Yesterday, we looked at position adjustments and the interesting relationship between second baseman and third baseman. Despite 2B being considered a premium defensive position, there’s little evidence that the players who occupy the second base position are actually better defenders than the guys who play third base. Both groups come from the failed SS pile of players, but there’s one big difference – the guys who end at third base can hit a lot better than the guys who end up at second base. Why?

My theory – body type, especially height. The tallest listed players in MLB who are playing either SS or 2B are Hanley Ramirez and Alexei Ramirez, who both stand at 6’3, but could be described as wiry thin. With Alexei moving to SS for 2009, the tallest listed major league second baseman will be Jose Lopez, who claims to be 6’2, but I call total B.S. on. In reality, the real tallest second baseman is probably one of Mark Grudzielanek or Chase Utley, both of whom stand 6’1. The average second baseman is 5’11.

On the other hand, the average height of third baseman in 2008 was 6’1. Troy Glaus is 6’5. Mike Lowell and Scott Rolen are 6’4. The only 3B who stand less than 6’0 are Adrian Beltre, Melvin Mora, and Chone Figgins, and Mora and Figgins both have moved around the diamond quite a bit.

It seems apparent that when teams are sorting out where players who been deemed not good enough to handle SS should go, the overriding determining factor is body type, and specifically height. Tall players simply don’t go to second base, and short guys don’t go to third base regardless of their actual defensive abilities.

To illustrate this, let’s take a look at the results of a few players based on Tom Tango’s Fans Scouting Report.

Player A: 86 instincts, 72 first step, 61 speed, 87 hands, 90 release, 41 strength, 75 accuracy

Player B: 91 instincts, 82 first step, 61 speed, 90 hands, 96 release, 55 strength, 92 accuracy

I think most people would agree that first step and instincts would be more important at third base (along with arm strength, naturally) while speed and hands would be more important at second base. Based on the above, Player B would seem to be a better fit for 3B, skills wise, if a team was trying to decide which positions these two should play.

Player A is Eric Chavez, and Player B is Mark Ellis. Both are considered terrific defensive players, and helpfully for this discussion, both are teammates, so their ratings came from the same pool of fans, and their organization has already had to make the position assignments with both players on the roster. Chavez, listed at 6’1/217, ended up at third base, while Ellis (5’11/190) was placed at second base.

A’s fans think they have almost identical skills. Why did Chavez end at third and Ellis at second? Body type. Ellis is small, Chavez is big. Chavez fits the profile of a third baseman offensively, while Ellis does not. It seems entirely likely that if Ellis was a few inches taller and could hit better, while Chavez was a few inches shorter and had a bit less power, the two would flip positions, even if they had the exact same defensive skills they do now.

We could go on and look at other examples – does anyone really think Adrian Beltre, Scott Rolen, Evan Longoria, or Ryan Zimmerman couldn’t play a quality shortstop or second base if asked to? Why were they moved to third base, anyway? Do we have a good answer for this besides “they look and hit like third baseman”?

I don’t think so. To me, it appears that players are separated into 3B and 2B based on things that have little to do with their actual skills, and more about a proxy for what kind of package those skills come in. Perhaps there’s a competitive advantage here for a team that’s willing to take a 6’3 or 6’4 plus defender and shift them to second base instead of third base.

This afternoon, we touched on position adjustments and why they’re needed. In the case of positions such as 1B and SS, it doesn’t take a lot of explanation as to why there needs to be a bridge so that we’re not describing an average SS equally valuable to an average 1B. However, for a few other positions, the line is much less clear. The three positions where the respective defensive abilities is less clear are second base, third base, and center field.

In a lot of circles, you’ll hear defense described in two sections – “up the middle” and “the corners”. You’ll often hear the up the middle spots – C-SS-2B-CF – as being premium defensive positions, where teams will look for gloves first and bats second. The opposite is true in the corners – 1B-3B-LF-RF – where teams want offense and consider defensive value a bonus. By this definition, second base and center field are glove first positions, but it’s something of an afterthought at third base. If we bought into this notion, we’d believe that third baseman, as a group, are inferior defenders to second baseman and center fielders.

