Bartlett on the Market

With the Tampa Bay Rays facing a budget crunch and possessing a home-grown prospect (Reid Brignac) capable of similar production at a fraction of the cost, shortstop Jason Bartlett figures to open the 2011 season in a new city. It’s possible that the Rays non-tender the 31-year-old, but it’s more likely that Tampa finds a trade partner. Bartlett’s name has been tied at various times to the Orioles, Nationals, Giants, Cardinals and Padres. What sort of trade value does Bartlett have?

The former Padres prospect and Twin is entering his final year of arbitration eligibility, meaning that he’ll become a free agent after the 2011 season. Bartlett pulled down $4 million in arbitration last year, and he figures to top a $5 million salary next season. According to the reverse-engineered Elias rankings offered on MLBTradeRumors, Bartlett currently ranks as a Type A free agent. He’s close to the border between Type A and Type B status, though, and it’s anyone’s guess how the draft pick compensation system will be addressed in Major League Baseball’s next collective bargaining agreement (the current CBA expires after the 2011 season).

Offensively, Bartlett has been around average during his major league career. He’s got a .281/.345/.385 line, with a .328 wOBA and a park and league-adjusted wOBA that’s two percent better than the average batter (102 wRC+). Outside of a 2009 season when he morphed into Nomar Garciaparra at the plate and benefited from a batting average on balls in play north of .360, Bartlett’s been a low-power player with decent plate discipline. He’s not a hacker, but with the worst outcome usually being a single when a pitcher puts one over the plate against him, Bartlett gets challenged often.

Here are his outside swing percentages and his percentage of pitches seen within the strike zone. To provide greater context, I also added a column that shows Bartlett’s rates as a percentage of the MLB average for a given year. For example, Bartlett swung at 24.4 percent of pitches thrown out of the zone in 2010, while the MLB average was 29.3. Bartlett’s O-Swing was 83 percent of the big league average (24.4 divided by 29.3).

The high zone percentages explain his modest 7.7% career walk rate. There’s a good chance that Bartlett’s an average overall hitter again in 2011. CHONE’s late August update had Bartlett as an exactly average batsman in a neutral hitting environment, while Dan Szymborski’s brand spankin’ new ZiPS projection has him slightly below that level. A shortstop who can produce at a league-average clip at the plate has value, assuming he can cut it in the field.

That’s where things get murky for Bartlett. Early in his career, Bartlett rated extremely well by Ultimate Zone Rating and was well above-average by Sean Smith’s Total Zone. In recent years, though, Bartlett’s advanced fielding stats have slipped considerably. In 2009, he had a -6.9 UZR/150, and this past year, Bartlett rated as -13.8 runs below average per 150 defensive games. That was dead last among qualified players at the position. The Fans Scouting Report also shows Bartlett losing ground in terms of instincts, first step quickness and speed, among other things.

I don’t want to get sucked into the trap of just assuming that Bartlett has totally lost whatever fielding prowess he had. Just as his fantastic early career numbers shouldn’t have been taken as gospel that Bartlett was a perennial Gold Glover, his recent work likely doesn’t mean he has turned into a Yuniesky Betancourt clone. Overall, UZR has Bartlett as a +4.5 run defender at shortstop per 150 defensive games. I seriously doubt he’s that sort of defender right now, but he’s not going to be a -14 run fielder, either.

Taking a three-year average of his numbers and weighing recent performance more heavily, I get a -7 or -8 run defensive value for Bartlett. If you think Bartlett’s a -7.5 run shortstop with average offense, then he’s roughly a two WAR player — maybe a little less when you consider durability concerns (according to the Baseball Injury Tool, he hit the DL with a knee sprain in 2008, an ankle sprain in 2009 and a pulled hamstring in 2010).

Basically, how teams value Bartlett comes down to his defense. A team that feels Bartlett has lost range and isn’t a good bet to stay healthy all year could value him as a 1.75 to 2 WAR player. A team that thinks he’s still a decent shortstop might lean more toward a 2.5 WAR forecast.

The market for shortstops isn’t exactly robust, and even with a salary bump in arbitration, Bartlett figures to be worth more than he’s paid. But not by much. Given the questions surrounding Bartlett’s defense, and the fact that teams know the Rays have little use for him, don’t expect Tampa to land more than a B-level prospect for Bartlett.