The market this winter just keeps getting more and more intriguing. Certainly, Adrian Beltre settling for a one year deal and Matt Holliday receiving a staggering seven year mega-deal created more than enough stir these past few days. Flying under this frenzy is the fact that the San Francisco Giants offered Adam LaRoche a two year, 17 million dollar contract.

And he rejected it.

Troy Glaus has a much better history than LaRoche, despite his injury issues, and only received a one year deal worth 2.75 million. Hideki Matsui, a DH with a significantly better bat in the AL (+13 points of wRC+ last year, +11 for career), received a one year deal worth only 6.5 million. Remember, a -5 1B is roughly equal, defensively, to a DH. And does LaRoche really think that he can get a deal similar to that of Bobby Abreu’s 2/19 contract anywhere else?

There’s been no sign in this market that a player with skills comparable to those of LaRoche can get a contract guaranteeing that much money over multiple years. Our fan projections have LaRoche as a 2.1 win player, which is currently showing up as 9.3 million dollars in value. However, the market so far this year doesn’t seem to suggest that teams are paying $4.4M per win. This year, the market seems to be settling in the range of $3.5M to $4.0M per win. Given that the fan projections are far more optimistic than CHONE’s projection of 1.2 WAR for LaRoche, 2/17 seems to be the best that LaRoche would hope to see, and likely would have been an overpay.

That makes this offer especially inexcusable from the Giants perspective. After seeing his team compile a horrendous .305 wOBA and come in producing 118 runs below the league average, Brian Sabean is likely feeling the need to improve the offense. Still, the team has Travis Ishikawa and Josh Phelps, who project similarly to LaRoche according to CHONE. That, and they non-tendered Ryan Garko, who projects as a superior hitter to LaRoche and should come much cheaper.

I would suggest that this offer could be a result of the insidious workings of the Mystery Team, but Adam LaRoche isn’t a Scott Boras client. Brian Sabean is so desperate to add offense that he’s willing to pay $8.5M per year for a minimal upgrade, and Adam LaRoche and his agent are so vain that they declined it. With the first base market tiny – it’s basically down to the Giants, Mets, and Orioles after the Mariners’ addition of Casey Kotchman – there are still plenty of options available aside from LaRoche.

It appears that Sabean and the Giants have realized that their offer is a poor offer even before considering the lack of competition and current talent on their roster, and “may have pulled their offer,” according to Buster Olney. If this is true, don’t be surprised if Adam LaRoche is kicking himself come April.

There has been a lot of movement on the third base market already this offseason, with the latest being Boston’s addition of Adrian Beltre. Dave will have more on that later, but now I’d like to focus on the depleted state of the third base market. So far, we’ve seen the following moves.

Placido Polanco to Philadelphia from Detroit, 3/18
Chone Figgins to Seattle from Los Angeles (A), 4/36
Pedro Feliz to Houston from Philadelphia, 1/4.5
Garrett Atkins from Colorado to Baltimore, 1/4.5
Adrian Beltre from Seattle to Boston, 1/9 with pl. option for 5M
Mark DeRosa from St. Louis to San Francisco, 2/12

And some other possibilities who aren’t strictly third basemen:

Craig Counsell re-signed with Milwaukee 1/2.1
Troy Glaus from St. Louis to Atlanta 1/2

That’s quite a bit of movement, and we’re not even a week into the new year. With Beltre off the board, arguably all of the above-average options at third base are gone. I would argue that Joe Crede is also above average, but his injury issues and light bat make him an asset that isn’t terribly sought after. After Crede, Robb Quinlan is the youngest FA 3B at age 33, and he’s been under replacement level for three straight years. Melvin Mora is the only one who received a type B rating from Elias, and he’s 38, although he has averaged only slightly under 2.0 WAR per season since 2007.