This notion is reinforced by the fact that third baseman are better hitters than second baseman. Major League 3B hit .266/.336/.436 last year, while Major League 2B hit .276/.338/.409. This has been a trend for a while, and since the statistical analysis revolution taught most of us to think in terms of player value in terms of above or below average in relation to the offensive average of that position, we’re used to drawing conclusions that worse hitting positions are better fielding positions. Since 2B hit worse, they field better. That’s the assumption. The problem, though, is that it lacks evidence. There is simply not a large fluctuation in defensive performance when a player moves between the two spots.

Take Akinori Iwamura, for example – he played a full season at 3B in 2007, posting a -2.6 UZR/150 at the hot corner. The Rays moved him to second base for 2008, and he posted a +0.6 UZR/150 at the keystone. He’s not the exception, but instead, performances like this are the rule. When a player moves to 2B from 3B, or vice versa, their defensive performance remains relatively stable. There’s just no data to support the idea that second base is a premium defensive position and third base is not.

While there are different skills necessary to succeed at each position (arm strength being more important at 3rd, range more important at second), the pool of players who can succeed at one is mostly made up of the same pool of players that can succeed at the other. This is because the population of both positions is made up almost exclusively of players who were deemed inadequate for shortstop. At one time, second baseman and third baseman were both called the same thing – bad defensive shortstops. From there, they were separated into 2B and 3B pools, but the evidence suggests that the crop of players who end up at 3B are better overall players than their 2B brethren. Why? I have a few theories, and we’ll get into those tomorrow.

Back before the winter meetings started and there were all kinds of trades and free agent signings to analyze that took up all of our writing here, we were all ridiculously excited about the addition of UZR data the FanGraphs statistics section. Now that we have a lull in transaction analysis, I want to get back to talking about UZR, fielding metrics, and evaluating the best ways to view them. Most of my posts the rest of the week will focus on these issues.

Starting off, I want to talk about positional context. If I asked you who the best defensive player in baseball was, would your answer be Carl Crawford? Probably not. He’s definitely an asset defensively, but does anyone think he’s really the best defensive player in the game? His 2008 UZR/150 is better than everyone else, though, so if you were just sorting the entire league by that metric, Crawford stands head and shoulders above everyone else.

However, we all instinctively understand that the quality of defenders at each position is not even. Crawford rates remarkably well as a left fielder in large part due to the fact that left fielders are lousy defenders as a group. In fact, if we just look at UZR/150 for qualified left fielders in 2008, only three of the 13 players on the list have above average rankings – Crawford at 28.6, Fred Lewis at 12.1, and Matt Holliday at 5.2. The bottom of the list is populated by guys who should be DH’ing – Pat Burrell, Raul Ibanez, and Adam Dunn. Teams use left field as a hiding ground for good hitters with lousy defensive abilities in order to get their bats in the line-up, so when a team like Tampa goes the alternate direction and sticks a good glove in LF, he’s going to look like a superstar, thanks to the relative uselessness of his peers.

If Crawford played CF, which is his more natural position given his defensive abilities, he’d certainly rate a lot lower than +28 runs. This isn’t because CF is any harder to play than LF, but simply because the people he would be compared to are much better defensively than the people he’s compared to as a left fielder. This should seem somewhat obvious, but I’ve seen a lot of people talk about relative defensive rankings for up the middle players being lower because of the harder nature of the position, but it’s really just the peer group that is chosen for comparison.

If Carl Crawford was put into a room of 5’5 people, he’d appear tall. If he was put into a room of 6’5 people, he’d appear short. Think of left field, right field, first base, and designated hitter as positions of short people. You don’t have to actually be the best defensive player in the league to look like a defensive whiz when the standard you’re being held to is so low.

This is why, when you see us talking about total value of a player, you’ll see position adjustments come up in the discussion. Since each player is being rated by UZR relative to average at that position, we have to come up with a scale that neutralizes all of the averages so that they’re somewhat similar to each other.

