The Nationals continued to lock up their core talent today, agreeing to terms on a six year, $100 million extension for third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. The extension is tacked on to the end of his current deal, which pays him $26 million over the next two seasons, so he’s essentially now under contract for the next eight years for $126 million, and if a team option is exercised for 2020, the deal could turn out to be $150 million over nine years.

That’s a big paycheck, but Zimmerman is one of the game’s most underrated players, and the Nationals correctly identified his skillset as one worth keeping around. However, there’s continuing skepticism around every player who generates a lot of value with his glove, and people continue to be uncomfortable projecting stardom for guys who rely on their defensive skills to sustain elite performance. Since Zimmerman is a good bat/great glove guy, not everyone is on board with committing $100 million to that skillset, thinking that the value may not be there if the defensive value degrades with age and injury.

So, I figured it’d be instructive to look at how some other players with this skillset have aged recently. Here’s my list of comps, and their performance through age 26 – for reference, Zimmerman’s at a 119 wRC+, +52 FLD, and +30.2 WAR in 3,669 PA, or more generalized, 4.9 WAR per 600 PA.

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As you undoubtedly know by now, Gary Carter passed away yesterday. The Hall of Fame catcher had an outstanding career as a big part of the star-crossed Montreal Expos’ only playoff team and later a World Champion Mets team. My own first awareness of Carter was one Christmas or birthday long ago, when, although I did not collect baseball cards, someone gave me a pack, and a card bearing the image of a young Gary Carter was included.

Many pieces have been and will be written about Carter in the wake of his passing, pieces that will tell various stories of his memorable on-field exploits. Different people will have their own particular favorite Gary Carter “moment” for which there is no substitute. As a contribution to the ongoing tribute to Carter around the Web, here are Carter’s three biggest regular season hits as according to Win Probability Added (WPA).

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It is a simple question.

What is sabermetrics?

Not the history of it, but what is it, right now? What is, in our nerdiest of lingoes, its derivative? Where is it pointing? What does it do?

Last Tuesday I created no little stir when I listed the 2012 saber teams, delineating them according to their perceived embrace of modern sabermetrics.

Today, I recognize I needed to take a step back and first define sabermetrics, because it became obvious quickly I did not have the same definition at heart as some of the readers and protesters who gathered outside my apartment.

I believe, and this is my belief — as researcher and a linguist — that sabermetrics is not statistics. The term itself has come to — or needs to — describe more than just on-base percentage, weighted runs created plus, fielding independent pitching, and wins above replacement.

Sabermetrics is the advanced study of baseball, not the burying of one’s head in numbers.
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Silly monkey, BRAINS ARE FOR ZOMBIES.

Casey Kotchman is in many ways a man without a home — a player equal parts under-appreciated and over-valued, who irks both old and new schools at the same time. Old school analysts say his defense is amazing, but they cannot quantify it, and in 2011, they claimed his cleared vision meant he finally learned how to aim the ball “where they ain’t,” but he’s still a .268 hitter with little power. The new school says he’s worth about 7.6 runs per season defensively, but worth ~1.1 WAR per 600 PAs — not good — and his BABIP was high 2011, so he should not be able to repeat his success.

Despite his inability to build a consistent following of fans in the baseball outsiders communities, Kotchman seems to have some insider communities very much interested in him, as Tom Tango points out:

Kotchman’s last four teams: Redsox, Mariners, Rays, Indians. Can we say that a team that signs Kotchman is saber-leaning?

Indeed, after spending five and a half seasons on the Angels’ and Braves’ rosters, Kotchman has begun to shuffle around with the Nerdz, most recently signing with the Cleveland Indians. It makes sense too — Kotchman’s lack of power keeps him cheap, and his strong defense keeps him amorphous for the old school teams, while the new schools might have different valuations on Kotchman, they can at least quantify his contributions and better know how he fits.

Then, on Monday, the Houston Astros signed Justin Ruggiano, long-time Tampa Bay Rays outfielder who was never good enough to stick on the Rays’ roster, but who possesses strong defensive chops and above average patience. His lack of power and ~.290 batting average, however, must make him a mystery — or at least an undesirable asset — to the old school teams.

Upon Ruggiano signing with the Astros, a once highly old school team, my reaction was all: “Welp, that’s one more team to compete with” — and then it occurred to me! No only have the Astros entered the realm of, so to speak, saber-minded organizations, but so have the long-backward Chicago Cubs.

Suddenly the league looks very different.

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This morning I was scrolling through some of Dan Szymborski’s projections over at Baseball Think Factory, and I noticed that he had run a projection for Matt Stairs. I had not heard any news about the guy we all know now as a pinch-hitter. As I scoured the internets (read: typed “Matt Stairs” into Google) I quickly realized that Stairs had retired, though since he will be a studio analyst for NESN this year, all is not lost. Still, it will be disappointing to not see him on the field any longer.

