Hot Stove Talk: Post-Juan Edition

Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Dodgers have signed Juan Uribe to a 3-year, $21 million contract.

Man that stinks.

Alright, now that I got that out of my system, let’s get down to real analysis. To repeat a tweet from Andrew Baggarly, I can’t blame the Giants for not matching the Dodgers’ offer, and I can’t blame Uribe for taking it. Three years was too much for me, even though $7mil per is not outlandish. I would have been ok with a Renteria-esque 2 yr/$9mil deal, but apparently Uribe wanted that third year. I simply cannot endorse the third year based on his stats this season. As I detailed last post, Uribe’s LD% is declining, his FB% is increasing, he’s had leg issues the entire time he’s been with the Giants, and much of his value last season was based on a career-high walk percentage coupled with a strikeout percentage that was his lowest since 2005. The Bill James 2011 projection has him for a .253/.307/.434 line next year. Those are good numbers for a shortstop, and would make him well worth his contract. But I just don’t see those numbers carrying for three years.

The Giants’ other options are thin. Tsuyoshi Nishioka is already off the market, as the Twins won the right to negotiate with him for his services. If those two sides come to a deal, there’s an off chance J.J. Hardy will become available. As I detailed last time, Hardy projects for a .331 wOBA next year, which coupled with an excellent glove makes him a 3.5 WAR player. If he could be had in a trade for, say, a B- prospect or a couple of C’s (think Thomas Neal or Charlie Culberson) then I say pull the trigger. He’ll probably cost around $7mil this season, and is a free agent after next season.

The remaining free-agents don’t leave much to be desired either. Miguel Tejada is available, but he doesn’t exactly inspire delusions of grandeur. He has the range of the Venus de Milo at short, so much so that he played over 800 innings at third this year for two teams. He wasn’t much better there, scoring a -9.9 UZR/150. In his last three seasons at short (3222 innings) he’s cost -2.3 runs, and only figures to get worse.

On the plus side, he does offer the flexibility of both positions, if Panda doesn’t get himself in gear. With the bat, he projects a .279/.324/.415 line, good for a .320 wOBA. Basically, he projects as an average bat and a below average glove. I can’t imagine Miggy getting more than a one-year contract anywhere, probably in the $5-$7mil range.

The Giants could offer a contract to Edgar Renteria again. Last year, he hit .276/.332/.374 in 72 games, and the Bill James projections have him doing essentially that again (.274/.333/.381) in 200 more plate appearances. With the glove, DRS had him at -2 runs last year, while UZR had him at +6.5 UZR/150. I would imagine, at the age of 33 with bad hamstrings already that he can be average at best at shortstop. I could see Renteria, over a full season, being worth about 1.5-2 WAR: league average. He will probably be available for 1yr/$5mil.

Of course, I’ve avoided the elephant in the room thus far: Derek Jeter. Let me preface this paragraph by saying that I don’t anticipate, in a million years, the Yankees and Jeter not getting a deal done. But as we stand now, the two sides seem to be pretty far apart. Jeter wants 4-5 years, somewhere in the $23mil per range. The Yankees have offered 3 years, $15 mil per. Should the two sides not make much movement, can the Giants move in there with a 4 year/$19mil per deal and snap Jeter up? More importantly, should they?

In a word, no. Jeter is coming off a career-worst year at the plate, hitting .270/.340/.370 and leading the majors in outs made. Adjusting for a move to the inferior league and a minor bounce-back, one can anticipate a line of about .295/.365/.410 next season, which would be a .344 wOBA. Jeter scored right with his career average in UZR/150 last season, at -5.1. Add it all together, and you’re looking at something like 3.5-4 WAR. That’s pretty close to $19mil in value, but it would be ridiculous to assume he could maintain that value through his age 41 season. I see the probability of the Giants getting Rowanded with this deal if they decide to stick their noses in this mess.

The farm system doesn’t have much promise either. As mentioned last time, the three guys that got the most playing time at SS in Fresno were Ryan Rohlinger, Manny Burriss, and Angel Berroa.* Burriss already has 499 PA’s in the majors, with a line of .264/.329/.302. Ouch. He’s below average defensively, and probably is better as a second baseman. Essentially, Burriss is the definition of replacement level.

*Not only did Berroa play 26 games at short, but Tony Pena Jr. played 4 games. I’m not sure when Fresno became a graveyard for former Royals shortstops, but I don’t like it one bit.