Tom Tango has developed the most commonly accepted set of positional adjustments out there right now, based on historical data of how players perform when they move from one position to another. His scale is as follows:

Catcher: +12.5 runs
Shortstop: +7.5 runs
Second Base: +2.5 runs
Third Base: +2.5 runs
Center Field: +2.5 runs
Left Field: -7.5 runs
Right Field: -7.5 runs
First Base: -12.5 runs
Designated Hitter: -17.5 runs

Essentially, the width of the spectrum of major league players being used at their best positions is about 30 runs – if you have a league average defensive catcher and you make him a full time DH, you’ve whacked about three wins off of his value.

These positional adjustments match up with common knowledge pretty well – catchers are scarce, shortstops are the best non-catcher defenders, and the immobile stiffs get hidden at DH/1B/LF/RF, depending on how just how immobile they really are. It’s the middle part of the spectrum – second base, third base, and center field – that cause some disagreement. We’ll get into those three positions specifically this afternoon.

Last week, the Dodgers decided not to tender an offer to Takashi Saito, who has been one of the best relievers in baseball since coming over from Japan in 2006. The elbow problems that sidelined him for two months certainly played a factor, as did the presence of Jonathan Broxton, Hong-Chi Kuo, and the surprise of the ’08 bullpen, Cory Wade. With those three youngsters all coming off wildly successful seasons, the Dodgers were willing to let Saito go, believing that they had capable late inning relievers already on the roster.

However, there may be another reason they were willing to part with Saito – Ramon Troncoso. He doesn’t have the prospect pedigree of Broxton or Kuo or the shiny 2008 ERA of Wade, and if didn’t follow the Dodgers closely last year, there’s a good chance you may have never heard of Troncoso. However, if I was going to pick one guy who had a chance to emerge as the Next Big Thing from obscurity, I’d go with Troncoso – he’s the hidden gem of young hurlers right now.

Troncoso’s big weapon is a heavy power sinker, and it’s one of the best in the game. The average velocity on his fastball was 92.8 MPH last year, which is outstanding velocity for a sinkerball pitcher. 17 major league pitchers sported a GB% of 60% or higher last year, and only Troncoso, Fausto Carmona, and Brandon League had an average fastball velocity of 92.0 MPH or higher.

Carmona’s actually an excellent comparison for Troncoso, skills wise. Both throw something that could be considered a turbo sinker, pounding the strike zone with high velocity sinkers that both cause groundballs and cause hitters to swing and miss. In 2006, when Carmona worked mostly in relief for Cleveland, he posted a 59.6% GB% and hitters made contact 76.8% of the time. Last year in Los Angeles, Troncoso posted a 60.8% GB% and hitters made contact 74.5% of the time.

Carmona was viewed as something of a disappointment in 2006, as his ERA was driven up by a .341 batting average on balls in play and a 13.8% HR/FB rate, both of which were mostly out of his control. His home-run adjusted FIP was 4.46, a full run lower than his 5.42 ERA, and suggested that his debut season had been quite a bit better than most people believed. Obviously, we remember his breakthrough 2007 season where he took his power sinker to the rotation and became one of the best young pitchers in baseball.

Troncoso seems to be going through a similar period of a lack or recognition for his ’08 campaign. His 4.26 ERA doesn’t draw amazement, especially for an NL relief pitcher, but that’s based on a .336 batting average on balls in play – his 3.00 FIP is tremendous, especially for a kid making his major league debut. It’s pretty amazing that there’s such a little amount of talk about a 25-year-old who just posted a 9.00 K/9 and a 3.44 GB/FB rate simultaneously in his major league debut and has the stuff to back it up. For comparison, hitters made contact against Tim Lincecum 74.1% of the time and Derek Lowe had a GB% of 60.3%. I’m not sure you can invent a better combination than Lincecum’s swing-and-miss rate and Lowe’s groundball rate, and that’s effectively what Troncoso posted in 2008.

The Dodgers have sent Troncoso to the Dominican Winter League to work on his curveball and get some action in, and he’s actually working as a starting pitcher for Aguilas and dominating in the role. In 16 innings, he’s allowed 14 hits, walked 1, struck out 11, and is posting a 3.24 GB/FB rate. While winter ball stats don’t mean much, the fact that he’s able to shut down professional hitters while working in five inning stints is worth taking note of. Perhaps, instead of replacing Saito in the bullpen, the Dodgers should look into having him replace Derek Lowe in the rotation?

