2008 ZiPS Projections, Final Spreadsheet

The title is pretty explanatory. 

2008 ZiPS Projections for Microsoft Excel

The White Sox are officially my least favorite team for 2008 for forcing me to slap some crap together to try and project Alexei Ramirez.  The Reds are the runner-up for making it so I have to project a reliever who hasn’t been active since 2004.

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Blue Jays - Signed Wilkeron, Acquired Mench

Toronto Blue Jays - Signed OF Brad Wilkerson; acquired OF Kevin Mench for cash considerations.

Jays leftfielders have combined for 224/303/299, DHs for 197/295/314. Bonds could be a serial killer and still not be as unpleasant a situation for the Jays, whose GM's strategy for building the offense was to hide under a pile of jackets and just hope somehow everything would work out. It hasn't, though, and Wilkerson, who hasn't hit at all since he messed up his shoulder and Mench, who just isn't very good, aren't going to turn around the offense.

ZiPS Projection - Brad Wilkerson
------------------------------------------------------------------------
              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year-to-Date  56   1   13   4  0   0   5  10  15   1  .232  .348  .304   
Rest-of-Yr?  279  41   65  18  1  11  38  38  90   3  .233  .329  .423
Proj. 2008   335  42   78  22  1  11  43  48 105   4  .233  .332  .403  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2009?        286  42   63  16  1  13  45  34 100   2  .220  .305  .420 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Offensive Comps: Jim Dwyer, Rob Mackowiak

ZiPS Projection - Kevin Mench
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               AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year-to-Date*…

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Padres - Released Edmonds

San Diego Padres - Released CF Jim Edmonds; recalled OF Jody Gerut.

Edmonds was an important part of the Padres offense. An important part of why the Padres been almost as bad offensively as the Giants, that is. Edmonds has had a great career (and would be a Hall of Famer if the bar hadn't been raised ridiculously thanks to the Vet Committee now being a dead-end), but he's pretty toasteriffic now. He might latch onto a team for a few months (Reds if Patterson gets dumped?), but he's pretty close to playing out the string. Maybe the Giants will sign Edmonds - he can't hit and doesn't play short and is lefthanded, but still might be a better overall shortstop than Bocock or Burriss.

I'm glad to see a Jody Gerut get some more playing time, which he'll almost have to with Edmonds being done and messing up the Padres' plans.

ZiPS Projection - Jim Edmonds
------------------------------------------------------------------------
              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year-to-Date  90   6   16   2  0   1   6  10  24   2  .178  .265  .233   
Rest-of-Yr?  285  36   67  13  1  11  37  40  75   3  .235  .331  .404
Proj.…

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Diamondbacks - Signed Young

Arizona Diamondbacks - Signed CF Chris Young to a 5-year contract believed to be worth $30 million.

The free agent market continues to mature - whereas teams have really gotten the hang of non-tendering arbitration-eligible players that aren't even worth the club's number, they're now generally getting more aggressive at locking up the players they want to keep while they still have the most leverage. I think it's going to be awhile until we start seeing successfully turning their teams around in the free agent market, at least until the pendulum swings the other way and teams start overvaluing their young players and undervaluing free agents.

Young's 2007 was a mild disappointment, but he was playing below his talent level that both stats and scouts agreed he had. With solid defense, Young's a major star if he hits .280 and even hitting .230, he should bring enough power and defense to be a net positive for $5 million a year. Thumbs up. These types of deals, even when they go bad, are almost never crippling.

ZiPS Projection - Chris Young
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              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year-to-Date  23   7    5   2  0…

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Blue Jays - Signed Rios, Hill

Toronto Blue Jays - Signed RF Alexis Rios and 2B Aaron Hill to long-term contracts.

Rios's deal is worth $64 million over 6 years (with a club option for $13.5 million for 2015). He's not a superstar, but I'd rather have him through 2014 than most of the outfielders that were in free agency this year, and that's a helluva bargain. There's little chance that Rios becomes some 45-homers-a-year God, but he doesn't need to be with 4 years of free agency being bought. I haven't seen a detailed accounting of the years and salaries, but if we conservatively assume that he'd make $15 million in his last 2 years of arbitration, the Jays are getting 4 free agent years from Rios for about $12 million a year. A lot can happen in 2 years, of course, which is why the Jays can get him for only $12 million. No complaints here. Of course, I didn't complain about Vernon Wells's new contract and it's not looking as good as it did a year ago (though Wells is making a lot more than Rios in his new deal).

