On Monday, Dan Uggla agreed to a 7.8 million dollar contract for 2010, avoiding a second year of arbitration. This makes Uggla the highest paid player on the Marlins heading into 2010. Uggla has proven to be a valuable asset over the years – our dollar values have him as being worth at least 10 million dollars each year of his career, and both CHONE and the fans have projected him to be worth over 3 wins, which would put his free agent market value for this year at somewhere between 10.5 and 12 million dollars, based on the current state of the free agent market.

So it seems like the Marlins are getting a pretty solid discount on Uggla, even if it is slightly above the 60% discount for second year arb-eligible players that we usually see. Still, rumors are persistent that the Marlins will attempt to move Uggla before the season starts, despite the pressure from the MLB and the MLBPA to increase payroll.

The main reason for this is that Uggla is a poor fit for this Marlins team. At second base, Uggla is a poor defender. His career UZR/150 is -3, and he’s had two -9 or worse seasons in the past three years, suggesting that his true talent is actually closer to his CHONE-projected defensive value of -7. He’s still valuable, as a 3-win player, but the Marlins have better options in their system.

Right now, the Marlins have Chris Coghlan in LF, but he is a natural second baseman, who put up slightly above average TotalZone numbers in the minors at 2B (+3 overall from 2007-2009). Coghlan is projected to be a roughly average corner outfielder, and he would also likely be roughly average at 2B as well. Given that the position adjustment for 2B is about a win higher than that for LF, that adds about a win to Coghlan’s value, taking him from about 2.3 WAR/150G to 3.3 WAR/150G.

If we take Uggla out of the picture and move Coghlan to 2B, the Marlins likely move Brett Carroll into either LF or RF. Carroll is a very solid defender with a weak bat, and CHONE projects him at about roughly 1.0 WAR per 150 G. Alejandro De Aza is projected favorably by CHONE and could compete for a job in this scenario – he’s projected to be a roughly average hitter and a good defender in the corner, worth about 2.0 WAR per 150 G [EDIT: De Aza was claimed by the White Sox on waivers.]

If we split the difference here and say that that the Marlins could get 1.5 WAR out of LF and 3.3 WAR out of 2B without Uggla, and they get about 2.3 WAR out of LF and 3.1 WAR out of 2B with Uggla, then that’s a difference of only 0.6 wins. Uggla could possibly shift to first base, displacing Gaby Sanchez (projected for about 1.1 WAR/150G) and play average defense, which would be worth about 2.3 WAR due to the position adjustment. Again, though, this significantly lowers Uggla’s value to the Marlins to a point where his value is certainly higher to the rest of the league.

With the 8 million dollars cleared by Uggla, the Marlins could sign a SP like Joel Pineiro, Erik Bedard, or Ben Sheets, who would move into the rotation immediately and nearly his full value over replacement would be realized. It’s possible that they would still have money to spend on their weak corner IF spots then, and could possibly replace Jorge Cantu with Joe Crede or Sanchez with Russell Branyan, and that’s even before accounting for the possible value they could acquire by trading Uggla.

If the Marlins move Uggla, cries of penny-pinching will likely arise. However, we must wait and see what they would do after a trade before we can truly make this judgment. Dan Uggla has more value to other teams than he does to Florida, and as such the prudent move for Florida is to move this asset.

With arbitration filings coming up and settlements flying in, today would be a good day to examine the early returns on arbitration eligible players. Many teams appeared to believe that arbitrators would not be giving the same type of discounts versus free agent rates as they have in recent years, given the rules of arbitration combined with the struggling economy. Now, with some numbers in, we can evaluate that claim.

Following are tables showing the settled salaries for arb-eligible players as of Monday night. For reference, “eqFAyrs” are the equivalent free agent years purchased in this contract. Arbitration in the past has tended to award 40% of FA market value in year 1, 60% in year 2, and 80% in year 3. So for third-year eligible players, a one-year contract is buying .8 equivalent free agent years, or eqFAyrs. The column “actYrs” simply shows the actual amount of years the contract covers. The “chWAR” field is WAR as projected by CHONE. Finally, we have “eq$/war,” which is $/war with the discount factored in, and “act$/war,” which is just salary divided by projected WAR. Each * after a player’s name means they were signed to a multi-year deal, with as many extra years as *s present.

