I suspect many readers are aware of this, but I wanted to pass along the news that popular Braves blogger Mac Thomason is fighting cancer. All signs point to a likely recovery, but still it’s scary and no fun for Mac.

For those of you not familiar with Mac’s Braves Journal, it may be the oldest baseball blog still in existence. For so long, a Braves game didn’t happen unless Mac recapped it. I have great respect for Mac, and I wish him a quick recovery.

I’m not referring to the portion of Pat Burrell’s new two-year $16-million contract that will be going to the Rays Baseball Foundation. When I first read the headlines, I inadvertently believed the deal was worth $16 million per season, which is close to what I anticipated he would get. For two years, I have him valued at approximately $30 million. This contract is also considerably less than the $31.5 million that Burrell’s former Phillies will pay Raul Ibanez over the next three seasons.

I can only guess what motivated Burrell to sign this contract. Here are a few potential explanations.

1. The down economy has reduced revenue expectations, decreasing teams’ willingness to pay for free agents.
2. There is a glut of free-agent outfielders on the market, forcing competition between players, and thus depressing salaries.
3. Burrell wanted to take less to play in a comfortable environment that the Rays provide.

I don’t think the economy explains much of the discount. The inferior-but-similar Ibanez received a far superior contract in the same market conditions. Ryan Dempster and A.J. Burnett both received big contracts that I believe exceed their expected values. Furthermore, I believe the potential damage to MLB from the recession has been exaggerated by management, who want to convince players to sign for less. Though baseball will suffer, I think the damage will not be that large and short-lived. I’ve been following the economic impact stories closely, and baseball—like other major sports—seems to be somewhat resistant to recessions. Fans love their sports teams, and following sports is a relatively cheap form of entertainment. In any event, the economic downturn cannot explain the magnitude of Burrell’s discount—a short-term deal for nearly half of his potential revenue generation.

The second potential explanation is an argument that I see frequently in discussions of the free-agent market. However, the common intuition regarding the number of free agents on the market affecting the competitiveness of the market is wrong. The relative scarcity of talent doesn’t change when a player signs with a team or when there are many players on the market. For every free agent signing, there is one less buyer on the market, and for every free-agent player there is an additional open roster spot. Braves fans are well aware the available slots for outfielders.

This leaves me with the final explanation: Burrell was willing to accept less to play in Tampa. If Burrell was a financial mercenary, I think that he would’ve waited longer to sign a deal like this. Burrell went to college in Florida, so maybe he likes it there. Playing in front of fans who boo you for your big salary even when you are a productive player has to be frustrating. In Tampa, if the team stinks the fans just don’t go to the game. He’s earned a total of $54 million over the course of his playing career, so he’s probably willing to sacrifice some additional wealth for comfort.

We’ll soon see how the rest of the market shakes it. If other deals are vastly below expectations, then I think it’s a sign that the economy is having a dramatic effect on the players market.

It appears that Andruw Jones will be leaving the Dodgers within the next few weeks. Given Jones’s affinity for Atlanta and manager Bobby Cox, and Atlanta’s need for outfield help, a reunion seems possible. While it all comes down to what the Braves have to give up to acquire Jones, I think that Andruw is risk worth taking.

There is no denying that Jones was bad last season—a line of .158/.256/.249 is about as bad as you can get. This was preceded by a poor 2007 performance of .222/.311/.413. Is Andruw Jones even worth the league minimum? I think so.

I still believe that Andruw’s 2007 was largely a product of back luck, and that he should rebound. The table below lists Andruw’s performance in several areas from 2004–2006 and 2007–2008. The former years are good years, while the latter two are not.

Year	AVG	OBP	SLG	Iso	K rate	BB rate	+/-
2004	0.261	0.345	0.488	0.227	22.76%	10.99%	?
2005	0.263	0.347	0.575	0.312	16.67%	9.52%	?
2006	0.262	0.363	0.531	0.269	18.98%	12.26%	+27
Mean	0.262	0.352	0.531	0.269	19.47%	10.92%	+16

2007	0.222	0.311	0.413	0.191	20.94%	10.62%	+22
2008	0.158	0.256	0.249	0.091	31.93%	11.34%	-4

Though 2007 was not up to Andruw’s previous level, it was still a reasonable fluctuation below his typical performance. Jones’s average was way down (the most variable hitting metric), and that explained a good bit of his decline in OBP and SLG. His isolated power was down too, but .190 is respectable. His defense (as measured by John Dewan’s Plus/Minus) was a few plays above his average over his previous three seasons. It was a good bet that Jones would be a decent player who would outperform his 2007. The Dodgers apparently agreed as they offered him a two-year, $36 million deal.