We may see some team have to resort to minor league options or move players around going into 2010. Are the Marlins satisfied with Emilio Bonifacio and Wes Helms? Who will the Twins go to, if not Joe Crede? Does Nick Punto move to 3B? Do the Orioles consider Atkins and Ty Wigginton good enough? Are the Angels willing to hand the reins over to Brandon Wood as a full time starter? For the Cardinals, will it be David Freese? Somebody will have to get creative. Perhaps a team will move Miguel Tejada to the hot corner?

Here we are seeing multiple teams with clear playoff aspirations with major question marks remaining at third base. We will learn a great deal about their respective GMs by how they respond in this nearly completely depleted market.

The Seattle Mariners have become a bit of an item in the sabermetric community with their emphasis on outfield defense and subsequent turnaround. Division rival Anaheim didn’t exactly employ a multiple-CF outfield in 2009, and going into 2010, new addition Hideki Matsui expects playing time in the outfield. Torii Hunter’s current defensive exploits can be wildly exaggerated, and Bobby Abreu hasn’t been a productive defensive outfielder since 2003, according to UZR. Gary Matthews Jr. fell off the face of his earth immediately after receiving a big contract. Juan Rivera did have a very solid year last year, but it was his first positive UZR season since 2005.

Looking at the numbers for this quintet, it’s not pretty. Here we have, in order, fan projections, CHONE defensive projections, and a Marcel-type 3 year weighted average. Finally, there is the average of these three measurements.

Abreu -11.2, -3, -11.8, -8.7
Hunter -2.8, -4, -5.1, -4.0
Matsui -2.5, N/A, -3.6, -3.1
Rivera +3.6, -4, +2.4, +0.6
Matthews, Jr. (CF) N/A, -11, -10.5, -10.8

Matthews Jr. could possibly play the corner spots at an average or better level, but he doesn’t have the bat to play there. Abreu is nearing DH-level defense, and Matsui appears to already be there, as these measurements (outside of fan projections) don’t account for the fact that Matsui DHed all of last year. As such, we have a below average CF in Hunter, a roughly average COF in Rivera – not accounting for aging – and a statue in the other corner in either Abreu or Matsui.

As the Angels attempt to replace John Lackey in their starting rotation, they will have to do so with a poor and rapidly aging outfield. For the most part, this outfield can hit. There is a very high potential for regression with Rivera, but Abreu, Hunter, and Matsui are all legitimate sluggers. Still, the Angels starting rotation’s loss of Lackey will only be exacerbated by regression and decline in the outfield.

Today, we enter a new decade, which will be only the second decade in the FanGraphs Value Wins era. Let’s start off the new decade by adding some more projections for the career leaders in Value Wins: Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, and Roy Halladay.

Albert Pujols has tallied 63.5 value wins in 5406 plate appearances since 2002, and is the leader in batter value wins and overall value wins. In 2003, he compiled 9.0 WAR, his best season of the era.

Alex Rodriguez has tallied 59.6 value wins in 5364 plate appearances since 2002. In 2002, he compiled 9.8 WAR, his best season of the era.

Roy Halladay has tallied 49.6 value wins in 1710.1 IP since 2002, and is the leader in pitcher value wins. In 2003, he compiled 8.0 WAR, his best season of the era.

After a disappointing season with Atlanta, 27 year old 2B Kelly Johnson was non-tendered and hit the market. In a deal made official on Wednesday, Arizona added Johnson for one year and $2.35M, who will become the Diamondbacks starting 2B in 2010, replacing Felipe Lopez, who was traded to Milwaukee before the 2009 trading deadline.

Johnson’s career was off to a great start with Atlanta. In his first three seasons in the majors, Johnson posted wRC+ numbers of 99, 121, and 116, and even despite poor defense at 2B, Johnson compiled 7 WAR in those first 3 seasons.

Johnson fell off a cliff in 2009, however. His defensive numbers rose to average for the first time in his career, but his wRC+ fell to a putrid 86, leading to his first season below 1.0 WAR. With a .224/.303/.389 triple slash line, GM Frank Wren had enough, and the team did not tender a contract to Johnson. Said contract would likely have garnered in the 3-4 million dollar range, given Johnson’s 2009 salary of 2.85M, his second year arbitration status, and his poor 2010 season.