Here are the third-year arbitration eligible players.

No major surprises here. There are some overpays (Heilman, Santiago), and some good deals (Gaudin, Gerut, De La Rosa, Correia). Overall, this market is very much in line with the overall free agent market, which is hovering somewhere between $3.5M and $4.0M per marginal win, as shown by the 3.44 eq$/WAR total for this group. At 2.75 act$/WAR, this group is still a good discount.

The second-year arbitration eligible market is more interesting.

Even looking at act$/WAR here, this group is hardly even a discount, at 3.2M. This group is seeing the type of raise that we would have expected without the economic collapse – a raise from $4.4M/WAR in 2009 to $4.8M/WAR in 2010 would have followed normal trends. These players are overall slightly better than the third-year arb group, but not by a significant amount. It appears that these players are either getting raises or are having their salaries stay constant as a result of high arbitration rewards in the 2009 offseason, and the arbitration rules are making the process less of a discount for the teams.

Finally, we have the first-year arbitration players.

This group is more in line with the free agent market and the third-year arbitration eligible group. As this group does not have any high arbitration rewards to serve as a lower bound for next year’s salary, this seems to follow. These players are generally a fantastic deal, coming in overall at only $1.58M per marginal win, somewhere near 40% of their free agent market value, as expected.

So far, we’ve seen two groups act as expected and the second-year arbitration eligible players showing up as a bit of a market irregularity. It will be interesting to see if this is corrected when arbitration hearings and settlements are complete, and it will be interesting to see if the other groups remain as they are as we proceed through the offseason.

After adding Ryan Church on a contract for 1.5 million dollars plus incentives, the Pirates turned around this weekend and gave a very similar deal to veteran reliever Brendan Donnelly. The deal pays 1.5 million in base salary and can reach up to 3 million if all incentives are reached.

Brendan Donnelly is coming off one of his best seasons since his years with the Angels in the early part of the last decade. He still didn’t amass many innings, but he was excellent with the opportunities he received last season with the Marlins. His strikeout and walk rates were reminiscent of his first three years with Anaheim, in which he compiled 4.8 wins above replacement. He also did a fantastic job of keeping the ball in the yard, only allowing one home run in 25.1 IP.

There’s the problem, though – Donnelly only compiled 25.1 IP, and that was his highest IP total since 2006. He was almost certainly due for some regression, as his 3.7% HR/FB ratio is quite low compared to 6.8% overall. His xFIP of 3.76 was nearly a full run higher than his FIP. His 8.88 K/9 marked the first time his strikeout rate was above 8.00 since 2004. Simply put, Donnelly hasn’t been relevant since 2004.

Most importantly, though, Donnelly will turn 39 years old in July of 2010. Relievers at the age of 29 are very fungible, not to mention relievers nearing 40. At age 39, it’s hard to either project Donnelly to maintain his performance from last year or to complete an entire season without injury. It’s for that reason that Donnelly is projected for only 2 runs above replacement by CHONE. That projection values Donnelly at roughly .7-.8 million dollars on a one-year deal.

Even if the Pirates weren’t overpaying, adding Donnelly to their roster in any form just doesn’t make any sense. The Pirates have 11 relievers projected to produce between 0 and 3 runs above replacement. To commit any sort of money to Donnelly would be committing money to, at best, a marginal improvement and somebody who could just as easily be either below replacement level or injured for most of the year. Not only that, but given the Pirates low spot on the marginal win curve, one or two extra runs simply won’t make a difference in the team’s short term future.

Much like Ryan Church, the best way for Donnelly to provide value is for the Pirates to flip him for some prospects at the trading deadline. However, unlike Church, it’s very unlikely that Donnelly provides the Pirates with enough value before the trading deadline for any teams to have significant interest. The most likely scenario here is that the Pirates will be out 1.5 million dollars or more with almost no return on investment, and that’s 1.5 million dollars that can’t be used to sign the international prospects, draft picks, or freely available talent that will be needed to rebuild this franchise.

The Marlins locked up their most talented pitcher on Thursday, as they agreed to terms with 26-year-old SP Josh Johnson on a four-year, 39 million dollar contract. The deal will pay 3.75MM in ’10 and 7.75MM in ’11, Johnson’s last two years of arbitration, and buys out his first two years of free agency at $13.75MM per season.

