The Face of Deja Vu

ESPN, among others, is reporting that the Rangers are close to signing a $90 Million deal with third baseman, Adrian Beltre.  On one level, this makes plenty of sense.  Beltre was an MVP candidate for the Red Sox last season.  He is a substantial defensive upgrade over Michael Young and an offensive upgrade over Vladimir Guerrero, and he's younger than either of them.  Nevertheless, I can't help feeling like we've been here before, and the ensuing results were mighty unkind.

In the winter of 2005, Beltre was a 25-year-old coming off a season in which he finished second in the MVP balloting (behind Barry Bonds), led the league in homers (48), and led all of baseball in Ultimate Zone Rating (24.8).  It was the kind of season the Dodgers had been anticipating since they promoted him to the majors at the tender age of 19.  Unfortunately, six years later, it remains the zenith of his career.

In an understandably intense bidding war, the Dodgers (and the rest of the league) lost out to the Seattle Mariners, who signed the young Beltre to a five-year, $61 Million contract, at that time the largest annual salary ever awarded to a third baseman.  To put it mildly, things did not work out.  It took Beltre four full seasons to achieve as many Wins Above Replacement as he had in 2004 alone (10.1).  He never got within 20 HR of his '04 totals or within 200 points of his '04 OPS.  During his tenure in Seattle, from '05 to '09, he ranked just 7th among major-league third baseman in WAR (13.8), his performance bettered or equaled by much cheaper players like Brandon Inge (14.4), Troy Glaus (13.3), and Mike Lowell (13.3). Moreover, most of Beltre's value came from his continually superior defense and he did little to aid the Mariners in the way they had expected, as an anchor in their otherwise power-starved lineup.  Rumors swirled around him.  He was, of course, suspected of using PEDs, based solely on the extent to which his '04 season now seemed like a massive outlier.  He was accused of being surly, of being out of shape, of playing disinterestedly following his big payday.

The extent to which Beltre disappointed everybody's expectations and was almost universally maligned allowed Theo Epstein to swoop in last offseason and make one of the finest value signing of his impressive career.  Though Beltre was nothing like the player he had been in '04, he still had a more than serviceable track record and Epstein's one-year, $10 Million offer represented an absolute high-jacking.  This would have been the case even if Beltre had merely maintained the numbers he averaged during his five years in Seattle.  Instead, freed from the pressure of being a franchise lynchpin and playing in the unfriendly confines of Safeco Field, Beltre turned in his best performance since '04...by a long shot.  He finished second in the AL in WAR (7.1), led the Red Sox in nearly every offensive category, and was, as usual, among the best defenders at his position.

Texas is, clearly, banking on the fact that the 2004 and 2010 version of Adrian Beltre are the real ones, that threaded into their already potent lineup, playing in their power-friendly ballpark, and inspired by the potential to contend for several years to come, Beltre will continue to show both superior talent and motivation.  This is, of course, a dangerous assumption.  This will represent the second time Beltre has turned one really good season into half a decade or more of really big paychecks.  By the time this contract is finished, Beltre will have been paid more over the course of his career than substantially superior players (at least in terms of average annual production to this point) like Scott Rolen, Chipper Jones, and Aramis Ramirez.  Even David Wright, whose WAR since 2005 is 50% higher than Beltre's (29.7 v. 19.9) may have a hard time equally Beltre's total earning power over the course of his career.

Although I want Jon Daniels instincts to be correct, and I can certainly imagine a scenario in which Beltre earns every cent of this contract, I can't help worrying that the Rangers panicked a bit when they failed to land Cliff Lee and threw more money at a Scott Boras client than was truly necessary (doesn't this happen every year).  Beltre will be 32-years-old when the '11 season begins.  Even if his 2010 production was not an anomaly, can we expect him to produce at that level for more than two or three years to come?  The incredible quickness and dexterity which is the key to his success as both a hitter and fielder will begin to fade by the time he reaches his mid-thirties.  Chipper Jones numbers fell off the table after he turned 36.  Rolen, Glaus, Derrek Lee, and Ron Santo (all players with notable similarities to Beltre) began to rapidly decline well before that.  Beltre's contract will pay him through at least his 37th birthday.

Jon Daniel one ace in the hole, however, is that, unlike all the players mentioned above, Beltre has almost zero injury history.  He's made 600+ plate appearances in eight of the last nine seasons.  Last year, he came out of a pair of rather gruesome collisions completely unfazed (the same could not be said of Jacoby Ellsbury, unfortunately).  If Beltre stays on the field, keeps most of his defensive chops, and is able to produce at least on the level he did in Seattle through the next four or five seasons, the Rangers won't live to regret this signing all that much.  If...