No matter where he ends up, Troncoso has shown all the skills necessary to be a terrific major league pitcher. Just on the strength of his sinker, he’s going to be a nightmare for right-handed hitters, and his slider and curve have made enough progress that he’s a legitimate option as a potential relief ace or a starting pitcher. For whatever reason, the world hasn’t jumped on the Ramon Troncoso bandwagon yet, but I’d imagine that will change twelve months from now.

On Friday, the Arizona Diamondbacks decided not to tender an offer of arbitration to Chris Burke. After coming over from the Astros in the Jose Valverde trade, Burke was a massive disappointment, hitting .194/310/.273 in 165 at-bats, yielding an awful -11 wRAA while only playing about 1/4 of a season. In short, he was a total disaster, and the D’Backs decided that they didn’t want to give him a chance to get a raise in arbitration after such a poor season.

For some team looking for a middle infield/utility player option on the cheap, however, Burke should be near the top of the list. Even with his poor 2007 and miserable 2008, his career is .241/.318/.363, which translates to a .304 wOBA. That’s not good, certainly, as Burke has racked up -29.5 wRAA over his career, but that averages out to about -13 runs per 600 plate appearances. That’s not good – Burke almost certainly won’t be an asset offensively going forward.

However, Burke is a good defensive player. In his career, he’s logged 854 innings at second base and has posted a UZR/150 of +10. He’s also logged 1,111 innings in corner outfield spots and posted a UZR/150 of +14. While he’s been used as a utility player, he’s put up very good numbers in his two primary positions of 2B/LF. Combined with positive scouting reports, we can be pretty certain that Burke’s a defensive asset.

As a guy who can be an asset as a defender at multiple positions, he doesn’t have to hit much in order to be a useful utility player, and if his offense rebounds to anything close to his 2006 performance, he’d be a league average starter.

At 29, Burke is simply too young to give up on and assume that his struggles the last two years represent a true collapse of his skills. Jerry Hairston Jr provided a great template for a resurgent player of this skillset, bouncing back from a horrible 2007 to be quite valuable for the Reds in 2008. A smart team with a need for a solid backup middle infielder with upside will bring Burke into camp and find a way to get his glove in the line-up on a semi-regular basis.

I’ve said a lot of good things about Dave Dombrowski this week, who made moves I liked in picking up Gerald Laird and Adam Everett to fill holes without surrendering much talent expending a lot of payroll. Well, yesterday, he took all that good will and gave it right back, making a ridiculously bad trade with Tampa Bay, sending outfielder Matt Joyce to the Rays for RHP Edwin Jackson.

We’ll start with Jackson – odds are that Dombrowski sees him as a young, high upside hurler who just had a breakthrough season and established himself as an innings eater at worst with potential to become a mid-rotation starter. After all, he threw 180 innings, posted a 4.42 ERA, just turned 25 years old, throws hard, and was considered a top prospect not too long ago.

However, Jackson didn’t have any kind of breakout year – he’s the same pitcher he’s always been. His FIP in 2007 was 4.90. His FIP in 2008 was 4.88. He cut his BB% down by over a full walk per game, but his strikeout rate fell from 7.16 to 5.30, canceling out the effect of the better command. The huge drop in ERA was thanks to the significantly improved defense the Rays put behind him (.351 BABIP in ’07, .301 in ’08) and some good luck stranding runners. The Rays defense isn’t going with him to Detroit, and the luck probably won’t either.

Jackson’s not useless – Marcel thinks he’ll put up a 4.64 FIP over 160 innings next year, so that makes him about +5 runs worse than an average pitcher and +15 runs better than a replacement level version. As a #5 starter, he’s not a problem, but that’s all he is.