Johnson is, simply put, a very talented pitcher. Despite only logging 481.1 career innings and 76 career starts, or about 2.5 seasons worth of starting, Johnson has already compiled 10.3 wins above replacement. He follows the general template of success for good pitchers – good strikeout numbers (7.95 K/9), and solid walk totals (3.27 BB/9), but most of all, he keeps the ball in the yard, as he only allows .67 home runs per 9 innings. Normally, a rate this low would signal luck, but Johnson is a heavy ground ball pitcher (48% ground balls to only 32.5% fly balls on his career), and so this is more a function of Johnson’s pitching than any sort of lucky circumstances.

Going by the standard 40%/60%/80% valuation of arbitration seasons, this contract is effectively paying for the equivalent of 3.4 free agent seasons of Johnson (.6+.8+2). With Johnson valued as a roughly 4.0 win player in his prime, the deal is paying for about 13.6 wins, and that’s a conservative estimate. That means that the deal is paying 2.9 million dollars per marginal win, well under either the $3.5M or $4.0M estimates that have been thrown around, and far under the $4.4M value of a marginal win from 2009.

The obvious comparison for this deal is Zack Greinke’s four-year, 38 million dollar contract that he received last offseason. Both players had similar paths to their deals. After putting up good numbers in ’05 and ’06, Greinke missed nearly all of ’07, but returned with a very strong season in 2008, which, much like Johnson’s 2009, was worth roughly 5 wins above replacement. Greinke’s contract bought out the same exact years of his career: year two of arbitration through year two of free agency. However, the marginal value of a win in the 2009 market was closer to 4.4 million, meaning that Johnson is actually being paid more in comparison to expected value than Greinke was back in 2009.

Obviously, the Greinke contract has been very favorable to the club so far, given Greinke’s historical 2009 season, in which he put up 9.4 WAR. It’s hard to imagine the Marlins getting that kind of return on their investment. It does look like the Marlins are getting a solid deal, however, and it can’t hurt that this news is coming out only days after the MLB released a statement regarding the Marlins’ thrifty ways with their revenue sharing income.

Overall, this deal seems like a win-win. Johnson gains financial security at a good rate for an arbitration player, and the Marlins retain a talented piece that will be a key to any possible playoff run in the next four years.

The Pirates added Ryan Church on a one-year contract on Tuesday that will pay the outfielder a 1.5 million dollar base salary which could reach up to 2.8 million if all plate appearance-based incentives are reached. Church should become the team’s 4th outfielder and could compete for an outfield starting spot, depending on the status of Garrett Jones and Brandon Moss. Church has shown potential, as he posted a 3-win season in 2007 as a member of the Nationals, with a 116 wRC+ and plus defense in the outfield. His loss of power and injuries made him only a one-win player last year, with time split between Atlanta and the New York Mets.

Church was one of the more interesting non-tender candidates of this offseason. He’s always been a decent on-base player, but his power has fallen off the map since a stellar 2006 season in which he posted a .250 ISO. Now, he’s coming off a .111 ISO season and injuries have been a major problem. Luckily, the Pirates don’t need Church to be even an average player for this deal to work – Church is a virtual lock to be worth 1.5 million dollars, and on a one-year deal, it would be hard for this move to make any sort of dent into the Pirates’ future.

Church is a perfect fit for a a rebuilding team like the Pirates. He’s not going to steal time from a prospect – Jose Tabata certainly isn’t ready for a major league role. Also, he does have some upside if his power returns – his HR/FB rate was 4.0% last year, unsustainable for a player with a career rate around 12%. Church won’t be a star – he is already 31 and improvement from him at this point in his career isn’t terribly likely – but at worst he’s a useful role player. He projects as roughly average as a hitter and as a corner outfielder, so worth roughly 1.2 wins per 150 games. It is also important to note that the Pirates also hold control over one more arbitration year, as Church only has roughly 4.1 years of MLB service time, according to Cot’s Contracts.