Rohlinger is a different story. At 27 next season, he’s not young, but he hit well in half a season with Fresno last year. His line there stood at .311/.392/.477, which, according to minorleaguesplits.com, translates to a .266/.332/.392 line in San Francisco. Think Travis Ishikawa with the bat, playing shortstop. He projects as a slightly below average fielder in the majors, especially as a shortstop. Rohlinger isn’t ideal, but he’s better than replacement level and at the major league minimum, the Giants really have nothing to lose.

I would recommend carrying Rohlinger on the 25-man roster and signing Renteria for a single year. Renteria offers a .320 wOBA bat, and if he gets injured (excuse me; when he gets injured), Rohlinger can step in and hit something like a .310 wOBA. Combined, they shouldn’t cost more than $6mil, and will offer 1.5-2 WAR.

Losing Uribe to the Dodgers hurts, but I think Colletti overpaid, and I think the Giants made the right call not matching the offer. Give Renteria something like 1 yr/$5-$7mil, have Rohlinger ready in the wings for when Renteria goes down, and save some money and maintain flexibility for the future.

Oh, also, avoid Derek Jeter at all costs. Come on Sabean, I know you want to, but don’t do it. Please. For all of us.

Hot Stove League: World Champions Edition

My final piece of 2010 Giants World Series Champions memorabilia came in the mail yesterday, so you know what that means: Hot Stove time!

Decisions, decisions. The Giants have a few tough ones to make, the most pressing of those being: who plays SS next season? Brian Sabean has apparently already reached out to Juan Uribe about the possibility of coming back, and with such a weak FA class this year, he’s probably the best option.

Uribe had quite the breakout year, if you can call it that, in 2010 at the age of 30. He posted a WAR (FanGraphs version) of 3.2, which is his highest score since 2004 with the White Sox. That puts his value at about $13 million dollars for the season. Since he signed a $3.25mil contract at the beginning of the season, that’s almost $10mil in surplus value: quite the bargain. One suspects he won’t come so cheaply this season. Uribe will almost certainly be looking for a 2/3 year contract, and I would guess he could land $6-$8mil a year. Taking the upper threshold, that’s $21mil right there, meaning he would have to put up 5+ WAR to break even.

Is Uribe capable of that? Of course, that would only be 1.3 WAR per year, or a bit below average. I, however, have some doubts. Remember, next season is his age 31 year, so his contract would keep him signed through his age 32 year. He’s already showing some signs of aging: his line drive percentage is down 5% and his fly ball percentage is up 5%, and those fly balls are going to stop going over the fence and start landing in outfielder’s gloves as he gets older. He posted the highest walk percentage of his career, and the lowest strikeout percentage since 2005, and both of those are good signs. But chances are they’re aberrations: the 2011 Bill James Projections see his walk percentage and strikeout percentage returning to normal levels.

A look at Uribe’s top B-R.com similar players helps us look into Juan’s future a little bit. Uribe has a career line of .256/.300/.431, including a .266/.318/.464 line in 1006 PA’s with the Giants. Uribe’s number one comp through the age of 30 is Rico Petrocelli, a SS and 3B for the Boston Red Sox in the 60s and 70s. I don’t think it’s a great comp, but we can run with it. Petrocelli was a slightly above-average shortstop, just like Uribe, with a little bit of power, just like Uribe. By his age 30 season, he had been moved to 3B, where he was right at or a little below league average, and he hit .244/.333/.396, which was good for an exactly average 100 OPS+. Fangraphs has him for 2.9 WAR for the season, which is pretty darn close to Uribe’s 3.2 figure this year.

So what happened to Petrocelli? In his age 31 season, he posted a 110 OPS+, but his defense fell off a cliff, costing him 10 runs of value between 1973 and 1974. He scored a 2.7 WAR for his age 31 season, but in the two seasons following he posted a combined 0.1 WAR. For those three seasons he hit .245/.320/.359, good for an 88 OPS+, and was slightly below average defensively, giving back 4 runs over those three seasons.

Uribe’s second best comp is Dick McAuliffe, and this comparison gives a slight bit of hope. McAuliffe, like Petrocelli, was a utility infielder in the 60s and 70s. McAuliffe, according to Total Zone, was a worse fielder than Uribe, posting -2.3 dWAR through his age 30 season, compared to Uribe’s 4.2 dWAR. McAuliffe’s career batting line through age 30 was .253/.349/.413, and from his age 31 season in 1971 through the end of his career he hit .231/.320/.372. I really don’t like the McAuliffe comparison because he did one thing Uribe decidedly does not do: walk. McAuliffe’s career walk rate is 12.3%, more than twice Uribe’s rate at 5.6%. His career on-base percentage is 43 points higher than Uribe’s as well.

