The Washington Nationals are the winners of the Jason Marquis derby. His contract is for 2-years, $15 million. Marquis is coming off a career year in which he was worth 3.8 WAR. He started the season strong but struggled down the stretch, pitching himself off of Colorado’s playoff roster. His previous two seasons with the Cubs he was good for 3.5 WAR combined.

Marquis’ success is predicated on keeping the ball on the ground and in the park, two things he excelled at last year. His groundball rate of 56% was a career high and he allowed just .63 HR/9 in Colorado, of all places. The increase of groundballs is encouraging, but his 1.44 K/BB ratio means he’s dancing on the edge of a knife.

All in all, Jason Marquis is the walking definition of a league-average innings-muncher. I don’t mean that as a knock, that certainly has value. CHONE projects Marquis to be 1.8 wins above replacement in 2009. At $7.5 million per, the dollars aren’t too bad. To this point the market is paying about $3.8 million per win; Marquis is coming at around $4-4.3 per win for the Nats.  He’s certainly an upgrade over household names such as J.D. Martin or Craig Stammen.

But here’s the rub. What exactly is the point of spending $4 million for a win when you’re the Nationals? The team currently has maybe seventy-something win talent and they’re well on their way to becoming basement dwellers in the NL East yet again. Signing an innings-eater such as Marquis to a contract like this makes zero sense; all he does is makes the Nationals slightly less bad than they were a year ago.

If the Nationals wanted to fill a spot, why not just sign a Ken Phelps All-Star like Lenny DiNardo  (whom CHONE projects to be worth 1.7 WAR) and save the millions for Bryce Harper?

I’m also enjoying the irony that Stephen Strasburg is getting paid $15 million from the Nationals for four years, while Marquis is getting the same for two. Those wacky draft picks are just so overpaid, right Rob Dibble?

Anyone who has followed sports for any length of time has heard the terms “clubhouse cancer” and “team chemistry” before. I think statistically minded people might downplay team chemistry a little too much, while mainstream media wildly overrates it.

CHONE, as with other projection systems, doesn’t know what a clubhouse cancer is. It will take data from past performance, weigh and regress it, and tell you what it expects Player X is going to do next season. CHONE doesn’t know what this team chemistry is that you speak of. It will also in its own plain way call a general manager’s goof when he makes one.

I feel bad for Jim Hendry, because he found himself in a bad situation and I’m sure he’s just doing his job the best he knows how. He might be trying to make lemons into lemonade, but it sure looks like he just failed. Badly.

Talk to us CHONE.

Player         Runs per 150    Defense
Milton Bradley        16            -2
Marlon Byrd            2            -3

Pitcher      Runs above replacement
Tom Gorzelanny        23
Carlos Silva           9

Even estimating playing time and taking account of position, this is a fair-sized downgrade for Chicago. Marlon Byrd has had some quietly solid seasons while stashed away in Texas, but he’s 32 and projects to be league average in a very ordinary Cub outfield. Milton Bradley may have tanked it last year, but he’s a solid rebound candidate and it’s a shame the team and the player couldn’t set aside their differences.

Tom Gorzelanny is also another player who looks primed for a rebound season. His 5.55 ERA last season looks pretty bad, but he showed some positive signs. He struck out a batter per inning, had a 2.76 strikeout-to-walk ratio and posted an xFIP of 3.73. He’s also cheap and is only 28 years old. Not very long ago he was a three win pitcher for Pittsburgh, and CHONE expects him to be a 2.5 win pitcher next year. Unfortunately for Gorzelanny, the door of opportunity was slammed in his face by the Cubs for the sake of Carlos Silva. Seriously.

The Cubs brain-trust undoubtedly believes they just got better by addition by subtraction, but you don’t get rid of cancer by cutting it out with a butcher’s knife and then sticking a band-aid over it. While Jim Hendry found himself in an unfortunate situation, there had to be a better way fixing the problem than this. His maneuvering probably cost the Cubs a couple of wins, assuming the plan is starting Silva. That’s pretty costly in a division like the NL Central.

In case you slept in yesterday morning, the Rule 5 draft happened. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. One of the results of the new collective bargaining agreement is that teams got an extra year between a player’s first signing date and their eligibility for the Rule 5 draft. This makes for a pretty watered-down draft.