Then 2008 happened. It is easy to view 2008 as a continuation of 2007; but, Jones didn’t continue to decline, he collapsed. This wasn’t aging, Jones went from being an elite baseball player to being below major-league caliber. Even his defense suffered. I believe that Jones’s knee injury—which forced him to spend a large portion of the season on the DL—combined with poor conditioning, adjusting to a new team, and even a little bad luck caused Jones’s problem. I believe that these are all correctable.

I have seen Jones compared to other guys who never panned out like Rubin Sierra—Jones’s “most similar” player from age 21–27. That is a worthy comp, but I think of Jones like Mike Lowell. He was a very good player who just looked awful during his age-31 season in Florida. The Marlins basically forced the Red Sox to take him in the Josh Beckett deal. At the time, I was certain Lowell was done, but it turns out that Lowell had some good baseball left in him.

I think there’s some good baseball left in Andruw Jones. At 32, he is on the downside of his career, but player career paths look more like Stone Mountain than the Matterhorn. If he’s healthy and motivated, I think he’ll be a serviceable major-league outfielder. Is he worth the full value of what the Dodgers owe him? I doubt it, but that should be irrelevant to his new team. If the Braves could get him for the $5 million he will be paid next season, I’d jump at it. Especially, considering that the Braves outfield needs some players. The 2008 Andruw might be the real thing; and if that is the case, you eat the contract and write it off as a risk that didn’t turn out. But if his problems are behind him, he’ll be a bargain.

UPDATE: Of course, this pops up on BTF right after I posted.

Report: Andruw Jones Quits Winter Ball

just a few lines to let you know that andruw jones left his team for good, and is not coming back, the reason is that his wife is sick, but the real reason for me is that the team asked him to leave. He was struggling here, only a .148 ave, slow in defense

Peace on Earth

I wish you a happy and safe holiday season.

I’ve got family coming in and out of town over the next two weeks, so I’m not planning to post much (if at all) during this time. I thought I’d leave you with a list of gifts for the baseball analyst. These are the books that I recommend.

Introduction
Moneyball by Michael Lewis — A good introduction to the big picture.
The Numbers Game by Alan Schwarz — The entire history of baseball analysis. I reference it frequently.

Intermediate
Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame by Bill James — A good introduction to the objective analysis of Bill James.
Baseball Between the Numbers by Baseball Prospectus — A good introduction to sabermetrics. I don’t agree with everything in the book, but it offers good coverage modern sabermetrics.
The Baseball Economist by J.C. Bradbury — If you want to know what I think.

Advanced
Curve Ball by Jim Albert and Jay Bennett — An easy-to-read introduction to the application of statistics to baseball by two statisticians. A must for the serious baseball analyst.
Baseball’s All-Time Best Sluggers by Michael Schell — The best treatise on hitting ever written, by a UNC biostatistics professor who grew up in my neighborhood and played in my Little League (we didn’t know each other, though). This is not light reading.
Baseball Hacks by Joseph Adler — A guide to acquiring and organizing baseball data from the web.

I wish you a happy an safe holiday season.

David O’Brien explains why the Braves might be reluctant to sign an outfielder to a long-term deal.

Among hitters, I just don’t think the Braves have any desire to give a three-year or whatever contract to a poor defensive outfielder like Pat Burrell or Adam Dunn. Not that they couldn’t use the homers (they obviously could), but I don’t think they want to go long-term with a guy who’d block one of the younger outfielders a year or two from now, namely Jason Heyward, their top position-player prospect.

What if, just what if, Francoeur were to get his career back on track in 2009? Then a year or two from now, when Jordan Schafer or Gorkys Hernandez is in CF and Francoeur’s a fan-favorite again in RF, do you just assume you’d be able to shed the salary of a Burrell or Dunn and open a spot for Heyward?