That said, Johnson is a perfect breakout candidate. We saw nothing in his plate discipline or isolated power numbers to suggest that 2009 was anything more than a product of poor luck on balls in play. After 2007 and 2008 years with BABIPs above .330, regression (and more) hit Johnson in the worst way. His BABIP nosedived all the way to .249, leading to the 50 point AVG and OBP drop and 80 point SLG drop that resulted in the worst season of his career.

With this in mind, it is much more likely to see a year with production akin to 2008 – .346 wOBA, 112 wRC+ – than 2009. Especially if Johnson’s UZR numbers are truly an indication of increased defensive skills, Johnson could approach the 3 WAR level, if not surpass it – a number that compares very favorably with Mark DeRosa, who signed with the Giants for leaving the D’Backs with a great asset for not only 2010 but also 2011, Johnson’s third year of arbitration.

What we see here with this move is Arizona taking advantage of the largest pool of talented arbitration eligible players in recent memory that has resulted from the downturn in the economy. Not only do the Diamondbacks pick up a talented player with a high chance of rebound for 2010, they also pick him up at a below-market rate in 2011. We also saw this with the Nationals signing of Matt Capps. One of the major stories from this offseason could be the development of this market. We do know one thing: the Diamondbacks played it perfectly with their addition of Johnson.

One of the most interesting aspects of roster construction in today’s major league baseball is the bullpen , and how it revolves around the closer. The closer position has reached mythical status in today’s MLB, exemplified by Mariano Rivera. Since 1996, the game for the Yankees has been to find a way to lead after eight innings, and then to turn the ball over to the undisputed best one-inning pitcher in the history of the game.

Rivera may rank behind Trevor Hoffman in terms of career saves, but Mo’s 14 year span of dominance is unprecedented. And yet, he only ranks 76th on Sean Smith’s list of pitchers by WAR. Hoffman is all the way down at number 209. For me, the idea that a role with such a seemingly low value can be placed in such a high regard evokes some sort of curiosity.

Today, we look at how the position of the closer has evolved since the inception of the save, the statistic which will be forever linked with the closer. The save was introduced in 1969, but the idea of the one-inning closer which we are so familiar with did not immediately catch on. Goose Gossage, for instance, is specifically noted as having the ability to earn a multiple-inning save with regularity. In today’s game, on the other hand, it is an event when a closer is called upon to make a two-inning save. Let’s take a look at the average innings per game finished for those pitchers with 30 saves or more since 1969. Games is used instead of saves to account for blown saves as well as games entered that weren’t save situations.

Two things jump out right away. First, the sheer numbers of 30 save guys ballooned in the 90s and the new millennium. Second, as we already knew, for the most part, “closers” pitched many more innings in the early parts of what we can call the “Save Era.” The correlation between IP per game is high, with R^2 = .56. We especially see this decline around 1986, when the average IP/G for these players drops from 1.51 to 1.32. Tom Henke’s 34 save season in 1992, in which he pitched 57 games and 55 2/3 innings, was the first 30+ save season with less than 1 IP/G.

Things have been relatively constant since the strike of 1994. From 1995-2008, the average IP/G for 30 save closers ranged from 1.03-1.07, with only two pitchers (Danny Graves in 2002 and Ryan Dempster in 2005) going over 1.25. The role of the closer has now been quite well-defined, and the Goose Gossage style of pitcher is dead.

Here, we can see the undeniable effect that the save has had on the game of baseball. The way teams build rosters is different. The way managers attack game strategy is altered. The market for relief pitchers has changed. Between these and other changes, we’ve seen one simple statistic dramatically effect the way the game is played.

The inevitable finally happened today, as the New York Mets added LF Jason Bay on a four-year deal with a vesting option for a fifth. Bay will, of course, be the next starting left fielder for the Mets and will likely push Fernando Martinez to either the bench or the minor leagues.