Few pinch hitters struck fear in my heart the way Matt Stairs did. When Stairs came to the plate against a team for which I was rooting, I always sure that something bad was about to happen. Even still, I couldn’t hate him. A portly slugger with a great sense of humor — I will always remember Will Carroll forwarding the Baseball Prospectus email group an email from Stairs with a picture of his flexed calf muscle and promptly doubling over in laughter — Stairs was exceedingly easy to root for, and in the latter, pinch-hitting days of his career he became somewhat of a nerdy folk hero.

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The Washington Nationals have been making headlines lately with big such as trading for Gio Gonzalez and getting a one-year deal with Edwin Jackson. They were even rumored to be in on the Prince Fielder sweepstakes. Some of the Nationals’ other moves understandably have garnered less attention, such as minor-league deals for veteran outfielders Mike Cameron and (more recently) Rick Ankiel. While these are low-risk deals that may turn out to be bench insurance, given some ambiguities about the Nationals’ outfield situation, Cameron and Ankiel could form a nice stopgap platoon in center field that would allow Washington to protect other, more significant investments.

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Toward the end of his weekly Sunday notes column for the Boston Globe, Nick Cafardo included the following write-up on John Lannan:

Lannan, 27, is a terrific option as an end-of-the rotation starter now that Washington has signed Edwin Jackson. There is a lot of speculation that the Nationals will deal him to the Angels for center fielder Peter Bourjos, with Mike Trout on the way to play that position in Anaheim. But the Nationals could also move Jayson Werth to center and sign a right fielder. It now appears that Yoenis Cespedes is not in their plans and they have cooled on B.J. Upton. Lannan, who went 10-13 last year with a 3.70 ERA and a (high) 1.462 WHIP, would be a good option for a team like Boston, but the Red Sox don’t seem to have the center fielder to give back, especially with Ryan Kalish unable to play until June. “It doesn’t have to be a center fielder,’’ said one major league source. “They don’t have to get a center fielder in that deal as long as they get a center fielder some other way. The Red Sox make a lot of sense.’’

Again, with emphasis added:

There is a lot of speculation that the Nationals will deal him to the Angels for center fielder Peter Bourjos…

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As Dave discussed yesterday, Nationals manager Davey Johnson is in favor of having Bryce Harper begin the season as his starting right fielder. This would undoubtedly affect Jayson Werth, since he is the incumbent right fielder.

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Per Jon Heyman of CBS Sports, 28-year-old right-hander Edwin Jackson and the Washington Nationals have reached an agreement on a one-year deal worth somewhere in the $8-12 million range. Pending a physical, Jackson joins a rotation that includes Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, and recent acquisition (in a trade with Oakland) Gio Gonzalez.

What is there to say about Jackson, specifically, that FanGraphs hasn’t said already? The market for him has been — and continued this offseason to be — underwhelming relative to his production (link). It’s likely to continue to be underwhelming (link). He (Jackson) has become a journeymen despite possessing youth, physical tools, and an increasingly robust resume (link).

For three consecutive years now, Jackson has been worth between 3.5 and 4.0 WAR — which suggests that, provided he’s healthy, another season in the 3.5-4.0 WAR range wouldn’t be shocking. It also suggests that, even were a team to have given him $15 million, that would still probably have been on the low-end of fair market value.

The question that’s more interesting for the time being is this one: what, precisely, are the Nats hoping to accomplish with the Jackson deal?

Let’s start first of all by establishing this: the addition of Jackson — and subtraction, presumably, of either John Lannan or Chien-Ming Wang — doesn’t make the Nats insta-contenders. Per a too-early standings projection conducted last week by the Replacement Level Yankees blog (using Marcels as an input), the Nats finished with 83 wins; the Phillies and Braves, with 90 and 89, respectively. The most recent iteration of OLIVER standings projects the Nats to finish with 81 wins — a full 10 games behind the would-be first-place Braves.

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Well, it looks like we finally have an aggressive suitor for Edwin Jackson. Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Nationals are trying to trade John Lannan – who just lost his arbitration case and will earn $5 million in 2012 – in order to clear salary to make a run at signing Jackson.

If the Nationals can pull this off, it’d be a pretty neat trick. When you look at Lannan and Jackson side by side, this would be a pretty massive improvement for the team. Over the last three seasons, Jackson has posted an ERA- of 93, supported by quality peripherals, while Lannan has posted an ERA- of 101, a good bit better than his FIP/xFIP would suggest is sustainable. Jackson’s also thrown an additional 100 innings, so he’s provided better performance in a larger sample.

Even if you think Lannan possesses an ability to regularly beat his FIP, Jackson is roughly a +1 win upgrade. If you think that Lannan is about to run out of pixie dust and his run prevention is due for a regression, the upgrade is more like +2 wins. Given that the Nationals are on the contender-or-not bubble, those wins could have a lot of value to the team, and swapping out Lannan for Jackson would be a no-brainer.

The tough part might be finding someone who wants to take Lannan off their hands at this point in the off-season. Most teams are shopping in the bargain bin now, and there aren’t many clubs left with much in the way of budget room. They probably could have moved him a few months ago, but salary dumps in February aren’t easy. It’s an idea worth trying, but they might have to eat a little bit of money in order to convince someone to take him.