Since the change, teams have hit on two star players, but they are more of an aberration. Joakim Soria was a rare scouting find out of the Mexican League and has since become the “Mexicutioner”. Josh Hamilton’s career was a sad tale of tools, injuries and drugs before he received help. Randy Wells would be considered a noteworthy Rule 5 pick if the Blue Jays did not return him to the Cubs. The Jays drafted him before the ’08 season, but Toronto returned him. Wells went on to have a 3 WAR rookie season in ’09.

In last year’s Rule 5 draft, five out of the 21 players selected stuck all year on a big league roster – Everth Cabrera, Donnie Veal, Luis Perdomo, David Patton and Darren O’Day. Cabrera shows the most promise of the group, with gobs of speed (7.9 speed score) and a surprising amount of patience (10.9% walk rate) for a player that made the jump to the majors from A-ball. He will need to work on his defense or else be moved to over to second base, but overall appears to be a solid player.

Veal demonstrated no control whatsoever, but showed enough promise for the Pirates to stash him away all season, and he made progress in the Arizona Fall League. Patton was also atrocious. Luis Perdomo pitched almost strictly in mop-up duty for the Padres, with a league low pLI of .28. He struck out 8 batters per nine innings, but walked 5 per nine and had an alarmingly high HR rate (1.7/9) for a pitcher who calls Petco his home ballpark. Darren O’Day was selected from the Angels by the Mets, was later put on waivers before being claimed by the Rangers. O’Day became a key cog in the Ranger bullpen with a 3.03 FIP in 58.2 innings.

So out of this year’s crop, who has the best chance to stick? The three position players drafted are replacement level players at best, by my observation. That leaves us with 14 pitchers.

Bobby Cassevah has a mediocre 1.2 K/BB ratio in Double-A last year, but I think he will remain with the A’s because a.) they’re not going to contend this year and can afford to stash him away in the back of their bullpen and b.) he has a filthy 92-94 MPH sinker that generates a gobs of groundballs. 70% of his balls in play were of the worm-burner variety. I was somewhat surprised the Angels didn’t protect him on their 40-man roster.

Ben Snyder has some definite LOOGY potential. He struck out 30% of the lefties he faced last season for Double-A Connecticut and has a 32% strikeout rate against lefties over his career. He has a high-80’s fastball and an above average slider. He’s coming to Texas by way of San Francisco.

Kanekoa Texeira has a sinker/slider pitcher and has a decent opportunity with Seattle. He gets groundballs, (63% last year) and misses bats at a decent enough clip.

I’ll go with another lefty and pick Armando Zerpa last. He hasn’t pitched above A-ball, but he’s only 22 years old having signed out of the Venezuela in 2004. He throws from a low arm slot, gets grounders with a sinker/slider mix.

All in all a very bland crop. There could be some surprises, but it’s a long shot.

Gads. The Brewers went on a bit of a spending bender on pitchers today, signing Randy Wolf and now LaTroy Hawkins to a $7.5 million deal. The Brewers are penciling him in to set up their ancient-yet-effective closer Trevor Hoffman. It’s probably not a terrible idea to have a fallback option should age finally catch up Hoffman, although Hawkins is 37-years old himself.

Stuff-wise, Hawkins has evolved into a bit of a different animal since his glory days as a Minnesota Twin. He used rely on the strength of his fastball almost exclusively. Since becoming a vagabond reliever, he’s become more reliant on a couple of breaking pitches; a hard slider and a curveball. At 37 years young, Hawkins can still bring the heat, averaging 94 on his fastball last season.

I’m thinking Doug Melvin came away a little too impressed with some of his baseball card numbers last year: 11 saves, 19 holds and 2.13 ERA in 65 appearances. Hawkins’ 2.13 ERA can largely be credited to a 90% strand rate. Despite a solid arsenal of pitches, Hawkins has a middling strikeout rate for a reliever at 6.4 K/9. He also has experienced some on-again/off-again bouts with gopheritis; last season his HR/FB rate was 12%. Combine a 25% line-drive rate and Hawkins gave up his fair share of hard contact last season. One of his saving graces he does a solid job at giving up free passes.

Take away the veneer of a shiny ERA and you have a 3.97 FIP and a oogly 5.25 tRA. His xFIPs for the previous two seasons are 4.10 and 3.97. Hawkins is more of a “proven commodity” than some of the other available free agent relievers out there, but there are cheaper and probably more effective ways of cobbling together a bullpen than this.

I wonder what sort of money Kiko Calero will get. And is anyone else fascinated with Winston Abreu’s MLE besides me?