Hill scores $4 million a year through 2011 and the Jays hold 3 option…

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2008 ZiPS Projections - In-Season Projection Tool

2008 ZiPS In-Season Projection Tool

Just a little tool I give out every year to make estimated recalculations of projections for the rest of the season.  As usual with my spreadsheets, green cells are ones you put stuff into.  Someone more clever than I might be able to figure out how to data-mine a few of those cells automatically.  Remember, it’s really early in a season, so I probably wouldn’t use this too much, especially for starting pitchers, for another couple of weeks.

ZiPS Career Projection - David Ortiz

There was a discussion of this recently in the thread talking about David Ortiz and the Hall of Fame and how he compared to Edgar Martinez.

Reds - Signed Fogg, Released Wilson

Cincinnati Reds - Signed P Josh Fogg to a 1-year contract; released 1B Craig Wilson.

Josh Fogg peaked about a week too early. After a good second-half and one of the best team comebacks in history down the stretch, Fogg's 2 playoff wins oddly enough had the talking heads on the World Series coverage talking about Fogg with hushed awe, as if they couldn't believe that the man who held one of baseball's worst offensive teams to 1 run in 6 innings was actually on the mound in front of them. If he had held the Red Sox, it would've been worth quite a few million dollars. Alas, the Red Sox murderized him and he went back to Josh Fogg, the regular ol' mediocre version.

But hey, he's only getting about 20% of what Livan Hernandez will get to probably be a worse pitcher.

Wilson failed his physical. Just ask Wilson or Morgan Ensberg or Brad Wilkerson - shoulder injuries don't just ruin the careers of pitchers.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Josh Fogg
-----------------------------------------------------------------
            W   L   G  GS   IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA   ERA+
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Projection  7  10  28  26  153  176   89  22  57  93  5.24    88
-----------------------------------------------------------------…

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Diamondbacks - Signed Nixon

Arizona Diamondbacks - Signed RF Trot Nixon to a minor-league contract.

Injuries have brought Nixon to the brink of toastdom, but if he's healthy, Chase is a great place to try to revive your career. If I'm Trot Nixon and already have made $30 million, I'd rather play for the Diamondbacks for nearly free (though in this case, he gets decent money if he makes the team) rather than a token $5 million from a tougher environment and give my career every chance to turn around. Nixon's hardly guaranteed a shot - Tracy not being ready would be a huge boost here. Another 2007, however, and we won't have him to kick around anymore.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Trot Nixon
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              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS+  DR   
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Projection   297  39   82  19  0   6  42  41  40   0  .276  .367  .401    96   -2 
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Opt. (15%)   363  55  104  24  0   8  48  62  45   1  .287  .394  .419   107    1
Pes. (15%)   263  22   63  12  0   3  24  35  45   0  .240  .331  .319    67   -6
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Top Offensive Comps: Russ Snyder, Gene Woodling

Diamond Mind Playing Time Tool

I tend to find generated backup playing time one of the annoying things about making manager profiles in Diamond Mind, so here’s a little spreadsheet I like to use that generates quick preliminary playing time percentages by looking at entered games played and handedness of the starters and divides the remaining playing time of the backups from their handedness (or battedness as I guess is more apt), their RC/27, and their defensive ratings at the positions in question.  Obviously, one can ignore what the spreadsheet says in specific instances, but I find this useful.  One thing to note is that the spreadsheet will give a few starts to backups of players that you put in for 162 games - it’s expecting that a few games won’t necessarily be as a starter.

And yes, I know there’s nobody named Myers on the Diamondbacks - that’s just for testing.

DMB Playing Time Tool

Reds - Signed Phillips

Cincinnati Reds - Signed 2B Brandon Phillips to a 4-year, $27 million

I'm thinking of two second basemen. One of those second basemen is Brandon Phillips. The other is a mystery player. Phillips is 27 for the 2008 sason, the mystery player is 28. Phillips will cost the Reds $27 million for the next 4 years while the mystery player might not make a single year of Phillips's salary over the new contract. Phillips and the mystery player are both roughly average defensively at 2nd. Phillips and the mystery player, when combining translations and major league numbers, you get the following performance by OPS+ for their careers:

Age      BP       M.P.
2000     80       COLLEGE
2001     98       COLLLEGE
2002     44       65
2003     86       78
2004     88       89
2005     64      101
2006     88       85
2007    105      117

Lest it be a question of major vs. minor performance, the Mystery Player has played nearly a full season in the majors and has a 106 OPS+ in the majors, while Phillips, in his best season, managed a 105. Mystery Player is absolutely free for the Reds to acquire.

