It appears to only be a matter of time now before Ken Griffey Jr. is brought back to Seattle, where he grew up as a player and where he sparked the imaginations of many both in and outside of Seattle with where his career might one day end up. Needless to say that his career has not followed a path many expected and we arrive now, in 2009, with Griffey reduced to what should be a positional role.

Forecasting for Griffey comes with a bit of an asterisk since he apparently played with a knee injury throughout 2008 that hampered his power and range and which he is now recovered from. CHONE and Marcel are going to be ignorant of that information (probably for the best) and they both present similar forecasts for Griffey, a slightly below average .330-2 wOBA over 452-79 at bats. As a DH, we would knock another five runs off that hitting projection, subtract another 17.5 runs for the lack of position and we end up with a player right at replacement level. His OF defense is such that him playing the field probably comes out to the same level despite the 15-run boost in adjustments.

A smart team however is not going to employ Griffey in a full time role. Notably, an effort to platoon him away from facing left-handed pitchers would help to improve his overall line as he’s posted a near-200 OPS point split over the last three seasons. In the best case scenario, the Mariners could hope for a return to his 2007-level of offense, while primarily manning DH with only occasional forays out into the field. That level would make Griffey worth around 1 to 1.5 wins.

That tells us that this is going to be a pretty inconsequential move, value-wise, for the Mariners in 2009. Certainly, sentimentally-wise, this is a slam dunk for them and assuming Griffey doesn’t command much money (an appropriate amount would be around $2-3 million), the main concern going forward will be making sure that Griffey doesn’t take too many at bats away from younger developing players.

Adam Kennedy was released by the Cardinals today so that they can play someone else at second base instead while eating Kennedy’s $4M salary. Who that replacement will be seems pretty muddled at this point. Going by various depth charts, possible contenders include Brendan Ryan, Brian Barden, Joe Thurston, Tyler Greene (for symmetry purposes I guess) Jarrett Hoffpauir and Skip Schumaker.

Kennedy hasn’t been much with the bat lately, but he’s still slick with the glove, clocking in around five runs above average these days. His projected wOBA is about in the .300 to .305 range, makes him worth about 17 runs below average with the bat. Toss in the 2.5 runs for second base and the five for his glove and you end up with a player that looks like he’s worth around a win over replacement. That’s just about exactly what his $4 million salary demanded for fair value.

Either way, Adam Kennedy is now out of a job and doesn’t come with the Type A penalty that Orlando Hudson does. It will be interesting to see what kind of market develops for his services given that he’s already being paid for this season by the Cardinals assuming no trade is worked out and he gets fully released. At that point, Kennedy probably shops around for the best chance to receive playing time and/or win a championship depending on his personal priorities because it’s highly unlikely any team would offer him more than the $4 million he would need to benefit out of the process.

Going back to the opening paragraph, what I really do not get is the releasing of Kennedy when the Cardinals do not have a clear cut player who is better. What was the point of doing this now unless they know they can work out a trade within the next 10 days?

We can all rest easy from now on safe in the knowledge that we no longer have to hear about Ryan Howard’s arbitration demands again. Today the Philadelphia Phillies and Ryan Howard agreed to a three-year, $54 million contract.

The $18 million average annual value matches Howard’s arbitration request for this, his upcoming fourth year of club control. This contract buys out Howard’s remaining three arbitration years, and does not have any control over what was going to be his first free agency year, following the 2011 season.

Howard will hit free agency going into his age 32 season, still young enough to probably get another mega-value contract, though if anything like this winter’s trend continues, he may not be looking forward to the 6-8 year deal that he would have gotten as little as last winter in a similar circumstance.

Eric Seidman took a look at Howard’s projections when the arbitration demands were leaked and came to a conclusion that Howard would account for about 4.2 wins. I’m a little more pessimistic on Howard, thinking he’s more about on the 3.7-win level. At that level, Howard is still around the $18 million mark in value, though a tad under and given the falling amount that teams are paying per win, this could get worse as time goes on.