This deal definitely improves the Mets’ offense for 2010. Bay’s roughly +30 run bat replaces Martinez’s, which only projects at -5 to -10 runs against average. Bay’s bat combined with Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and David Wright gives the Mets a scary top of the order for opposing pitchers.

That’s about where Bay’s effectiveness ends. Bay’s defense is questionable at best. Even with the park effects with the Green Monster on Boston LFs, it’s hard to imagine Bay as an above average defensive left fielder. UZR has Bay at -54.7 runs over four years, including 1.5 poor years in Pittsburgh. TotalZone thought Bay was decent last year, at +4, but still rates him at -40 runs overall in the last four years. The Fan’s Scouting Report has Bay as a below average LF.

His non-SB baserunning numbers do look decent, as he is roughly a +1 to +2 runner by Baseball Prospectus’s EQBRR statistic. Still, that’s pretty insignificant, and it’s safe to say that his value comes from his batting.

Of course, the real interesting point of the contract is the dollar value. The Mets will pay Bay 66 million dollars over the four guaranteed years of the contract, and the vesting option reportedly pays an amount similar to that 16.5M AAV. Given the current market, $3.5M per WAR, the Mets are expecting 4.5 wins per season out of Bay. Is Jason Bay the type of tier-2 superstar that deserves this contract?

As a 31-year-old with what we tend to call “old people skills” – high power, poor defensive range and average-at-best speed – Bay can be expected to decline at a faster rate than the average player. He has averaged 2.1 wins per season since 2007, although giving higher weight to his better 2008-2009 seasons vs. his replacement-level 2007 gives a weighted average closer to 2.8-3.0 wins, close to the 3.1 wins that the fans have projected him to at the time of this writing. Yes, it’s possible his defense is better than UZR/TZ/FSR think, but it would take a 15-20 run swing in his defensive value to produce market value with this contract. This is without even considering the effect that playing in Citi Field could have on his offensive value.

The Mets can afford to overpay given their place on both the revenue curve and the win curve. However, this contract could really hamstring their situation in 2012/2013 as Bay declines, and it could also severely hamper the development of Fernando Martinez. This move appears to be one of the more significant overpays of the offseason, and it by no means vaults the Mets into the playoffs. Much needs to go the Mets’ way for this contract to work out as planned, and it appears that this is just yet another example of Omar Minaya overpaying for a veteran presence.

Two closers came off the market last week, as the Angels added Fernando Rodney and the Nationals picked up Matt Capps. The Angels won’t look to use Rodney as a closer, but he will provide insurance to Brian Fuentes in the back end of their bullpen. Capps is the most likely candidate for the Nationals’ closer role, vacated by Mike MacDougal.

Looking at career performance, it is clear that Capps is the more talented pitcher of these two. Rodney’s career ERA of 4.32 and career FIP of 4.15 are both worse than the league average for relief pitchers. Capps struggled last year, but even in spite of a 5.80 ERA in only his 4th full season, he still has a 3.61 career ERA and a 3.84 career FIP, both better than average.

Add in the roles that both these pitchers will be filling for their respective teams come this summer, and it seems to be a no-brainer that Capps would receive both the longer and more lucrative contract. Logic, however, can escape when it comes to the hot stove of the Major League Baseball offseason, and this is no exception. Rodney’s contract will give a roughly 0.5 WAR player 11 million dollars over 2 years. Meanwhile, the Nationals will only pay Capps a 3.5 million dollar base salary next year.

The problem for Capps appears to be one of exposure. Hardly anybody noticed either his 2007 or 2008 season with Pittsburgh, in which he posted sub-3.30 FIPs and even better ERAs. He never did compile saves like Rodney’s 37 last year, but in his three years with closing experience he has picked up 67 saves. It seems like the combination of no big save years, playing in Pittsburgh, and the lack of closer “stuff” – a low-mid 90s fastball as opposed to the high 90s of players like Rodney – led to Capps slipping to the Nationals.