Now, if you've been paying attention at all, it isn't hard to figure out that Mystery Player is…

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Twins - Signed Livan

Minnesota Twins - Signed P Livan Hernandez to a 1-year, $5 million contract, with $2 millioni in incentives.

Mariners - Acquired Bedard

Seattle Mariners - Acquired P Erik Bedard from the Baltimore Orioles for OF Adam Jones, P George Sherrill, P Chris Tillman, P Kam Mickolio, and P Tony Butler.

Best wishes to Bedard, the new Five-for-One. It's hard to believe, but the infamous Von Hayes trade is now a quarter-of-a-century past.

Ideally, I'd like the O's to be at the end of a rebuilding process and signing Bedard for the long-haul to take the bad taste of the gross mishandling of Mike Mussina's contract out of my mouth. But if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas (ha! I completed the figure of speech, pudding-proofers).

The Mariners only seemed grudgingly interested in Jones and Sherrill the last couple of year, only grudgingly giving Sherrill a full shot in '06 and acting this winter as if finding a full-time spot for Adam Jones was some annoyance like waiting for the cable guy instead of a marvelous opportunity to have a new, star Mariner for the next decade. Bedard's a tremendous pitcher, so he will help the team, but the team's still not really here or there and the most likely result is that they now finish in…

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2008 ZiPS Projections for Diamond Mind 9 and Microsoft Excel, Build 1.1

The title is pretty explanatory. 

2008 ZiPS Projections for Microsoft Excel

2008 ZiPS Projection Disk for Diamond Mind 9

2/8 Update

The DMB disk has been updated with SG’s version with depth charts, plus a few new signings (Hinske, Miller, etc.) a couple of other minor league signings, Slayden moved to PHI, and projections for Ramon Nivar (256/295/331, Edgar Gonzalez (259/319/370), and John Hudgins (4.98).  Remember to let me know of additional player requests!

So, what’s done here?  Projections for 1036 pitchers and 1005 hitters.  If you play Diamond Mind, 40-man rosters (with the exceptions of players I don’t do like whathisface from Cuba and David Price) and as many non-roster invitees as I have been able to verify are on the team, either as a non-roster invitee, an offseason minor league signing, or a carryover player not eligible for minor league free agency.

SG has provided the 2008 schedule, so that’s done.

What’s then left is making any corrections, adding any players that you wish to see projected that I can reasonably do (some 300 players here did not have projections for the team-by-team rundowns), and eventually making rosters.  In particular, if any DMB players would like to contribute a…

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Mets - Acquired Santana

New York Mets - Acquired P Johan Santana from the Minnesota Twins for OF Carlos Gomez, P Phil Humber, P Deolis Guerra, and P Kevin Mulvey.

A lot of people are saying what a weak package of players this is for Santana. I have to disagree - some of the packages that were thrown around for the Santana trade didn't happen simply because they were unrealistic. A player's salary is a big function of their value and while Santana is one of the best pitchers around, the Mets don't get a super tremendous awesomely outrageous deal when they sign Santana's paychecks as the Twins did while paying Santana $28 million for over $100 million worth of performance. There was no mythical Lowrie/Masterson/Lester/Ellsbury/Anderson/Doerr/Plantier/Pesky/Fenway/50% of Shell Oil/Jesus package out there in exchange for a single year of Santana and the rights to negotiate a market contract with Santana.

Individually, I like Adam Jones better than each player in this trade, but every player in this trade is a real prospect. Gomez is probably overrated as a prospect, but he's got a ton of potential. Guerra's years off, but has a lot of upside, as does Humber, and Mulvey, while not a high ceiling…

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2008 ZiPS Projections - Arizona Diamondbacks

As obvious as one of the main storylines of 2007 was, the pitching being top-notch and the offense being, well, otherwise, the park made these actually more extreme, masking to some degree just how good the pitching was and just how bad the hitting was. After all, the surges of the Rockies and Phillies, bringing Jimmy Rollins and Matt Holliday to the front of the pack, might have saved us from Eric Byrnes of the 104 OPS+ in left being taken seriously as an MVP candidate (as he was at times in the middle of the season).