Furthermore, we usually expect players to take a 10% discount when they sign multi-year deals to account for the long-term security that they get and to mitigate some of the risk the teams assume when they sign players to market value for more than one year. Given that, I project a fair deal for Howard at about $15 million per year, making this an overpay on Philadelphia’s part if Howard were a free agent.

Given that he’s not, and that his value is tied to the arbitration process, this looks like even more of an overpay on the surface, the typical 40/60/80% suggesting that for these three seasons, Howard should earn about $27 million instead of the $54 he will get paid. The problem is that the arbitration process works in favor of Howard in this case because it overrates the aspects of the game that Howard excels at (power) and underrates that which he lacks (position, defense). So the Phillies had to balance against what they would expect Howard to win in arbitration rather than receive on the open market. All in all, this looks like it is close enough to a fair deal, though perhaps siding a tinge on Howard’s side.

Randy Wolf had a season not unlike that of Jim Edmonds, wherein he was awful for the Padres, was traded off mid season and then blossomed into a player San Diego were hoping they might have been getting in the first place.

Edmonds remains unsigned this winter, but finally Randy Wolf has put his name to the dotted line, with Los Angeles. Does this mark the beginning of a shift away from pursuing Manny Ramirez? That will be an interesting angle to watch in the forthcoming weeks.

Moving on to Wolf himself, the contract calls for $5 million in guaranteed money and up to another $3 million in incentives. The incentives kick in at $500,000 for reaching 170, 180, 185, 190, 195 and 200 innings pitched.

The various projections range from CHONE marking Wolf down for just 122 innings at a below average FIP to Marcel at 165 innings at a slightly above average FIP. Translated to wins, it comes out to between 1.4 and 2.4 wins. Neither of those projections have Wolf earning any incentives, which means he would end up with just the $5 million paid. Given the value of those seasons ($6.3 million by CHONE, $10.8 by Marcel), this is a good to great deal for the Dodgers.

There are really two possible downsides for LA here. One is that Wolf gets hurt entirely. In that case, they’re out $5 million without much production at all. That’s not too much of a problem as long as they have adequate backups planned. The other is if Wolf is healthy but not overly effective, getting to 190 or so innings of below average pitching. In that case, the Dodgers would probably break even on value unless Wolf is really mediocre, which would seem to go against the whole pitching lots of innings assumption. This comes across as a mild-risk/medium-reward deal for the Dodgers; well done.

Today brought the news that many of us were starting to suspect; Ben Sheets arm is far worse off than we anticipated. In fact, there appears to have been an agreement in place with the Texas Rangers on a two-year deal when the normally routine physical turned up how serious the injury was and now Ben Sheets is weighing surgery that may put him out all of the 2009 season.

Given the rumors floating around earlier of a scary medical report and the complete lack of reported interest all winter, I have my doubts that the other 29 teams didn’t have at least some suspicion that this was going to be the outcome for Sheets. Then again, the Brewers did offer Sheets arbitration this winter, so they must have not been aware of the full extent of the injury at the time and given their playoff run and long standing relationship with Sheets, you would have expected them to be the most on the ball of teams.

Regardless of the nature of when the information was disseminated, it is out there now and it certainly throws a wrench into contract proceedings for Sheets. Off the top of my head, it would seem that there are two options for Sheets. One being for him to sign some sort of two or three year contract with little guaranteed but plenty of incentives in order to entice a team to pay for the surgery and rehab and give them the possible reward of having his service at a reduced cost in exchange. The other would be to get the surgery and rehab on his own and then depending on the time frame of recovery, maybe he can snag a pro-rated deal near the end of the season (how great of a story would that be for teams in late August looking to gain an advantage?) or perhaps waiting until the 2009 off season.

Of course, perhaps Ben Sheets will not need surgery, but right now it looks like teams are going to be staying away from any big commitment until he shows some health. This is a big loss for Sheets and a loss for us as baseball fans, deprived yet again of one of the top pitching talents in baseball.