A more comparable and slightly better comparison is to Alex Gonzalez, the SS for the Blue Jays in the late 90s. Through his age 30 season, Gonzalez had a batting line of .243/.304/.394. He played above-average defense at short, racking up 2.0 dWAR through age 30, and he was a below average hitter, having a career OPS+ of 80 through 2003. Uribe has a career OPS+ of 85. And as for Gonzalez’s career after age 30? A .242/.289/.376 slash line, which comes out to a 73 OPS+. He was below average with the glove too, giving back 4 runs over 3 seasons. Overall, that comes out to a -0.6 WAR over 700+ PA’s; not what you’re looking for from your SS.

Looking at his comparables and seeing how the end of their careers worked out, it’s easy to see why some might be a bit hesitant to re-sign Uribe. Unfortunately for the Giants, there just isn’t much else out there. It’s an incredibly weak middle-infielder class this year, and with Brandon Crawford at least another year away (and probably ending up a good glove, no bat guy anyway) they don’t have any in-house candidates either. The three players with the most playing time at SS for Fresno were Emmanuel Burriss (we’ve seen that movie before), Ryan Rohlinger (an intriguing option, he had a .869 OPS last year and had a 9% walk rate), and…

Get ready for this…

Angel Berroa.

/shudder

So, yeah, with nothing better than perhaps a major league backup in Rohlinger, the Giants need to either re-sign Uribe or bring in someone from outside the organization. I have two proposals.

One, J.J. Hardy. Hardy hit .268/.320/.394 for the Twins this year, and rated an 8.1 by UZR, which is excellent. He comes bringing an A glove and a B- bat, which is good enough for me, considering he will probably be cheaper than Uribe. His depressed offensive numbers hide some unluckiness; his HR/FB ration was the lowest of his career this year, even though his LD% returned to the area it was when he was hitting 25 HRs a year. The 2011 Bill James Projections have his good for a .331 wOBA and a 107 wRC+ next season, which, coupled with a 6-8 plus run glove, gives him a WAR of around 3-3.5. He’s 3 years younger than Uribe as well. The only problem is the Twins are unlikely to non-tender him, unless they get to bid on the next person on my list.

The other viable option for the Giants is quite intriguing: 26-year-old Chiba Lotte Marines SS Tsuyoshi Nishioka. He’s due to get posted by the Marines in the next week or so, and he’s a very intriguing option. He had a fantastic season in the Nippon Professional League this year, hitting .346/.423/.482. He’s got great contact skills, and became the first NPB Pacific League player since Ichiro to eclipse the 200-hit mark in a season (the NPB plays a 144-game season). His glove profiles as fringe-average to below average, and he has a weak arm, but with a relatively low posting price he’s definitely worth the gamble. The Cardinals, Mariners, and Dodgers are said to be interested in him as well, so we’ll just have to sit back and see what happens.

I project Nishioka to be an average major leaguer. His “isolated walk” rate (OBP-AVG) is .077, which is quite good, and while he doesn’t have home run power, especially in larger American stadiums, he should be good for 30 or so doubles and 5-10 triples a year. I imagine something along the lines of a .335-.340 wOBA, a -5 glove, and good baserunning, making him a 2-3 WAR player. He should be worth the roughly $10mil it will cost to negotiate and sign him.*

*I can’t read the name Tsuyoshi without thinking of defensive whiz Tsuyoshi Shinjo, a very obscure outfielder on the Giants’ 2002 team. Giants fans have for years lamented Dusty Baker’s decision to start Kenny Lofton in center instead of Shinjo in games played at Angel’s Stadium, when switching the two would have been obviously better. Shinjo, in 891 innings that year, was worth 12 runs defensively. Lofton was worth 5 runs in 300 more innings, and would be exactly league average from 2000 to 2007, when he retired.

Man it was nice to exorcise those demons.

In the end, Uribe is probably the best option out there. It might cost the Giants a Renteria-like contract (2 yr, $18mil), but there really isn’t anyone else. If Hardy gets non-tendered, or can be traded for on the cheap, I would go there, but there really isn’t a whole lot of difference between Hardy and Uribe. Nishioka’s fascinating, but the glove profiles more as a second baseman and could really depress his value to the Giants. If I have to spend the next two years watching Uribe take massive hacks at sliders in the dirt, well, hey, it’s better than watching Brian Bocock, right?