The offense should be better but the pitching shouldn't drop off too much, which makes the Diamondbacks yet another contender in a crowded NL field. What makes the Diamondbacks especially dangerous is those little twos in the age column - the major league squad is chock-full of players that are at ages they can improve. Counting on an individual young player to improve is generally not as good a bet as most people think. However, when massed as they are in Arizona, they act almost as an index stock - it doesn't really matter if it's Mark Reynolds or Conor Jackson or Chris Young…

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2008 ZiPS Projections - Atlanta Braves

It's starting to look like the Braves' 2006 total of 79 wins represents the low-water mark for a while.

Considering their prominence in the NL over the last 15 years, it's surprising how quiet the Braves snuck back towards contention last year. On the offensive side, if the Big 5 can stay healthy, Atlanta has to be one of the favorites for the Wild Card and a contender for the division. The path of Kelly Johnson and Matt Die-az are clearer nw than ever before and there's little reason to think Brian McCann can't get back to his 2006 level of play, though catchers seem to age in bizarre ways at times. This offense plus General Zod and Hudson and this is a very dangerous October team.

The Braves are, however, probably more susceptible to injuries than the average team. There aren't a lot of backups at the offensive positions (they could survive with Pena at catcher and Prado/Lillibridge in the middle infield) and the rotation has little depth past the major leaguers. The Braves system has some really interesting players, but they're mainly very far off and even the ones I projected, like Schafer and Flowers, are a few years…

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Devil Rays - Signed Shields

Tampa Bay Rays - Signed P James Shields to a 7-year contract.

According to SportsTicker, 3 years, $12 million guaranteed with the rest coming in the form of options. It's hard to dislike this signing from either party's perspective This is something I've been advocating for some time - locking up players with 1 or 2 years of service time provided that their MLB performance isn't out of whack from their minor league performances. Early on in the service time clock, after all, is the only opportunity you can really offer a play a drastic change in income standing. Going from $300,000 to $4 million is huge. The guaranteed outlay is still small on relative terms and becomes even better as long as MLB's revenue growth dwarf's cost-of-living growth. $4 million for a 2008 individual is obviously less money than $4 million for a 1998 individual, but $4 million for a baseball team is a drop in a much larger bucket than it was then.

Even when these deals work out badly, when talking about the money involved, they're still not very damaging to the bottom line. Take the Eric Hinske. He was signed to a 5-year, $14.75 million contract before…

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2008 ZiPS Projections - Baltimore Orioles

Before doing the Baltimore projections, I fearlessly claimed that the Red Sox had the best projections of any AL team. After doing the Orioles projections, I'm not revising that opinion.

There are some reasons to like the franchise. That is, if you close your eyes and pretend that this is the time that Angelos won't short-circuit a long-term rebuilding job. Angelos seems to want a painless rebuild, but the time to get a relatively painless rebuild was 10 years ago. While they could have rebuilt after the 1997 season, it's hard to expect any team to rebuild after a 98-win season. But during the 1998 season, when it was clear that they weren't a contender, Angelos stood in the way of any change of direction. Palmeiro and Alomar and Eric Davis simply walked at the end of the season, there wasn't even a whisper of Brady Anderson or B.J. Surhoff being moved, and so on. The major league talent moved on, no minor league talent replaced them for years, and the team took one of the highest concentrations of high draft picks in history (7 of the first 50 picks in the draft) and turned it into Brian Roberts.

Now, a…

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Rays - Signed Pena

Tampa Bay Rays - Signed 1B Carlos Pena to a 3-year contract worth $24 million.

You know what? I like Tampa Bay Devil Rays better. It has meter. So I think I'll return to calling them that.

I'm shocked and appalled at this contract. The media's told me that Scott Boras forces players to squeeze every last dollar for every year of every single contract and if the player doesn't go along with his nefarious schemes, he ties them to the furnace in the basement, leaving them no choice but to subsist on basement bugs and their own urine. Falling back to earth a bit or not, with an MVP-type season in 2007, Pena accepting a buyout of his first year of free agency for $8 million, I have to cringe at what Saw-type torture Pena had to endure in order for Boras to grant him the right to do so. Either that or admit that Scott Boras is an employee of his client who serves the wishes of his client, but that's way too logical to be true.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Carlos Pena
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              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS+  DR…

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Cards - Might Sign Juan Gonzalez

St. Louis Cardinals - Reportedly interested in signing OF Juan Gonzalez.