If the Braves are thinking long-term (and they are), they’ve got to plan accordingly, to have room for the prospects they’re grooming now in a farm system is back to a healthy state with a lot of legit prospects who’ll be in the upper tiers this year, not a farm system where most of the best prospects are in rookie or A-ball the way they were a year or two ago after the Teixeira trade.

What if Jeff Francoeur gets his career “back on track”? By getting back on track does he mean a below-average corner outfielder or plays like he did after he was first called up? I suspect the latter, and I think that is very unlikely. I mean what if Chipper Jones bats like he did in 2004? It’s not good policy to base decisions on unlikely scenarios.

But, let’s say Francoeur does blossom into a star, and Heyward, Schafer, and Hernandez are ready to join the team in 2010. Well, then you trade from a surplus in one area for a more-desirable basket of players. I consider this to be a nice problem, and I don’t worry about this potential occurrence. Having Jim Thome when Ryan Howard was ready to play wasn’t a problem for the Phillies.

With the collapse of the Furcal-to-Atlanta deal, Frank Wren has been getting a lot of criticism. I’m not sure it’s warranted, but I think now is a good time to pass along a few thoughts related to the Braves GM.

• I heard Frank Wren on the the radio this morning (790 The Zone podcast), and he’s not happy about the Furcal situation. He stated a few important points that I want to pass along.
  • Furcal’s agent left a voice mail asking for a “term sheet” and stated “we’re good.” Wren emphasized that “we’re good” was a direct quote, and that in a business where face-to-face meetings are rare this constitutes a done deal.
  • He stated that he had talked to Furcal about moving to second base, and Furcal indicated that he was fine with the move.
  • Furcal’s agent did come back with further demands, but the terms were ones that the agent knew the Braves would reject, including a no-trade clause.
• Frank Wren is a good interview. He is nothing like his predecessor in this area. He responds in detail to questions, giving more than the minimum. He’s emotional, but conveys rational thoughts even when expressing emotions. John Schuerholz always sounded to me like he had other things to do and was annoyed by questions.
• I’m not sure you can say that Wren has performed differently from Schuerholz. My impression is that the Braves front office is a brain trust that still includes Schuerholz. When Wren was an assistant GM, he probably had a lot more power than most GMs. As a GM, I think that he has a little less power relative to other GMs. That doesn’t mean that Wren isn’t the leader, but I think the transition from Schuerholz to Wren hasn’t changed much about the organization. I recall that Schuerholz had considerable trouble working with agents.
• Recently, I referred to Frank Wren as a stat-head. The stat-head designation was meant to be humorous, and I did not mean for it to be taken seriously. Since that post, I have seen several references to Wren being stat-savvy, and I think my post is partially responsible. I want to clear this up. I am sure that the Braves use statistical methods to help evaluate talent just as all ballclubs do. There is no organization that eschews quantitative analysis; however, some are more partial to stats than others. The information I have about Wren is that he is not a stat-focused decision-maker. From speaking with several sources regarding Wren, my impression is that Wren is somewhat hostile to quantitative analysis. Just because Wren used some DIPSish reasoning to defend a pitcher doesn’t mean that type of analysis is driving the organization. My guess is that ocular scouting played a larger role in evaluating Javier Vazquez than quantitative analysis.

Jamie Moyer just re-signed with the Phillies for the next two years at $13 million. This is where estimating expected marginal revenue product becomes a pure art. Moyer will be 46 and 47: ages at which most humans can’t play baseball any more. There is no aging curve to follow; it’s more about whether or not he’s going to wake up one morning and have his body say “enough!”

So for this valuation I’ll just note that his value over the past three seasons has been between $10 and $11 million per season. $6.5 million for two seasons is probably a good gamble to take. The contract also includes performance bonuses to compensate Moyer for pitching benchmarks that he’ll likely be worth if he surpasses them.

He will receive base salaries of $6.5 million in each of the next two seasons, and he can make an additional $1.25 million in performance bonuses each year: $250,000 each for 150, 160, 170, 180 and 190 innings pitched.

In addition, his 2010 base can escalate by up to $4.5 million: $250,000 each for 150 innings and 23 starts, and $500,000 each for 160, 170, 180 and 190 innings, and 25, 27, 29 and 31 starts.