The 2011 Giants Payroll

It’s been mere days since the Giants wrapped up their first World Series Championship since 1954, and already GM Brian Sabean is diving headlong into the Hot Stove season. In 2010, the Giants already had their highest payroll figure ever, at just over $96 million dollars. The question now is, how much higher can we expect it to go? How much higher can the owners afford to let it go?

The Giants have eight players that are arbitration eligible for 2010, as well as decisions to be made about Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell, and Juan Uribe. The Giants have already declined Edgar Renteria’s $10.5 million dollar option for 2011, and I agree with the move. Renteria is old and fragile, and would be hard pressed to put up $10.5 million worth of production.

So, as of now, the Giants are committed to around $79 million in payroll for next year. I expect them to get a deal done with Huff and Uribe at least. Let’s use the figure that Fangraphs contributor and blogger extraordinaire Dave Cameron crowd sourced last week from Fangraphs readers. They figured Huff would get a two year deal worth $8mil a year. Uribe made $3.25mil this season, and, after posting a 2.0 WAR season, is due for a slight raise. Let’s say they sign him for 2 years, $6mil per. That puts them at $93 million.

Now, the eight players that are arbitration eligible are Andres Torres, Jonathan Sanchez, Ramon Ramirez, Mike Fontenot, Santiago Casilla, Cody Ross, Chris Ray, and Javier Lopez. Let’s break this down player by player:

Definitely getting tendered: Andres Torres, Jonathan Sanchez, Santiago Casilla, Cody Ross, Javier Lopez

These guys will all definitely get offered contracts, and I agree with that. All are solid players; Torres and Ross figure to start next year, Sanchez is the number three guy in the rotation, Casilla had 56 K’s in 55 innings, and Lopez had a transcendent postseason to go along with a solid regular season.

Might get tendered: Mike Fontenot, Ramon Ramirez

I would disagree if either of these players were offered a contract. Fontenot can play three positions, but none of them well, and a slap-happy bat with nearly no pop. In 76 PA’s with the Giants, he slugged on .310, and in his last 680 PA’s he’s slugging .376. In 348.2 innings this year at second base, he cost the Cubs and Giants 6 runs. I just don’t see a good reason to bring him back. Meanwhile, Ramirez is a serviceable right-hander out of the pen, but I just don’t see a reason to keep him around.

Definitely shouldn’t get tendered: Chris Ray

He could go in the other category, as he’s nearly identical to Ramirez. I just don’t see a good reason to bring him back. An xFIP of 5.30 doesn’t help his case, nor does a 5.01 K/9 rate, especially when contrasted with his BB/9 rate of 4.04.

Ideally, the Giants would offer arbitration to Torres, Sanchez, Casilla, Ross, and Lopez, and let’s say they get raises of a combined $7.5mil. That puts us at approximately $100.5 million dollars so far for 2011. Would ownership be willing to push that to $120mil-plus in order to go after Carl Crawford or Jayson Werth? I think they should, because a heavy-hitting outfielder is exactly what this team needs.*

*If the Giants decide to let Pat Burrell walk and go after Crawford or Werth (at a significantly higher cost), it is worth noting that, in 2010:

Pat Burrell, age 33: .262/.364/.509

Jayson Werth, age 31: .296/.388/.532

Carl Crawford, age 28: .307/.358/.495

If the Giants were to increase payroll to $120 million, that would represent a 20% increase in payroll from this year. That got me wondering: historically, what happens to a team’s payroll after winning the World Series? Intuitively, I would expect that it would go up. The team is more attractive to free agents, cash flow increases as season tickets are sold faster, enthusiasm from the fan base leads to more rash decisions, etc. But I decided to look back on the last ten years and see what the trends were.*

*I only went to 2000 because that was as much data as my contract and payroll source, Cot’s Baseball Contracts, had.

So, do payrolls typically increase? The easy answer is yes. Payroll has increased an average of 7% the year after winning the World Series over the last ten years. The worst offender were the 2006 Chicago White Sox, who, after ending their 88-year World Series drought the previous year, increased their payroll from $75.2mil to $102.8mil, a staggering 26% increase. In the last ten years, there have been three teams that actually cut payroll the season after they won it all. One is the 2004 Florida Marlins, to no one’s surprise. They cut payroll from $45.1mil in 2003, when they won the title, to $42.2mil in 2004.*

*Can you imagine a team winning a title with a $45.1 million payroll? Even after inflation, that’s like a team winning the title with a $53 million payroll today. For comparison, the A’s payroll was $58 million.