Finally, the addition of Church should make Rick Ankiel unnecessary. Ankiel’s name has been linked to the Pirates on multiple occasions, and Ankiel does not make sense for Pittsburgh. He’s not as good a hitter as he showed in 2008 nor as bad as he showed in 2009 – he’s probably somewhere near an average hitter, much like Church – but Ankiel is over five years of MLB service and thus will have no more arbitration years. Not only that, but Ankiel’s power reputation (47 HR in the last 3 years, including one year with 26) would likely garner him a larger payday than Church. All in all, Ankiel is a similar player to Church, but Ankiel is likely to be overvalued by this market while the Pirates got a steal on Church.

Ryan Church has been unlucky in recent years, to say the least. The aftereffects of concussions have nearly derailed his career. Personally, as somebody who has suffered from post-concussion syndrome, it makes me happy to see Church get another major league opportunity with Pittsburgh, and it’s likely that Neal Huntington and the Pirates will be happy with their investment as well.

Angry at being left out of Matt’s post on The Contest last week, Brian Sabean’s San Francisco Giants have agreed to a one-year contract worth three million dollars with Aubrey Huff. Much like the Scott Podsednik contract, it looks fine in a vacuum. Huff is projected for somewhere in the 0.5 to 1.0 WAR range, meaning that Huff’s market value is probably the 2-4 million dollar range. If Aubrey Huff were indeed taking the roster spot of a replacement level player, the deal would make sense.

Of course, this is not the case. Before this move, the best scenario for San Francisco was probably to play Pablo Sandoval at 1B, Mark DeRosa at 3B, and Fred Lewis in LF. Instead, Aubrey Huff probably becomes the starting 1B. We probably would have seen Juan Uribe at 3B and Mark DeRosa in LF, but the differences between these two scenarios are insignificant. This causes a domino effect: Pablo Sandoval moves from 1B back to 3B, and Juan Uribe will be pushed to an infield utility role. This also means that Mark DeRosa will certainly be the starting left fielder, pushing Fred Lewis to the bench.

Effectively, this means that Aubrey Huff is replacing either Juan Uribe or Fred Lewis. Regardless of how you look at it, the Giants are not improving in this scenario. Uribe’s bat is weak, but he has a good glove for third base, and he figures to be at least a 1.0 WAR player last year. Lewis projects similarly – again, a weak bat for the position but solid defense, probably worth a little more than one win. Both of these players project similarly or better than Huff.

Much like with his pursuit of Adam LaRoche, it appears that Brian Sabean is scrambling to add offense due to the fact that his team only scored 657 runs (4.06 RPG) last year. Despite the poor performance with the bats, the Giants still won 88 games and had 83 3rd order wins – they were a playoff contender. Dave Cameron already showed over at USSM how the idea of diminishing returns on defense is bunk. Travis Ishikawa, a good defender with a weak bat is a better first baseman than Huff, all things considered. The runs saved by Ishikawa outweigh any runs produced by Huff, despite the lack of balance between run production and run prevention for the Giants.

Not only that, but 1B was not the weakest position for the Giants. San Francisco’s rotation now only runs four deep. It’s a solid four, with Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Barry Zito worth a combined 133 runs above replacement according to CHONE. Then the next highest projected SP for the Giants is Kevin Pucetas at 7 RAR. This 5th starter role is the easiest position for the Giants to pick up an extra marginal win or two, as there are players like Joel Piniero, Jon Garland, and Vicente Padilla who could all offer somewhere from a one to two win upgrade over Pucetas et. al.

No matter how you spin this, this was the wrong move at the wrong time for San Francisco. With a very versatile group of position players, they could have easily filled 1B with either Pablo Sandoval or an internal option that was superior to Huff. It pushes superior players to the bench or possibly even off the 25 man roster completely, and it also commits money that cannot be used to upgrade their worst position, the fifth starter. The Huff acquisition is a complete misuse of resources for a Giants team looking to get over the playoff hump.

With his spot in Anaheim now filled by Hideki Matsui, it was time for Vladimir Guerrero to find a new home. His new home is one he’s quite familiar with, as he signed a one-year, five million dollar contract with the Texas Rangers. Guerrero figures to be the designated hitter for the Rangers, as Nelson Cruz, Josh Hamilton, and Julio Borbon should start the season as the outfielders.