According to Ken Rosenthal, Rafael Furcal is on his way back to Atlanta. On the radio this morning, I heard the terms stated as three years at $9-10 million per year, with an option for a fourth season. David O’Brien of the AJC agrees with the number of guaranteed years, but I haven’t seen any other reference to the dollars or the option year.

Furcal is a valuable player. He’s a shortstop who can play defense and hit, and he’s only 32 (we think). Over the next three years, I estimate his value to be $49 million ($16.33 per season). If the terms of the deal are correct, this looks to be a good deal. His health is a major factor here. If he’s healthy, he’s worth more; if he’s not he’s worth less.

The deal creates some new questions. The Braves now have three good middle-infielders. DOB suggests this may open the door to a Jake Peavy or Zack Greinke trade. Danny Knobler has a source who claims the Braves plan to move Kelly Johnson to left field. This conflicts with Frank Wren’s recent statements.

Displeasure with Yunel Escobar has been an item on the Braves off-the-record talking points for most of the off-season, so I think the best bet is that Escobar is moved in a deal.

As a fan, I’m a bit disappointed with this move. I understand that there is a distinction between what players do on and off the field. Furcal’s second DUI in the city that I live really soured me. At the time, I wanted the Braves to suspend him for the season. I don’t think he even got the night off. I find it amazing that Barry Bonds can’t find a job because of his association with performance-enhancing drugs, yet you don’t even see Furcal’s drunk driving issues mentioned. It hasn’t even been two years since Josh Hancock was killed in a drunk driving accident.

Don’t individuals deserve a second chance? Yes, he got one: that’s two DUIs. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have trouble rooting for this guy.

UPDATE: According to Mark Bowman, the Braves are planning to move Johnson to the outfield.

Where Furcal would be positioned defensively remains to be seen. But the Braves have no intention to trade either Johnson or Escobar. Instead, they are planning to move Johnson back to left field, a position he played before moving to second base before the start of the 2007 season.

The opportunity to have both Furcal and Johnson in their lineup proved more appealing to the Braves than any of the options they were evaluating in their search to find a power-hitting outfielder.

With Johnson, they feel they have a player capable of hitting 15-20 homers. Matt Diaz could also see some time in left field.

Uh, what about right field?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Apparently, it’s not clear that Furcal is coming to Atlanta. John Heyman sums up the saga.

So to recap, Furcal rejected a four-year deal for about $40 million with the A’s to talk to the Braves about a three year deal for $30 million with a vesting option (and according to the Braves, agree to that deal). And after allegedly wrapping things up with the Braves, he’s believed to be talking to the Dodgers, mostly likely about a two-year deal with an option.

If he takes a two-year deal with the Dodgers, he will be the first player ever to reject a four-year deal to take a three-year deal for a similar annual salary only to reject that for a two-year deal for a similar salary. If this keeps up, the next stop would be a one-year deal.

The Philadelphia Phillies unceremoniously dumped Pat Burrell last week by not offering him arbitration and replacing his roster spot with Raul Ibanez. Ibanez has reportedly agreed to a three-year $31.5 million contract ($10.5 million/year) with the Phillies. The differences between Ibanez and Burrell are subtle: Ibanez will be 37 next year and is left-handed, while Burrell is 32 and right-handed. They are alike in that they are both poor-fielding outfielders with good bats, both with OPS+ consistently in the 120s during the past few seasons.

With Ibanez, the Phillies will get output similar to what Burrell gave the team. Given his age, injury may be a bit more likely for Ibabez, but I project their values to be close over the next three years. I project Ibanez to be worth $46.5 million ($14.5 million/year) and Burrell to be worth $48 million ($16 million/year) over this time span. I’m unsure of what Burrell was willing to work for, but Ibanez appears to have offered the Phillies a good deal. Burrell may be worth the $14 million he earned last season with the team, but I suspect he was a going to be more selective than Ibanez, who’s used to making about half the current annual salary of his new contract.

In any event, I think that Phillies fans should be pleased with this signing. Burrell is a valuable player and will likely land a contract with a bigger salary. The team gets to keep Burrell’s production but now has some budget flexibility to add roster depth.