SBG: Ubelmann: Casey Blake Is NOT The Answer At Third Base

for the Twins. Even tho Michael Kay said that “Casey Blake could answer a lot of team’s problems…including the Yankees”  (self-stitches head with tetanus engulfed baling wire)

2) Paying Blake even $3-5M this year is too much money to commit to him, and with the number of teams that are interested in him, he’s going to get multiple years. It’s one thing to invest in a 35-year-old player who is a special player, but Blake is not a special player. He’s carved out a nice career for himself, but whoever pays Blake is going to be paying for the 31-34-year-old Blake’s performance while getting the 35-37-year-old Blake’s performance. This is not a good idea for a team that operates under financial constraints.

Going into 2008, PECOTA had Blake with a 21% attrition rate and a 28% collapse rate. Being another year older is not going to help those numbers. For comparison, Lamb was a bigger risk of fail this year: 30% attrition and 39% collapse. Regardless, I don’t know why the Twins would want to bother with the risk that they’ll have millions tied up in a guy who has a decent chance of falling apart with a limited upside (league average hitter who is a defensive liability.) It’s fairly amazing that Blake hasn’t fallen apart yet—unathletic guys tend to age poorly—but I don’t think the smart money is on him continuing to be decent.