To get Jackson, the Tigers parted with Matt Joyce, one of the few promising young players they had left in the organization. I generally don’t go for one for one comparisons that often, but in this case, the Jayson Werth comp works so well that I feel obligated to put it out there. Joyce is, essentially, a left-handed Werth – a guy who can play very good defense in a corner OF spot, has gap power and will walk occasionally, but whose lower contact rate will always keep his average down. Depending on how well he adjusts to being a full time player, the Rays should expect something between .260/.320/.430 and .270/.340/.470.

That makes Joyce something like a +2 win outfielder right now, and if he hits the high side of that projection, it’s more like +2.5 to +3 wins. Joyce is a better player, right now, than Jackson. He’s also under team control for two extra years and isn’t arb. eligible after the 2009 season as Jackson will be.

For the Rays, this is a huge win – they solve their right field issue with a quality, low cost player that easily gives them the game’s best defensive outfield. A Crawford/Upton/Joyce trio is going to be staggeringly good at chasing down balls in the gap. To boot, they open up a spot in the rotation for David Price, so they’re almost certainly going to be upgrading their rotation simultaneously.

The Rays get a lot better, while the Tigers shuffle pieces around and cost themselves some flexibility. Thumps up for Tampa, and a big thumbs down for Detroit.

According to the always reliable New York Post, CC Sabathia has signed with the Yankees. The rumored offer of 6/140 apparently turned into 7/160.

We looked at CC’s value a month ago and determined that he was a +5.5 win pitcher for 2009. That means the Yankees are paying $4.15 million per win for Sabathia – significantly less than our projected $5 million per win, which was based on an assumption of salary inflation. It’s less than what teams were paying per win last year, when a win was going for about $4.4 million on the open market. His contract is basically the same as Johan Santana’s, but Johan wasn’t a free agent.

This deal makes the Yankees a better team, yada yada yada. You’ll hear all kinds of people talk about how this deal impacts New York. For me, the more interesting development stemming from this contract is that it cements the fact that we’re going to have an off-season of salary deflation, in terms of cost per win, for the first time in a long time. If ever there was a case where we could have expected an overpay in terms of dollars per win, it’d be with the premier free agent pitcher on the market and the Yankees in the bidding.

So, now, this offseason, we’ve seen the following signings:

Francisco Rodriguez: +2 wins, $12 million per year – $6 million per win
Edgar Renteria +2 wins, $9 million per year – $4.5 million per win
Ryan Dempster: +3 wins, $13 million per year – $4.3 million per win
CC Sabathia: +5.5 wins, $23 million per year – $4.2 million per win
Jeremy Affeldt: +1 win, $4 million per year – $4 million per win
Casey Blake: +1.7 wins, $6 million per year – $3.5 million per win
Bob Howry: +1 win, $3 million per year – $3 million per win
Mike Hampton: +1 win, $2 million per year – $2 million per win
Adam Everett: +1 win, $1 million per year – $1 million per win

Last year’s rate was $4.4 million per win. Renteria got something close to that, as did Sabathia. K-Rod got a bit more. Everyone else has signed for less.

The assumption of inflation has to be thrown out the window. This is a stagnant market at best – teams just aren’t paying $5 million per win this year. Assuming the economy rebounds somewhat in the next 12 months, I have a feeling that 2008 will be viewed much like 2003, when Vladimir Guerrero got $75 million for five years and everyone instantly asked themselves how the Angels got such a steal.

2008 looks to be the year of the buyer.

Last week, we talked about how the market for relief pitchers appeared to be crashing. Today, Francisco Rodriguez and Kerry Wood became the latest to feel the contraction in bullpen spending. K-Rod is signing a contract with the Mets that will guarantee him $37 million over three years, while Wood is close to signing a two year deal with the Indians, who aren’t exactly known for spending significant portions of cash on free agents.

Rodriguez gets less money guaranteed than Francisco Cordero got last year, and I don’t think too many people believe that Cordero is the superior reliever of the two. Perhaps more teams were scared off by the decrease in velocity than K-Rod’s agent expected, but even still, this is half of his rumored 5 years/$75 million asking price heading into the winter. At this point, I don’t think there can be any question that MLB teams are valuing relievers significantly differently than they have in the past.