The Moneyball revolution in sports performance analysis, in which the value of on base percentage was hammered into the consciousness of the reader over and over, has perhaps led to an oversimplified vision of what a successful ballplayer’s stat line should look like. Walks are great; it’s been said that walks, like defense, never slumps, and there’s a kernel of truth in that. A good degree of plate patience and discipline helps buffer the hitter from the inevitable streaks in batting average. However, just because a hitter doesn’t walk much doesn’t mean he cannot be successful.

Furthermore, said hitter doesn’t even need to hit for prodigious power to overcome from the lack of walks either. And he doesn’t have to play a premium position either. Ichiro Suzuki who ended up spending the majority of his time in right field this season, and incidentally had close to his worst offensive season of his Major League career and his worst UZR marks in right field ever, still put up 3.3 wins for the Mariners, a total worth just shy of $15 million in value, 26th amongst all outfielders in baseball.

The point of this is not just to spend a little time extolling the excellence of Ichiro, but also to point out this valuable lesson. Anytime that you try to evaluate based on sticking things into pre-determined buckets or roles, you are doing yourself a disservice and providing an opening to your competition to exploit your inefficiency. Ichiro isn’t your prototypical right fielder but he makes it work. Tim Lincecum is under six feet tall and some teams passed on him in the draft because of that.

Baseball is a really simple game and its core; hitters try to avoid outs, pitchers and defenders try to generate them. Always make sure that you are tethered to only that paramount principle and you’ll avoid letting your judgment being clouded by ancillary concerns.

On the heels of the Mets vastly overpaying for Oliver Perez on the open market, the Orioles swooped in and grabbed Ty Wigginton on a pretty decent deal.

R.J. Anderson previously covered the decision by the Astros to non-tender Wigginton on the eve of his final arbitration season. At the time, R.J. concluded that Wigginton was worth about $7 million per year on the open market, which still holds up given his offensive projections. He did tally three wins last year after all.

Though Wigginton isn’t expected to repeat his 2008-level of offense, a mark about 1.5 up to perhaps 2.0 wins seems about right, for which he would have normally commanded around $7 to $8 million. This has been no normal winter though and while the open market for starting pitchers has remained robust, there’s been a glut of poor fielding decent hitters combined with a renewed appreciation or awareness of defense by General Managers throughout the league (except in Philadelphia).

All that lead to yet another solid by Baltimore GN Andy MacPhail. From a production standpoint, all Wigginton has to do in order to justify this price tag is produce about a win and a half over replacement over the two years of this contract. If he’s able to get a decent amount of playing time in what is now a slightly crowded corner infield/DH team, Ty should have no problem reaching and exceeding that mark. This also opens up the possibility of MacPhail moving someone like Luke Scott to a team in need of an outfielder.

It probably will not get much notice, especially on a team bound to finish fourth at best in what looks like the toughest division of at least the past decade, but make enough of these smart moves and they will eventually add up to something.

As with Jason Varitek, it seemed most likely that Oliver Perez was going to end up back with his “former” team this winter and today that officially came to fruition as Perez agreed to what is being reported as 3-year, $36-million contract.

Perez has had some wild swings in performance over the past three seasons and his projections reflect that, disagreeing with a rather large variance. Just as a recap, here is Oliver Perez’s last five seasons by WAR, starting with the most present: 1.3, 2.2, 0.0, -1.0, 4.5. What to make of that? Clearly the 4.5 now looks like a fluke. Sure, Perez has the stuff to repeat that season, but aside from that year (and even that year his strikeout rate was far higher than expected given his other results), he’s never had the control to post big win rates.

Of all the reasonable systems, Marcel loves Perez the most, but even its projected FIP of 4.52 for Perez is below average (though better than his 2008) and with a reduction in innings, Perez comes out to around 2.1 wins via Marcel. CHONE is the most pessimistic, seeing Perez as posting a FIP near 5 and amounting to 1.1 wins, far closer to his 2008 total of 1.3.