Fonz Redux

It's been a busy month, but during a pre-holiday lull I wanted to offer a couple of opinions about the flurry of deals from the concluding week of 2010.  First up, the top two free agent hitters from this year's class, Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth, both signed seven-year, nine-figure deals earlier in December.  These were the two largest contracts handed to outfielders since Alfonso Soriano signed his $136 Million deal with the Cubs prior to the 2007 season.  That deal already looks like one of the worst albatrosses in baseball history, as Soriano's production has declined dramatically over the last four years.

There are some unfortunate correlations between Soriano and this years duo of high-priced outfielders.  For starters, both Crawford and Werth have made their reputations, at least to some extent, based upon their speed.  The same was true of Soriano.  When he signed his megadeal, he was coming off a 40/40 season. Werth has posted a pair of 20/20 seasons and in the last three years has a rather incredible 88% stolen base success rate since becoming a Phillie.  Crawford, considered one of the speediest men in all of baseball, has led the league in steals on four occasions, and has averaged 50 steals per season since 2003.  Though both are corner outfielders by preference, their speed also makes it possible for them to slide over to center when necessary and helps to make them Gold Glove candidates at their natural positions.  The problem with paying high premiums for speed is that too often it is the first of the five tools to dissipate.  Take Soriano, for instance.  After averaging 35 steals a year in his first six seasons, Soriano has managed only 13 per year in his four seasons with the Cubs, largely due to nagging hamstring injuries.  He became an absolute drain as Chicago's leadoff hitter and was finally moved down in the order last season.

Injuries have effected Soriano's game on the whole, of course.  In his first six seasons, Soriano never played in fewer than 145 games.  Since coming to Chicago, however, he's reached that mark only once.  Werth and Crawford have also been relative iron men.  Werth has missed only nine games in the past two seasons; Crawford only fourteen.  Will they be able to maintain that pace, especially as they move into their 30s?

This brings us to the biggest and most obvious problem with deals like these: aging.  Werth with be 32 during the 2011 season.  The Nationals will be on the hook for $84 Million after he turns 35.  In order to "earn" that money, Werth will probably need to manage at least four or five Wins Above Replacement per season.  The list of outfielders who have managed to do that in their late thirties is extraordinarily short: Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Manny Ramirez, Ichiro Suzuki.   Can Jayson Werth aspire to that class?

In this respect, Crawford's deal makes a lot more sense.  He will earn more money than Werth over the next seven years, but his contract expires only a few months after his 35th birthday.  Theo Epstein will take his fair share of flack in the coming years, as Boston's payroll escalates into pinstriped territory.  But Epstein, thusfar at least, has not been spending much of his money on players in decline (John Lackey aside).  For exactly that reason he passed on expensive long-term deals on Victor Martinez and Adrian Beltre, even though they were extremely productive in their limited runs with the BoSox, and turned his attentions instead to Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez.

While it's highly likely that Carl Crawford's best seasons are still in front of him, thus justifying his $20 Million per year salary, the same can not be said of Jayson Werth.  Werth's career arch is very worrisome and not just because of his advanced age.  Due in part to some unfortunate injuries and perhaps in part to some poor personnel decisions made by his first two franchises (the Dodgers and Jays), Werth did not become an everyday player until he joined the Phillies in 2007.  Even then he was limited to platoon at-bats for some time.  As a result, unlike Crawford, he doesn't have a long track record of sustained brilliance, which make me very uneasy.  Really, only in the last three seasons has he been a productive everyday player.

Many, many players have produced like Werth has over a three-year period only to fall into rapid decline.  Here's just a few outfielders from recent memory: Brad Hawpe, Ray Lankford, Andy Van Slyke, Brian Jordan, Cliff Floyd, and, of course, Alfonso Soriano.  Like most of these players, Werth has benefitted during his prime years from hitting in the midst of a very potent lineup and in a very friendly confines.  Never before has he been asked to carry a load on offense like the one he'll be expected to carry in Washington, where Ryan Zimmerman is the only other All-Star quality player in the lineup.

One thing I will say for Werth.  Unlike Soriano, he has excellent command of the strikezone.  He draws walks and is consistently among the league leaders in pitches per plate appearance.  This skill, unlike speed and power, is one that traditionally ages fairly well.  That aside, however, I fear Werth will be an albatross around the neck of the Nationals, a franchise that can ill afford to miss on a their nine-figure investments.

Crawford, on the other hand, though he is far more of a free-swinger, could be the first Hundred Million Dollar Outfielder since Manny Ramirez ('01-'08 edition) to earn every cent of his contract.  Even if his speed declines (which it almost certainly will, at least to some extent), his all-field approach, high averages, and stellar defense in left field should be enough to make him a productive top of the order hitter even in the waning years, and he's likely an MVP candidate for at least two or three seasons to come.

