow and had Tommy John surgery in the winter of 2005/06 and missed the majority of the 2006 season. He returned in 2007 and jumped up to High-A ball where he spent a fair bit of time as the team’s designated hitter. He hit .315/.448/.606 in 292 at-bats and earned his promotion to Double-A where he hit .294/.357/.529 in 102 at-bats.

Back behind the plate full-time in 2008, Teagarden’s bat slipped a bit at the upper levels of the minors – at least in terms of average. In 16 Double-A games, he hit just .169/.279/.305. Promoted to Triple-A, Teagarden improved to .225/.332/.396 in 187 at-bats. His undoing at Double-A and Triple-A has been his strikeout rates. In 2007 at Double-A his rate was 38.2 K% and it was 39.0 K% in 2008. At Triple-A, his strikeout rate was 31.6 K% and, despite his small-sample-size success, it was 40.4 K% at the Major League level.

Obviously those rates are not going to lead to success with the batting average. On the plus side, the power has improved and he has continued to take his fair share of walks. Teagarden had a walk rate of 18.9 BB% in High-A in 2007 and 13.0 BB% at Triple-A in 2008.

He may only hit .260-.270 at the Major League level, but Teagarden will get on base and will provide power. In fact, his power could be even more impressive than another top college catcher, who was known more for his bat. Here is what BA had to say, again before the 2005 draft:

Southern California’s Jeff Clement is the best-hitting college catcher in this year’s draft crop, and Teagarden outhit (.309 to .275) and outslugged him (.473 to .435) with wood bats on Team USA last summer.”

As for the defensive side of things, Teagarden’s abilities were slowed by his Tommy John surgery in 2005/06 and his inability to play regularly behind the dish in 2006. He also missed about three weeks early on in 2008 due to elbow soreness. However, he is still an above-average defender and he threw out 50 percent of base stealers (five of 10) at Double-A in 2008 and 36 percent (20 of 55) at Triple-A. Teagarden also made just one error and allowed two passed balls in 57 games at the senior level.

Teagarden is definitely a better defender than Saltalamacchia and he could very well top the former Braves’ career offensive line of .261/.327/.399.

Yesterday, we talked about team win value totals, and how they won’t always match up with pythag win projections due to their context neutral nature. Today, I want to look at an example of why this is useful information, and how conclusions about a team’s true talent level based on RS/RA can be faulty.

Let’s talk about the 2008 Texas Rangers. They won 79 games, finishing nearly at a .500 record, despite the fact that they were outscored 967 to 901. Using the pythagenpat formula, you’d get 75 projected wins, so an analysis based on pythag might say the Rangers were lucky to win 79 games based on how they played. However, the total win values of their roster for 2008 paints them as an 84 win team. That’s significantly better than both their pythag and their actual record.

The difference, as usual, is situational performance. The Rangers allowed 98 more runs than the second to last AL team in run prevention, the Baltimore Orioles. Even when you include a park factor to make up for the environment they play in, they were still clearly the easiest team in the league to score runs against.

Now, it’s true, their pitching wasn’t very good. But it wasn’t far and away the worst in the league either. Their 4.83 FIP is actually substantially better than the Orioles 5.14 mark. Yes, Baltimore had a better defense and played in a less offensive-friendly park, but those don’t explain a 100 run difference in runs allowed when Texas’ pitchers posted a FIP of .3 runs better.

The difference can be found in situational pitching. The Rangers were unbelievably terrible at stranding runners – their LOB% of 65.7% was 3% worse than the next worst team, the Colorado Rockies. Look at these situational lines.

Bases Empty: .766 OPS, 5% below average
Men On Base: .874 OPS, 12% below average
Runners in Scoring Position: .891 OPS, 13% below average
Bases Loaded: .878 OPS, 8% below average

With no one on base, the Rangers were just not very good. Put a runner on, though, and they become disastrously terrible. Rallies just piled on top of rallies, and the runs came through like a flood.

There’s good news for Texas fans in this, though. FIP is more predictive from year to year than situational performance, so while their inability to leave runners on base hurt them in 2008, we shouldn’t expect that to repeat itself in 2009. They’re still not likely to be good at stranding runners (their pitchers aren’t really good at anything else, either), but they likely won’t be historically bad again.

This is one of the things that the team win values can highlight for us. The Rangers might have given up a lot of runs, but the way they went about giving up those runs shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as an indictment on the future abilities of their pitching staff. With a better expected situational performance, we can expect Texas to do a better job of keeping runs off the board even if their pitching and defense don’t improve at all.