Criticizing moves is kinda like backseat driving, so I made a list of things that were better ideas than signing Juan Gonzalez in an attempt to be positive and proactive. In order to preserve the site's bandwidth, I'm picking a random 7 of them.

Rangers - Signed Jennings

Texas Rangers - Signed P Jason Jennings to a 1-year, $4 million contract.

I bet Jason Jennings was damn happy to see the calendar turn to 2008. 2007 was a disaster for Jennings as he had the worst season of his career after tearing a tendon in his elbow in his contract year, and got to watch his former team play in the World Series (he's also the Rockies all-time winningest pitcher). If Jennings has his 2006 season in 2007, he'd be the most desirable free-agent pitcher born since Nixon took office and probably looking at least at a 4-year, $50 million contract right now. Instead, he's headed to one of the least desirable pitching environments and with an organization that seems to have little luck with reclamation projects. Jennings is playing for a contract again, but it's not an easy road.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Jason Jennings
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             W   L   G  GS   IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA  ERA+  
------------------------------------------------------------------
Projection   7   8  23  23  139  151   75  16  60  89  4.86   95  
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Opt. (15%)   9   7  25  25  156  158   69  14  57 110  3.98  115  
Pes. (15%)   5   7  19  19  113  130   72  16  55…

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Cubs - Signed Lieber

Chicago Cubs - Signed P Jon Lieber to a 1-year, $3.5 million contract.

Not a bad risk really. Lieber's health might mean that if the Cubs want Lieber to win 20 games for them again, they should have signed him to a 3-year contract, but since his sophomore swingman season for the Bucs, Lieber's yet to put up a season in which he's clearly below average for a starter, the lowest ERA+ being a 95 in '06 (starting pitchers usually combine for an ERA+ around 96). This solidifies a Zambrano/Lilly/Marquis/Hill/Lieber rotation as long as everyone's healthy, which has the side effect of pushing Gallagher and Marshall out of town, probably for Brian Roberts, fairly quickly. This also might mean the end of the Dempster-to-start experiment, an idea so puzzling that you would think Jim Hendry went for it because Frodo Baggins told him to do it in a dream or another owner he dislikes in his fantasy league wants Dempster to get some saves next season.

Lieber should give the Cubs what they want from him. A 5th starter who's more dependable than most 5th starters at winning games but an injury risk and who can throw some mopup innings in…

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2008 ZiPS Projections - Boston Red Sox

This might not come as a great shock considering the Red Sox just won the World Series for the 2nd time this decade, but ZiPS sees the Red Sox as the best team in the AL. Well, technically, I haven't done the Orioles yet, but I'm taking a wild guess that the Orioles aren't going to look better than the Sox on e-paper.

No real suprises here. It's a deep team. While they obviously don't have spare better-than-average 1B, DH or LF/RF backups stashed away, nobody really does, and the team is very deep everywhere else. The amount of minor leaguers that project to be non-terrible at up-the-middle positions is downright staggering and I'm not even counting guys like Lars Anderson who should pop up in the 2009 projections.

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS 
David Ortiz*             dh  32  .297  .400  .593 153 573 111 170 38  0 44 138  97 121  1  0 
Manny Ramirez            lf  36  .278  .381  .493 123 442  75 123 26  0 23  98  71  98  0  1 
AVERAGE 1B ------------- 1b ---- .290  .367  .489 ------------------------------------------
Kevin Youkilis           1b  29  .286  .388  .444…

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ZiPS FAQ Updated

ZiPS FAQ

With the Red Sox projections imminent, since that always gets the biggest traffic, I thought I’d update the FAQ a little.  If anybody has any questions, I’ll add them to the FAQ.

Rockies - Signed Giles

Colorado Rockies - Signed 2B Marcus Giles to a minor-league contract.

In the good ol' days of 10 years ago, declining free agents searching for one big payday didn't dream of high-society bank heists, but getting a contract with the Rockies. While Coors Field isn't the hitters' park that it once was, people like Ed Wade and Buzzie's Other Idiot Son are still entrusted with checkbooks, and going to Denver is a helluva lot smarter than trying to revive your career in San Diego. None of the competition at 2nd is all that frightening, so Giles could end up with a starting job if he plays well in the spring.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Marcus Giles
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              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS+  DR   
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Projection   437  74  117  27  2   7  54  50  67   9  .268  .348  .387    84   -4
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Opt. (15%)   527 103  153  37  3  14  78  63  75  17  .290  .371  .452   105    0  
Pes. (15%)   305  34   77  11  0   4  29  25  77   5  .252  .316  .328    58   -8 
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Top Offensive Comps: Junior Spivey, Tony Cuccinello

Oakland A’s - Signed Brown

Oakland A's - Signed OF Emil Brown to a 1-year contract.