Vlad should be a good fit for Texas, and he should be much better than Hank Blalock and Andruw Jones in that role. Despite a dip in production in his first season as a DH – to be expected – Vlad still put up a 110 wRC+, making him roughly a one-win player at that position. His power did drop last year, as his ISO fell from .218 to .164. We should expect some regression there, however, as much of that drop can be attributed to an 11.5% HR/FB ratio, by far the lowest recorded since 2002, when our batted ball data begins.

Guerrero can probably be expected to put up a 1.5 win season at DH, making his contract fair from a value standpoint. With the Rangers competing for the AL West crown, making a move at fair market value to pick up roughly an extra win makes a lot of sense for GM Jon Daniels.

One of the talking points surrounding this move has been how much Vlad loves to hit in Texas. It’s true – over 50 games and 221 PAs, Guerrero has a .394/.471/.705 line. That’s a 146 tOPS+, meaning that Vlad has performed 46% better than his average production at The Ballpark in Arlington. I don’t have to go into great detail about why 221 plate appearances aren’t enough to base a significant argument upon. We see this all the time here. In this case, however, making an assumption based on splits can be even more dangerous.

Not only are we limited to 50 games worth of data for this split, but it is also 50 games spread out over multiple seasons. Here’s how many plate appearances Vlad has seen in Arlington in his career, with his OPS in parenthesis.

Pre-2004: 0
2004: 46 (1.522)
2005: 38 (1.428)
2006: 40 (.929)
2007: 33 (.809)
2008: 36 (1.072)
2009: 28 (1.140)

That leaves us only 137 usable plate appearances as far as reliable data goes – what Guerrero did in 2004 and 2005 tells us next to nothing about the true talent of 2010 Vladimir Guerrero. With that, we’re already down to about 62% of our original amount of plate appearances, leading to an increasingly low amount of reliability with our split. Yes, Vlad has been above average in each of our four usable years (although not nearly as good as in 2004 and 2005).

How much do these road splits actually tell us? It’s possible that Guerrero is about a point or two of wOBA better in Arlington, true talent wise. Especially after considering park factors – Arlington allows far more extra base hits than most fields – it’s likely that it’s just statistical noise.

Vlad should be better in his second year as a DH and playing in Texas’s hitter friendly park should boost his numbers, but it’s important to remember that the Vlad that will be playing in Texas is not the slugger that raked in Montreal and won an MVP with Anaheim. This is 35-year-old Vlad with 40-year-old knees, and the data from the last few years in Anaheim far outweighs the fact that he’s killed the Rangers at home over the last six.

John Olerud is likely one of a multitude of players that doesn’t pass the “feel test” for the Hall of Fame. He only made two all-star games, never won an MVP, and never even won a silver slugger. He didn’t have blazing speed and he played the position of statues, first base.

He wasn’t a power hitter – only 255 HR and 1,230 RBIs, out of the top 100 career in both categories. He did hit .295 for his career, but in 7,592 ABs that doesn’t even crack 2,500 hits, much less 3,000. Especially for somebody who didn’t watch all of his games, like most of the writers who will determine his Hall fate, that resume doesn’t impress.

For those reasons, John Olerud will almost certainly never receive the call to Cooperstown. With a player like Fred McGriff only receiving 21.5% of the vote, it’s possible that Olerud may slip off the ballot after only one year. Personally, if I was given a vote, I would support John Olerud’s Hall of Fame candidacy.

Admittedly, he is a bit of a borderline candidate. He only played 17 seasons and he didn’t flash power at first base. He was still a tremendous batter. His .398 OBP ranks 65th all time, right around guys like Joe DiMaggio and Johnny Mize. He maintained this throughout his entire career – Olerud had six seasons at or above a .400 OBP and even in the twilight of his career he only posted one season below .350. He walked 504 more times than he struck out, including IBB and HBP.

Olerud did also have power potential, as he supplemented his 255 HRs with 500 doubles. Overall, his career wOBA was .376 in an era where the average wOBA ranged from .330 to .345. Adjusting for the fact that he played in Toronto (slight pitcher’s park) and Seattle (major pitcher’s park) most of his career, Olerud posted a 133 wRC+ for his career. Over 17 years and slightly fewer than 9000 plate appearances, he produced 33% more runs than the average batter. This includes his insane 1993 with the World Series champion Blue Jays, where he hit .363/.473/.599 for a 181 wRC+ and his 1998 with the New York Mets where he hit .354/.447/.521 for a 168 wRC+. In both seasons, Olerud was worth over 8.0 WAR.