The other two times it happened last decade were actually by the same team. The Boston Red Sox, surprisingly enough, cut payroll after both of their Series wins in the 2000s. In 2005, they cut payroll 3% after ending the Curse, and after their second title in ’07 they cut payroll 7%.

So, a 20% increase in payroll is rare, but not unheard of. After winning it all in 2002, the Angels boosted payroll 21%, and the year before that the Diamondbacks raised payroll 16%. The Phillies raised payroll 13% after winning in 2008. However, I just don’t think it’s worth it to push payroll that high if they don’t have to. As I showed earlier, Pat Burrell offers nearly the same offensive skill set as Werth or Crawford for undoubtedly less money. Obviously, he isn’t in the same league as them defensively, but with Torres and Ross playing the other outfield positions, I think it matters little.

The Giants Are World Series Champions

You know what’s funny: I’ve never rooted for a team that won. Ever. I was too young to experience the 49ers in 1994, and that’s the only Bay Area team that has won a championship in my lifetime. Or, excuse me. Had.

Even the Sacramento Kings came thisclose to winning a championship before it was stolen from them. I mean, before they blew it. Heck, no team I’ve ever even played on has won a championship.* So I think I can be forgiven for not ever letting my guard down as the World Series commenced. Once upon a time, the Giants were 97% favorites to win the Series.** Forgive me for not trusting a 3-1 lead in the hands of Brian Wilson.

*And don’t even get me started on the IM Ultimate team my freshman year. Ohhhhhh man.

**So all the way through the Series there have been, naturally, a lot of comments made about the debacle in 2002 and leaving Russ Ortiz in and the Spiezio home run, but here’s what I had forgotten. The strange tricks of memory had me convinced that the Spiezio home run put the Angels in the lead, but that, of course, isn’t true. The Spiezio home run made the score 5-3, taking the Angels from a 7% chance of winning to a 19% chance. That is, even after the Spiezio home run, the Giants still had an 81% chance of closing the game out. It seems to me that Giants fans have been unduly harsh on Felix Rodriguez, and instead should be mad at Tim Worrell, who started the 8th inning with a home run by Darin Erstad, then gave up back-to-back singles to Tim Salmon and Garret Anderson. Anderson advanced on a Bonds error and Worrell was taken out. Troy Glaus then hit a 2-run double off of Robb Nen, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But after all that, they did it. They actually did it. The Rally Thong has replaced the Rally Monkey. The ghosts of 2002, 1989, and 1962 are gone. The Giants are World Champions, for the first time ever in San Francisco.

Man. Let that sink in a little bit.

They did it with pitching. You know what’s funny, for three seasons now, the experts have been saying, “This Giants team would be very dangerous if they could only get to October.” Well, they made it to October, and what happened? They were underdogs against the Braves. They were underdogs (big ones) against the Phillies. And they were underdogs against the Rangers. Haters gotta hate, I guess.

The pitching and defense were spectacular all season. The Giants allowed 583 runs this year, which is the lowest in a 162 game season since the true Year of the Pitcher in 1968. In that year, the league OPS was .641. This year, it was .723. These Giants were also the first in the league in Defensive Runs Saved Above Average, thanks in large part to Andres Torres (no surprise) and Aubrey Huff (big surprise). Even more surprising is Pat Burrell, who actually saved 6 runs in just over 600 innings, a fantastic rate. In all, Torres, Buster Posey, and Freddy Sanchez finished tenth in their respective positions in the Fielding Bible Awards, and Huff Daddy and Burrell both received votes.*

*Interestingly, Torres, Posey, and Sanchez all received a significant boost from one voter in the awards, the Tom Tango Fan Poll. The Fan Poll had Torres as the second best CF in the game, Posey the fourth best catcher, and Sanchez the fourth best second baseman. Giants’ fans are nothing if not loyal.

And the truth of the matter is, the offense was really not as punch-less as advertised. They hit 162 home runs, 12 above the major league average, in a park in which it’s very hard to hit homers, especially for lefties. Their team OPS was seven points higher than the NL average. Sure, they have their faults. They ground into way too many double plays (158, the most in the NL), and it really wouldn’t kill them to take a walk every now and then. But this wasn’t the Punch-and-Judy lineup of, say, 2007.

The 2010 Giants surprised some people. Hell, they surprised me. I mean, if it was my team I would have fired Bochy last winter and Sabean sometime around the middle of May. But that’s baseball, ain’t it? The Giants are World Series champions.

“The right-hander for the Giants throws, and SWING AND A MISS! AND THAT’S IT!! The Giants…are World Champions!”

Enjoy it. I know I will.