Wolf-related title pun avoided. The Brewers signed 33-year old Randy Wolf to a three-year deal worth $29.75 million.  In my trollings of the interwebs, more than once I’ve heard this signing compared to the brutal Jeff Suppan contract. While this deal isn’t all that inspiring, Randy Wolf is no Jeff Suppan.

This is Suppan’s three seasons before signing with Milwaukee:

188 innings, 4.77 FIP, 1.3 wins above replacement
194.1 innings, 4.53 FIP, 1.5 WAR
190 innings, 4.70 FIP, 1.6 WAR

And here is Randy Wolf’s past three seasons:

102.2 innings, 3.99 FIP, 1.7 WAR
190.1 innings, 3.97 FIP, 2 WAR
214.1 innings, 3.96 FIP, 3 WAR

18 starts that Randy Wolf made in 2007 were worth more than any full season Jeff Suppan ever had with the Cardinals. I guess the comparison comes from the fact that like Suppan, Wolf allows more contact than your average pitcher. Both pitchers’ ERAs are influenced by random variations of BABIP and HR/FB rates. Unlike Suppan – whose repertoire consists of junk and a prayer – Wolf has a couple of major league-caliber pitchers to frustrate hitters with. Wolf’s fastball doesn’t light up radar guns, coming in at an average velocity of 89 MPH, but it was good for 29 runs above average last season. His slow, 67 MPH curveball was spinning for a solid 9 runs above average.

While staying in the National League is good for Wolf, he will find that his new digs are less than friendly than what they were at Chavez Ravine. Dodger Stadium has a four-year HR/FB park factor of 95. Miller Park’s is 106. Wolf could get away with some of his fly-balling ways in L.A., but not so much with the Brew Crew.

Having thrown 400 innings over the past two seasons, the Brewers feel confident that Wolf is fully healthy. He is not your typical #2 starter, but he’ll slot between Yovani Gallardo and the dregs that is the rest of Milwaukee’s rotation. Wolf projects to be a little better than a 2-win pitcher next year, so the Brewers are paying the normal rate for the first year of the average value of the contract. Beyond that, they could be disappointed, but probably nowhere near on a Suppan-ian level.

After Frank Wren went on his used-to-be great closer binge, Rafael Soriano threw a big fat monkey wrench in the Braves’ plans by accepting salary arbitration. Ryan Church is now the scapegoat, as the Braves designated him assignment to make room for Soriano on the 40-man roster.

Ryan Church doesn’t really deserve this, as he’s not a bad ballplayer. Church is your Joe Average outfielder, and I don’t mean that as a knock. The average player, or a player that is good for around two wins is worth about $8-9 million on the free agent market. That’s Ryan Church, at least when he has been able to stay on the field. Church’s trouble is that he has either been blocked by other players or hurt, problems that are no real fault of his own. He suffered through concussions in 2008 and a bad back in 2009.

Assuming he’s healthy, you can bank on Church getting on base at a .340 clip, hit for some moderate power and play excellent defense in the corners. With an unusual paucity for corner outfielders in this free agent market outside of Matt Holliday and a couple of overrated and soon to be overpaid players such as Jason Bay and Johnny Damon, Church could be a decent patch job for a club, and is at worst a first-rate 4th outfielder, all at the price of virtually nothing.

The irony is that Church and Soriano are probably more valuable to the Braves than Wagner and Takashi Saito. It’s not the end of the world for Atlanta; Wren could easily redeem himself with a nice package of prospects for Soriano, but so far this has been one poorly managed start to an offseason for the Braves’ front office.

How do you think Ryan Church will do in 2010? Enter your projection for him here.

I am a sucker for headline puns. Brad Penny is a good fit for the St. Louis Cardinals. The St. Louis Cardinals are a good fit for Brad Penny.

Attention is placed primarily on what the Cardinals are going to do about Matt Holliday, but they also have Joel Pineiro’s production to replace. Pineiro went from being your run-of-the-mill 5th starter to a fearsome worm-burning machine this past season, pricing himself out of the Cardinals’ range. The Cardinals already have multi-year commitments to Kyle Lohse, Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright in place and were not looking to give out another long commitment to another pitcher.

Enter Brad Penny. Coming off a shoulder injury in 2008, Penny threw 173 innings last season. As expected, his fastball didn’t quite have it’s normal giddy-up in the early going, but his velocity steadily increased as the season went on.

