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Fun With Numbers

UZR Projection:

Ibanez: -14 runs
Burrell: -18

PMR Projection:

Ibanez: -12 runs
Burrell: -16

+/- Projection:

Ibanez: -17 runs
Burrell: -19

(Projections are approximate and deliberately conservative)

Congratulations, Philadelphia. Signing Raul Ibanez has upgraded your defense.

Still a stupid contract, though. $30m/3yr is an awful price to pay for a 36 year old who might not even be worth one WAR in the first year of his deal.

0 recs  |  56 comments

Comments

How is this even possible?
I'd like to never find out
.

But….But…..

Clubhouse Leadership Projection:

Ibanez: +147 intangibles
Burrell: +5

Burrell has a played for a winner so that number is way off.
Dude, he strikes out a lot, therefore he is selfish.
And he tries to hit home runs
He was probally also a dick though, so it's probally right.
I'm sad that Phils fans probably won't be as fastidious about giffing his finest defensive moments as we were.

He’s sure to put up many.

I’ll try to take up the mantle here. Like I said over at The Good Phight, viewing those .gifs is like watching snuff films.

For all the hataz

Man..I'm gonna miss him :(
He really laid out for that one.
Get the one from the Colorado game
I canceled my mlbtv subscription.
If I let you use mine will you do it?
Hey I was at this game
Where did my pic go?
LL has a strict rule on politics. Given the allusory nature of the pic, I am unsure on its status.
Okay cool...was just confused.
Thank god it isn't us doing this

It’s sooooo nice to be able to look at moves like this from the outside.

LOL

so good to see Raul’s “highlights” one last time

Burnett -------> Yankees

5/82.5

Per ESPN

Terrible deal.
No, more like a slight overpay with one too many years.
Burnett's tRA+ has been excellent for five consecutive years
I never said that he was a bad player,

but five years for a 31 year old pitcher who gets hurt a lot? I don’t know…

Yankee money
Mike Mussina part 2?
Mike Mussina was good.
Darnit

dumb Yankees overpaying for Burnett might mean that they won’t take Texeira away from the @#$!! Angels.

Or am I underestimating their fatcatness?

They're not really overpaying and if they are it's not by much.

Too many years though.

IMO 82.5 million for a guy who only pitches a full season when it's his contract year is too much.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence since this is the 2nd time it happened and I hate guys like that (or at least think that teams giving long expensive contracts to such players are dumb).

I think you're making a fairly dangerous assumption there.

He was paid market value pretty much on the button. No real discount for long-term contract/injury history, but the Yankee factor explains that.

OK, we'll see very quickly whether he pitches full seasons or not, now that he has the fat contract.
AJ Burnett hates pitching and gets injured on purpose.
You said it, not me.

Since it didn’t seem clear, I’m not saying he’s a complete slacker, no. I’m just saying that I don’t particularly like guys who take days off in some cases on various aches and pains (before anyone gets off on ridiculous exaggerations again, sometimes for serious injuries it is well merited), which strangely enough don’t bother the person in a contract year and in which he ends up performing excellently with no such “vacations” necessary.

Sometimes aches and pains turn into serious injuries.
And I'm sorry to make trouble. I have nothing personally against AJ.

Maybe it’s just that I don’t got any realistic idea of “market value” at present. An 82.5 million dollar contract seems huge to me. Bona fide staff ace money.

And I guess i'm pissed off

because I want Texeira far away from the $#! Angels.

I see why, but that contract will end up biting them in the ass if he signs it.

Unless of course the market has just totally gone into hiding, which seems doubtful.

Market value is about $4.85mm/WAR.

They’re paying for ~3.3 WAR/year. That’s about right.

How much have we figured out

if defense depends on the players you are surrounded by?

If we have Ichiro in CF and Ibanez/Dunn in LF/RF, I would guess that Ibanez would make many more plays than expected since Ibanez and Dunn would not be able to reach anything and Ichiro could get whatever he wanted.

With Cameron/Winn/Ichiro there were only so many flyballs to go around. How much of an impact does this make? At a team perspective, is the marginal value of adding talent in the OF constant or at some point do you reach a plateau where adding a better OF will no longer improve your team defense?

I'm pretty sure there's less in the way of overlap than you'd think

There’s going to be some with better outfielders, to be sure, but if you picture the outfield as a pair of Venn diagrams, the area that the circles have to themselves is far, far greater than the area they share.

Yeah I guess they'd have to be insanely rangy for their "Venn diagrams" to overlap significantly

PS. You’re a nerd

Nothing nerdy about Venn diagrams
More highlight reel catches would be made

if there is a quick outfield because players would be more willing to attempt the diving catches if they know that someone else would cut it off if they missed.

I am fairly confident that players either dive or they do not.

At this point in someone’s career their tendencies as a defender are pretty well set. I doubt they consciously will choose to dive more.

I don’t think I ever saw a player dive more than Derek Bell and he was a terrible defensive outfielder. He dove mostly because he had a horibble first step after contact and was always late getting to the ball.

I wonder about this.

I’m certainly nowhere near this level and maybe they have their habits far more ingrained after repetitions than I did playing spotty college ball, but on the times I was playing the OF, I know I would change my aggressiveness level depending on who my OF mates were.

Was that due to them being very good, fundamentally sound or both?

You are a good athlete and I have always believed good athletes have an ability to change things without screwing up their game.

Lesser athletes will lose what makes them successful if they give up their routine. I fit into the latter category and I assume some Major League defenders do to.

Maybe you are right though and I am colored by watching Ichiro for the past 8 years.

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