Of course, Capps is still an injury risk and he is coming off a very poor season, which he could possibly repeat, and he still appears to have been paid on the inflated closer pay scale. However, his contract is much more reasonable. The Angels are paying for roughly 2.5 wins and will likely get only one win out of Rodney, a known commodity based on his 330 innings of poor performance. Capps is a promising player who is a rebound candidate and has shown the ability to get batters out in the 9th inning for multiple years prior, and is also arbitration-eligible for 2011. The Angels messed up, and the Nationals added a solid piece to their bullpen.

Holiday greetings to you and yours! If you wish to spend a little time helping us out with projections, take a look at these three pitchers who just inked new deals: Kelvim Escobar, Fernando Rodney, and Justin Duchscherer

Kelvim Escobar is an injury-prone but very talented case. The Mets, who added him on a major league contract, hope he can bolster their bullpen after the departure of J.J. Putz.

Fernando Rodney will take a similar spot in the Angels bullpen, behind Brian Fuentes. Fuentes struggled at times last year, and the Angels hope Rodney can provide insurance.

Justin Duchscherer struggled with injuries the last 2 years, but before he was lost he put up great numbers in his first stint as a starter. It appears that he will return to Oakland’s starting rotation.

In many cases, the battle to convince those that rely on traditional metrics for player evaluation is a losing one. Consider, for example, this tweet from Mike Silva.

Trying to figure out why I should take stats with a lower case letter in front seriously

Of course, fans, writers, players, GMs, and all others are certainly welcome to watch, enjoy, and interpret the game in their own way. However, the argument that certain advanced statistics are too convoluted or complicated, whereas traditional stats are best for their simplicity, is simply not an argument grounded in logic.

Consider ERA. The formula behind earned run average is, indeed, quite simple – ERA = 9*ER/IP. Perhaps most appealing, the answer to the question “What is ERA?” has a one sentence answer: the amount of earned runs a pitcher gives up in nine innings.

Still, we are introducing what is a slightly abstract concept here. An earned run is any run for which the pitcher is held accountable. Anybody who has scored a baseball game using a pencil and paper system has likely grappled with the question of whether or not a run is earned. Courtesy of Wikipedia, here’s a handy list of which runs are unearned:

-A batter reaches base on an error (including catcher’s interference), and later scores a run in that inning by any means.
-A baserunner remains on base as the result of an error on a fielder’s choice play that would put the baserunner out except for an error, and subsequently scores.
-A batter reaches first base on a passed ball (but not a wild pitch) and subsequently scores by any means.
-A baserunner scores after the third out would have been made except for an error other than catcher’s interference.
-A batter reaches base on a fielder’s choice which removes a baserunner who has reached base safely on an error or has remained on base as the result of an error, reaching first base on a passed ball on a called or swinging third strike, or remained on base on an error on a fielders’ choice play that should have retired him, and subsequently scores.
-A batter or runner advances one or more bases on an error or passed ball and scores on a play that would otherwise not have provided the opportunity to score.

OK. Simple enough, right? Once we’ve accounted for these largely subjective criteria, including the error, another abstract concept, supposedly we arrive at a number telling us how many runs the pitcher was responsible for. If a ball goes off Franklin Gutierrez‘s glove as he shows great range but just misses, it is not the pitcher’s fault, but if a ball gets under Brad Hawpe‘s glove within any other RF’s range, it’s Ubaldo Jimenez’s responsibility.

Consider me unconvinced. Pure runs allowed does a better job of conveying a pitcher’s true talent, as it avoids this rather arbitrary system of responsibility which leads to unwarranted penalization or not enough penalization of the pitcher. However, for generations we have thought of ERA as the best measurement of a pitcher’s talent.

The real issue is that ERA does not answer the relevant questions about pitching performances. It doesn’t answer either “Who pitched the best?” or “Who will pitch the best?” That is, whose pitching performance was most valuable to his team? Whose performance, based on available data, is likely to be the best going forward? ERA’s weaknesses when it comes to providing these answers aren’t difficult to find, and it’s for these reasons that we use superior statistics such as FIP and tRA, both of which come much closer to achieving this goal.