A’s Take Giambi Back
Since the season ended, most people have assumed that Jason Giambi was going to end up back in Oakland. They needed some power in their line-up, even after the Matt Holiday acquisition, and Giambi enjoyed his greatest success as a player during his first stint in the Bay Area. The steroids stuff from a few years ago made him something of a pariah among many teams and fans, and his near replacement level performance in 2007 didn’t help his image at all. There just weren’t many teams interested in Giambi, so the presumption was that he’d have to take pretty much whatever Billy Beane offered him.
After seeing Buster Olney’s report of the terms of the deal that seems to be pretty much what happened. Here’s how the deal would break down in terms of valuing Giambi as a player if the rumored terms are true.
$5.25 million base salary in 2009, $1.25 million buyout of 2010 option or $4 million base salary in 2010.
Based on a $4.5 million per win estimate of the going rate for free agents, that would value Giambi as a 1.45 win player for 2009. However, the low salary base (with incentives, surely) for 2010 makes the buyout pretty unlikely to be exercised unless Giambi pulls an Andruw Jones. In reality, the deal is probably more like $11 million over two years, with an out clause for the A’s if Giambi is just unbelievably awful. That values Giambi at something closer to a 1.2 win player.
Giambi’s actual win values, by year, the last three years:
2006: 3.4
2007: 0.5
2008: 2.6
That’s a weighted average of 2.1 wins per year, and he missed half of the ’07 season. His new deal values him at nearly half of his three year weighted average win value. Even factoring in age related decline and a move to DH, that’s some pretty serious discounting. There’s almost no downside to this deal for the A’s – they picked up a +1.5 to +2 win player for 75 cents on the dollar, and if he bombs, it has no long term repercussions.
With Holliday and Giambi joining the organization, the A’s have significantly improved their offense for 2009. The question will be sorting out all the at-bats for the various 1B/DH types, but the depth makes it much more likely that Oakland has an offense that can score some runs next year. The A.L. West continues to tighten.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Dave:
At what point is it worth adjusting the estimate for the going rate of a win in the current free agent market?
It would be interesting to see how this off-season’s signings look using the $4.5M estimate, and how they look using a value that factors in the cost of a win as defined by every ’08-’09 free agent signing to date.
Maybe there wouldn’t be a difference. I honestly don’t know. But it certainly feels as though the market has softened considerably over the past few weeks.
We’ve actually already done this. Based on historic inflation rates, we’d have expected the cost per win in this market to be somewhere around $5 million. We’ve already removed the inflation assumption and gone back to last year’s number of $4.5 million per win. And, I think that number is about right.
Everyone is screaming about Burrell being a huge steal. He’s a two win DH and he got $8 million per year. That’s $4 million per win. If he’s the poster boy for the market cratering, then it’s hard to argue that the cost per win is less than $4 million. The high end guys got closer to $5 million per win from the Yankees.
I’d say the cost per win is between $4 and $5 million per win. We could argue over the decimal point if we wanted to, but I’m not sure it matters much.
The market for gloveless or glove-impaired hitters seems to be soft (Raul Ibañez excepted — and that may reflect the Phillies jumping early and misjudging him, the market, or both). Whether that’s because of a glut relative to the available needs, or because GMs are starting to value defense more, I don’t know. But I’m not sure (yet) we can conclude the market for FA overall has softened that much — or have you forgotten about the early Christmas in the Bronx?
What of Jack Cust? Corner outfield? Or Giambi at first base? That’s gonna be brutal either way.
Yeah, that was my first thought.
Note to Oakland pitchers: strike Motherf*ckers out!
I am guessing that Giambi will spend most of his time at 1B, and Cust at DH, with Holliday, Buck and Sweeney in the OF. Barton will move to 1st, if Sweeney is not hitting, and Cust will move to the OF, while Giambi DH’s.
Beane has alot of options, so we shall see how he handles it.
I don’t know if I can really see the A’s using Barton as a bench player. He’ll be just 23 years old next season, and will be in need of playing time. However, Barton has seemingly shown all that he can in AAA, so does he just go back there for playing time not really needing to show anything more? Not to mention that either Chris Carter or Sean Doolittle may be ready for AAA by the end of the season.
So, do you sit Sweeney? and make your LF Cust? Who is atrocious?
Barton was cause of some bad luck last year, but itll be interesting how Beane uses them…..
Why would you sit Sweeney? Sweeney was their 2nd best hitter last season and the only other centerfielder is Raj Davis.
Just wait for Buck to get hurt, which he does at least once every 7 days, then play Cust in RF, Barton at 1st.
A’s strength was pitching last season but they also did a lot of little things right. Their pitchers led AL in pick-offs and fewest WP. Catchers led AL in throwing out runners (Kurt Suzuki will be better in 2009 and attract media raves). In general this was a team that did not beat itself. Holliday will help the offense but is also a very good base runner and improving defender. He is so far above replacement level that a couple more positive moves could put Oakland in contention.
Sweeney/Raj Davis should platoon in CF. While they have to find a way to play both Giambi and Cust versus RHP, they must also find a way to limit the defensive damage. I think that will result in playing Barton at fist and Cust in the RF.