Penny took his lumps while in Boston, allowing a 5.61 ERA over 24 starts, but his batting average of balls in play was .336, 30 points higher than his career average. In contrast to his bloated ERA, his FIP was 4.49 – not sterling, but respectable. Boston dumped him and Penny exchanged bad luck for good with the league change; he threw 42 innings of a 2.59 ERA for the Giants. His FIP with San Francisco was 4.35, more in line with what you’d expect. All told Penny was 25 runs better than a replacement pitcher. Penny’s seen better days, but in the right circumstances, the potential may be there for a rebound.

Enter the St. Louis Cardinals. Penny might not have been able to pick better circumstances. The National League is ideal for Penny, and Dave Duncan is the cure for what ails a broken-down pitcher. Penny has shown that he’s not exactly broken, but Duncan has worked his magic with less talent, like the aforementioned Pineiro. Duncan is not a magic swami that can fix any one with an arm, but many a pitcher has enjoyed career best performance under Duncan’s tutelage.

CHONE projects that Penny will be good for 2.3 wins above replacement over about 160 innings. The Cardinals will pay him $7M, appearance incentives could push the deal for $9M, so that’s about the right price. Penny could be next in line to get some “Duncan magic” and vault himself into a nice payday in 2011.

Of course, there is some risk in play here for the Cardinals. Neither Lohse or Carpenter are locks to throw more than 130 innings. Lohse suffered with forearm tightness last year, which could be a bad omen, and there’s alway a bit of fear factor when dealing with Carpenter. There’s some boom-or-bust factor with the Cardinals’ rotation.

How do you think Brad Penny will pitch in 2010? Enter your projection here!

Before the winter meetings, a couple of super-utility infielders were quickly scooped off the free agent market. Placido Polanco signed with Philadelphia for 3 years, $18 million salary. Chone Figgins signed with Seattle at 4/$36M. Mark DeRosa’s agents must be feeling pretty relaxed going forward, with the market ostensibly being set. They’ve let their demands be known that their client is looking for a deal between the Figgins/Polanco range at 3 years, $9M per. Is that fair?

Aside from the ability to play multiple positions, the similarities with DeRosa/Figgins/Polanco end. Polanco’s claim to fame is his slap-hitting and plus defense. Figgins is also plus defender, who draws walks and causes opponents trouble on the basepaths. Unlike his diminutive counterparts, DeRosa can hit the ball out of the yard without the aid of some strong wind.

DeRosa has been a late bloomer; he credits former Rangers’ hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo for his transformation into a decent hitter. Since becoming a full-time player in Texas, DeRosa has been good for a .346 wOBA. He is the quintessential “jack of all trades and the master of none” at different infield positions. Over his career, his UZR/150 is -8 at second base, -7 at third. In his time playing corner outfield, DeRosa has shined, posting an UZR/150 of +16. With the defensive spectrum, you’d normally expect a minus 7 third baseman to be a +3 in LF/RF. I suspect if he did play the outfield regularly, he’d land in the 1-5 range.

A couple of projection systems forecast DeRosa to hit the bricks in 2010. Bill James calls for a .328 wOBA. CHONE has him down for a .324. There are probably a couple of reasons for that – one is that DeRosa is going to be 35 this year. The other is DeRosa is coming of his least productive season since 2005. The blame falls on a torn tendon sheath, an injury he suffered shortly after being traded to St. Louis. Before the trade, DeRosa’s wOBA was his usual .346; afterwards, .306, dragging his overall average to .328. A torn tendon sheath is the same type of injury that caused the Brewers to DL Rickie Weeks for much of the season. Having underwent surgery, it might not be crazy to expect a .340ish wOBA again for next year, assuming he heals up properly.

So is DeRosa worth $9M per? Let’s stack this trio up against each other by WAR and see what shakes out.

 	Age	2007	2008	2009	2010 Proj.
DeRosa	35	2.6	3.8	1.7	1.9
Polanco	34	5.3	3.1	3.1	2.3
Figgins	32	3.1	2.4	6.1	3.0

(Projections courtesy of Rally)

It turns out DeRosa is the lesser of the group, and he’s the oldest. I know next to nothing about wrist injuries other than they don’t sound like very much fun, but let’s take the rosy view that DeRosa will be healthy in ’10 and bump him to 2.3 WAR. If we presume $4.4M per win in 2010, 4.7 in 2011 and 5 in 2012 and the normal regression, then the price for DeRosa would be $25, not $27. Now in reality, who wants a 37 year old Mark DeRosa on their team in 2012, even if you do presume good health?