Still, that kind of performance would be forgettable if Olerud were even an average defensive first baseman. The position adjustment that we use for wins above replacement is harsh on first basemen for a reason – even an elite defensive 1B usually doesn’t provide as much value as the average fielder. That’s why many people didn’t support Jim Rice’s Hall of Fame candidacy – his career 132 wRC+ is impressive, but combined with poor defense in left field, he becomes merely a very good player, and not a great one.

Olerud was a four-time gold glover, and TotalZone supports his reputation. Between range and turning double plays, Olerud was worth 97 runs above average with the glove. That doesn’t cancel out the position adjustment entirely, but Olerud’s slick fielding at first base still provided his teams with value. Olerud provided more through his defense than average or slightly above average corner outfielders and below average fielding 2Bs and 3Bs.

Olerud wasn’t a good baserunner, but this is the only part of the game where he didn’t excel. His running did cost him nearly 50 runs in value over his career, but over 17 years that adds up to only about .3 wins per season. It does hamper his case, but it certainly doesn’t kill it. By no means can it outweigh the fact that he was one of the great batters of our generation as well as a fantastic fielder at his position.

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Today, we take a look at three of the top free agents left on the market now that the Jason Bay and Matt Holliday sweepstakes are over. These three are Felipe Lopez, Ben Sheets, and Johnny Damon.

Lopez is arguably the best second baseman left on the market, and is definitely the best available second baseman in terms of 2009 numbers. Lopez posted 4.6 wins in split time between Arizona and Milwaukee in last year.

Sheets missed all of 2009 with an elbow injury. In 2008, he posted 4.4 wins and has only posted less than 3 wins once in his career.

Damon had a memorable postseason with the Yankees, but barring the unexpected, he will have to find a new home. He’s been relatively consistent, with all of his last 4 seasons falling within the 2.3-3.6 WAR range.

The terror was palpable among intelligent Minnesota baseball fans yesterday as reports surfaced that the roster spot opened by Bobby Keppel’s departure to Japan would be filled via a signing of Jarrod Washburn. That roster spot will instead be filled by 34-year-old reliever Clay Condrey. For the moment, Twins fans can breathe a sigh of relief.

The Detroit Tigers learned last August and September what many of us, including Jack Zduriencik, already knew: Jarrod Washburn is not an ace. Despite his 2.64 ERA through July, Washburn tanked with Detroit, posting a 1-3 record with a 7.33 ERA and 7.00 FIP.

Now, of course, neither his partial season with Detroit nor his brilliant start with Seattle are indicative of his true talent. Put the two together, and you get something much closer, as Washburn’s final line resulted in a 4.58 FIP and a 4.79 tERA, and that’s with his lowest walk rate since 2004.

Given that Washburn will turn 36 in 2010, it’s not likely that he improves upon those total numbers, especially with the lack of exceptional defenders in the Twins’ outfield. As an extreme fly ball pitcher, Washburn is likely to give up an above average number of home runs, and without defenders to make to turn deep fly balls into outs, he will also give up an above average number of extra base hits.

That said, Washburn isn’t nearly as terrible a pitcher as some would make him out to be. He probably tops out at a 4.50 FIP, and a standard projection will place him in the 4.60-4.90 FIP range, which nears 2 WAR value in 170 innings pitched. A fair one year contract for Washburn would probably come in at about 7-9 million dollars.

However, in the case of Minnesota, it just wouldn’t make sense to dedicate that amount of resources. Even without considering the fact that their defense wouldn’t leverage Washburn’s skills at all, the increase over Francisco Liriano, Carl Pavano, or Brian Duensing probably doesn’t eclipse one half of a win. As such, Minnesota would only be realizing about 2 million dollars worth of value on their 7+ million dollar investment.

Clay Condrey isn’t a terribly useful piece. CHONE projects him for all of one run above replacement. However, Condrey is probably going to receive the minimum if the deal is even guaranteed. As such, this move won’t dent the Twins’ financial ability to fill their need at either 2B or 3B, where the player acquired will actually be replacing a replacement level player.

Of course, there is still time, Bill Smith. I’m not stopping you.