The Giants & The Beanstalk

Although I certainly would've preferred the World Series to run on a little longer with a little better showing from the Rangers, as I've probably made quite clear, I'm very satisfied with this result.  The Giants are a "fairytale" team.  And, every once in awhile, baseball needs a fairytale champion.  Sadly, the ratings were bad, as the casual fan was less likely to be familiar with the narratives of these players and the history of these teams, which was a large part of what made them interesting.  But by winning the World Series for the first time in half a century, during a season when few people picked them to finish better than second or third in their division, the Giants dignified that optimism which inspires fans every March and April: "With a few good breaks, with a few smart decisions, this could be our year."

This is a big part of why the Rangers/Giants matchup was "good for baseball," even if it wasn't good for Fox Corp (and, by the way, fuck what's good for Fox Corp).  Baseball thrives on the performance of the underdog.  Let's face it, it's only the first of November and we already know there are less than half a dozen teams with a chance of winning the NBA title next June.  March Madness consists of 64 teams, but we all know less than a quarter of those have even the slightest chance.  The NFL thrives on the rhetoric of competitive balance (and rhetoric whose main aim is to somehow dignify an inhumane labor policy), but nearly half the teams in their league have never won a Super Bowl.  Baseball has had nine champions in the last ten seasons.  Two of those champions were first-time winners (Angels & D-Backs) and three had waited more than a generation (ChiSox, BoSox, & Giants).  One could easily argue that, on that basis, there's more balance in baseball than in any other sport, even though it doesn't have a salary cap and hopefully never will.

So, there's the good, but, frankly, I've had enough optimism.  The fact is, although I thoroughly enjoyed this season and these playoffs, now it's all over, and that inevitably puts me in a sour mood.  Here are some reasons why this season sucks:

1.) Yankee Fans

From the meathead bigot who slapped Nelson Cruz's glove during the NLCS to the jackasses that spit on Cliff Lee's wife.  Yankee fandom has reached a new nadir.  Maybe it's the fact that Hank and Hal are sleazier and more entitled than their old man (who would've thought it possible).  Maybe it's the fact that the new stadium is an overpriced, simulacrum haven for Caucasians.  Maybe it's the fact that the pinstriped ethos has turned soulful players like C. C. Sabathia, Nick Swisher, and Curtis Granderson into stilted shadows of their former selves.  Whatever the cause, the Yankees are more despicable than ever, and the widespread ignorance and arrogance of their supporters may be the main reason why.  Enjoy the rapid decline of A-Rod and the "Core Four."  You deserve it.

2.) Brian Sabean

I think my position on the likability of this team is pretty well documented, but the Giants GM was very fortunate that a strategy which looks a hell of a lot like a desperate shot in the dark actually paid off.  Sabean, baseball's longest tenured GM, has a few things to hang his hat on.  The Giants have drafted well.  They've developed young pitchers as well as any franchise in the sport.  They've got a great ballpark and a very supportive fanbase, despite a great deal of controversy and the number of crappy teams they've fielded during the last decade.  However, by winning the 2010 World Series, the Giants players basically got Sabean off the hook for what has been a pretty embarrassing stretch of acquisitions, dating back to the infamous Liriano, Nathan, and Bonser for one year of A. J. Pierzynski trade in 2003.  As I discussed in my previous post, this team is on the hook for some really bad contracts: Barry Zito, Aaron Rowand, and Mark DeRosa top the list.  And those are just the ones that are still on the books.  Resigning Bengie Molina was patently absurd.  One can argue that Edgar Renteria justified his ridiculous contract with a World Series MVP, by remember how much money the Giants paid to other over-the-hill veterans like Randy Winn, Rich Aurilia, and Dave Roberts.  All are likable players, all were at one point productive, but not so much when Sabean was paying them.  Sabean's fiscal record is among the worst in the sport.  Will winning buy the Bay Area hundreds of millions more dollars in bad contracts?

3.) Seth Everett

I can't possibly do any better than to direct you to the recent "re-reunion" of Fire Joe Morgan, but at a time when research is getting easier, access is more abundant, and competition is fierce, mainstream media commentators are somehow growing more incompetent.  Peter Pascarelli isn't exactly a baseball genius, but they replaced him on the ESPN Baseball Today podcast with an asinine self-promotor named Seth Everett who made the show pretty much unlistenable.  By host Eric Karabell's own admission, his podcast is made specifically for rabid baseball fans, yet Everett frequently exposes an ignorance of the sport to the point of not knowing which player is on which team and babbles on incessantly about his personal life, which is about as interesting as the underside of the refrigerator and should be as inaccessible.  The Baseball Today situation may be a synechdoche for the problems which abound throughout the baseball media.  Pascarelli was fired because he made a relatively mild joke about the new statue of Bud Selig in Milwaukee.  The iron hand of MLB has made good journalists weary of being critical, objective, candid, witty, and spontaneous when it comes to coverage of their sport.  And thus we're left with the smug, insubstantial musings of half-wits like Everett and his ilk.