However, that doesn’t affect Rodriguez’s actual value, so let’s take a look at what the Mets should expect from him in 2009 to 2011.

Marcel projects Rodriguez to throw 66 IP with a 3.40 FIP, but it doesn’t know that he’s switching leagues, so we need to knock that down a bit. We’ll call it 3.25 (the adjustment for a closer is less because they never face pitchers), which of course is very good for a reliever. If we set replacement level for an NL reliever at 4.75, then Rodriguez would be 1.5 runs per nine innings above replacement, which translates into +11 runs per 66 innings.

However, we have to add in a leverage factor for late inning relievers, because the runs they allow are more valuable in terms of wins and losses than a normal reliever. 1.8 is the average leverage factor or a closer, so 11 * 1.8 = 19.8. We’d say that Rodriguez, as a closer, is worth about +2 wins more than a replacement reliever.

At an annual average salary of $12 million, that means New York is paying about $6 million per win. For most teams, that just not feasible, but as we saw, the Mets payroll allows them to have an average of nearly $3.4 million per win across the whole payroll. Considering that they have significantly underpriced players such as Jose Reyes, David Wright, and Carlos Beltran (his contract is a bargain compared to how good he really is), the Mets have the luxury of being able to overpay and still come in under budget while contending.

On it’s own, the contract isn’t great, and he’ll be hard to trade if they ever decide they don’t want him anymore. But in the specific circumstances that the Mets are in, needing a closer and having significant financial resources that most teams don’t, this deal makes sense for them. Not many teams are in the position to pay $6 million per win – the Mets are.

In the comments of the posts on the Tigers acquisitions of Gerald Laird and Adam Everett yesterday, one common theme emerged among those who didn’t like the deals from Detroit’s perspective – that adding average or below average players wasn’t helpful, because good teams are built with good players, and the Tigers were filling holes with mediocre players. The feeling was that even though they didn’t cost much, Laird and Everett weren’t going to help Detroit win, so the moves were poor.

So, this post is for those folks – in it, we’ll talk about the value of role players. To do so, let’s take a look at last year’s World Series champs, the Philadelphia Phillies.

Everyone knows about Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Pat Burrell, Cole Hamels, and Brad Lidge. Those five guys get 95% of the attention when the media discusses the 2008 Phillies, and they could easily be considered the stars of the team. Utley’s one of the three best players in the game, Hamels is a terrific young starter, Lidge is a lights our reliever, and Howard and Burrell provided muscle in the middle of the order. Between them, the Phillies got about 17 wins above replacement level last year. That’s a strong core.

However, the Phillies won 92 games – about 42 more than a team full of replacement level guys would win. That means they got about 25 wins above replacement from the guys on the roster not named Utley, Howard, Burrell, Hamels, and Lidge. Let’s look at how those guys were acquired.

Jayson Werth: .382 wOBA, +16 UZR – signed for $850,000 in 2007.

After the 2006 season, the Dodgers non-tendered Werth after he’d missed the entire 2006 season with injuries and hadn’t been very productive in 2005. The Phillies saw an opportunity to add an athletic OF with some solid hitting skills, and picked up Werth for practically nothing. They paid him a grand total of $2.5 million over the last two years, and he’s been a fantastic player for them – significantly better than the more hyped Burrell.

Shane Victorino: .355 wOBA, +3 UZR – paid $50,000 to take him in the 2004 rule 5 draft.

They took a $50,000 flyer on a guy who could cover some range and had flashed gap power at times, and for the next four years, Victorino has paid huge dividends as an above average outfielder. Think of it this way – Victorino is about as valuable as Torii Hunter, but the $17 million or so they saved by going with the low cost Hawaiian allowed them to have the financial flexibility to retain the big names and acquire Lidge.

Pedro Feliz: .306 wOBA, +7 UZR – paid $8.5 million to sign for 2008 and 2009

Feliz, like Everett, is a bad hitter and a great fielder. He’s less extreme at both ends, as his offense isn’t completely useless and his defense at third is excellent but not best-in-the-league, but it’s the same idea. The Phillies paid a marginal amount of money to fill their hole at third base by getting a defense first player and figured they’d live with the bad at-bats, and it paid off. Feliz was -8 runs with the bat and +7 runs with the glove, making him pretty close to a league average player. He only took $3 million of the Phillies payroll in 2008, however, and the upgrade they got from their hole at third base in 2007 was a big key in their success.

