With their 10-year, $250 million commitment to Albert Pujols, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are making a huge bet that Pujols will continue to be one of the game’s premier offensive threats and be healthy enough to be in the lineup through his age-41 season. His health history to date provides reasons both for optimism and concern on the part of the Angels and their fans.
Thursday morning C.J. Wilson, the consensus top free agent starting pitcher, signed a five-year, $77.5 million contract with the Angels. His new contract has an average annual value of $15.5 million, which is only $1 million more than Mark Buehrle’s four-year, $58 million deal signed less than 24 hours earlier.
Wilson is younger — 31 to 32 — and better — career FIP- 83 to 92 — than Buehrle, so why did he sign such a similar deal?
The Albert Pujols era is officially over in St. Louis.
The future Hall of Famer signed a 10-year deal worth $250-$260 million with the Los Angeles Angels this morning, leaving a bittersweet taste in the mouths of Cardinals fans. Pujols undoubtedly helped lead them to an unlikely World Series championship in 2011, but he’ll take no part of their title defense next season. One of the most beloved players in the storied history of the franchise has moved on to, quite literally, greener pastures.
Losing Pujols is tough both emotionally and in terms of replacing significant production, but it isn’t a death blow to the Cardinals playoff odds. If they spend the freed up $22 million — or a portion of it — wisely, the team can absolutely come back strong next year.
Episode 111
If you’re looking for full coverage of the Thursday trade that sent left-hander Dana Eveland from the Dodgers to the Orioles, you won’t find it in this edition of FanGraphs Audio, because it’s mostly managing editor Dave Cameron discussing the Angels’ twin signings of Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson — and rhapsodizing on the virtues of brisket, too.
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As of this writing — and the way news is breaking right now, this could be outdated in anywhere from twelve hours to twelve seconds — the market for C.J. Wilson still stands at two teams: the Angels and Marlins. The common assumption was that the Marlins would pull out of the Wilson sweepstakes after landing Mark Buehrle last this afternoon, but at the moment, they have left their six-year offer on the table. Considering that the Marlins were willing to commit $220 million to Albert Pujols, it appears that a mere $58 million deal is not going to prevent them from jumping back in on another big-name free agent — especially when the trade market for starting pitchers is so steep.
With Buehrle off the market,it begins to get a bit easier to make some estimates on how much C.J. Wilson will get paid. The FanGraphs crowd-sourcing project had originally pegged Wilson as signing a 5 year, $15.5 million/year contract, but the Marlins have thrown a wrench in everything by giving Buehrle a contract with an AAV of $14.5 million. Since Buehrle was considered the second best pitcher on the market behind Wilson, it follows that Wilson should get a considerable amount more than that and will likely surpass his FanGraphs estimates. Then again, it seems unlikely that he approaches Roy Halladay’s deal from last offseason ($20m AAV) or surpass Jered Weaver’s current deal ($17m AAV).
Here’s where things get interesting to me: if the Marlins sign Wilson as well as Buehrle, they’ll then have two left-handed starters locked up through their age 36 season. If we assume that Wilson gets paid around $17 million/year (and we know Buehrle will receive $14.5m/year), which deal looks the best?
Let us know what you think Hideki Matsui can do in 2012! Add your prediction here!
It’s time to ask ourselves:
Last year, in Hideki Matsui’s offense went from good with the Angels (120 wRC+) to woof with the Athletics (93 wRC+).
Is Hideki Matsui done? Could the 38-year-old be worth another 550 PAs?
I say: uh, yes. Exactly: “Uh, yes.” Because I’m not so sure. And neither should you be.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Los Angeles Angels have already made one big move this week, acquiring Chris Iannetta from the Rockies to hopefully solve their offensive woes at catcher. Now, they have been tied to free agent third baseman Aramis Ramirez. A Ramirez signing would give them a glut of infielders with him, Alberto Callaspo, Maicer Izturis, Erick Aybar, Howie Kendrick, Mark Trumbo and a healthy Kendrys Morales all established as MLB players. With Kendrick establishing himself as a premiere second baseman, the odd man out would probably be Callaspo. Let’s take a quick look to see if swapping out Callaspo could help turn the Angels into a legitimate post-season contender.
Chris Iannetta is finally free. After employing the worst starting catcher in baseball last season (min 250 plate appearances), the Los Angeles Angels decided to seek out an upgrade. Despite some success in the majors, Iannetta never endeared himself to the Colorado Rockies’ front office. After seasons of speculation, the Rockies finally gave up on the 28-year-old catcher, trading him to the Los Angeles Angels for Tyler Chatwood. With the full backing of his new organization, will Iannetta make the Rockies look foolish?
Yes, you read the title correctly. Bobby Abreu of the Los Angeles Angeles was Mr. Clutch during the 2011 season. He ended the season with the highest clutch rating in the majors, as measured here at FanGraphs.
I stumbled across this nugget while writing this Thanksgiving-themed post for our friends at Baseball Nation. I was hunting for players who’d accomplished little-noticed feats last season. I revved up the leader boards, sorted for clutch, and found, to my great surprise, Bobby Abreu’s name at the top of the chart.
I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of “clutchness” in sports and otherwise. People who can take their game to the next level in the most pressure-packed situations. Indeed, not just ones who can do it; ones who must do it; ones who thrive doing it.
At FanGraphs, clutch is defined as how well a player performs in high leverage situations in comparison to how well he performs in non-high leverage situations. It’s calculated using WPA, pLI and WPA/LI, as explained here. So if a player is a .330 hitter in non-high leverage situations and a .330 hitter in high leverage situations, then he may be considered a good hitter, but he wouldn’t be considered clutch.
Bobby Abreu’s clutch rating for 2011 was 2.70. Read the rest of this entry »
While the MVP award announcements are normally used as an opportunity to make snide comments and question the intelligence of writers, I prefer to think of them a different way. We know that we’ll never be able to convert everyone to sabermetrics, and there are always going to be one or two people that make questionable decisions on their ballots. Instead of focusing our attention on them, why not move that focus back to where it’s supposed to be: the players.
The MVP award (and the subsequent conversation surrounding it) is a chance for us to recognize players for having impressive, noteworthy years. Twenty-three players received a vote during this year’s AL MVP voting, but there were still more out there that had seasons worth remembering. These players aren’t necessarily “snubs”, since each player in the MVP voting also deserved recognition for their seasons; it’s simply there are sometimes more players doing exceptional things than can be highlighted.
So even if the BBWAA missed these players, let’s give a few of them the spotlight they deserve.