Given a three-year deal at $36 million, the Mets are paying Perez as if he’s a three-win pitcher, a figure Perez has only reached that breakout year in 2004. The Mets are essentially banking on Perez doubling his value while under contract from 2009-11 and that’s not a good bet. I don’t know what kind of deal Ben Sheets is angling after, or what the extent of his medical reports indicate, but given his projected FIPs, Ben Sheets only has to average 76 innings per year to match Oliver Perez in value.

“There will be a buyout with the team option, but Paul Maholm should also offer a discount for signing a secure deal, so three years at about $14 million would normally be my guess, with a team option for $9 million and a $1 million buyout.” – Me on Thursday

On Friday morning the financial details were finally leaked. Maholm actually signed a three-year contract worth a guaranteed $14.5 million and came with a $9.75 million club option for 2012, the buyout for that option is $750,000. I would say that was a pretty close guess, although I did undershoot it a bit.

Moving on, the Jason Varitek free agency escapade came to a close finally in the only way that it seemed possible (aside from retirement), re-signing with the Red Sox. After the year Varitek had in 2008, he was always going to face a depressed interest, but combined with the plummeting free agent economy and made worse by teams being thrifty not only with their money but with their draft picks as well, a perfect storm was created for Type A free agent Jason Varitek that led to just two realistic conclusions.

Because of that, the Red Sox got a pretty sweet deal out of Varitek. $5 million for 2009 and a mutual option for 2010 that should guarantee Varitek at least $3 million should he choose to exercise it after the team declines. Make no mistake, Varitek was bad last year, but even in that season, the sheer scarcity of catchers made him worth $5.6 million by our measure.

There’s a real chance that Varitek is done, and that he may even get worse from his 2008 line (his BB/K and LD ratios were well down), but most projection systems see a slight bounce back in offense this season and he’s right on the edge around two wins as a projection. That upside (term being used loosely, but not sarcastically, here) helps balance out the collapse potential and overall, it’s a good deal for Boston.

And the tide rolls on with Paul Maholm inking today what has been reported as a guaranteed three-year deal, buying up his arbitration years, with a fourth-year team option covering what would have been his first foray into the open market. We do not have a leak on the financial terms yet, but that will not stop me from estimating his fair value and then making a prediction on the figures.

Maholm has shown steady improvement the last three years, and tRA* is the most optimistic on him, projecting him to be worth a little under 3 wins next season, which would be his highest value to date (tRA loves the ground ball rate and the increased percentage of missed bats that Maholm generated in 2008). Marcel and CHONE are more pessimistic but not dramatically so, pegging Paul at 2.8 and 2.5 wins respectively.

The two sides had already exchanged figures for Maholm’s first arbitration hearing; the Pirates submitting $2.65 million and Maholm $3.8 million. That would give us a clue that the first year value is probably going to be about in the middle of those, around $3.2 million. That would lean toward an $8 million open market valuation and a three-year arbitration total of just under $15 million. There will be a buyout with the team option, but Maholm should also offer a discount for signing a secure deal, so three years at about $14 million would normally be my guess, with a team option for $9 million and a $1 million buyout. However, given the trend of contracts signed this winter by arbitration-eligible players, if I were pressed to estimate as best as I can, I would knock a million off of the guaranteed money.

For what Maholm is projected for, Maholm is worthy of about $20 million give or take a million to buy out his arbitration years and a touch over $30 million with the team option picked up. Even at his submitted figure of $3.8 million for his first year, that comes out to a open market value of $9.5 million, which would be more akin to his 2007-level of performance and not his once-more-improved 2008 level. It must be hard to build a solid case for a pitcher like Maholm in arbitration since he doesn’t strike out many batters (about league average) and by dint of pitching for the Pirates is hard-pressed to reach double digits in wins. But he keeps the ball on the ground and limits walks enough to make him a valuable pitcher. Whether the Pirates or Maholm know it or not, Pittsburgh benefits from this arrangement and based on what we know so far, they are certainly taking advantage.