Greg Dobbs: .354 wOBA, -2 UZR – claimed off waivers in 2007

Dobbs is the anti-Feliz – a bad fielder who hits enough to still be useful, especially as a part time player. He gave the Phillies one of the best pinch hitters in baseball, and an offensive option at third base when they didn’t feel defense would be as necessary. They paid him the league minimum the last two years and got production equal to that of a lot of starters around the league.

Jamie Moyer: 4.32 FIP, 196 IP – acquired for two non-prospects in 2006

When the Phillies picked up Moyer at the deadline in ’06, he was considered a fringe 5th starter. His trademark command was diminishing and his stuff was high school level, and the assumption was that he could only get by on smarts for a few more months. Instead, Moyer has pitched as well as a league average starting pitcher in the NL for the last 2 1/2 years and earned a grand total of about $10 million during that time. Meanwhile, comparable innings eaters like Carlos Silva are getting $52 million in long term deals, while Moyer makes a fraction of that.

Between Werth, Victorino, Feliz, Dobbs, and Moyer, the Phillies picked up something like 9 or 10 wins compared to replacement level players, and they did so without surrendering one iota of talent to acquire any of them, and their combined payroll cost for 2008 was about $10 million. The huge impact the Phillies got from their role players is why they were able to have a parade in November, yet all of these signings would have been derided as non-impact moves, filling holes with guys who were average or worse.

Good teams need a collection of mediocre to average players. You can’t get 25 stars, and if you just focus on the top of the roster, you’re going to end up like the 2008 Seattle Mariners – a few quality players surrounded by crap, wallowing in last place, wondering why your team isn’t as good as you thought. The bottom of the roster matters, and the Tigers clearly figured that out yesterday.

Tired of hearing the Pirates demand the moon for Jack Wilson, the Tigers turned to the free agent market and signed Adam Everett to a one year, $1 million contract for 2009.

Everett is the epitome of an all-glove, no hit player. He’s one of the worst offensive players in baseball, posting a career wOBA of .289 and racking up -6.81 WPA/LI over 2,500 PA. It’s even worse if you just look at the last three years, where he’s posted wOBAs of .276, .268, and .264. Those are brutal numbers.

However, over the last five years, Everett has also been something like the very best defensive player in baseball. His UZR/150 since 2003: +14.4, +16.9, +13.8, +24.9, +24.4, +10. Considering that his peer group have already been selected as the best defenders in the game, the fact that Everett just blew them out of the water speaks to how great he was with the glove. Even while recovering from a fractured fibula and while playing through a shoulder problem, he was still one of the best defensive shortstops in the game last year.

So, the Tigers are clearly paying for his glove, and are willing to live with the bat. How valuable is the total package?

Marcel projects Everett for a .280 wOBA in 2009. Over 600 PA, that adds up to -29 runs compared to an average hitter. I told you he was a bad hitter. His glove projects as something like +15 runs for 2009, and the position adjustment for a shortstop is currently accepted at +7.5 runs, so he gets 22.5 runs back for his defensive value. That makes him a -6.5 run player over a full season, or about 13.5 runs above a replacement level shortstop.

Maybe you think Marcel’s a little too optimistic about his offense. Maybe you think a +15 projection for his defense is too high, considering he did break his leg last year. Maybe you don’t think he can play a full season, considering he’s only played 150 games in a season twice in his career. These are all valid concerns, and so I’d feel comfortable with a projection as low as +10 runs and no higher than +15 runs.

That makes Everett about a +1 to +1.5 win player. He got $1 million, which is what teams pay for bad utility players who belong in Triple-A. This is a pretty massive steal for the Tigers, and along with the Gerald Laird trade earlier today, they’ve added something like three wins to their roster in 12 hours and spent a grand total of about $4 million to do so.

Heck of a day for Dave Dombrowski.