My guess is DeRosa signs for somewhere in the neighborhood of 2/$15m, but the Giants are rumored to have a strong interest. Knowing Sabean’s fondness for players past their prime, DeRosa might get his wish.

How do you think Mark DeRosa will play in 2010? Enter your projection for him here!

It’s not quite official yet, but all signs are pointing to Seattle signing Chone Figgins to a 4-year, $36 million deal. The Mariners are wasting no time in their efforts to compete in the AL West, having signed away one of their greatest rival’s more productive players. I’m pretty sure they’d like to snag John Lackey while they are at it. To beat the Angels, you gotta be the Angels.

Chone Figgins doesn’t garner the same sort of attention that Jason Bay and Matt Holliday do, but he definitely was one of the more attractive players on this year’s free agent market. Coming off a career high 6.1 WAR season (6.8 if you include baserunning), Figgins could not have hit the free agent market at a more perfect time.

It’s doubtful that Figgins will have another season quite this good, so the Mariners are factoring a healthy dose of regression into this contract, paying for 2 wins per season going forward. This is pretty prudent given that this contract will carry him into his age 36 season.

Up to the present at least, Figgins has aged like fine wine. With every season he has become increasingly more of a selective hitter.

He also has become a more proficient fielder as he’s made his home at third. His past four seasons at the hot corner are: -7, -4, +8, +17. He’s probably not +17 good going forward; few are, but for what it’s worth the fans thought he was a tad better than Ryan Zimmerman, Scott Rolen and Pedro Feliz last year. That’s some elite company. Steve Sommer, who has put together 2010 UZR projections regressed to Tango’s Fans Scouting Report, projected Figgins at +9 next year. I feel comfortable projecting Figgins in the 6-10 UZR range for next season.

There’s also the matter of Figgins’ ability to wreak havoc on the basepaths. I’m not talking about stolen bases – if anything Figgins could be more selective in that regard. I’m talking about advancing on hits, fly balls and grounders. In the past four seasons, Figgins has been worth an extra 28 runs. Sneaky, sneaky.

Figgins isn’t as sexy of a free agent as Bay, but he’s someone who does a lot of undervalued things us nerds like: getting on base, taking extra bases and playing solid defense. And then there’s the matter of his versatility, which can only help the Mariners as they work in several young players. Some objectors say the M’s really needed a power bat, but production is production. Jack Zduriencik is a smart guy, he knows that. I would take Figgins at 4 years, $36 million over Bay at 4 years, $60 million plus any day of the week.

As for the Angels, it’s now or never for Brandon Wood. He’s tantalized Angels fans with his power in the minor leagues for years now, but can do it consistently at the major league level? The Angels should give him every opportunity, but it would not be a bad idea to bring in cheap player like Joe Crede to mitigate the risk that they have with Wood.

Think you have an idea of what Chone Figgins and Brandon Wood will do next season? Click here to enter your 2010 projections!

Coming to a ballpark near you: Ghosts of Closers Past, by Frank Wren.

You could be lazy and look at Takashi Saito’s 2.43 ERA in 55.2 innings for Boston last season and think “he’s back”, but there’s some stuff going on here under the surface, and it’s not so good. Saito’s career K/9 of 10.9 dropped to 8.4, which is substantiated by an 80% contact rate. Compare that to a career rate of 73%. His walks were also up, as more batters sat back on his breaking stuff rather than chasing it outside of the zone.

Saito also became an extreme fly ball pitcher – 52% of his balls in play were flies, but 18% of those were of the infield variety, so that’s at least a positive here among some negatives.

Throw this and more together and out pops a 4.40 tRA – not completely terrible, but a clear decline across the board for Saito. It’s definitely not what you would want to see out of high leverage reliever.

The Red Sox, being the smart organization they are, saw this and were wary of giving Saito situations with little wiggle room. Saito’s average leverage index was 0.67. Translation: Saito was given mop-up duty. The Red Sox trusted others with more important situations. Now the Braves are likely going to thrust him back into working some crucial innings. Perhaps a little further removed from injury and Saito could be a little better, but at 40 years old I wouldn’t bank on it.

It’s hard for me to fathom this, but he Braves — a team with more serious concerns than building a bullpen (ahem, outfield) just gave $10 million and a draft pick to get a couple of brand name but geriatric relievers. And neither are far removed from some rather serious injury concerns. Good luck with that, Atlanta.

That being said, it’s not like the price is crazy, as in the case with Wagner.

You can enter your projection for Saito here.