4.) Backlash Against Defensive Sabermetrics

One of the major stories of last offseason was the attempt, especially by forward-thinking GMs like Theo Epstein, Billy Beane, and Jack Zduriencik, to build their rosters around defensive efficiency, measured in part by things like UZR, the Fielding Bible, and no doubt many other in-house statistics.  Unfortunately, none of these teams made extraordinary leaps in the standings in the wake of this strategy.  In fact, quite the opposite.  The Red Sox, though still a solid team, dropped six wins from 2009 and finished out of the postseason for the first time since 2006.  The Mariners, following an optimism-inducing 85-win campaign in '09, dropped to 61 wins, one of the worst records in baseball.  And though the Athletics managed to get to .500 for the first time since '06, they remained well short of contention.  Anti-sabermetric pundits will use this opportunity to berate us for thinking that defense is measurable.  The truth is, Boston's season was derailed by injuries, Zduriencik couldn't possibly have predicted how bad his team would be offensively (historically bad), and a closer look at Oakland (forthcoming) suggest that Beane's approach has some legitimacy.  In all likelihood, however, that's not how the story will be treated during this offseason.

5.) Chicago Cubs Still Chicago Cubs

This one hurts.  The Cubs got back to losing in 2010 and not only that, they got back to losing in sensational and humiliating fashion.  They had the largest payroll in the National League, yet they managed to finish fifth in their division, behind even the Houston Astros, who started the season by going 16-33 and then traded away two of their best players.  The Cubs best (and most expensive) pitcher got demoted to the bullpen, than suspended from the team, and now his future may no longer be in Chicago.  The three best (and most expensive) hitters were all busts, looking old, slow, and brittle.  The $136 Million prize, Alfonso Soriano, had the same WAR (2.9) as Denard Span.  He has four years left on his contract, at $18 Million per annum (in other words, for the same price we could probably have Carl Crawford).  Lou Pinella "retired," but the new ownership, for some unknown reason, still hasn't gotten around to firing Jim Hendry, who has presided over the creation of this mess, apparently in perpetuity.  Now they've got a rookie manager, very little payroll flexibility, and a stacked division.  The decade just began, but it already looks like this might not be the one in which we'll finally break the curse.  Congrats to San Francisco, Boston, and the White Sox.  It's getting very lonely in Loserville.

My Broke-Ass Ouija Board Says...The Yankees Eat It!

Wishful thinking, right?  The Yankees, of course, when they're clicking, are the best team in the game, as they proved by posting the best record in baseball during the 2009 regular season, then winning the World Series.  The thing about the '09 Yanks though...they were really, really lucky.  I know, I know, there's no such thing as a "lucky" two-hundred-million-dollar team.  The Steinbrenners paid handsomely for every one of those 114 wins and every one of those pretty rings which now adorn the private showrooms of their exclusive cast of aspiring billionaires.  Fair enough.

What I'd like to point out, however, is that of none of the Yankees starting nine in '09 missed a significant stretch of time.  Sure, A-Rod had the whole flexible hip thing (remember that?) which cost him April, but he still got 535 plate appearances and his annual 30 HR and 100 RBI.  Jorge Posada missed a couple weeks midsummer, but he still got into more than twice as many games as he did in 2008.  And the remainder of the starting seven all played at least 142 games.  Even more importantly, four Yankee pitchers made 30+ starts.  So, I'd like you to guess, how many franchises had eight players get 500+ plate appearances and four pitchers make 30+ starts in '09?

That's right, one and only one: the New York Yankees.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, got basically nothing from Daisuke Matsuzaka and John Smoltz, both of whom were supposed to be big contributors to their rotation, and Tim Wakefield missed most of the second half.  The lost their starting shortstop, Jed Lowrie, for basically the whole season and got a significantly reduced effort from their starting third-baseman, Mike Lowell, whose hip injury limited him to a hobbled 434 at-bats.  J.D. Drew, predictably, and Kevin Youkilis, unpredictably, also missed a few weeks apiece.  And the Red Sox still managed to win 95 games.

So, imagine for a moment that New York had some similarly bad luck.  Say, they lost A. J. Burnett for the season and Joba Chamberlain for half the season, as well as Melky Cabrera, and A-Rod didn't make it back until June, and even at that point, he was only half-strength.  Would they have managed 95 wins?  90?

Are you willing to bet that they can repeat their clean bill of health?