Unless this is a Fantasy Camp situation in which Brown is paying the A's, this is a waste of everyone's time. Brown simply can't hit well enough to have value to the A's at a position he can field. Sure, he can hit lefties some and isn't too dreadful in left, but those aren't rare traits - it's the equivalent of putting "Doesn't use computer CD-ROM as drink holder" on your resume.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Emilstone Brown
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              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS+  DR   
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Projection   362  43   93  17  1   8  51  33  71   6  .257  .322  .376    86   -2
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Opt. (15%)   434  65  130  25  2  13  66  47  71  14  .300  .368  .456   119    1
Pes. (15%)   302  29   70  13  0   4  29  22  64   4  .232  .284  .315    60   -6   
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Top Offensive Comps: Shane Spencer, Hector Lopez

Brewers - Signed Cameron

Milwaukee Brewers - Signed CF Mike Cameron to a 1-year contract worth some sort of compensation, probably currency.

I'm guessing the dollar figure isn't one that I can complain too much about. The projection below does not reflect the fact that Cameron's guaranteed to miss 25 games of the 2008 season due to the suspension. This no doubt reduced the desirability of Cameron because it essentially eliminates the truly desperate teams like the Orioles from signing him as a stopgap centerfielder. When he does play with the Brewers, Cameron sets off a chain-reaction of Milwaukee players going to positions that they can play adequately, but the team defense isn't so bad that they can't manage a month without him. Good move by the Brewers, who should have a fun race with the Cubs this season. Cameron's once-excellent defense has eroded to being a hair above-average, but it shouldn't be a problem for a few years.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Mike Cameron
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              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS+  DR   
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Projection   481  80  122  29  5  18  67  59 123  18  .254  .341  .447   102    3 
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Opt. (15%)   508  98  138  39…

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Oakland A’s - Dumped Kotsay

Oakland A's - Acquired $2 million and P Joey Devine from the Atlanta Braves for CF Mark Kotsay.

Once Kotsay's good defense in 2004 didn't carry forward, this contract became mildly worrisome. When he ended up injured and hitting like an SNK Crusher, the contract became a little moreso. Kotsay is the starting centerfielder in Atlanta at the moment, but probably not for too long if he doesn't turn things around. As is, Kotsay's a mild upgrade from Josh Anderson if healthy. While that's an improvement, you should try to avoid having starters that are only mild upgrades from Josh Anderson.

Devine has nasty stuff, but frequently little knowledge of where that stuff is headed. But he gets the benefit of the doubt in my book because sidearmers are awesome. Just ask Peter Moylan about the better-than-Billy-Mayes benefits of "going Tekuvle."

2008 ZiPS Projection - Joey Devine
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             W   L   G  GS   IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA  ERA+  
------------------------------------------------------------------
Projection   5   4  49   0   52   51   25   6  30  44  4.33   99   
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Opt. (15%)   7   3  54   0   60   52   22   5  28  54  3.30  129 
Pes. (15%)   3   4  40   0   40   43   25   6  29  33…

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Blue Jays/Cards - Swapped Gimpy 3B

Toronto Blue Jays - Acquired 3B Scott Rolen from the St. Louis Cardinals for 3B Troy Glaus.

Love the challenge trade! Both third basemen are injury concerns. Rolen's a bit better when completely healthy but also has the lower chance of being completely healthy. I think the risk/reward scenarios actually work out pretty well for both teams - the Blue Jays are against very tough competition and have some heavy groundballers, so they want the more fielding oriented guy with the biggest payoff, since they're not going to slip into the playoffs with 88 wins anytime soon and the Cardinals, against rather weak competition, would rather have the safer bet.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Scott Rolen
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              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS+  DR   
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Projection   380  58   93  24  1  10  57  38  63   3  .245  .319  .392    84   14
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Opt. (15%)   473  89  140  38  2  19  81  50  66   6  .296  .369  .505   127   17
Pes. (15%)   355  47   83  24  0   8  43  28  68   2  .234  .293  .369    73   10 
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Top Offensive Comps:  Clete Boyer, Pinky "The Egalitarian" Higgins

2008 ZiPS Projection - Troy Glaus
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